Beware of complacency
Complacency is often more dangerous than evil itself.
Why do I get the feeling at times that the democracy movement in Hong Kong has more legs than the democracy movement in Taiwan? Of course Taiwan is already democratic, but since the election of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), democracy has been under attack from Beijing from the outside and Ma and his minions from the inside. The trouble is that unless the Sunflower movement or others like it can become a “perennial” fixture in society until the day Taiwan is indeed Taiwan, the nation’s masses will still tend to be complacent.
Complacent means not voting for someone who has the word “independence” in their vocabulary (never mind whether they have it in their policy) for fear Taiwan will actually take a step toward the future. These same people will cheer any time Taiwan is mentioned in international media, or by Ang Lee (李安) or Angelina Jolie, as though Taiwan is a word or a concept only, not a country or a people group.
Complacent means voting for the party that keeps “stability,” defined as “not rocking the boat.” Unfortunately, these people have turned a blind eye to the fact that the boat has been drifting inexorably for the past six years and more toward Beijing, where “stability” is spelled o-p-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n. They believe Ma and his party are better at maintaining the employment rate, but they refuse to understand that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) platform basically involves allowing the complete consolidation of the economy and society with China, eventually decimating it.
Taiwan is already invisible on many world stages, in part a result of Ma’s utter surrender of the notion of the nation’s “sovereignty” to his handlers in Beijing. Complacency means assuming the US will rush to the rescue should China become adventurous, but sitting on the sidelines (“my boss won’t let me leave work early” to join the demonstration) when it comes to showing the US that Taiwanese care deeply about not becoming part of China (like recent demonstrations showed for Hong Kongers).
Left to the likes of Ma and US President Barack Obama, Taiwan could disappear and neither would blink an eye. Yes, there is also complacency in the US government about such things. However, there are many in the US government who are very active in support of Taiwan.
The children are our future. No child born in Taiwan can truly consider themselves a “mainlander” no matter the brainwashing they undergo. It is giving our children the feeling they have the right to determine their fate and the fate of their nation that will carry Taiwan safely toward the future.
However, many parents teach life lessons in complacency: “Don’t get involved” is the key principle.
In the face of such evil repression and hegemony on the part of China, we can no longer remain complacent. There is no longer a choice in the matter. People must either be for Taiwan, or for becoming one of the billion under the Chinese Communist Party’s dominion.
Complacency, as can be seen, is sometimes more dangerous than evil itself. To stamp out evil, we must first stamp out complacency.
Lee Longhwa
Los Angeles, California
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