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Don't expect politician to lead us

I often feel as if I am living in two different societies. They move in different directions, but sometimes their trajectories intersect.

Full of hope and passion, one of these societies envisions a nation marching toward the status of a normal country, whilst being concerned about political changes it is going through, and the degeneration of politicians pushing this dream further away.

In the other society, politicians play their political games while people in general are preoccupied with their own lifestyles and do not even care about who is serving as president.

These are indeed two parallel societies, but in opinion polls, members of the latter are more commonly interviewed and their answers integrated into statistics. The impression given by the impromptu politics of the second society also influences the expectations of the first. The effects of these opinion polls often cause politicians to make contradictory and confusing moves, sometimes moving forward, and sometimes backward.

A line from Franz Kafka well describes the situation we are currently facing. He said, "There is a goal, but no way; what we call a way is hesitation."

I often feel that it is extremely difficult to turn a high-consumption society into a normal nation, for most people are simply wrapped up in their consumerism and enjoying their lives. Who cares about what a nation is all about? Only sensitive people or people with a sense of mission anxiously ask: "Our country is still illegitimate. Please give me a normal country. What can we do to alter the status quo?"

The more powerful and influential politicians able to initialize the normalization of the nation are also living in the same society as we are. They are also deeply affected by consumerist society, and are gradually turning themselves into consumer goods in their attempts to win the affection of more people.

The predicament that the country is facing requires politicians with imagination, daring and resolution to break through the difficulties or to influence public opinion, in order to speed up political change or move it in a more ideal direction.

However, the political leader that we long expected to be able to achieve this, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), tells us that it cannot be done or that the government will only proceed when it has the support of 75 percent of the population. While we are still at a loss as to what is going on, politicians have already changed their ideals and moved to the center of the political spectrum. I do not know when they started trailing behind consumers and following public opinion.

My head is all in a whirl, and when I think about nation-building, political power and the consumerist society, and how they relate to each other, it occurs to me that Taiwan has yet to become a nation in its own right. The fact that the issue of transitional justice for the White Terror period has yet to be resolved is like a cornered cat staring at me with pupils the shape of daggers.

And if these issues are not dealt with, will they affect our lives? In all honesty probably not, for this is what life is like for the majority of Taiwanese. Nevertheless, if we do choose to ignore this and the problem of the nation's incomplete status, surely we are setting ourselves up for a continuing existence in that illegitimate and shoddily fabricated construct, fooling ourselves and everyone else around us.

If we ignore transitional justice, and the very process of securing apologies and reconciliation between perpetrators and victims, how will we be able to have fairness and a sense of right and wrong in our society, and how will we be able to communicate with each other and live together in a spirit of conciliation?

I am of the opinion that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) missed a significant historical opportunity by not using the considerable political clout and favorable political climate he enjoyed following Taiwan's first democratic elections to deal with the issues of transitional justice and constitutional reform. If he had, the normalization process might have progressed at a faster pace.

It is perhaps precisely because he believed he had achieved too little during his tenure that he has felt compelled to devote his life to Taiwan even after he ceased to be president. His efforts constitute a new high in his political career, and he has aligned himself with the feelings of mainstream Taiwanese, earning him the trust of the populace.

Yet another historical opportunity was missed following the transition of political power to Chen. Trying to attend to the unfinished work of former president Lee and other Taiwanese, he sacrificed the moral high ground by seeking reconciliation and co-existence with throwbacks from the Martial Law period, such as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Looking back on the situation five years down the line, we can see that he has paid a desperate price for this, and still hasn't achieved the reconciliation he hoped for.

Looking at Chen's possible political successors among current politicians on either side of the spectrum, I perceive a tendency to play it safe and pander to a consumerist society. What I don't see is anyone likely to push any barriers. The chaos and difficulty that Taiwan is facing today is getting more serious all the time, and we actually need a pioneering political leader who is not continuously looking over his shoulder and worrying about what the future holds.

The current stock of politicians, though, are leaning more and more toward consumerist society and pandering to the media spotlight. They are rushing to place themselves behind mainstream public opinion, and it seems they do not know the significance of the direction that public opinion is moving in.

After five years of uncertainty and being on tenterhooks, we have to ask if the future holds more of the same. Do we really not have any other choice? What else is there to look forward to?

A friend of mine said, "Don't look for too much from the politicians, you should turn your attention to cultivating people power." And this does appear to be the right way to look at it. If politicians are only willing to act after gaining the backing of three-quarters of the population, we should take it upon ourselves, either as individuals or special interest groups, to do what we believe needs to be done. This is the only way we can find an outlet for our anxieties and concerns.

If we are going to be able to breathe freely, if we are going to be able to sleep at night, we need to make ourselves into amateur revolutionaries, and take action.

I am reminded of another line I read which talked of the difficulty of walking along a path, even though it was level. We have already climbed to the top of the hill, and the path before us is flat. Regardless, we are finding it difficult to make headway.

The long night is not yet over, and the flat road remains arduous. Is asking for God's blessing for Taiwan really the best that we can do? No, I don't believe that. We must do something. Think of something. Look into all the possibilities and take advantage of the present, while we still have some passion left.

Michelle Wang is the secretary-general of the Northern Taiwan Society.

Translated by Daniel Cheng and Paul Cooper
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