When 600,000 people gathered along Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei to vent their anger at the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and flashed a laser image onto the Presidential Office building that read “incompetent,” I recalled US author Henry David Thoreau, who said in his essay “Civil Disobedience,” published in 1849, that “all men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.”
After the public expressed its anger at the Ma administration’s China-leaning policies by way of concrete action, Ma shamelessly remarked that his policies were on the right track and persisted with inviting Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yulin (陳雲林) to Taiwan without showing any regard for the potential safety threats posed by Chinese missiles, epidemic diseases and tainted food products. Thoreau’s words thus provide food for thought.
To provoke Chen and express dissatisfaction with the Ma administration’s cross-strait policies, the Democratic Progressive Party has proposed to mobilize the public to stage a protest over several nights at Yuanshan Park along with other large rallies. As citizens of Taiwan, there is actually a lot more we can do.
According to the theory of civil disobedience championed by Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi, as long as the anti-Chen rallies conform to principles of public expression of opinion, non-violence and willingness to accept punishment — as there may be violations of traffic rules or the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法) — such protests can be viewed as a concrete manifestation of civil disobedience by the Taiwanese public.
For instance, we could mobilize millions of vehicles such as private cars, taxis, trucks, buses and even scooters or bicycles with national flags and protest banners to paralyze the traffic surrounding the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport when Chen arrives in Taiwan. Or we could block the traffic around the Grand Hotel or other hotels in Taipei to make Chen’s life difficult during his visit.
These actions would give Chen a sense of the fury the Taiwanese public feels against the Chinese government. If this happened, the provocation campaign could be considered successful.
In addition, during Chen’s five-day visit to Taiwan, residents of the greater Taipei area could also hang our national flag outside their homes and put up posters and banners that say “Taiwan and China: One Country on Each Side of the Taiwan Strait” to express opposition to the “one China” formula. While there may be instances where the Ma government cowardly puts away our national flags during Chen’s visit, the public can put up our flags to show patriotism and speak out against Ma’s phony patriotism. This is another way we can practice “civil disobedience.”
Chen Yi-chung is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at Tunghai University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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