Sir,
The recent screening of the film "10 Conditions Of Love" was attended by some controversy over its' rescheduling at the Kaohsiung Film Festival.
It is understandable that Festival organizers and others would be irritated by mayor Chu Chen's decision to reschedule the showing of the film for the sake of the potential tourism benefits from mainland China.
Moreover, there are many who would highlight the decision as illustrating the nature of Beijing's tactics of political suppression - direct in Xianjiang, where it can more easily prevail by overt force, yet indirect in Taiwan, where "softer" means of coercion are more likely to succeed.
What has been consistently missing from your pages is penetration beyond this facile level of analysis.
The fact of the matter is that the hive ideology thriving in Beijing is being unwittingly aided and abetted by its' very opponents here in Taiwan - especially in the south.
The Democratic Progressive Party represents, if it can be said to represent anything at all, the use of government power to shape society in reference to various political standards e.g. "democratic", "environmental", "progressive", "nationalist" etc...
The Communists in Beijing, similarly represent government power to shape society in reference to other political standards - but with a numerically much greater degree of power at their disposal.
All three political parties - Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, Chinese Nationalist Party and China's Central Communist Party - operate according to the same basic principles of thought and action although they of course aim at different strategic ends.
The tone deaf chiming of the oxymoronic terms "democracy" and "freedom" in these pages and elsewhere muffles these other harmonics within which the term "freedom" has no place whatsoever.
It is high time you got somebody on your reporting or editorial staff who can integrate the concepts "democratic" and "communist" with regard to their essential difference from the concept "freedom".
Yours sincerely,
Michael Fagan
(Sent: Friday 21st August. Published in the Taipei Times....? August 20 something?)
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