Copper is a curmudgeon
John Copper clearly does not like liberals (“Obama turning away from Taiwan,” July 7, page 8).
The description of liberals in his article is false and unworthy of an academic. His false description is intentional and extremely partisan, and it is required to “prove” his so-called “facts.”
His statements about what Asians prefer are degrading, discriminatory and completely false. They frankly remind me of the derogatory statements made by some in the US about blacks.
Asians are not all the same, just as whites are not all the same.
I believe every country has its own policies and culture, and has both conservative and progressive views on various subjects — and those subjects differ from country to country.
While Taiwan may be an Asian nation, it is unique in its way. It has been influenced by various occupational periods, which have affected the values of this endearing and beautiful nation.
Taiwanese are a kind, hard-working people and respect for one another is held high. Yes, family values are strong — but they are not the family values of, for example, Malaysia, and they are certainly not the family values of conservatives in the US.
Copper moves on to make even more questionable statements — this time, about US President Barack Obama.
As everyone — apart from Copper, apparently — is aware, the Middle East is on fire with uprisings against dictatorships. It is not at all strange that these events are a priority for Obama.
There is also an economic crisis — apparently also lost on Copper — and there is not much the US can do in Asia about that.
Since Europe also faces challenges, it is not at all strange that this would be prioritized by Obama.
So, because these issues take priority on Obama’s agenda, apparently he does not like Asians.
Copper’s logic here is completely lost on me.
Copper also said Obama does not like Taiwan for a number of other reasons, such as he does not like his predecessor, his defeated opponent for the presidency likes Taiwan, the Democrats said something 40 years ago about the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Republicans like Taiwan more.
Does this really come from a professor of international studies? Absolutely disgraceful.
The article was disappointing. It is nothing but cheap innuendo, far-fetched assumptions and, as a whole, it is terribly derogatory to Asians and, most of all, to Taiwan.
I will be looking forward to Copper’s next article, which will no doubt tell us that the Earth really is flat — because it is not round, that is why it is flat.
MAARTEN VAN DAM
Hualien
Child abuse has to stop
A surge of anger motivated me to write in response to a recent article on the high rate of child abuse in Taiwan and the idea that it is considered a domestic affair (“Child abuse cases at record high,” July 8, page 2). I am not surprised to learn the rate of child abuse is high when taking my childhood experience into consideration.
I remember that my three siblings and I were severely abused by our mother in a military village. I will never forget the reaction of people in the street when learning of the bruises and injuries we had.
Although these were evidence of child abuse by our mother, they would insist that we must be “bad children” because no parents would otherwise treat their children in such a manner.
This secondary abuse made us believe that we really were bad children and it took me more than 25 years to work through the various layers of wounds created by my abusive mother and the harsh judgments of strangers and neighbors alike — a damning indictment of the naivety of 1960s society.
The effects of these experiences were deep and wide-reaching, including: My sister living permanently in a mental home and relying on the social welfare system for the rest of her life; me spending thousands of US dollars seeing therapists, taking courses and attending group therapy to understand child abuse and learn about myself; my second brother not having children because he is unable to handle stress; my first brother physically punishing his three sons and verbally humiliating them, without having gained any insight from the abuse he received at the hands of our mother.
We did not know how to be parents because we had never been treated with respect or care.
We, as victims of child abuse, have never been recognized as such. Instead, we were “bad children” because our parents would never make such mistakes. This is a traditional Chinese belief, exposed as patently wrong by the fact that, as this article shows, 75 percent of child abusers are a parent of the victim.
If you expect the abusers to apologize to those children or express contrition, I can tell you that most of them would not even acknowledge the abusive nature of their acts. They believe they are entitled to punish their children in this way and that the children are the property of the parents. This idea is obscure, but it is a fact in their minds.
This needs to change now in Taiwan because children do not have the means or power to advocate for themselves.
They need adults to protect them and this requires radical and immediate action by the government. Otherwise, child abuse will doubtless become a public health challenge.
MAU
Vancouver, Canada
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