After more than a decade, Western scholars began to study the process of democracy in Taiwan. They compared Taiwan to China, compared Taiwan to other countries, and consulted with political leaders and businesspeople. Local and foreign scholars closely followed elections to see what insights could be found. Taiwan's security and its role in international relations became the subject of books and academic articles. Most of these works were directed at the political or economic elite.
Jerome Keating's book "Taiwan: The Struggles of a Democracy" is an English-language study of democracy aimed at young Taiwanese. Keating realizes that the lessons of democracy must be taught to a new generation. According to him, these young people, the so-called Strawberry Generation, are "often blind and/or oblivious to the oppressive past that their parents endured." These young people are likened to strawberries because they look fashionable and have had relatively comfortable childhoods. They share another, less favorable trait with strawberries: They bruise easily when faced with pressure.
Other commentators have described the political culture of this generation: It claims to have a Taiwanese identity--as opposed to Chinese--but feels little responsibility to engage itself in political action to promote constitutional change or to bring the past to trial. They grew up without having to deal with the hardships of their elders.
Keating's book recognizes that the youth has fled from newspapers and media to blogs and Web sites for their self-expression and discussion of ideas, culture and politics. A relatively brief read, his book consists of 44 chapters with an average of four pages each. Keating brings a refreshing style as well as a different approach to Taiwan's history. The chapters read like mini-lectures. Each chapter takes up a separate problem of historical analysis regarding the development of democracy in Taiwan. At the end of a chapter, readers will find a list of questions, classroom-style, that will stimulate further discussion. The language is highly readable and at times ironic and satirical.
An expatriate who has lived and taught in Taiwan for nearly two decades, Keating follows a wonderful lesson plan. His major goal is to expose the lies and denials of the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang, the two major political parties: "The brunt of the criticism will fall on the KMT, which has the longest tradition of hyperbole in its claims to be for democracy yet the shortest commitment to results." While acknowledging that the DPP played a significant role in the nation's democratic advances, it does not escape his criticism. Keating writes that "the DPP has also shown itself susceptible to the same hypocrisy, corruption and abuses of power as the KMT."
From the beginning, Keating gives readers a clear idea of what to expect: "This book pulls no punches in its judgment of how slowly democracy was achieved in Taiwan." He is critical of the current academic writing about Taiwan, claiming that its methodology is flawed, questions are irrelevant and message is muddied. "This book eschews political correctness. Many histories of Taiwan claim objectivity and with politically correct tact claim to represent all sides without making judgments," Keating writes, adding that "these books are like pabulum and factual milquetoast: by presenting a plethora of facts they seek to free their authors of any responsibility of making judgments."
Taiwan's struggles for democracy resonate through the quarrels and divisions breaking out within its political system today. As information about the consequences of martial law became public, many groups and individuals demanded that the government open its files. People wanted full disclosure of the authorities responsible for carrying out the oppression of intellectuals, politicians and pioneers of democracy.
Thanks to the recent release of information about Taiwan's history, Keating has uncovered a treasure trove of documentation that paves a broken and tortured path toward freedom. The text provides evidence for a surprising discovery: "The pursuit of democracy, free expression and representative participation had already been present in Taiwan in the late nineteenth century."
Keating explores the past by introducing Lai Ho, the "father of new Taiwan literature." Ho criticizes the history of Taiwan written by Lien Heng, grandfather of KMT Honorary Chairman Lien Chan, saying it is pro-China and dismissive of Taiwan's democracy. Instead of painting Japanese colonialism with an ideological brush of hatred, Keating points out that Japan had allowed Taiwan to begin forming a representative government, build up its economy and develop a middle class with democratic values.
In an interlude during this discussion, Keating compares post-World War II Germany and Japan with the KMT's occupation of Taiwan. With their own government ruling their own people, Germany and Japan quickly threw off fascism, developed democratic governments and rebuilt their economies. In the evocative phrase of U.S. professor John Dower, Japan "embraced" its defeat and Germany came to terms with its past.
The KMT did neither, according to Keating. It maintained martial law until 1987, confiscated the property of the Taiwanese, and carried out intimidation, murder and executions against the Taiwanese and even mainlanders who opposed the regime. Unlike the German and Japanese democratization, the KMT used martial law and a fascist ideology to maintain its "power, privilege, and entitlement."
"The true shame of the ROC's lost U.N. seat" is an excellent expose of how Taiwan sacrificed its U.N. representation to the "one-China" ideology, and the refusal to allow the Taiwanese to have a voice in their own future. Keating's narrative of this international debacle combines political and moral issues. He writes as if he is a psychologist trying to explain to the leadership that they are locked in a self-destructive path that will result in disaster for their children. His argument is made even more poignant because it is a cry to the young Strawberry Generation to take heed. Their future will be doomed if they fail to understand the past.
The most creative section of the book describes how the KMT lost the presidential election in 2004. The attempted assassination on President Chen Shui-bian turned the tables on the KMT and allowed him to slip by with a miniscule majority of 30,000 votes. Keating, originally an engineer responsible for technology transfers, flexes his quantitative muscles to study Chen's numbers. Rather than obsessing about the 30,000 extra votes, Keating states that from 1996-2004, the period of three presidential elections, the "KMT lost or failed to gain approximately 4,197,384 votes." After displaying charts and figures on the various elections and candidates, Keating concludes that Chen did not win by 30,000 votes but by a landslide, totaling over four million. Most of these votes came from KMT constituents who had broken away from the party over the years.
Even if the KMT had won, it would have been by a marginal amount. The victory would have still been a disaster because of the substantial loss of voters. The chapter ends with a therapist's chastisement: Unable to deny its loss, the KMT could not let their followers find out that in eight years over four million votes, one third of the voting public, had lost faith in their leadership and abandoned them.
The book contains thumbnail biographies that will surely surprise the reader with new information and challenge accepted historical interpretation. They include important but relatively unknown heroes such as Su Beng, Kuo Yu-hsin and Lai Ho. Although Keating criticizes Chiang Kai-shek, Ma Ying-jeou and Lien Chan, he is not cliched in his remarks. He adds a sensibility that is drawn from his many years of observation and immersion in Taiwan's democratic development.
Keating ends where he began, with an appeal to the Strawberry Generation. Many of them had been his students, his friends and the children of Taiwan's old-timers. With the kindness of an uncle, Keating urges them to uphold the law, defend freedoms of speech and press. He encourages them to honor their past by their performance in the present and future. Now is the time, Keating sermonizes, for them to show that they are not "strawberries." Speaking directly to them, he concludes: "You have joined the struggles of your ancestors. You and only you can determine your identity and maintain your democracy."
Copyright 2007 by Richard C. Kagan
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