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Welcome migrants, but
resist colonists
By Lee Min-yung 李敏勇
The “September strife” involving President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) coincides with widening controversy over demolitions
in Dapu Borough (大埔) in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南). Many social
movements are saying that the government that should be demolished instead.
Angry protesters have taken to throwing shoes at images of Ma and other
politicians, denouncing Ma, laughing at him or besieging his office.
Meanwhile, director Yang Li-chou’s (楊力州 ) documentary film Bridge Over Troubled
Water (拔一條河) is moving many viewers to cry and laugh at the same time. The film
records the lives of people in then-Kaohsiung County’s isolated Jiashian
Township (甲仙) in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot and the floods it caused in
August 2009. This tale is interwoven with the story of a tug-of-war contest
between teams of rural youth, many of whom were born to immigrant mothers.
There is, after all, a big difference between colonists and migrants. The
“September strife,” which has become a prolonged “autumn turmoil,” was launched
by a colonial regime to settle accounts with the accomplices who helped it
consolidate power. Meanwhile, countless women who came to Taiwan from Southeast
Asia to marry Taiwanese men are caring for their families or toiling in the
fields. To use a Taiwanese turn of phrase, migrant spouses lay eggs, while the
colonists only give us chicken shit.
Ma comes from a family of spies, and he is said to have spied on his fellow
students from Taiwan while studying in the US. He has a knack for denigrating
others, while whitewashing his own performance. He has no concept of democracy,
but he enjoys the fruits of Taiwan’s democratic movement, to which he
contributed nothing.
Ma was elected president on a wave of unrealistic expectations, but he has
turned out to be an incompetent and malicious political hack. He sees himself as
heir to the ruling circle that came to Taiwan following the end of World War II
fleeing from the Chinese Communist Party.
The forces that Ma represents cannot countenance the prospects raised by
democratic reforms following the reigns of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek
(蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). They are determined to restore the old regime
and snuggle up to communist China.
Compare the colonist Ma with the migrants who appear in the film. Colonists are
here to exploit the land, but migrants are here to cultivate it. Ma’s Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) often tries to open rifts between communities by saying
that all Taiwan’s people, including the Hoklo and Hakka-speaking Taiwanese —
everyone but the Aborigines — came to Taiwan from somewhere else.
It would never occur to the KMT that those who arrived in Taiwan from other
places are also divided into colonists and migrants. Migrants arrive and settle
down, while colonists come and go like the wind. Immigrant wives get busy
“laying eggs,” and their children will grow up to do the same, but the colonists
just dump more chicken shit.
The key question is not where you come from, but where you are going. Colonists
should be rejected, but migrants should be welcomed. Among Taiwanese
politicians, there are some who choose to hang around the KMT colonist regime
and speak in its name. They expect to be rewarded with a share in the regime’s
power. However, even if they get into the top ranks, like Wang did, all they can
do if they get stabbed in the back is keep smiling. If the Taiwanese KMT does
not turn over a completely new leaf, the Chinese KMT will always see them as a
corrupted lot who can be used as scapegoats.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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