Two small VCDs are driving pro-China unificationists crazy. They are causing People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
Soong and his fellow travellers' crying and weeping and their frightening attitudes, threatening to bring lawsuits and confiscate published materials, makes one wonder if they know what age they are living in. They still naively believe that they are living in the martial law era of the two Chiangs (the late presidents Chiang Kai-shek [
Thanks to the history of control exercised by the two Chiangs, the media has been more or less dominated by a minority of "new resident" media with die-hard ideologies. Some of these people support the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the PFP or the New Party. Some are fellow travellers of the communists and some frequently offend the Taiwanese because of their own ethnic prejudices. Such phenomena did not occur just under the two Chiangs; they have been the main source of social disorder ever since former president Lee Teng-hui (
For example, on the evening of Nov. 5, at about 10pm, almost every TV news station, including Formosa Television, broadcast a farewell ceremony for Soong May-ling (
Although Taiwan has entered the democratic era, many media, from newspapers and television to radio, still act as the hatchet men of the forces remaining from the Chiangs' era. The most common example is the way both of the country's pro-China newspapers often mobilize journalists and columnists from a special ethnic group, and use articles written by authors and academics of that same group, to create rumors by using obscure references such as "It is said," "It is reported" and "A certain top level official points out." This method has long been used to make libelous statements against and criticize local politicians and "Taiwan" awareness.
TV shows such as those hosted by Lee Tao (
A common scene on such shows is the guests from a certain ethnic group, who almost always are in a majority, together with the host, who is of the same group, openly pressuring the Taiwanese guests, who are in the minority. Sometimes every guest is a member of that certain ethnic group, and together they sing of the demise of Taiwan.
In fact, on the News Night Club (
Radio shows are just the same. From the time you turn your receiver on in the morning, you will hear show hosts from a certain ethnic group hard at work at their brainwashing mission, constantly "educating" the public to hate local politicians.
In the past few years, several shows with mainlander actors imitating local politicians have been broadcast on TV. Using the pretext of freedom of speech, local politicians are slandered. An actor, who in his role as "Lee Tsu-hsi" (
It is ironic that these people for many years have been directing ethnic struggle through the media, often claiming that other ethnic groups have been playing to the ethnicity complex when they are the ones really doing so. They ignore the fact that history will inevitably judge them. The sheer shamelessness of these people is frightening.
In fact, if we leave aside the statements made by these people, and just look at Article 5 of the Employment Service Act (
Although this ugly ethnic struggle has been going on for many years, some people from the blue camp's so-called "localization faction" participating in call-in shows not only disregard the fact of this struggle, but actually help the bad guys by tolerating the irrationality of that struggle. History has already judged former KMT vice chairman Wang Ching-wei (
Most of the local politicians who have been slandered and libelled by these unificationist media are magnanimous. They don't stoop to arguing with the people engaged in this ethnic struggle. A majority of the Taiwanese are also tolerant -- in fact too tolerant, which has allowed the old lies to be acted out repeated, almost turning this country into a nation of lies.
Many Taiwanese are no longer able accept such media behavior. They are turning to the Internet to voice their discontent. The Special Report VCDs are merely part of the first wave of counterattacks.
Steve Chen is an associate professor in the statistics department at Tamkang University.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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