Spinning Class Conflict as "Ethnic Conflict"

Spinning Class Conflict as "Ethnic Conflict"
United Daily New editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)
A Translation
August 28, 2007

While Chen Shui-bian was in Honduras doling out billions in aid, Chang Chun-hsiung was bickering with farmers in Hualien and Taitung until he was red in the face. His cabinet had reneged on its promise to provide 50,000 NT in emergency relief to farmers for every five hectares of land they owned. While the head of state was overseas throwing money around, playing Daddy Warbucks, the premier was back on the island catching flak from disaster stricken farmers. The contrast between the two scenarios was the height of irony.

The public watched as Chen Shui-bian opened wide and bit into a Taiwan guava grown in Honduras, and give a big thumbs up. It also remembered that the Chen regime forbade cross Straits agriculture exchanges. Even the shipping of Taiwan fruit to the mainland was ruthlessly blocked. Taiwan melon growers moan about flood damage. Pomelo growers groan about wind damage. Chen Shui-bian meanwhile is grinning from ear to ear, because Taiwan guavas have been successfully grown in South America. One can't help feeling one is in the Twilight Zone. Let's not forget that just before his departure, Chen allowed the import of ractopamine-contaminated US pork as a gesture of goodwill to Washington. By contrast, even mainland China forbade the import of ractopamine-laden US pork.

With his domestic approval rating at new lows, Chen Shui-bian hoped to use the pomp and circumstance of state visits to reaffirm his status as head of state. While Taiwan was inundated by floodwaters, caught up in the ractopamine-contaminated US pork dispute, and its farms suffering severe losses, Chen Shui-bian was scattering dollar bills along the way. Schoolchildren back home cannot afford nutritious lunches. Yet their parents must donate 30,000 computers to poor children in Honduras. No wonder villagers in rural Taiwan feel deprived. Why is Chen Shui-bian so generous to foreign allies, but so niggardly toward Taiwan's farmers?

The Democratic Progressive Party bills itself as a "native political authority." It counts on the farm vote to maintain its long term power. Yet the Democratic Progressive Party's relationship with the farm vote is peculiar, to say the least. It professes solidarity with farmers based on class origins. But in its bones, the DPP is a party of the capitalist class. It merely exploits peasants as political tools in its ersatz "Taiwanese, not Chinese" identity politics.

Every time an election rolls around, the Democratic Progressive Party pays lip service to its grass roots. But in truth the Democratic Progressive Party is in bed with the heads of major industries, big business, and financial groups. The Democratic Progressive Party leadership is drawn from attorneys, doctors, landlords, petty capitalists, and out of favor politicians. It is essentially a bourgeoise political organization. Even members of academia have trouble getting their foot in the door. What room is there for lowly peasants? The Democratic Progressive Party has neither the will nor the way to remedy the economic marginalization and hollowing out of Taiwan's countryside. Its only farm policy is to foment rural discontent, to get farmers to perceive their social disadvantage as an "ethnic disadvantage." That allows the DPP to evade the issue of class, and frame a class conflict as an ethnic conflict.

We must realize that the relationship between farmers and the government underwent a major change during the past 60 years. Many years ago the Kuomintang government implemented its "375 Rent Reduction" policy and its "Homestead Act," by which "those who work the land, will be given the land." Nearly 300,000 tenant farmer households benefitted from the KMT's policies. With the liberation of the farmer, the landlords and the Kuomintang became bitter enemies. But tenant farmers became the Kuomintang's supporters. Subsequent policy changes, by which agriculture subsidized fledgling industries, nelgected farmers' rights and interests, and the political climate in the countryside changed. The Democratic Progressive Party seized the opportunity to get its foot in the door. But it never had any intention of bettering the farmers' economic plight or elevating their social status. Its only goal was to incite farmers to hate "mainlanders."

Chen Shui-bian has been in power for seven years. He has enjoyed a virtual lock on the farm vote. Yet he has been at a total loss to do anything about the depressed state of the island's agricultural industry. Recent rezoning of agricultural land, making it available for commercial development, was billed as a "Benefits for All" policy. In fact it was merely another way of benefitting the bourgeoisie. What help is it to agriculture and rural development? Taiwan pig farmers are still recovering from the hoof and mouth disease debacle that occurred several years ago. Yet Chen Shui-bian, caving in to US pressure, rashly allowed the import of ractopamine-contaminated US pork, adding insult to injury. While visiting foreign countries, he scatters dollar bills like confetti. But when confronted with the plight of Taiwan's rural underclass, all he is willing to do is dole out "Subsidies to Elderly Farmers."

In years past, rural Taiwan had the capacity to absorb urban unemployment. But that capacity has been lost. News from the grassroots tells of drug dealing, theivery, robberies, and even murders, revealing that rural Taiwan is undergoing the same degeneration as the rest of society. Farm boy Yang Ju-men, with his "white rice bombs," exploded the Chen regime's lies long ago.

While Chang Chun-hsiung was nickle and diming farmers who demanded disaster relief, Chen Shui-bian was in Honduras, using public funds to donate 3,000 shiny new computer classrooms, equipped with 30,000 computers, in his own name. Has Chen Shui-bian forgotten that Taiwan also has poor people? That rural Taiwan is also on the wrong side of the digitial divide? That rural youth lack computers? A president who boasts that "Taiwan has embraced the world" has indeed embraced the world, and gotten its pockets picked in the process. Having bribed overseas allies for the sake of empty vanity, how will he look Taiwan's farmers in the eye?

農村變奏：「階級論述」變成「族群論述」
【聯合報╱社論】
2007.08.28 04:32 am

當陳水扁在宏都拉斯一出手就送出百億金援，張俊雄卻正在國內為他有沒有允諾過每公頃五萬的災害補助，和花東災農爭得面紅耳赤。國家元首在國外撒錢當大爺，行政院長卻在島內冷對災農苦情，內冷外熱的對照畫面，真是諷刺已極。

人們看到，陳水扁大口咬著在宏國栽出的台灣芭樂，一手比出「讚」的手勢；但也令人想起，莫說扁政府不准兩岸農業交流，連台灣水果輸出大陸，也曾大力阻擋。現在，當台灣瓜農為水患叫苦連天、柚農因風損欲哭無淚時，陳水扁卻為南美試種成功的台灣芭樂笑逐顏開，能不令人有時空錯置的感慨？更別忘了，他臨行前政策性開放瘦肉精向美國示好，但連中國大陸也禁止美瘦肉精豬肉進口。

國內聲望低落的陳水扁，欲藉外邦的掌聲來抬高身為元首的虛榮，這是可以理解的心情。但是，當台灣陷於水災，又捲入瘦肉精爭議，農村重創，陳水扁卻沿路大撒鈔票，而在國內學童吃不起營養午餐時，還捐贈三萬台電腦給宏國貧童，無疑已在台灣農村形成了「相對剝奪感」。陳水扁何以如此厚外邦，而薄台灣農村？

號稱「本土政權」，又長期靠著農業縣市維持其基本盤，但民進黨與農村農民的關係卻十分耐人玩味。若穿透「本土」的表象，民進黨在骨子裡其實是一個資產階級政黨，與其說它對農村懷有「階級關懷」，不如說它一直是將農村視為「族群政治」的工具。

每到選舉，民進黨在表象上是草根支持者；但在現實政治中，民進黨與工商企業、財團金主勾肩搭背的親密關係，那才是幕後的真相。其實以律師、醫師、地主、小資本家，乃至早年所謂「失意政客」為核心的民進黨領導階層，本質上是一個資產階級的組合；即連學界人士都不易插足廁身，遑論有基層農民與聞的空間。於是，對於台灣農村在「經濟階級」上的邊緣化與空洞化，民進黨根本無心亦無力改善；它的農村政策只是煽動農村，要農民將「階級弱勢」解讀為「族群弱勢」，亦即以「族群論述」來建立農村的政治角色，而迴避了「階級因素」。

要論農民與政治的關係，其實六十年來大有一番滄桑變化。當年，國民黨政府實施「三七五減租」及「公地放領」的耕者有其田政策，近卅萬戶佃農受益；農民解放，地主與國民黨成了世仇，但佃農成了國民黨的支持者。嗣後，在經濟發展走向「以農養工」的過程中，農民的權益逐漸受到忽視，農村的政治氛圍亦漸趨變化；民進黨於此時乘虛而入，但並未著意改善農村的階級處境，只是煽起了農村的族群仇恨。

陳水扁執政七年，坐擁農村鐵票，對台灣農村的凋敝和整個農業部門的委頓卻束手無策。包括最近農田釋出供作建地的「利多」政策，基本上也只是著眼於圖利資產階級的綁樁手段；從農業與農村之發展看，助益何在？尤其，台灣養豬戶在遭逢前幾年的口蹄疫大難之後，正待休養生息；但陳水扁卻為了迎合美國，輕率要開放瘦肉精使用，這不啻又是雪上加霜。出訪外國，只要撒錢就行；但面對台灣農村的階級困境，難道只是加發老農年金即可？

前些年台灣農村有吸收都會失業子弟的作用，但現在連這項功能都逐漸失去。農村基層不斷傳出吸毒、竊盜，乃至殺人弒親的犯罪事件，顯示台灣農村已隨著社會變遷而變調。離農子弟楊儒門，其實早用白米炸彈爆破了扁政府對農民的謊言。

當張俊雄在和農民稱斤論兩談三塊五塊的災後補助時，陳水扁正在宏國用公帑以他個人之名捐贈了三千所亮麗電腦教室，共三萬台電腦。陳水扁可記得台灣也有窮人，台灣農村一樣有數位落差問題，還有許多農村子弟沒有電腦可用？這個高唱「台灣走出去」的總統，的確把台灣資源拿出去大肆分送了；只是，他在海外賄賂外邦換來了個人的虛榮，卻有何面目歸來面對台灣的農村？