Yesterday’s argument over whether suit jackets should be worn in the comfort of an air-conditioned legislative chamber is interesting for reasons other than the alleged environmental benefits of taking them off.
The sight of KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) humorlessly chiding Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) for keeping his suit jacket on and then getting into a verbal tussle with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) marked another low point in the circus of ill manners and upside-down priorities that is this nation’s legislature.
The befuddled-looking premier didn’t have a good day. Accustomed to more civilized treatment in academic circles, Liu started the session with a rude and ridiculous pasting by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
Ker’s rude behavior was a typical and appalling example of the culture of lecturing and dominating Cabinet officials and ministers during question-and-answer sessions in committees and on the legislative floor.
It was ridiculous because Ker would not let Liu finish a single sentence before interrupting him with a new tirade of unanswerable questions.
This legislative behavior is a bipartisan disease, and it seems to have advanced to the point where a legislator who does not whine, pout, scream like a baby, shout people down, make threats, use exaggerated hand movements and put on a grotesquely uncouth and spoiled air will be considered by his colleagues to be a soft touch.
The legislative speaker has presided over this stupidity for too long for him not to be held partly responsible. With his complicity in legislative gridlock and the legislature’s lack of transparency under the previous government, Wang probably needs a general environment of boorishness for his inscrutability to look dignified in comparison.
Even so, the mayhem in the legislature seems to have mellowed in recent years, though when there were physical battles in the previous legislative term, such as when Wang was prevented from entering the chamber, the same old tendencies expressed themselves with gusto, to the disgust of anyone watching the proceedings.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was the model of courtesy — even under extreme and gratuitous provocation — when he was mayor of Taipei. Sadly, few of his KMT colleagues and just as small a number of DPP legislators see this as a positive feature of political life, even though it is quite clear that Ma’s professionalism in this regard had a role to play in his later electoral success.
Taiwan does not need a Chinese-style legislative environment in which a facade of polite and orderly speech masks a very different and frightening structure.
At the same time, defending democracy involves raising the standard of its basic practices.
When this can be achieved, any attempt to corrode democracy can be more effectively combated by a judicious, strong response in proportion to the provocation.
But until officials in both parties are prepared to address the legislature’s culture of boorishness, this is unlikely to change. The danger is that the dismal reputation of so many legislators will extend permanently to the legislature as an institution.
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