Dai Lin (林冠華), a student activist opposed to the controversial adjustments to high-school social studies curriculum guidelines, committed suicide on July 30, his birthday.
Following Lin’s death, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that he was incredibly agonized by the tragedy, albeit without showing any visible signs of emotion. He then went on to give Lin a posthumous lecture on the law, saying: “The Republic of China [ROC] is nonetheless a nation governed by rule of law. Our every word and deed have to abide by what the law says. And if you have an opinion that you [would] like to share, you should do so peacefully and legally.”
Ma and his pack cannot help but preach about the importance of doing everything “by the book” whenever there is a chance, but do they themselves really do everything by the book?
On Feb. 12, the Taipei High Administrative Court ruled that the Ministry of Education’s adjustments to the guidelines were illegal. However, Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) continued to stand by the adjustments.
Was Wu really following the law in everything he said and did? From a legal perspective, it was the ministry that imposed the illegal guidelines on schools. It was only afterwards that the students — the victims of the new guidelines — stood up in protest against them. Was this not a demonstration of their right to self-defense?
Until a court rules that the ministry’s adjustments to the curriculum guidelines are legal, the ministry, which has violated the law and refused to stop its illegal behavior, is no different from a criminal organization, and Wu, who has violated the law and refused to stop the ministry’s illegal actions, is nothing but a criminal.
It is commonplace for the media to commend members of the public for taking proactive action at a crime scene in order to bring offenders to justice. In this case, the crime scene is the ministry building, Wu is the offender and the students — who were opposed to the adjustments to the guidelines and went to the “crime scene” to hold Wu, the offender, accountable — were handcuffed and detained instead of being treated as courageous heroes. Odd, is it not?
As for Ma’s comment on how you should share an opinion, it was ironic that he should say that, because of his own words and actions.
For instance, when Ma was indicted on corruption charges for allegedly siphoning funds from his special allowance fund when he was mayor of Taipei, he squealed when he expressed his opinion, saying: “The wicked howl like wolves. Justice has been kidnapped by politics.”
Was that peaceful and in accordance with the law, or was it an angry attack on the law?
It seems that those in power want others to abide by the law and do everything by the book, but they themselves do the exact opposite. The law has become nothing but a tool that those in government use to manipulate the public.
The government is practicing rule by law, not rule of law.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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