📣 Critique of Curriculum Adjustment Controversy and Student Action
Recently, a group of high school students on summer vacation have been occupying, and even illegally trespassing on the Ministry of Education all day long, just to block the new curriculum from starting. Subsequently, there was even an incident of a dropout student committing suicide (referred to as such) for this.
For fine-tuning some words in the substantive content, resulting in loss of life? I think this is probably another kind of miracle in Taiwan, making those who have struggled to the last moment for freedom and democracy in the past look dim.
Questions on Constitutionalism and Rule of Law
Sometimes, quietly ask yourself in your heart: Is Taiwan still a constitutional and rule-of-law country today?
If it is, why do these people not respect the administrative system they elected? Is all this just because they didn’t vote at the time?
I personally feel quite repulsed by the behavior of holding students out as shields.
- Identity Definition: Student is just a profession. In the field of school, no matter what is done, there is space for negotiation.
- Rights and Responsibilities: When these “students” go outside the school, your identity and rights are no different from ordinary people, and there is no reason to obtain special protection at all. These people should not personally use their identity to achieve their own special purposes.
❌ Negation of “Civil Violence”
If you are dissatisfied with the government’s decision (I am referring to large-scale policies), you must exercise the right of resistance under the power given to us by the law and the Constitution. Even taking a step back, everyone can decide in next year’s election whether the current government has made administrative wrong moves.
But the one thing that should absolutely not be done is to treat civil violence as an habitual demand, because you are trampling on the democratic values that Taiwan has spent a lot of time and energy to give birth to (and these were accumulated by many people bleeding and sweating in the past).
Quoted Reflection: I know that for this argument, some people will take past events like the White Terror, 228 Incident, and Chiang Ching-kuo lifting martial law as a contrast. But please first recognize one thing: those events and the subsequent levels that today’s curriculum adjustment can influence are two completely different concepts in degree. If society now accepts committing suicide because of curriculum adjustments, then next time it will be because of even smaller things.
After students occupied the Legislative Yuan last year, Yao Li-ming also said this was a single incident and would not cause future impacts. Now facts prove that mimicking behavior, and the age group with narrower thinking is constantly decreasing.
💔 Moral Critique of the Suicide Incident and Companions
Suicide is absolutely wrong, there is no room for defense or sympathy at all.
If a person cannot even protect their own life, or even actively harms it, I completely do not believe that the ideal this person wants to protect has any value.
- Responsibility of Companions: That young man who committed suicide also had many companions around him, and some people guessed that he might take extremely intense means, but not a single person actively provided effective assistance; at least they could have excluded him from the issue.
- Critique of Utilization: If one cannot even actively protect a companion’s life, yet is active in utilizing it after the event, their persistence towards ideals seems to me to be no more than that.
Sacrificing one’s own partner, I thought that was something only those rotten politicians who have fallen into the mire would do.
Ultimately, the suicide of a dropout student can only be attributed to that boy’s psychological quality problems, and nothing else.