Compared with social movements in Taiwan as a whole, the Sunflower movement, most active in March and last month’s protests against the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) were successful. Both transcend anything we have seen before in terms of the number of people participating, the length of the protests, the physical space they encompassed and the emotions they provoked.
Most involved were between 16 and 30, either students or young people who had just begun their working lives. There were a comparable number of men and women, with slightly more women protesting in the daytime. Protesters included people from both the green and blue camps as well as swing voters.
Third-generation members of Mainlander families came together with pro-localization supporters. Everyone showed a clear, simple and straightforward approach to national identity and a deep commitment to upholding and protecting democratic values.
The actions taken by those involved woke up those Taiwanese who have long been deceived by those in power, which spells the beginning of the end for heinous political hacks. They stunned hired academics and experts and outshone those who are middle-aged or older, who often talk about maintaining the “status quo” to conceal their real yearning for sovereignty.
After the intense political conflict and implications of the social dialogue surrounding the cross-strait service trade agreement and nuclear protests, the younger generation’s calls for placing human rights and dignity above economic interests as well as their environmental values that place life ahead of electricity are gradually entering the mainstream.
Many other propositions such as stricter demands for procedural justice; stronger monitoring of our indirect representative democracy; more transparent trade negotiations with other countries; the right to referendum amd a form of direct democracy are now consolidating into a social consensus.
“Web 2.0” is a term that refers to second version of the Internet in which users are able to create content instead of just viewing it like they did in the Web 1.0 era. In this new era, technology can be used to quickly and successfully bring people from many different age groups, professions and places together to form a social force capable of acting without being limited by barriers such as time or language in order to protest against globalization.
The use of tablets and cellphones to share information and to direct activities has injected new energy into Taiwanese society and given new direction to the public. These movements and campaigns have caused Taiwan’s economic and political spheres to shift toward the younger generations.
However, the government, schools and businesses whose understanding of the Internet remain in the Web 1.0 era have a limited understanding of how to continue to adapt to Taiwanese society as it continues to shift.
Nor are such organizations capable of understanding what the 4.9 million users of Web 2.0 sites aged from 16 to 30 are thinking and doing. Members of these generations dislike bureaucrats, bureaucratic governments, political parties that refuse to reform themselves and those that lack ideals. They do not want education that is devoid of ideals and personality and they dislike industries that consume large amounts of energy, pollute the environment and lack efficiency.
If parties want votes and if schools and businesses want to attract talent, they have to make a shift to sites based on Web 2.0 technology and start to share their ideals with the public.
Chan Chang-chuan is a professor at National Taiwan University’s Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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