Fighting for nation’s future
A government should be of the people, by the people and for the people, but the public does not know who the people in President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government are.
The international media says Ma is Taiwan’s president, and in 2009 Ma introduced himself to former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton as the nation’s president in El Salvador.
He claims to be president while traveling the world, but when returns to Taiwan, Ma identifies himself as the president of the Republic of China (ROC). This is duplicity and double dealing. He abuses Taiwanese credit to pursue his dream of having the nation annexed by China.
To expose Ma’s fake Taiwan presidency, the Sunflower movement continues, but under unequal conditions.
The student-led protesters used their bodies to protest against state violence.
However, after the bloody crackdown to evict protesters from the Executive Yuan, the government used legal intimidation and the media to continue its attack.
Fortunately, the international media stand on the movement’s side.
They insist on freedom of the press and the defense of justice.
A Polish journalist, Hanna Shen, was recently requested in writing by a Taipei Economic and Cultural Office official to retract her report.
The letter said an “appropriate retraction can be made to present the current picture of this news story and avoid misunderstanding among people in Poland and Taiwan,” as “making an analogy between a fully fledged democracy and the bloodshed that happened in Ukraine” not only presents a “completely wrong image of Taiwan,” it is also insulting.
In response, Shen wrote: “My newspaper has been publishing articles very critical of the Russian and Chinese governments as well as the former Ukrainian government, but we never received any letter from the representative offices of those countries asking us to retract anything, and those countries can’t be even called democratic.”
Similar scandals and bumbles are continually repeated.
The Sunflower movement has been going for almost three weeks, but Ma still does not understand its demands.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) returned to the chamber a few days ago and promised the students a law monitoring pacts with China would be enacted before the legislature reviews the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement.
Wang’s promise answered one of the movement’s demands: “Pass a bill first, then review the pact.”
However, it was rejected by the Presidential Office and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus.
People are protesting because they are worried about their futures and facing a job market controlled by Chinese investors.
The students oppose Ma’s criminal act of ethnic cleansing by diluting the nation’s population.
Older Taiwanese feel sorry that they are unable to provide a sound and healthy living environment for the younger generation. And they also feel shame for not being brave enough to openly protest against the KMT dictatorship.
Whenever any form of government denies people the right to pursue happiness, life and liberty, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish the government and to institute a new one.
The Sunflower movement people should stick with their positive thinking and insist on their beliefs. The public respects and supports their persistence in the name of Taiwan’s future.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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