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Mayor Ma's anti-poor campaign is garbage

Don't be deceived by the charming smile; Taipei's Mayor Ma (馬英九) is a petty tyrant.

Flash back to December 1998: the skinny, wrinkled-necked, greasy-haired Harvard graduate gets up on stage during his mayoral election campaign and squeaks, in a less than enthusiastic voice, "We will live better!(我們可以過的更好). Claps from the crowd. Hired minions cruise the streets of Taipei city with an awkward picture of a running Ma (right foot forward, right arm forward, we all fall down), and -- that slogan again -- "We will live better!" plastered on the sides of their trucks.

Either Ma lied or he was deceiving us with his reference to "we." In his new garbage fee system, his largest undertaking (and biggest mistake) to date as mayor, Ma has managed to introduce garbage fees that directly target the have-nots.

Let us overlook his early blunders, forgive his pre-July 1, 2000 incompetence -- from venality to the traffic re-congestion and absurd new street names, because like Chou I-jen (邱義仁) once said, "Ma leads the polls among women because he is handsome!" (Not, you note, because he can get anything done.) But Ma's smile became more transparent last Saturday night when he compelled his city's citizens to put their waste into expensive blue sacks for removal by those noisy yellow trucks.

Consider the cost of those weak and flimsy plastic bags: NT$210 for 14 liters, NT$330 for 33 liters and NT$430 for 45 liters. Aye, the more the garbage the cheaper it gets. So we are not punished but rewarded for wasting more. Granted, we are all consumers, but follow the logic of capitalism and those that have the capacity to spend will spend more creating more waste to find its way into the trash can before being serenaded down the street in a garbage truck to the piped -- and repeated to distraction -- strains of Beethoven.

Run down to the end of the block to dump your trash, however, only if you have the great fortune to be one of the masses; to live perched in a five-story plus concrete apartment building with barred windows and the joyous responsibility of converging with the neighbors every night at set hours in blue plastic sandals and a white tank top to remove the day's/week's/year's refuge.

Of course the minority -- who toil in white shirts and ties, and drive BMWs and Mercedes into underground garages before taking elevators to 20th floor views of the muck below -- let the garbage chute supplant that oh-so-superficial social hour.

Do the rich, whose plush living quarters come complete with garbage management, even have to purchase the blue sacks? Well, that is the question and some say yes and some say no. "It will be decided at the end of the month," say city officials. Sounds like a cop out to me and sounds like Ma has kept his head in the clouds on this one (much in the manner of his talk at the World Technology Congress last month where he said the internet would improve Taipei traffic because people wouldn't have to leave their homes).

Those who have the funds, who have waste management services at a monthly (not by the kilo) fee will continue to dump freely (and at a cheaper price), ignoring the mayor's great recycling ideals, while those that can't afford such lifestyle-luxuries wait in line at 7-11 for the next shipment of over-priced blue bags and stink themselves out of house and home, storing food wastes until it is economical to dispose of the compost.

Ma says that the fees accumulated from "mission impossible" will go to waste disposal and help us to live better. But Ma doesn't tell us that he wants the poor to fund the lifestyle improvements of the rich.

Macabe Keliher is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
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