|
EDITORIAL: Real
academics fight for the nation
For a government that supposedly admires Confucian values, President Ma Ying-jeou’s
(馬英九) administration has lately been doing an abominable job in its treatment of
the few academics left in Taiwan who have not sold their souls to mercantilism
or to China.
There are worrying signs that the government, led by Ma, who was recently
“re-elected” as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman in a “democratic”
process that managed to be both farcical and illusory, is tightening the screws
on dissent, while growing ever more distant from the public.
In recent months, the process of theft and destruction of people’s property by
the authorities has accelerated, from the outrage of Dapu Borough (大埔), Miaoli
County, last week, to the Huaguang Community (華光) earlier this year, where more
rounds of destruction are planned next month. No matter what victims and their
supporters did, the government ignored their pleas and proceeded with grabbing
whatever it wanted.
The government has also intensified interactions with Beijing and is now forcing
through deals that are leaving even KMT lawmakers in the dark. Good little
soldiers that they are, KMT legislators are too afraid to stand up to a chairman
who is reportedly rather despised within his party, and who insiders say did not
even get close to receiving the 91 percent of votes that he claims he did in
Saturday’s vote. Simultaneously, the Democratic Progressive Party has been
unable, or unwilling, to provide clear alternatives to the KMT administration,
fresh ideas or concrete action.
What is left, therefore, is people with ideas and ideals — students, academics,
artists and ordinary people who cannot stand idle as the authorities slowly
dismember the liberties that were established through the spilt blood of their
forebears.
University professors have stepped up to the plate in recent years, sometimes by
supporting young activists, or by taking the lead. Police officers occasionally
complain that protests get a bit rowdy because participants are encouraged to do
so by their professors, but at the end of the day, they should realize that a
few bruises sustained during clashes with students is a much less serious fate
than seeing one’s country increasingly start to mirror its authoritarian
neighbor across the Strait in its beliefs and practices — an outcome, it should
be said, that a growing number of academics in the nation seem willing to live
with.
Taiwanese should therefore cherish the selfless efforts of academics such as
Professor Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮) of National Chengchi University’s Department of
Land Economics, a man who has been on the front lines of the battle between the
residents of Dapu and the triumvirate of greed, lies and corruption.
Every Taiwanese who wants to continue to live in a society where democracy and
the rule of law are upheld should be concerned when people like Hsu, a gentle
and respected academic, are dragged away by police and charged with “endangering
public safety” for shouting slogans during a protest against Ma.
There are others like Hsu, who are increasingly being targeted by the
authorities and media conglomerates that are complicit in the crimes being
perpetrated against Taiwanese society.
However, the threats of lawsuits, fines and jail terms will not silence those
academics who know that they have a role to play as real educators; as men and
women who have the mental ability and training to cut through the lies that the
government has been feeding people.
Unlike the legions of Taiwanese academics who long ago lost the right to bear
that title by siding with power and money, real academics, those with integrity,
know they have a responsibility to society to act as role models for the future
leaders and citizens of the nation.
Taiwan is at a difficult juncture and needs more people who will stand up to
defend their ideals, people with moral gumption who do not buy the bankrupt
argument that sports, the arts or academia have nothing to do with politics.
|
