Judging by the insensitive conduct of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government as it responded to a recent slew of incidents, empathy is not a quality it possesses in abundance.
First, there was the curious remark from Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) that “dolphins can make a turn,” in response to appeals from Changhua residents and environmentalists who fear the proposed construction of a chemical plant by Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology would pose a serious threat to Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins and damage the ecosystem.
In another incident, Wu made another gaffe when he responded to concerns over the ecological impact of a government housing project on a wetland in Tianliaoyang Village (田寮洋), Taipei County, by saying that a wetland is land with “a river that runs through it.”
And how can we forget the cold-heartedness of Ma’s behavior as he failed to spare time to meet with a group of mostly elderly farmers who gave up the comfort of their beds and homes in Dapu (大埔) to camp outside the Presidential Office for the chance that the president might deign to speak with them and hear about their plight.
In contrast to this unsympathetic behavior toward those in need, the Ma administration is quick to jump on the bandwagon when the nation is grabbing international headlines for its achievements.
Shortly after Yani Tseng (曾雅妮) won her third major at the Women’s British Open at Royal Birkdale on Sunday, high-ranking officials, including Ma, Wu and Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) were quick to send their congratulations. The same swift congratulatory responses from high-ranking officials also went out to tennis player Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) when he made it to the quarter-finals of the Wimbledon Championships earlier last month and when player Jeremy Lin (林書豪) became the first Taiwanese-American player to join the ranks of the National Basketball Association.
This is not to say Tseng, Lu, Lin and the like are not worthy of the government’s praise. These individuals work hard and they deserve every bit of recognition and congratulation. However, it is the disparity in responses by Ma and his administration that speaks volumes about these officials’ mindset.
All too often, Ma and his ranking government officials have displayed their ability to “add flowers to the brocade” (錦上添花), but seemingly drag their feet when it comes time for them to give a gift of “charcoal in snowy weather” (雪中送炭).
For example, Lin’s visit to Taiwan last week was a last-minute arrangement. Shortly after he arrived on Wednesday, the president managed to slot in a meeting with him the next day.
If the president was able to squeeze in Lin at such short notice, then how is it that he didn’t have a few minutes to meet with the farmers who came to Taipei to talk about their plight?
Amid the callous and aloof behavior of government officials came a report yesterday that the wife of a Dapu farmer had committed suicide, allegedly because of the recent land seizures.
While the true cause of the woman’s death awaits further investigation, it should come as a wake-up call for the Ma government, which needs to approach all situations with a little more empathy and humanity.
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
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