Fri, Oct 24, 2008 page8

• Lesson 1: Which one is our country?

  • By Michelle Wang 王美琇
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  So many strange phenomena are considered normal in Taiwan that people have become numb to the situation. This month has been filled with lies about the nation. One way to reach normality could be to deconstruct all these lies and come out of the numbness.

  In an interview with Japanese media earlier this month, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said: “The Chinese mainland is the territory of the Republic of China.” The Chinese-language Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister publication, criticized the statement, but most other media outlets simply ignored it.

  Could anything like this occur if Taiwan were a normal country? Why do we tolerate a national leader who has such a muddled understanding of what constitutes the nation’s sovereign territory? How can we go on living in a country with such a muddled national awareness, as if everything is fine and then call ourselves “citizens”? Citizens of what country?

  “Know your country” is the kind of common-sense knowledge that should be given in elementary school. It is a basic understanding that any citizen of any normal country must have. Maybe every Taiwanese needs to read up on civic education: Lesson 1: Which one is our country?

  Which is our country? Taiwan? The Republic of China? During international sports events, have you ever heard “Taiwan” or “the Republic of China” mentioned? No. Is there a country called Taiwan among the 192 members of the world’s largest club of nations, the UN? No.

  In the international community, there is no nation named Taiwan, and the Republic of China has long been dead in the world community. For the time being, our country has seven or eight different names, but with Chinese manipulation, and Ma’s tacit approval, this number is slowly being reduced to one: “Taipei, China.” Pray tell, is this a normal country?

  Why does Ma say the relationship between Taiwan and China is not a state-to-state relationship, but a “practical relationship?” What does that mean? Which is Ma’s country? What is his idea of a country? What is the problem with our country?

  The truth has been deliberately covered up for 60 years. Let’s open the Pandora’s box of “national truth.”

  The first truth about the nation is the current national title — the “Republic of China” — is a name whose use is restricted to Taiwan. The “China” that the world outside of Taiwan recognizes is the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and not the Republic of China (ROC). This is international political common sense, and it is also the political reality. Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) refuse to accept this reality, and the “China” they talk about is the Republic of China. Ma is using this surrealist lie to rule and control the Taiwanese.

  After the KMT fled from China in 1949 and occupied Taiwan, it forced the national title, flag and Constitution on Taiwan without the approval of the Taiwanese public. In 1971, the ROC was expelled from the UN and the UN seat was transferred to the PRC, thus issuing an international death sentence to the ROC. From that day onward, the ROC was a name used to deceive Taiwanese and protect the KMT’s national title and Chinese legal system.

  Even today, in the 21st century, Ma and the KMT’s idea of our country is that it is China. They believe that the ROC represents China, and that this is an unshakable “legal fact.” This legal perception runs counter to internationally perceived wisdom and political realities. It is holding the Taiwanese people hostage to the ROC and makes it impossible to establish a new country under the name “Taiwan.”

  The second truth about the nation is that its legal foundation, the Constitution of the Republic of China, is Taiwan’s biggest lie, and it is the source of the political chaos.

  The Constitution states that the national sovereignty and territory includes all of China, and the government’s jurisdiction has been restricted to Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu through a constitutional amendment.

  Based on the Constitution, the KMT promulgated the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) which defines the two sides of the Taiwan Strait as the “Taiwan area” and the “Mainland area.” Under the ROC Constitution, Taiwan is not a country, but merely an “area” and this is why Ma is now talking about the “Taiwan area.” In other words, the country that Ma and the KMT identify with is not Taiwan, but China — which they mistakenly call “the Republic of China.”

  Based on this Constitution, the KMT laid down its educational policies which included Chinese literature, history and geography text books full of Chinese thinking, thus creating an education completely disconnecting the Taiwanese people from the land where they grow up, making them strangers in their own country while developing an emotional and imaginary attachment to China. Today, this faulty greater China ideology continues to hurt our next generation. How could this kind of education not create a people with a confused national identity?

  Taiwan and the US are both immigrant societies, but the US’ founding fathers did not imagine the UK to be their home country. They created a new and independent state, a new constitution, and political and educational policies founded on the US homeland. After becoming rooted in the US, the second generation of immigrants from all corners of the globe became true Americans and swore allegiance to the US. There was no confusion over their personal and national identities.

  The national lie woven by the KMT over 60 years has created today’s confused national identity, chaotic constitutional system and constant political bickering. It has also created the difficult situation whereby Taiwan cannot be recognized as a country. This situation is paralyzing our present and our children’s future.

  In his book The Prophet, Khalil Gibran asks: “For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?”

  What I want to ask is this: How can a president with such a confused understanding of national territory and sovereignty be qualified to rule a country? How can a tyrant rule a free and proud people? How can a free and proud people tolerate that their country is not recognized as a country? Are we really free and proud or are we but an enslaved people of feeble opportunists who accept any humiliation or insult thrown our way? Too many questions and too many abnormalities take place in Taiwan every day, but we still pretend that we don’t see them. Can we call ourselves responsible citizens?

  Let us therefore once again return to civic education. Lesson 1: Which one is our country? If you, like me, want to build a country named Taiwan on this land and be a responsible, free and proud citizen of Taiwan, then the most important lesson to learn is how to thoroughly tear apart the myth of the Republic of China and put an end to the greatest ring of fraudsters in Taiwan — Ma and the KMT.

  Only if the lies and the rule of Ma and the KMT collapse, laying the truth bare, will Taiwan have a chance of being transformed. Then we can open a new era in line with reality, building a new country called Taiwan.

  Michelle Wang is a political commentator.

  TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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