Hold this thought: the ben shen-ren v. wai sheng-ren and the loss of harmony.
In the first week of March, I wrote a short note offering my ideas about why so many people don’t like President Chen Sui-bian. I stated that it was a matter of his style, crass; his use or misuse of the government he leads; or just the plain old ‘black gold’ that is a part of machine politics. The three answers I proposed were and still are intimately related, sometimes almost indistinguishable but absolutely necessary to recognize if any understanding at all of Taiwan is to be had.
What I wrote merely hit at the immediate, big-ticket items that were part and parcel of this election cycle tainted by smear campaigns and ultimately an assassination attempt. In the immediate wake of the election, contentious conspiracy theories still swirl amid the some 500,000 demonstrators assembled today in Taipei to protest the ‘death of democracy.’
Here I think the idea of contention is ever so important because it reveals a facet of the Taiwanese mind that has been very nearly subsumed by the breakneck pace Taiwan has experienced since the 1960s. Today’s Taiwanese are simply not contentious but live in truly contentious times. Fewer worse curses can be imagined for a people used to cooperation.
The pulse of the nation has suffered palpitation after palpitation. Economically, Taiwan, as an economic powerhouse, is emerging from its first recession in living memory. Factories and jobs have literally disappeared as a result of globalization. SARS accentuated that problem when folks stopped going to their favorite restaurants, movie houses and E-cafes. Politically, the transition to democracy has not been smooth but rougher than anything anyone can remember. Culturally, it seems easy enough to say that the country suffers from a serious imbalance in the national ‘chi’ (or vital essence, if you will) of the body of Taiwan.
The comparison between ‘chi’ and the body politic is not that far off, really. I’ll say it again; as boisterous as they may be, Taiwanese are not contentious by nature. Harmony is a part of their heritage and has served as an admirable buffer to cushion the blows suffered in the international arena.
Previously, Taiwan enjoyed real economic and political prosperity beginning in the 1960s. Under the nuclear umbrella, entrepreneurs were able to provide America and a large part of the world with goods “Made in Taiwan.” That changed 25 years ago with the US recognition of the PRC and then rapid ejection from the UN. Certainly, the umbrella is still there and few, I suspect, seriously dispute the fact that Taiwan is indeed a nation, albeit persona non grata.
Despite that shock to the system, Taiwanese were able to continue on, even thrive, within a much more constricted international framework. Then, the PRC could not have really invaded Taiwan any more than the Taiwanese army might have regained control of the mainland. (Not so, now, at least for the Chinese.) From that time, Taiwan started to evolve far beyond the intricacies of ‘simple’ industrialization. Nevertheless, in the intervening 25 years, Taiwanese had nearly completed the forging of a new identity based upon cooperation and inclusiveness.
The DPP has forced a different kind of crisis of identity for Taiwanese (as well as the Chinese) during this election cycle, not that it might have ever been avoided. Here, I specifically include of all peoples living here in Taiwan for just as surely as there are the Taiwanese speakers of Chinese exclusively there are those who also speak Taiyu, the dialect of Fujian Province in China.
Chen has opened a very real political and socio-cultural rift by playing off the “ben shen-ren” (the people who lived in Taiwan prior to 1949 and the “wai sheng-ren” (people who arrived after 1949) in this hotly contested election. In effect, if some were to disagree with Chen’s policies then they were labeled as one of those “following the Chinese path” (“Zhong gong tong liu ren”).
This is bigotry and smacks of the kind of ‘racial card’ so often played in American politics. It is unacceptable. When seen in this light, the previous conclusions of seeing the KMT supporters as being simply sad sac, bad losers fail.
There is no doubt in my mind that Lien and Soong are playing this particular ‘counter’ trump card of inclusive nationalism for all it is cynical worth. I can still applaud and support those who did assemble today. Watching Ma Yi-jiu and so many others (on the TV) sing the national anthem was the clearest statement to date of their ‘Taiwaneseness’ and patriotism and refutation of jingoism.
Democracy in Taiwan is anything but dead. It remains to be seen if President Chen can restore the rhythmic thrum of harmony to this island nation.
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