The return of Al Jazeera
John Hanna can rest assured that Al Jazeera is still available from Chunghwa Telecom (Letters, June 18, page 8). It can be subscribed to for NT$5 a month and will appear as a separate item on the monthly phone bill. The station is provided to new MOD subscribers for a few months free of charge, but suddenly disappears. You can get it back again by calling their customer service line.
Americans in Taiwan should especially appreciate this fine offer, as Al Jazeera is reportedly only available from two cable companies in the US. That’s a shame, as it gives fairer and more insightful news coverage than any other English-language network. I seldom even watch the BBC anymore.
PETER DEARMAN
Sindian, Taipei County
The right to be a country
On June 4, US President Barack Obama declared in Cairo that “Just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.”
Does this spirit apply to Taiwan? Do the Taiwanese deserve the same right? Former secretary of state Colin Powell and other US officials said that Taiwanese do not enjoy nationhood. The US has backed the “status quo” for Taiwan, and does not support a referendum on changing the national title, the Constitution or the structure of government.
Taiwanese are not Chinese, nor do they belong to “Chinese Taipei.” The majority of Taiwanese are not residents of Taipei; they belong to Taiwan. Unless the spirit of Obama’s declaration is universal, its validity is in doubt.
CHUNG NAN SHIH
Columbus, Ohio
The Chinese evil twins
“Chinese do not kill Chinese” is the cliche embraced by both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to instill fear in those who long to go their own way. It isn’t some newfound inspiration for peace that would rehabilitate the two political behemoths, which are viewed by many as the twin evils of modern China.
Even so, many Chinese believe that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the embodiment of the present-day KMT, will be a hero in Chinese history, eventually to be credited with not only bringing Taiwan into Beijing’s fold but also injecting modernity into China’s antiquated political culture.
This will be the case until the moment that they realize their idol has no steadfast objection to a government that slaughters unarmed civilians. Ma, with his recent comment on the Tiananmen Square Massacre, appears to be at the ready to whitewash acts of “Chinese killing Chinese.”
Equally enlightening for the public should be Ma’s self-appointment — or running unopposed, as dictated by convention — as chairman of the KMT in preparation for a momentous rendezvous with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Ma seems to be hoping that the chairmanship will precipitate a reversion of Taiwan’s status to “Nationalist-occupied Taiwan,” the term most often used internationally during the Chiang era.
Taking up the chairmanship would represent an important step in realizing Ma’s dream of unification given that Beijing recognizes neither the Republic of China nor Taiwan’s president. However, Beijing fully acknowledges the KMT as being the CCP’s rival during the civil war as well as the entity that occupied Taiwan.
The cross-strait quarrel could then be reduced to a remnant of the war — nothing that the kowtowing “head of Nationalist-occupied Taiwan” couldn’t help resolve.
To make this possible, Ma has to nullify 20 or so years of Taiwan’s democratization.
The problem is that he derives his legal power from the Taiwanese public through elections. Once democracy has been shelved, the legitimacy of Ma’s power, as well as his mandate to represent Taiwan, would vanish.
So, too, would Ma’s only pillar of strength in dealing with Hu.
HUANG JEI-HSUAN
Los Angeles, California
Father’s Day, as celebrated around the world, has its roots in the early 20th century US. In 1910, the state of Washington marked the world’s first official Father’s Day. Later, in 1972, then-US president Richard Nixon signed a proclamation establishing the third Sunday of June as a national holiday honoring fathers. Many countries have since followed suit, adopting the same date. In Taiwan, the celebration takes a different form — both in timing and meaning. Taiwan’s Father’s Day falls on Aug. 8, a date chosen not for historical events, but for the beauty of language. In Mandarin, “eight eight” is pronounced
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It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming
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