0715 Congress Brawl Video on CNN

Yesterday, CNN posted a video of a severe fight in Taiwan’s congress (officially “Legislative Yuan” 立法院, Li4 Fa3 Yuan4). It is not common that Taiwanese local news being posted on CNN.

First you may want to know: what were they fighting for? It was actually the government- leading party DPP (Democracy Progress Party, 民主進步黨 or simply 民進黨) tried to promote their public policy called 前瞻計畫( Ts’ian2 Tzhan1 Tzi4 Hua4, means “provision plans”) and pass the budget program in congress, since they own more seats. And the former government KMT (Kuo Min Tang, also known as the Nationalists Party before, 國民黨） refused it and made literally every effort they can do to disrupt the process of lawmaking. So they really did their effort, though, in physical way.

And it shouldn’t be surprised to see the fight in Taiwan’s congress, however. Twenty some years ago, when DPP was just started their business in congress, they also did “whatever they can do” to protest KMT-reigning congress. After all, it was the age when Taiwan government just cancelled the censorship order, while most of the public resources were still under KMT’s control. And during that time, “the wrestling on the court” had been “fancy” to the international media.

Nevertheless, in the past twenty years, when the democracy idea getting mature on this land, somehow the politicians have got much “conservative.” For KMT side, they were the real resource controller of this country, there was no need of picking up fight in front of the sight of public; For DPP side, although they were mostly on the op-authority side, still they wanted to got rid of the notorious fame of the “peace destroyer” and build up their trustiness to the civilians. As a result, the “tradition” has been forgotten for a while.

Then things changed last year when the KMT once again lost their elections - this time was disastrously. They literally lost every side of elections, from the President seat, the mayor seats, to the power of controlling the congress. KMT, for the first time becoming the weaker side on the court, tried to find a way to be against DPP.

And this is the answer they found.

In this brawling, the moment which getting the most attention, was at this video starting, when the KMT female lawmaker 許淑華 (Shy3 Shu2 Hua2) slammed on the face of DPP female lawmaker 邱議瑩 (Chiou1 Yi4 Ying2). Both were once famous of their good-looking in political scene. Believe it or not, after the video leaked out, many supporters of KMT sent flowers or so to 許’s office to “celebrate her bravery,” praising her “nice slam” “good job” “love you”, even comparing her with the Wonder Woman. Even 中國時報, as I said before, now a pro-China newspaper, gave 許 high credit by listing several “advantages” versus 邱, claiming 許 is better choice for people.

What do you think? Well, I was instead quite appreciated by the comments to the video of people from other countries, saying that “our government needs this.” At least, I believe that a congress that fightings could be erupted is way much better than one with all silent and peace. The later one may sounds ideal, but unreal. Well that actually may be real, of course, in a country which is not allowing people have different ideas from government.