Issues of transitional justice have been in the headlines this year. There has been widespread attention paid to the 228 Incident, the White Terror era, the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stolen assets and other historical and political injustices still yet to be resolved. This is encouraging, but there has regrettably been a lack of concern for the pressing problem of social inequality and injustice for weaker working class groups, such as farmers and fishermen.
Historical and political transitional justice is obviously important, but I also think that transitional justice for all social and economic levels is critical to ensuring that people can enjoy a fundamental degree of respect, safety and security.
Farmers, fishermen and manual laborers are certainly some of society's most disadvantaged workers. Yet the only time that political parties pay attention to their hopes and difficulties is during legislative and presidential elections.
At the beginning of this year, the Council for Labor Affairs said it was considering raising the minimum wage. Workers were happy to see that 10 years of appealing for a minimum wage hike might finally produce results, but they also feared that the council's proposal would turn out to be just another pre-election ploy.
Legislators recently voted to overturn a Cabinet order last year that reduced premium interest rates on retirement savings for former teachers, military personnel and public servants. Yet the way the legislators danced around the issue for almost a year before taking action revealed that their real concern was winning votes.
Former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) recently said that if elected president, he would increase subsidies for elderly farmers, while Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) -- a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful -- immediately agreed that the plan was feasible.
But what farmers and fishermen don't understand is why these proposed subsidies and incentives, which were sent to the legislature long ago, have just now been addressed.
There have been some indications that the Taiwan Provincial Farmers Association, a major supporter and campaigner for the pan-blue camp, wants to unite farmer and fishermen organizations to form a "Taiwan Farmers Party" to campaign for legislator-at-large seats.
Perhaps this has been motivated by disgruntled KMT members who failed to be nominated as legislative candidates. Or perhaps it's a reaction to the way the KMT cooperated with China in recent years to help Taiwanese farmers export bananas to China -- believing that the Chinese consumer market would save Taiwanese agricultural exports -- and which ended up creating serious losses for farmers.
In either case, the possible formation of such a party shows that farmers are impatient with being ignored and manipulated for so long.
What kind of system fails to protect retired fishermen and farmers after a life of strenuous labor, but offers military personnel, teachers and public servants 18 percent interest on their retirement savings?
We must work toward social justice by first devising a more structured approach to caring for disadvantaged farmers and fishermen.
People have had enough of politicians taking only sporadic interest in their concerns, of bandying issues around as election tools, and merely pretending that they care about real reform.
Margot Chen is a research fellow at Taiwan Advocates, a think tank initiated by former president Lee Teng-hui.
Translated by Marc Langer
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