Social media have for the past two weeks been on fire with topics such as sexual harassment, the alleged drugging of children at a New Taipei City preschool and Taiwanese traffic being a “living hell” for pedestrians.
These issues all concern individual rights and welfare, and affect Taiwanese regardless of their political affiliation, as they are structural issues that can befall anyone. Since the issues are mostly associated with long-term gender inequality, labor, economy and culture, politicians tend to give them a wide berth as they cannot be solved in the short term.
As these are long-term structural issues, examples could rear their ugly heads during any politician’s tenure, regardless of political affiliation. Therefore, when such incidents happen, the public should use the opportunity to put incumbent politicians to the test, to see whether they can propose solutions to rectify the situation and address underlying problems.
However, what we see more often is that politicians tend to say these issues are “historical” in nature as an excuse to avoid reform, or to resort to “what aboutism” and point similar blunders by the opposition party as an excuse, or even worse, divert the public’s attention with other issues.
As each person is part of society, there are things that they have to take into their hands to address long-term issues and prevent their rights being ignored.
One way is to keep themselves updated and follow up on issues, so that elected officials know the needs and requirements of voters.
To prevent people from being led by the nose by media framing, they could look at the trending issues on social media platforms in the following ways:
For issues that are regarded as “historical,” people should bear in mind that every incumbent politician, whether a civil representative or official, has the responsibility to bring about reform, instead of pointing fingers at others or arguing how the issue came to be.
If a politician says that only cities under the governance of a certain party would have such issues, or accuses the party in charge of another city or county as doing an even worse job, they are evading responsibility and are waiting for the next issue to come along and divert the public’s attention.
Next, as the saying goes, “actions speak louder than words.” People should monitor what actions politicians take to address issues, and not take their word for it. They need to see whether they have led constructive debate on the matter or promoted actions that facilitate change. If they only came up with a slogan, but did not flesh it out with substantive proposals, people would know that they are only wheedling the electorate.
Further, people should avoid falling into ideological traps. Some would frame issues as an ideological conflict between supporters of different parties, for example by contending that supporting women’s rights means oppressing men and traditional values, so only those with leftist and anti-capitalist sentiments would say yes to childcare, or that fighting for pedestrians’ rights is bullying drivers and storeowners.
Such discussions that incite division and hinder reform also help politicians get away with not fulfilling their duties and responsibilities. Unfortunately, it usually takes certain people’s sacrifice or major accidents before such issues get properly addressed.
However, if people can prevent getting distracted and keep on pressing issues that need to be tackled, then the victims’ tears and blood would not have been shed in vain.
Chang Yueh-han is an adjunct assistant professor in Shih Hsin University’s Department of Journalism.
Translated by Rita Wang
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