For two days the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has come under fire, not because of its policies, but because of performances at the presidential inauguration celebrations, and this could be a reminder to the party that its role has changed.
During dress rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday for Friday’s inauguration celebrations, actors dressed up as rights advocates for various causes and marched with placards displaying slogans for several major social campaigns — including an ongoing campaign in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township’s (竹南) Dapu Borough (大埔), where more than a dozen private homes and farms were seized by the government for a development project.
It was this act that triggered protest.
Activists for Dapu and residents were upset because the DPP has never made clear whether it supports their demands to rebuild their homes where they used to stand.
The activists have accused the DPP of “harvesting the rice planted by others.”
While DPP officials said that they arranged the performances to remind themselves of past struggles and to listen to the voices of the public first, it still decided to cut the performance from the celebration.
This incident might not be big, but it sent an important message to the DPP: As an opposition party the DPP could show that it stood with people suffering under controversial government actions or policies, but as the governing party the DPP has to do more than show solidarity, because now it is the government.
It is understandable that people are upset if the government is not responding to their problems but is using them as a symbol for their ongoing campaign.
Besides the message to the DPP that it should adjust its mentality as the governing party, the controversy might have exposed some problems in its decisionmaking process.
Some DPP figures said the DPP’s prompt response to the criticism shows that it is a party that listens and will make changes accordingly, adding that this proves that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government will be one that is good at communicating.
However, a government that is good at communicating should have solved the problem in the planning phase, not passively adjusting something when criticized, especially when the DPP has such good connections to social activist groups, with several people who have participated in the Dapu protest now serving as party officials.
Another controversial performance at the inauguration was a piece on Taiwan’s history. When actors portrayed how 17th-century Western colonialists influenced Aborigines, the narrator said that because of the arrival of Western religions, Aborigines were able to reform their “boorish and uncultivated nature” — a statement that was criticized for being discriminatory.
The performance also mistakenly said that the nation’s Aborigines were forced into mountain regions when large numbers of Han Chinese settlers arrived. However, many Aboriginal communities who lived in flat areas of the island were conquered and later assimilated to different degrees, but some managed to maintain their cultural traditions.
Many Aboriginal rights activists work closely with the DPP , which has a Department of Aboriginal Affairs. If these people were consulted before the performance, the controversy might have been avoided.
It is true that “communication” can take place before or after problems surface, but if the government waits until after problems arise to make adjustments, it could hurt its image and credibility in the long term.
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