#if someone comes away from civil war feeling inspired to insurrect they could only have walked in during the literal last minute

[projectcatzo]

My mom's worried people will see Civil War and feel a "call to action" or something, but 1.) that's not at all what the movie's about and 2.) I don't think the people most inclined to instigate an actual American civil war would go see an A24 movie directed by a British guy where none of the primary cast members are white men and the only ones in the story are very much not portrayed favorably

[lettersfromtaiwan]

Same-Sex Marriage In Taiwan: Progression Via Judicial Review In Spite Of A Passive Centrist Politics

On the 24th May, Taiwan’s Council of Grand Justices issued Constitutional Interpretation No. 748 in which they stated that The Civil Code violates the freedom of marriage and equal rights for all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution, and that If the government has not changed the law in two years, same-sex couples will be allowed to register their union at household registration offices.  This has since proven to be a destructive mistake. Marriages across the nation are falling apart as heterosexual couples realise that their union is not only no longer sacrosanct but has also been stripped of any meaning. Young impressionable students across Facebook and LINE are declaring their desire to marry themselves and their pets, and at least one of the remaining statutes of Chiang Kai-shek has been spotted weeping. Traditional Chinese culture and Confucian values are dead. The malaise of Western liberalism has destroyed yet another nation. That at least, with little exaggeration, was the prognosis of what would happen should same-sex marriage be legalised. What has actually happened is that the nation has spent a day or two in mild celebration that the Council of Grand Justices affirmed that some of the rights laid out in the Constitution do actually apply to everyone, as is the purpose of a Constitution. There has been little of a social, or political earthquake in response to the ruling, but for those who campaigned so hard to enjoy a basic right to join in a legally recognised union with the person they love regardless of their sex or gender, it was a seismic moment.  It is one that Taiwan should rightly be proud of as the first country in Asia to release the institution of marriage from illogical and exclusionary heteronormative constraint.

The ruling is also interesting for the response to it. The new Chairman of the KMT, Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), and also party grandee Jason Hu (胡志強), quickly came out with statements in support of the ruling, much to the surprise of netizens who were also quick to point out that the Chairman had previously publicly stated his opposition to it. That a politician would flip their position after measuring which direction the vane of public opinion had swung is both opportunistic but also in some respects welcome. It shows at least that they are capable of change.  Their previously strong and consistent opposition to same-sex marriage will not however be forgotten by those who suffered in the period of struggle to gain those rights, and their quick change of heart and the mendacious and revisionist claim to have always supported same-sex marriage will not earn the public’s trust. You don’t get a gold star for lacking moral certitude and courage in battle until someone else has won the war and its time to line up for a medal.  Most interestingly though, despite all the protests from US-funded and inspired evangelicals before the ruling, the vast majority of Taiwanese seem perfectly at ease with the ruling and its implications, or at least do not feel threatened by them.  The main reason for this collective shrug is probably because the ruling doesn’t actually affect anyone negatively - it only expands a right enjoyed by the vast majority. It turns out that expanding this right to marriage was not a zero-sum equation and did not devalue, denigrate, or render less sacrosanct, marriages between heterosexual couples. As much as ‘love trumped hate’, logic triumphed over a tendency to visceral reaction.

What the response also highlighted was that ‘public opinion’ has at least two dimensions in Taiwan, and I suspect in other developed liberal democratic nations: a private held or intimately shared liberalism, with a small ‘l’, and a publicly expressed and socially nervous reactionary and performative conservatism. As a business which generates more consumption of its product when events are more polarising and sensational, the media seek out the latter over the former, thereby distorting the image people have of what most of their fellow citizens think. A desire to fit in and swim with the tide is a powerful component of culture in Taiwan, as it is elsewhere in countries around the world.  The death penalty is a good example in this respect. Both KMT and DPP administrations shy away from addressing the failure of capital punishment to act as a deterrent, the former wielding it as a means to project strength and as tool for political distraction, the latter cautious of handling a political hot potato which it feels does not have sufficient public consensus to take the electoral risk of addressing. One wonders how many wrongful executions will be tolerated before public consensus is deemed sufficient for politicians to find the courage to bring Taiwan in line with the vast majority of other nations and abolish this cruel and ineffective practice. 

Significantly, it should be noted that the same-sex ruling was not only a top down effort but a citizen-led one: Chi Chia-wei (祁家威) filed a request for an interpretation in 2015 after his attempt to register his same-sex marriage was rejected by Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) household registration office in 2013 and subsequent court appeals failed. The other request was filed by the Taipei Department of Civil Affairs in 2015. The Legislative Yuan, even with a clear and historic DPP majority had stumbled over amending the civil code and / or introducing new law. The President had made clear her support for same-sex marriage but her party’s caucus had failed to evince unity or creativity over the issue. National level politicians had sat on the fence and essentially waited for the judiciary to settle the case for them. Sadly, it is very doubtful such an approach would work with the death penalty in Taiwan this year and perhaps still for years to come.  Where allowing everyone to marry does not install fear or loathing in the populace, it seems not executing murderers is still a logical step too far for many, if opinion polls are to believed.  

The mark of a progressive and liberal democracy is how society’s outliers and its most vulnerable are treated.  A party or government which claims to be truly progressive will not just reflect public opinion but have the political courage, especially when in power, to lead positive change, even when seemingly unpopular, which reflects the nation’s humanity and protects everyone, not just those the public is willing to express sympathy for. It should be a determined force for institutionalising empathy over sympathy, tolerance over spite, inclusion over ring-fencing, and safeguards over abandonment. ‘Progress’ in society as a whole is not a measure of economic and technological development but one where gross domestic happiness, trust, and security are maximised.  

Politics and economics are not separate. Nodding to the left to superficially ameliorate the continent negative impacts of maintaining a dominant right-wing model of political economy is both morally bankrupt, exploitative, and ultimately only creates political space and legitimacy for more extreme voices on the right. The popularity of (domestically liberal yet internationally reactionary) Bernie Sanders in the US, and the electoral success of genuine progressive Left Jeremy Corbyn in the UK on June 8th, shows that the current forty year hegemony of neoliberalism has lost public trust. The election of Donald Trump as President is evidence that the empty logarithm-driven sloganism of “I’m With Her”, and the neoliberal incrementalist agenda it papers over, offers no vision or hope or answer to any number of collective problems such as climate change, an end to the war on drugs and terror economies, or how to address building the fiscally sustainable national, universal healthcare system that all tax-payers and citizens should deserve as a basic human right.  “En-Marche” in 2017 is no safeguard against a President Le Pen in 2022. If anything it will be an invitation for it, especially once the electorate cottons onto his Obamaesque style of camouflaging centre-right economics with sound-bites and PR stunts that appropriate the left for clickatvist popularity spikes. The performative liberalism of Trudeau will not for long mask his deeply illiberal security and energy policies, or the willingness of his administration to bend at the knee in the face of pressure from Beijing.  

President Tsai would do well to look abroad and take note that Trump is a supernova whose logical end is implosion and a political black hole that could easily suck the US into a vicious and destructive spiral of domestic institutional and social conflict which could even result in open and bloody insurrection.  Politics across the world are becoming more extreme and polarised as people start realising that continuing as normal is collective suicide by inequality and climate.  If Tsai wants to lead a truly progressive DPP, she should not be afraid to lead with courage and conviction, to make the case that there are other more humane, and affordable, models of political economy which better ensure basic human rights, such as marriage and a clean environment, sooner and for generations to come.