Thoughts on the Taiwan vs China problem

I don't usually talk about politics and I'm not going to make it a rule in the future to do so.
Something I learnt in History class today while we were talking about America: melting pot or salad bar.
Over-stressing multi-culturism can only create conflict. The main difference between our countries is that the governments are entirely separate entities. We are not struggling to be independent, we are struggling to throw off a lie. The government of China is working on a concept that "as long as many people say it is so, then it is so." 指鹿為馬,三人成虎.And because of various interest related issues many countries are willing to agree to this lie. This is one of the murkiest, most dishonorable and mal-intentioned hoaxes of the century. Even the Chinese government knows that it is acting in a way that is far from effective materialistically, that's why they delight in pouncing on every little attempt of Taiwan to declare independence from China - it shows that we are insecure about our true position in this matter. We're sucked into a 詭辯 on another person's game rules, this is something we are incapable of winning. What I suggest the ROC government to do is to ignore China's claims and threats and instead focus on building up economy (including equity), culture, welfare and efficiency. This not only will buy us credibility, but allow us more leverage in this issue. We shouldn't waste our time and resources fighting a senseless battle where we know we are right, but by becoming better prove taht we are who we say we are, no buts.
After writing this in my notebook, I came across an article in the newspaper talking about a new party in Taiwan made up of younger politicians espousing this idea - of lightening the issue on independence or not and focusing on the middle to left ground. (sorry I'm such a horrid translator) . Hmm... party to watch.

Medicins Sans Frontieres

Our school invited a doctor named Raymond Soong who had participated in ‘Medicins sans frontieres’ (Doctors without borders) to give a speech this Saturday. He had been inspired to participate after he had viewed a photo show in Taipei made by the organization and (by chance) encountered doctors from said organization while he was trekking solo in Tibet. At the time he had just graduated from Medical school. He went on to get two years residency to build up on experience and a course in tropical diseases to qualify for a mission.
In his speech he mentioned how the AIDS problem exacerbates a country’s economical problems and creates a vicious cycle. When the life expectancy in a country goes from an average of 48 to 25, it spells disaster for the country. Parents hardly see their children grown up, and the working class is seriously cut off – being unable to form due to the lack of adults. Thus, any sort of economical growth is hindered. Having access to medicine would extend their lives at least a decade, which would allow them to see their children to adulthood and work for an extra ten years. But they usually only earn one dollar a year and the medicine has to be taken daily and continually – costing more than a dollar for each day. This becomes a no decision problem. They can’t possibly hope to afford the medicine when they can’t buy food to survive. That’s why there have been NPOs lobbying medicine companies to let go of their patent privileges and/or lower the cost of AIDS medicine.
Though the medicine for Tuberculosis is less expensive and accessible, the decision for doctors in remote areas to send Tuberculosis patients to city Tuberculosis centers for treatments is still a no decision. That is – the doctor can’t send the patient to the city for treatment. The reason is because Tuberculosis medicines have to be taken continually for about six months for total recovery. If the medicine is stopped for a while, the disease likely isn’t eradicated and may flair up in a form that has developed resistance to the current drug. This form of tuberculosis may spread in the district and by the time a Tuberculosis center is set up near or in the area it may be impossible to cure. That is the problem that currently plagues Russia’s Tuberculosis victims. Nonprofit organizations had set up shop in Russia when they were allowed and started providing medicine for Tuberculosis patients. Due to political problems they were often forced to abandon their project midway, which resulted in a great deal of less than cured patients with drug resistant bacteria dwelling in their chests. In Liberia, the interruption is usually because the patient cannot support him or herself in the city. Jobs are difficult to find in the big city, even for healthy individuals, what chance does that leave for those who are sick? A lot of times patients run home because of this and the treatment has to be interrupted. So doctors are faced with the difficult decision of not sending the patients for treatment for fear of the long-term consequences it may have on the Tuberculosis population.
Doctor Soong stresses how we humans have such incredibly wonderful possibilities, which can often be hindered by how we often set limitations for ourselves. He says that if we truly desire to do something, we would try to surmount all obstacles in order to gain our heart’s desire. We often give ourselves excuses. But if something wants to be done, then we must set out now. Ask the practical questions – why, what, when, where, and how – instead of dwelling on the difficulties that may arise. Difficulties and sacrifice there will be, but a castle is never built by simply scheming about it. The best way to do anything is to just go ahead.
Doctor Soong also introduced a novel idea to us in his speech – the fact that aid to Africa cannot simply be about money. He says that though the people need the money, they often detest the givers that give it. Giving has to have a quality of respect – the giver respects the receiver and the receiver respects the giver. Simply giving charity isn’t something that they enjoy. They desire respect and care in the action. This reminds me of an old Chinese story that talks about a famine. A charitable man went to the place where the famine was occurring and handed out food. He saw a starving man staggering by him and called out “Here, come get food!” The starving man was angered by the charitable man’s attitude and said “I would rather starve then eat food from a rude hand.” And he did. So in our care for Africa we must not simply dispense our duty by giving them charity, attitude matters. It is a delicate and important issue when considering aid.
Though Doctor Soong says that giving is a wonderful joy, there are still many difficulties in the task as a Doctor of MSF. First of all is the disparity between ideals and facts. Despite how empowering such an ideal may be, it is drudging, difficult, extremely soul tiring work. One cannot imagine how it is until one is truly there doing it… facing the lack of resources and hands, the endless over-surge of patients and the sense that one’s work has not made as much impact is wished for. A doctor at MSF once joked that the best thing a doctor can do before he left is not to make things worst than they are. The work is important, it saves lives, but it is still very tiring on the soul. That is why most missions MSF undertakes do not involves doctors staying in areas above a year. After a year it often becomes routine, and if the doctor loses passion for the job not only is it bleak for the doctor but does no good for the patients as well. Think of it as intensive cram school and you’ll get the picture. Doctor Soong went through extremely difficult lows during his time there and almost considered quitting at a time. However, he still extended his three month trial period to a ten month mission. He says that the idea of going back to do the work is still appealing. But when he thinks about it doing it throughout his life may soon lose it’s appeal. He believes that it will be more fulfilling if he can inspire others to follow him the next time he goes back. And that is what he has been doing upon his return to Taiwan – making speeches and showing pictures of his trip to inspire the people in Taiwan to help those in countries less privileged than ours.
Finally he encouraged us to travel widely, best of all solo, and by doing so learn how to solve problems independently. He says that we should start from the easier countries, like Japan or Western Europe, and then gradually work into the more remote and difficult places, like India and Tibet. Basically I believe he is stating this from the viewpoint of one who has had parents who could support such ventures and has benefited greatly from such travels. The things we can do as people who cannot afford such adventures may be by volunteering in local benefits and programs.
Last of all his overall speech tells us that it is important to help, but we must follow our heart in this matter. Only if we are willing to give will the giving be meaningful.
MSF website: http://www.msf.org.au/index.shtml
Latest on AIDS medicine crisis by MSF: http://www.msf.org.au/stories/twfeature/2007/163-twf.shtml

Breaking rules: He's either going to be a winner or somebody'll try to kill him

A REBEL-TURNED-GOVERNOR TAKES THE WHEEL IN INDONESIANew York Times - April 14, 2007
By SETH MYDANSBIREUN, IndonesiaTHE little green car accelerated around a mountain curve and flashed through a village here in Aceh Province, scattering chickens, children, dust and pebbles.It swerved past potholes, skidding precisely to the edge of the road before speeding ahead.At the wheel was Irwandi Yusuf, the new governor of Aceh, and he was racing into the hills to catch illegal loggers by surprise.“I have to do it myself,” he said, his foot on the accelerator. “I couldn’t rely on law enforcement. I don’t know who I can trust.”Mr. Irwandi, 47, is a one-man political science experiment, a separatist rebel who has, quite unexpectedly, become the leader of the government he until recently had fought against.Under a peace agreement signed in 2005, Mr. Irwandi renounced his separatist agenda. He ran for governor last December and won, taking almost 40 percent of the vote in a field of eight. The second-place finisher was also a former member of the separatist movement, bringing its total to more than 50 percent of the votes cast.Mr. Irwandi took office at the start of February and is now guarded by the army that once hunted him in the jungle. He works with a police force that was known for its brutal treatment of his comrades. He travels to Jakarta to talk policy with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, himself a former general.He has no alternative but to leave the past behind, he said. Most of the people he works with are his former enemies.Military intelligence still watches him, he said, as it did in the past, and he expects his most determined opponents to try to complicate his job with political manipulations. But the agreement that ended Aceh’s 30-year separatist war, after the deaths of 15,000 people, is holding, and both sides seem to have embraced nonviolence.Mr. Irwandi has inherited a wounded province of four million people here on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. The traumas of its long, brutal conflict have been compounded by the devastation of the Asian tsunami that took 170,000 lives in Aceh in December 2004.Along with economic revival he must deal with the reintegration of former rebel fighters, delicate relations with Jakarta, Islamist clerics and a local administration that is known for corruption and ineffectiveness.In a doubly unusual move for a new governor who is also a former rebel, he has decided to keep the old administration in place, cabinet ministers and all.“I tell them, ‘I believe, I trust you all,’ ” he said. “ ‘You are all trustworthy until you prove otherwise. Then I will know.’ ”If they are up to it, he said, they are welcome to “rock and roll” with him.“Rock and roll,” he said. “That means to do something new, rocky, that was never felt before. It is spirit. Spirited people. Young blood. Young spirit.”AS he raced through the mountains, Mr. Irwandi talked, one after another, into three cellphones, dodging trucks and bicycles with one hand on the wheel.From the back seat, an aide handed him a Korean energy drink. He tipped his head back twice and drained the bottle.“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said, speaking of his adversaries, but sometimes driving straight toward oncoming traffic.Illegal logging, a major enterprise in Aceh, illustrates the problems he faces, and the way he means to take them on.“They have Jakarta connections and they’ve got backing from the police and the military and also civil servants,” he said. “I entered into a system with all the network there. I have no network.”He does have assistants. And as he careered through the mountains in his Toyota RAV4 sport utility vehicle, he was chased by three unmarked vans carrying what he said was his personal security team.“This is a pilot project,” he said of the logging raid. “Scare the hell out of them. I want to show them, don’t play games with me. All the government people, when they see I do what I say, they won’t have courage to play games any more.”When he reached the sawmills, after rocketing up a rutted forest road, the overseers were gone. It seems the bad guys may still have better intelligence than their new governor.But Mr. Irwandi insisted he had made his point. He took photographs of fresh-cut logs and heavy equipment that he said would be used as evidence when he made his move.“I know I can’t do it all,” he said. But he seems to be trying.Mr. Irwandi said he had felt at home in his new job from the beginning.“For me it was just like a natural transition, like I was pushed here little by little to this position,” he said, from the jungle to peace negotiations to governor. “The jobs are about the same, dealing with people.”BY training, he is a veterinarian, with a degree from a local university where he later taught. He married a student there and they now have five children, aged 4 to 16.He joined the insurgency, the Free Aceh Movement, in 1990, but took a break three years later to study for a master’s degree in veterinary science on a scholarship to Oregon State University.Back in Aceh he joined the movement’s central command, where he served as chief spokesman and propagandist and helped reorganize its military structure.In 2003, Mr. Irwandi was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison for rebellion, and he was there behind bars, 19 months later, when the tsunami struck.“There was a big earthquake,” he said, recalling the terror of the trapped prisoners, “and then we heard a roaring noise outside the high wall. Everybody tried to escape out the front door but it was locked.”Mr. Irwandi climbed to the second floor. The walls around him were collapsing. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said.He climbed to the ceiling, punched through a layer of asbestos and clambered onto the roof, where he rode out the waves. He was one of just 40 survivors from a prison population of 278.The trauma of the tsunami led the two weary armies to reach a peace agreement, signed in August 2005. Mr. Irwandi became the rebels’ liaison with the international peacekeeping mission that, among other things, prepared the way for the election he won.As governor he works hard to stay ordinary, shunning an official mansion for a small rented house, where he receives a stream of visitors and petitioners.On the day after his raid on the loggers, Mr. Irwandi attended the inauguration of a soybean plantation here at Bireun, where he was born, about 85 miles southeast of the provincial capital, Banda Aceh.He was the only dignitary to arrive on time, and he sat patiently, cross-legged on a plastic mat, as, one after another, local officials with polished shoes arrived in convoys of polished black cars.“He’s normal, he’s normal,” said Yusuf Saidi, a farmer standing nearby, searching for words to explain his admiration for the governor. “He talks just like anybody else. People like him because he’s just like a common person. He doesn’t need any protocol. He drives his own car.”Source: New York Times - www.nytimes.com