In Taiwan, every movement that tries to instigate political or social reforms now is sure to identify itself as nonviolent, to the extent that the term has become something of a cliche. Nonetheless, nonviolence is indeed one school of thought among these movements, with academics and religious figures among its proponents.
Nobody likes violence, but some are doubtful about the practical applications of adherence to nonviolence in social reform movements. The doubters often ask how advocates of nonviolence would handle a situation in which a lunatic was running around the streets with a machine gun and shooting people on sight.
They also ask how they would respond if, instead of the lunatic, they were faced with a cruel and violent dictatorship that killed people at will.
Among all the radical social and political reforms that have changed the course of history, such as the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the revolutions in China of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party, no matter whether they have led to weal or woe, none of them has succeeded by relying on nonviolence.
Moreover, those who attempted to bring about reforms through such movements often glorified the violence they employed by using such terms as “uprising,” “martyrdom” and “sacrifice.”
In this era, Taiwanese have woken up. Their demands for democracy on the home front and independence in the international arena have become increasingly vehement. When the UN was established after World War II, its membership consisted of 51 independent nations, but that number has since grown to 193.
Considered from the point of view of democracy and independence, how many of these countries gained their independence based on the principle of nonviolence?
China has deployed 1,500 missiles aimed at Taiwan and it has enacted its “Anti-Secession” Law as a pretext for using armed force. China has been rapidly expanding its already impressive military strength, and it has let it be known that it would not stop short of using military force to attack Taiwan. Can Taiwan respond to such threats by nonviolent means?
Taiwan’s democracy has been extolled as a “bloodless and peaceful revolution,” but that is a hugely inaccurate description.
The vast majority of people in Taiwan have been kept in the dark about how many enthusiastic upholders of democratic ideals were quietly oppressed, arrested, and even tortured and killed under the KMT dictatorship.
Taiwan’s democracy was founded on the blood of these countless and often nameless heroes.
Amid the current clashes between government authorities and popular movements in Taiwan, calls for “countering violence with violence” are starting to be heard on both sides of the political spectrum.
They are beginning to look like two trains speeding toward one another on a single track. Unfortunately, humans are living creatures and violence, be it for good or evil, is probably an irrepressible instinct of living things.
Peng Ming-min is a former presidential adviser.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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