Recently, a survey was published that showed that the international knowledge of young Taiwanese is not up to scratch.
Although currently overseas, my heart is bound to Taiwan and I cannot help commenting on this finding. Imagine that Taiwan's youth had achieved a higher score for their international knowledge, and knew the location of the Olympic host Greece, the capital of the US and the name of the premier of Japan. Would that help solve the nation's many social problems?
Taiwan certainly needs an international outlook. But it doesn't need a superficial one, consisting of knowing the geographical location of every country, what their capitals are or who their presidents or prime ministers are. What Taiwan needs is people with global thinking that is rooted in Taiwanese society -- paying close attention to social sentiment, speaking up for the disadvantaged and taking local action to improve society.
A week or so ago, I attended the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in San Francisco. The speakers included former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, who is sparing no effort to bring human rights to people in every nation; former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the founder of an influential development theory, who currently leads a project to bring together non-governmental organizations from around the world to participate in UN activities; and Arundhati Roy, a well known writer and social activist who is involved in India's anti-reservoir movement and speaks up for the most disadvantaged groups. Although these public intellectuals come from different countries, and although they talk about different issues, they have one thing in common: They are all concerned and engaged with the problems facing the societies in which they live.They take a bird's-eye, international view when analyzing these problems, and they are all involved in local activities aimed at resolving them.
The main problems facing each and every nation are the growing gap between rich and poor; rising unemployment; falling public expenditure as the growing numbers of poor and unemployed need protection by the state; serious threats to human rights, including the rights to health, education, employment, political and civic rights, and other economic, social and cultural rights; and far-reaching environmental destruction. Many public intellectuals have reached a consensus: behind these serious social problems facing every country there seems to exist a fundamental culprit -- the neoliberalism that began sweeping the world in the 1980s, and the unrestricted free markets, commoditization and rampant globalization of capital initiated by this intellectual trend.
Taiwan, like many countries, did not resist the global trend towards neoliberalism. In the late 1980s it began moving toward marketization, commoditization and privatization. As a result, Taiwan, like other countries, saw a worsening of social problems. The rich-poor gap increased: In the 1990s, the incomes of the richest 10 percent of households was 10 times higher than that of the poorest 10 percent, while today, a decade later, the difference has increased to 70 times. Unemployment figures increased from about one percent in the 1980s to five percent in 2003; public expenditure diminished, government organizations were streamlined, social welfare expenditure dropped sharply, the public health system deteriorated and the medical care system was thoroughly commercialized. The public's rights to health, education and employment came under threat -- especially those of disadvantaged groups. Environmental destruction led to landslides and worsening pollution.
The fact that the international outlook of Taiwan's young was found wanting is cause for some worry. But more importantly, if the young do not concern themselves with the social problems that have long plagued Taiwanese society, if they do not understand how to apply an international outlook to address the difficult situation facing Taiwan's disadvantaged groups, and if they are unwilling to get involved to solve these problems, then they will be unable to reform and improve Taiwanese society -- no matter how many foreign capitals they've memorized.
Chen Meei-shia is director of the department of public health at National Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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