After six years in power, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) independence proclivities are becoming less marked. This is most clearly reflected in the gradual weakening of its Taiwan discourse over this period.
During the dangwai era and the early period after the establishment of the DPP, when the democracy movement was just getting started, the first generation of leaders was often able to propose intelligent ideas: Shih Ming-teh's (施明德) "An Independent and Sovereign Republic of China," Vice President Annette Lu's (呂秀蓮) "A New Feminism," Lin I-hsiung's (林義雄) "Non-violent Opposition," Chang Chun-hung's (張俊宏) "Surrounding the Central Government from the Local Government Level," Yao Chia-wen's (姚嘉文) "Building a New View of Taiwanese History" and Hsu Hsin-liang's (許信良) "Long Live Elections."
These lively and vital concepts opened up new vistas for the democracy movement, and also brought new thinking and strategies to the grassroots movement. Their highly imaginative discourses were supported by a deep awareness of history and reality.
If an opposition movement must possess vision, then being in government requires an even deeper and wider vision. Facts tell us, however, that although the DPP was able to quickly win power, the party was not prepared to rule.
The reason seems to be that after winning power, the party lost talented people, and too easily let go of those who were capable of such rich thought. The current leadership displays an increasingly shallow historical understanding and their thinking increasingly lacks depth. They have won power, but lost Taiwan.
The dangwai era leadership was forced to stand on the side of society's most disadvantaged groups, and they tasted loss and persecution. This allowed them to clearly see the imbalances in the power structure and made them understand that there were deep historical reasons for these imbalances. Because they were faced with a corrupt regime, it was easy for them to find issues on which to build their opposition.
Under the authoritarian system, ethnicity, gender and class issues became major components of the democracy movement, since, during that era, all ethnic conflict, sexual discrimination and class oppression could be traced back to biases in the authoritarian system.
Opposition strategies, however, were only effective during the early part of the opposition movement. With the completion of that stage, completely new thinking was required.
As the opposition moved into government, it could no longer place all the blame for ethnic, gender and class issues on the old authoritarian government, instead having to share responsibility for those issues and find ways of resolving them.
"Opposition" can no longer be a virtue for the DPP -- as the governing party, it should actively deal with Taiwan's problems.
The Taiwan discourse from around the time of the DPP's foundation can no longer be used as a policy guideline. If the party mentally remains in the era when it saw the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government as an alien regime, and if it thinks that the power transfer means that it has fulfilled its historical mission, it will remain caught in a simplistic mode of thinking that only will continue to distance the party from the realities of Taiwanese society. The reason for this is that it is simply repeating the narrowmindedness and closedness of the KMT government.
Anyone who remembers some history should know that the democracy movement was made up of people from different ethnic groups, both sexes and different social classes. That means that if the martial law culture inflicted collective damage on Taiwan's society as a whole, then the victims will not belong to a specific ethnic group, sex or social class.
There is no doubt that the power biases of DPP rule are proportional to the shortcomings of its Taiwan discourse. A lack of historical vision is gradually distancing the government from Taiwanese society.
During the dangwai era, many women, workers, farmers, Aboriginals and Mainlanders joined the democracy movement, and it is these groups in particular that have now been alienated. Why is that so? That is something that those in power must think long and hard about.
Many people have realized that the KMT now is making an earnest effort to build a Taiwan discourse. In particular, the KMT is trying to gain the right to interpret Taiwan's history. Writing the history of Taiwan is no longer the exclusive preserve of the DPP. This situation is placing strict demands on the DPP that it take an active and positive approach to handling the issue of "Taiwan."
During the dangwai area, maybe the interpretation of Taiwan's history could focus on the Japanese era, the 228 Incident, and the negative impact of martial law culture. Once the DPP took over government, however, it could no longer continue to stress only its own tragic history of suffering, it also had to deal with the collective historical memories of all other ethnic groups.
The DPP has entered an era of instability and uncertainty. The president should not only delegate power, but the party also must soften its stance. It should treat Taiwan's society with humility and pragmatism, and find its way back to the bravery and wisdom of the dangwai era in order to re-establish a wider government discourse, lest it lose Taiwan altogether.
Chen Fang-ming is a professor of Chinese literature at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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