Fighting or whining?
Wednesday last week’s pension reform protest from supposedly the most civil and educated group of people has reminded us of the Sunflower movement, which saw the participation of college students and professors from prestigious schools.
How these two groups of intellectuals expressed their discontent with policies prompts us to evaluate “protest” itself: Were the protesters fighting for a good cause or simply whining?
Do we apply different standards of “civil disobedience” to justify the Sunflower movement and the pension reform protest? Do we tend to glorify youngsters’ deeds and stigmatize the retirees living on pensions? What is the line between being brave and being rude? Is guarding personal well-being less important than maintaining collective interests?
Pension reform protesters are persistent and unapologetic, because they wonder what is wrong with fighting for one’s own benefits, which the government once promised.
It is human nature to have a sense of deprivation when personal interests are being hurt. However, in this case, this fear is not justified because the reformed pension funds can still sustain one’s “basic need” for retirement.
Taiwan Education Retirees Association spokesman Hsiao Chiu-hua (蕭秋華) stressed that there are more people struggling to live on their pension, but illustrated his “inconvenience” by talking about the cost of attending his son’ s graduation ceremony in the US and neglected mentioning more promising financial prospects after pension reform.
The astonishing remarks made by Wu Wan-gu (吳萬固) on behalf of Chuang Hua retired military, public and teaching personnel provide another example.
Furious about the reform, Wu rationalized the beating of legislators by stating that people might even kill when irritated to the point of craziness.
It is dangerous when people refuse to propose constructive comments on pension reform proposals, but rather keep stressing their own feelings and false values.
Wu’s rash actions and speech, like Hsiao’s difficulty, reflects their refusal to put themselves in others’ shoes. They are not fighting for generational justice; they are simply whining about their anxiety toward change.
As a supporter of pension reform, I do not think of pensioners as “accomplices” who have to “sacrifice” their welfare to compensate for their guilt. In criticizing the opponents, I do not consider them necessarily selfish or negligent on a personal level either.
Instead, I think that civil servants generally lack the awareness that we are not only the objects, but also the subjects of national policy. When policy no longer fits with reality, if we keep sticking to that policy and refuse to see the problems, we are either deepening social misunderstanding or marching toward self-destruction.
Chuang Yu-chuan
Yilan
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS