If former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and his son, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文), were to team up for a political talk show, it would probably be quite an event. The more they say to try to hide their background and status, the more conspicuous they become. They truly see the world differently.
“Grandpa” Lien last month said that “some old people” should stand aside — which has been interpreted as criticism of People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) for not supporting Sean Lien’s candidacy.
As young master Lien has also found little support among the younger generation, his father has come up with another explanation: Because former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration changed school textbooks and initiated desinicization, the young generation have different ideals and values, so they cannot identify with his son.
This is truly an erudite opinion: It manages both to attack Chen and to shift responsibility. However, it is little more than a joke based on vested interests, authoritarianism and brainwashing.
Grandpa Lien’s only electoral victory came in 1996, when he ran with then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and defeated an “independent” ticket of two strongly pro-Chinese candidates. At the time, the electorate had never read of the “Chen administration” textbooks — which would not exist for several years — but instead had been completely brainwashed by the KMT.
Despite this, Lee — the standard bearer for localization and criticized by pro-Chinese voters as favoring Taiwanese independence — and the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, Peng Ming-min (彭明敏), together received 75 percent of the vote. It would be interesting to hear how Grandpa Lien would explain that.
The KMT’s colonial education and brainwashing of Taiwanese was wrong, but Grandpa Lien feels that this is a mistake that must not be corrected, because if it were, it would lead Taiwanese youth astray and prevent his son from inheriting his privileges.
Is he pretending to be both deaf and dumb, or does he really not understand that the young are angry because of the unfairness of the assumption that Sean Lien has access to power and top jobs simply because he is Lien Chan’s son?
Grandpa Lien is very “unhappy” to be called “privileged,” but something that is publicly acknowledged as a fact cannot be washed away simply by cracking jokes about only eating two meals and sleeping seven hours a day. He is wealthy and he only eats fewer meals if he is afraid of getting fat. That is nothing like poor people who have to eat a meal less because they cannot afford it. As for only sleeping seven hours, what does that have to do with privilege?
Father and son Lien bathe in money, and they could easily build a pretty little palace to care for stray dogs, but what does young master Lien want to do? He wants to ship Taipei’s stray dogs off to Yunlin and Chiayi counties and Greater Tainan. This kind of “election promise” is nothing but a clear display of the overbearing attitude of the rich and powerful.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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