Famed US linguist and activist Noam Chomsky lent support to Taiwan’s anti-media monopolization movement in a photograph shared on social networking site Facebook late on Saturday.
Chomsky, an 84-year-old linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was seen posing for a picture believed to be taken by a Taiwanese student abroad, while holding a poster that read: “Anti-Media Monopoly. Say no to China’s black hands, defend press freedom. I am safeguarding Taiwan here in MIT.”
The photograph was posted on Facebook at about 8pm on Saturday by a female netizen who identified herself as Lao Tzu-hung (劉子鳳), and had been shared about 4,000 times as of press time yesterday.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook page
Citing a famous quote by Chomsky, Lao said: “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
“When the media unanimously creates empty slogans such as ‘harmony’ or ‘stabilizing society’ and leave behind the real problems society should be facing, the public could easily lose their willingness and capability to think,” Lao quoted Chomsky as saying.
They could end up being the “onlookers” in democratic societies and fall for the delusion that “everything will be better tomorrow,” Lao quoted the celebrated linguist as saying.
Citing another quote by Chomsky to warn against the dangers of media concentration, Lao said that as long as people are marginalized and distracted they have no way to organize or articulate their sentiments, and they simply assume that they are the only people with what are seen as crazy ideas.
In the end, “you just stay on the side and don’t pay any attention to what’s going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl,” Lao cited Chomsky as saying.
The photograph of Chomsky has prompted a fervent response among netizens, with some expressing gratitude to the famed scholar’s support for the country’s anti-media monopolization efforts.
An unidentified netizen said: “If a US scholar is aware of the dangers of media concentration [in Taiwan], the people of this country must not stay silent anymore.”
Dubbed as “the conscience of America,” Chomsky has strived to bring to light atrocities committed by the US government since the 1960s, including its support of the Indonesian regime’s brutal suppression of East Timor between 1975 and 1999.
Chomsky also emerged as a renowned public advocate for press freedom in the US and worldwide, mainly because of his vehement opposition to the notion of governments or giant corporations holding control over social media in which the public is manipulated.
Chomsky first visited Taiwan in August 2010, when he delivered speeches in Academia Sinica in Taipei and National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu City.
A number of public figures in Taiwan have recently also expressed their opposition to media monopolization, including Wu Ching-feng (吳青峰), the lead singer of the popular band Sodagreen (蘇打綠).
Wu said during his New Year’s Eve performance in Greater Kaohsiung on Monday that the media should be an open platform through which the truth is conveyed, rather than something that attempts to monopolize the market or manipulate the public.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS