In media, ethnic manipulation

Two small VCDs are driving pro-China unificationists crazy. They are causing People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to curse endlessly and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to confiscate the VCDs without any legal basis. It's easy to see that the makers of these two discs have stepped on the toes of certain people.

Soong and his fellow travellers' crying and weeping and their frightening attitudes, threatening to bring lawsuits and confiscate published materials, makes one wonder if they know what age they are living in. They still naively believe that they are living in the martial law era of the two Chiangs (the late presidents Chiang Kai-shek [蔣介石] and Chiang Ching-kuo [蔣經國]), they still naively believe they can frame President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and have him sent to jail as they did back then and they believe they can continue the White Terror and suppress the rights of others to express criticism any which way they want.

Thanks to the history of control exercised by the two Chiangs, the media has been more or less dominated by a minority of "new resident" media with die-hard ideologies. Some of these people support the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the PFP or the New Party. Some are fellow travellers of the communists and some frequently offend the Taiwanese because of their own ethnic prejudices. Such phenomena did not occur just under the two Chiangs; they have been the main source of social disorder ever since former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) assumed the presidency.

For example, on the evening of Nov. 5, at about 10pm, almost every TV news station, including Formosa Television, broadcast a farewell ceremony for Soong May-ling (宋美齡). Apart from the viewers from an ethnic minority, the majority of Taiwanese that day were most interested in whether Taiwan had won its baseball match. They didn't care what time the Soong ceremony was broadcast. Such monopolizing, bandit-like behavior shows the serious shortcomings of the nation's media.

Although Taiwan has entered the democratic era, many media, from newspapers and television to radio, still act as the hatchet men of the forces remaining from the Chiangs' era. The most common example is the way both of the country's pro-China newspapers often mobilize journalists and columnists from a special ethnic group, and use articles written by authors and academics of that same group, to create rumors by using obscure references such as "It is said," "It is reported" and "A certain top level official points out." This method has long been used to make libelous statements against and criticize local politicians and "Taiwan" awareness.

TV shows such as those hosted by Lee Tao (李濤) and Lee Yen-chiu (李豔秋) often invite guests from one ethnic group, adopt one-way ethnic prejudice and accept incoming calls mostly from viewers from the same group to openly play on the provincial origin complex. Their shows and other similar political commentary shows are openly biased in favor of their guests from a special ethnic group. These people even use their position as hosts to assist their guests.

A common scene on such shows is the guests from a certain ethnic group, who almost always are in a majority, together with the host, who is of the same group, openly pressuring the Taiwanese guests, who are in the minority. Sometimes every guest is a member of that certain ethnic group, and together they sing of the demise of Taiwan.

In fact, on the News Night Club (新聞夜總會) show on Nov. 4, Lee Yen-chiu invited three "military specialists" from a certain ethnic group. The four of them then used satire and cursing to proclaim the demise of Taiwan's national defense, and once again used the old cliche of an invasion by the Chinese communists to try to scare the Taiwanese.

Radio shows are just the same. From the time you turn your receiver on in the morning, you will hear show hosts from a certain ethnic group hard at work at their brainwashing mission, constantly "educating" the public to hate local politicians.

In the past few years, several shows with mainlander actors imitating local politicians have been broadcast on TV. Using the pretext of freedom of speech, local politicians are slandered. An actor, who in his role as "Lee Tsu-hsi" (李祖惜), has long lampooned former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), showed his true colors as soon as he became engaged in politics through his leanings towards a certain political party. It turns out he had always been a blue-camp supporter. Had the former president been as small-minded as Soong is, he would have sued the actor long ago and had him thrown in jail.

It is ironic that these people for many years have been directing ethnic struggle through the media, often claiming that other ethnic groups have been playing to the ethnicity complex when they are the ones really doing so. They ignore the fact that history will inevitably judge them. The sheer shamelessness of these people is frightening.

In fact, if we leave aside the statements made by these people, and just look at Article 5 of the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) we find that: "To ensure equal employment opportunities, an employer shall not discriminate against job applicants on the basis of race, social class, language, belief, religion, political party, origin, sex, marital status, appearance, features, disability, or past membership of a labor union." The more than 50 percent of mainlanders working in a large majority of the media have long stifled the fairness of employment opportunities in that industry for other ethnic groups. The Taiwanese people should bring a lawsuit against these media.

Although this ugly ethnic struggle has been going on for many years, some people from the blue camp's so-called "localization faction" participating in call-in shows not only disregard the fact of this struggle, but actually help the bad guys by tolerating the irrationality of that struggle. History has already judged former KMT vice chairman Wang Ching-wei (汪精衛) and those of his ilk. How will history view these localization activists who have taken to these bandits as they take to their own fathers, who have been used as tools to play the two sides against each other?

Most of the local politicians who have been slandered and libelled by these unificationist media are magnanimous. They don't stoop to arguing with the people engaged in this ethnic struggle. A majority of the Taiwanese are also tolerant -- in fact too tolerant, which has allowed the old lies to be acted out repeated, almost turning this country into a nation of lies.

Many Taiwanese are no longer able accept such media behavior. They are turning to the Internet to voice their discontent. The Special Report VCDs are merely part of the first wave of counterattacks.

Steve Chen is an associate professor in the statistics department at Tamkang University.

TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON