Mon, Jun 13, 2005 page8

• `Independence' as fascism

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  The letter from the Taiwanese Canadian Social Service Center (Letters, June 4, page 8) on the fostering of a strong Taiwanese consciousness was very disturbing, for the examples the writers used were all from extremely fascist societies: Germany, Poland and Ukraine.

  Further the article acknowledged a "cultural debt" to China and Japan, which are both extremely fascist societies with authoritarian cultures. The idea that Taiwanese identity owes a cultural debt in a positive sense to China or Japan is questionable. Indeed the negative aspects of those cultures remain quite strong in Taiwan.

  For example, the president had no difficulty ordering official disobedience in the face of the unconstitutional March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute, because it was politically expedient to do so.

  There is no reason why the government should not also choose to regard the unconstitutional provisions of the Household Registration Act's mandatory national fingerprinting requirements as ineffective from the get-go.

  The government wrongly, unconstitutionally and arrogantly believes that anything they feel is in the public interest may lawfully override the rights and provisions of the Constitution. Another example of fascism in Taiwan is the household registration system, enforced by authoritarian Asian societies to this day. The police and the state do not have the right to regard average citizens carrying out their daily lives as criminals.

  The fascist aspects of the Chinese and Japanese negative cultural vestiges on Taiwan must be uprooted and overturned. The battle for Taiwanese independence is the battle for the respect of the human rights of all persons of Asian and Pacific Island heritage.

  But until the people of Taiwan themselves stand up and reject the fascist and Chinese cultural origins of much of their Taiwanese independence movement, including those such as Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) who proudly proclaim a "cultural debt" to China, as if such respect will earn them brownie points with the Chinese leadership, they will likely not merit those providential blessings so aptly recorded in the US Declaration of Independence, in which the people rejected the authoritarian and demeaning culture of the British motherland, and chose to freely recognize the innate beauty of a tolerant society where each individual may be respected for who they are in their own right.

  Profound respect for such individuality is not only conducive to stronger social cohesion, it is essential to achieving just and equitable social welfare and charity, something almost entirely lacking from Taiwan's dog-eat-dog, get rich at all costs Chinese cultural mentality.

  First there was The Ugly American, then there was Bo Yang's (伯楊) Ugly Chinaman. Now it is time for Taiwanese independence advocates to face up to the truth of the "Ugly Taiwanese," and demand an end to the fascist aspects of the Chinese and Japanese cultural heritage on Formosa.

  Further, those fascists who engaged in crimes against humanity on Formosa for decades from the 228 Incident through the White Terror must be brought to justice for their crimes against humanity.

  The claims of Taiwanese independence advocates in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who desire to make peace with the fascist Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members, and refuse to employ the judicial resources of the state to bring the fascists to justice, in the name of "cultural, ethnic and national origin reconciliation" are absurd and immoral to the core.

  One does not reconcile with fascist murderers: one brings them to justice. When Taiwan is just and dedicated to justice, then and only then will it merit the recognition of its true identity as a free and independent, sovereign people, living freely and independently in their own state. The hypocrisy of anything less is obvious, and will stain forever the claims of those who seek a just recognition of their equal humanity as a nation among the states of the world.

  Paul Maas Risenhoover
  

  Special Adviser for International Law, Permanent Mission of Tuvalu to the UN
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