Cultivated by Hakka immigrants for over 260 years, the once-prosperous city of Meinung (美濃) in Kaohsiung County has gradually fallen by the wayside during Taiwan's industrialization. After WWII, the government pushed down the price of agricultural goods in the interests of industrialization.
Primarily an agricultural town, people in Meinung could no longer make enough money to support themselves by farming, and young people left in droves to work in urban factories.
Facing a water shortage at the end of the 1990s, the government, along with an army of professionals, decided that continued industrial production in Taiwan required the construction of a dam in Meinung, a mere 5km away from the densely populated town.
The dam threatens to drown the town's source of life, and regardless of whether an accident occurs or not, the whole political process behind its construction has already changed the face of Meinung. It is still a special town in many ways. Its residents place great stress on education and the small town has produced a disproportionately high number of scholars and intellectuals.
The town's youth may have been forced off the land, but their nostalgia for the town of their birth has not diminished. If their hometown experiences difficulties, they rally to help by donating money or volunteering their services. Intellectuals from Meinung have been instrumental in putting forth a counter-discourse against the government's policy in favor of the dam. More importantly, relations between residents of Meinung have improved and a community newspaper has started up again after a 10-year hiatus. Anti-dam sentiment has become deeply entrenched in the hearts of Meinung residents, and they have successfully postponed the dam's construction for eight years.
Connections to the international anti-dam movement have been crucial to the development of Meinung's local movement. In the initial stage of opposition to the dam, residents were mainly concerned about the direct threat the dam would pose to their families, and were uncertain if they could stop such a large project with state backing.
Those involved in the dam opposition collected all the information they could, and Meinung students studying abroad met with people from the International Rivers Network, a San Francisco-based organization of activists experienced in fighting economically, environmentally, and socially unsound river intervention projects. The contact led to the visit of the group's director, Philip Williams, to Meinung in October, 1993.
Williams' visit impressed residents with the global scope of opposition to dams, the push for river conservation, and the demand for the rational use of water resources. Opposition to dams was especially high in the 1980s, when a host of new organizations sprung up in Austria, Thailand, Hungary, India, Brazil, Russia and France to fight against local dam projects.
After hearing examples from around the world, residents began to feel that they were part of a common struggle, deepening the legitimacy of their own cause, and boosting their confidence. Six months later, a community group based in Meinung was established, officially kicking off what has turned into a long-term fight against the dam's construction.
Taiwan had been absent from the international water conservation movement for over 30 years, but this ended with the dam opposition movement in Meinung. Local groups opposed to the dam actively sought support of international river conservation groups, based on the similar challenges they faced.
There is no space for "objective" and "neutral" professional opinions within the present political and economic framework in Taiwan, yet the purportedly "neutral" ideology of engineers here has yet to be challenged.
The voice of the anti-dam movement in Meinung, however, has boldly accused the government of bad planning, exaggerating the dam's benefits, and ignoring its dangers. The group also asked the government to consider other issues in the decision to build the dam, including social fairness, and the dam's effect on Meinung's culture and ecology.
Taiwan's authoritarian governmental system has come under fire in recent years, and Taiwan's political system has begun to shift to a system based on compromise between different interest groups. This should give professionals more space in which to consider the issue.
Chang Kao-chieh is a graduate student at the Institute of Sociology at National Tsing Hua University.
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