During his visit to the disaster areas in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was quoted as saying, “But I’m here now, aren’t I?” Such a reaction shows the Ma administration’s aloofness and lack of empathy for disaster victims.
Since the typhoon wreaked havoc in southern Taiwan, we have witnessed the incompetence of Ma and his government and their attempts to shirk responsibility on various occasions.
Ma used to be able to easily answer questions from Taiwanese reporters, sometimes throwing in a corny joke. If reporters had the audacity to ask more challenging questions, they would immediately become targets of criticism, as if they had been disrespectful of the great leader.
Ma gave an exclusive interview to a BBC reporter during a visit to Britain a few years ago. When he was bombarded with questions and was unable to hold his own, Ma resorted to telling the well-prepared reporter that he “was not very familiar with Chinese affairs and Taiwanese affairs.” The problem was that not many Taiwanese saw this interview.
During a recent press conference, however, the public finally was able to see the assertiveness of foreign correspondents and Ma’s inability to cope with them.
US sociologist Todd Gitlin’s 1980 book The Whole World is Watching has had a huge influence on mass media and social movements. With the popularity of TV in US households, the public was able to see police brutality on TV as early as the student movements in 1968. Although he criticized media outlets for tending to cover certain stories and promote heroism, which was unfavorable to the development of social movements, Gitlin said the media did help publicize certain issues.
Most people in the world have ready access to news about various unkind, unfair and unjust incidents and individuals through mass media. In 1992, a video clip showing white policemen beating up a black man was widely broadcast in the US, triggering riots in Los Angeles.
We can thus assert that if the media had not shown the footage of the four workers washed way while waiting to be rescued in Bajhang Creek (八掌溪) in July 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party, which had just assumed power, would not have apologized so profusely to the public and replaced its vice premier.
Hundreds of people were washed away in the floods following Morakot because of the indifference, arrogance and incompetence of government officials. Although TV cameras failed to capture footage of Siaolin Township being wiped out by mudslides, the whole world was able to see the hypocrisy of Ma and his subordinates during the international press conference on TV.
Now everyone should yell to Ma: “We’ve all seen your incompetence!”
Chi Chun-chieh is a professor in the Institute of Ethnic Relations at National Dong Hwa University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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