Green Camp Can Not Eschew Ke Wen-je's Question in Reply

 Green Camp Can Not Eschew Ke Wen-je's Question in Reply

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

April 5, 2017

 Translation of an Except

Taipei City Mayor Ke Wen-je said straightforwardly that Taiwan's greatest problem was "If I do not see eye to eye with you, I will get rid of you." He believed that "the de-Chiang Kai-shek movement" had no way to solve the real problems of Taiwan.

Looking back at the four centuries of Taiwan's history, it experienced various types of rulers; in every sector of history, there were victims. If we discuss it in detail, basically no communal groups could luckily escape accusations of being the victimizers. Just as Ke Wen-je has said, if everyone is obsessed with his or her own experience, the country will become more and more divisive; not only that, probably no one can be exempted from the role of victimizer, leaving Taiwan's current predicament more complicated and more insolvable.

When the DPP, the self-styled representatives of locals, persecute the KMT, the so-called "rulers from abroad," the DPP itself, on the other hand, has at the same time become the target of protest and struggle of the aborigines. Historically, those who harmed the aborigines the most were precisely the Minnans (southern Fukienese) and Hakkas, who crossed the Taiwan Strait during the Manchu Dynasty, and the Minnans and Hakkas are precisely the communal groups the DPP has always singled out as suffering from a victimization complex.

Transformational justice is a fundamental value that a mature society must fulfill,  but it does not mean that everything in the past has to be negated, even less so should we utilize the sins of historical figures to serve present day politics as a pretext to oppress political foes.

Coming back to the original point of Ke Wen-je's question, both the Green camp and the entire Taiwan society should be conscious that currently Taiwan's greatest problem is still the economy. Faced with the rise of China's economy, how to shake the ever downward sinking stagnant economy, avoiding the fact that young people scramble to find opportunities on the Mainland, is precisely the true road for survival of Taiwan’s society. All efforts of political figures should aim at improving people's livelihood; the people should also use this as the only standard for choosing and critiquing political parties and political figures.

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