Several mass social movements have been instigated by students and civic groups in Taiwan in recent years, including the protests against media monopolization, the public demonstration on Aug. 3 last year triggered by the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘) and the Sunflower movement in response to the government’s handling of the cross-strait service pact.
While it may be too early and overly simplistic to claim that these new civic movements have been a success, it can be argued that there are three determining factors that enable these causes to galvanize the public into sympathy, generate media attention and have successful social and political impacts:
The first is that although many of these movements are capable of mobilizing tens to hundreds of thousands of people, the protesters are highly self-disciplined. Demonstration organizers call for peaceful protests and the activists participating in the protests pride themselves on not leaving a mess behind them.
Second, the movements are often extremely well-coordinated and use information and communication technologies effectively. During the March occupation of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei to protest the trade in services pact, critics of the Sunflower movement labeled the groups of activists “mobs” and accused them of fomenting “anarchy.” Yet these are false accusations, since the evidence has shown that the student-led activists are passionate, and their behavior rational, committed and non-violent.
Third, as far as the student-led movements against media monopolies and the service pact are concerned, their participants have exhibited a desire to engage the general public and to make a constructive contribution on the issues relevant to their respective campaigns.
For example, during the movement against the monopolization of the media, a group of university students visited 10 cities across the nation to inform local residents there on what dangers they believe the media monopolies pose and the consequent weakening of Taiwanese democracy. The students also regularly invited communications experts to give lectures and lead in-depth discussions about the media. The campaigners even drafted an act against media monopolization for the legislature to review last year.
Similarly, during the seizure of the Legislative Yuan between March 18 and April 10, specialists in related fields were invited to the occupied chamber to talk to the activists about the Constitution and the cross-strait services trade agreement.
As the stalemate between the demonstrators and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration continued, the students decided to convene a people’s legislature to discuss the agreement line-by-line themselves. This further strengthened the protesters’ intellectual and moral credibility, while enabling student representatives to debate their opponents convincingly and intelligently on political talk television shows.
It would have been impossible for the students to — largely peacefully — occupy the Legislative Yuan had they not enjoyed the support of civil society across party lines, ethnic divisions and ideological orientations.
For instance, when the government cut off the electricity and water supply to the legislative complex in a bid to force the activists out, engineers quickly moved into the occupied chamber and installed temporary electricity generators.
Medical practitioners voluntarily entered the building to ensure the occupiers’ health, while the wide range and huge quantity of goods donated by the public to the protesters helped sustain their occupation and signaled popular endorsement of their actions. A rally in support of the Sunflower movement’s cause that drew more than 500,000 people on March 30 also served to legitimize the students’ actions.
It is at this point that I would like to turn to furthering democratization in Taiwan. These recent civic movements have struck a chord with a pre-existing element of modern Taiwanese society: a deep dissatisfaction with the nation’s increasingly polarized party politics, ineffective levels of representative democracy and widening social inequality. The nation’s democratic system — a legacy of Taiwan’s 20th-century democratization — no longer seems adequate to the citizens of the 21st century, indicating that the island is in need of a “second wave” of democratization.
During the Sunflower movement, the KMT government and the students both employed democratic principles to justify their respective positions.
The KMT administration and its supporters praised the democratization efforts of the 1980s and the 1990s, arguing that since Taiwan is now a democracy, all grievances must adhere to the existing political framework. They viewed the student-led protesters as anti-democratic because they engaged in direct action outside the legal structure to challenge the state’s authority.
However, governmental indifference to popular sentiment is commonplace in all political systems. While breaking into and occupying the Legislative Yuan is illegal, such forms of protest are often a weapon wielded by the weak, an instrument of activism used by groups of people frustrated that their voices are not being heard through any other channel.
The democratization of Taiwan in the 20th century is arguably the most remarkable achievement in the nation’s modern history. However, one must not ignore the many issues left unresolved after the country underwent its “first wave” of democratization.
For example, does Taiwan have a presidential or a Cabinet system? Where are the checks and balances to presidential power? How can the capacity and quality of the legislature be enhanced? What is the remedy for the aggressive commercialization of the media that has hindered, not improved, the performance of the media industry in general?
Democratization is an endless process. It should not be reduced to multi-party elections which do not necessarily empower the public and permit citizens to transform society. This process should integrate the major issues of environment, gender, justice, social equality and collective responsibility, as well as individual liberties that should be developed, not restricted.
Democratization is multidimensional and I have always paid great attention to the social and the cultural aspects of a process that, to paraphrase Raymond Williams, is a “long revolution” for societal transformation and progression.
When martial law was lifted in Taiwan in 1987 and then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) agreed to implement constitutional reforms after the Wild Lily student movement in 1990, many contemporary researchers wrote in a celebratory mood at the time about the consolidation of democratization.
Upon reflection, I must admit that I was quite unsure what “democratic consolidation” should look like, how a juvenile democracy could become more mature, what form such a transformation might take and what consequences it could have. The new civic movements of the 21st century in Taiwan seem to have finally offered some answers to these questions.
Ming-yeh T. Rawnsley is an associate fellow at the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute, a research associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS, University of London, and the secretary-general of the European Association of Taiwan Studies.
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