Open letter to the Sunflower Movement

Dear organisers and participants of The Sunflower Movement,



I arrived too late to take part in your recent reddit AMA but read it afterwards with interest. One exchange in particular caught my attention. It responded to an invitation to define the protests. And I would like to comment on this briefly. I cite the response first:



Oliver here: I think that it is difficult to frame the protest in one description or the other because this is a new phenomenon for Taiwan.



We don’t interpret this in any particular way. What we agree on is that this agreement is unconstitutional, goes against public opinion and is detrimental to our democracy.



While there is quite a lot of different voices in the protest, for example, student groups and human right groups are mainly against the authoritarian manner of the government, labor groups against the impact on jobs, etc, we do not really think that it is about any ideology in particular.



I will focus on the alleged ideological neutrality of the movement here and some problems this involves for the purpose of reflection.



How can one reasonably say that the basis for the actions—the occupation of multiple government buildings by force—and the demand for a new general constitutional assembly be not of ‘any ideology in particular’?



As I see it there are only two ways to answer this, and both are ideological: the first way privileges the integrity of the existing constitution over the content of the protests; the second privileges the content of the protests over the integrity of the existing constitution. The first insists to the second: the constitution just needs a little upgrading, go home! While the second desists in arguing: the constitution no longer serves us, stand up! The antagonism that lies between the two is irreconcilable, otherwise protests would merely be pointless debates. Any attempt to mix the two only confuses itself.



It is therefore imperative to remind ourselves that the diverse 'voices’ of the movement are each a concrete position—a multitude of positions that include anti-authoritarianism, labour rights, LGBT rights, and so on. Each have been injured by the same conditions of domination. So stating that they somehow do not stand for any particular ideology when considered as a unity is clearly untrue (if not worse). On the contrary, the movement as a unity only intensifies its ideological content. And this demands articulation as much as it needs solidarity, no matter how difficult.



In articulating this, however, it is worth reminding ourselves how easy it is to betray the universality of the positions for a more convenient populism. Especially if simplification for mainstream political “debate” and wider public “consciousness” is a temptation. For the point of a protest is not to find agreement, consensus, or an average of opinions; it is the struggle for new conditions where such disagreements are taken for the truths they are. The corrupt political parties, stupefying and manipulative media, and other conservative state-apparatuses are the ones that deal in the consensual. They impose it as the absolute framework where disagreements are neutralised, protests are obsolete, and truths are reduced to opinion. This “absoluteness” is false and best bypassed, not accommodated. Yet articulation also implies that we need not interpret (which is another form of neutralising opinion). We can convey what is already in process instead. Collectively, the movement is undertaking an unprecedented, non-violent revolutionary action. And is so because its measures include extra-parliamentary and extra-legal tactics.



Yet it is also true that this revolt is just. It is a rational and proportionate response to the situation precisely because it serves a justice which exists in exile to the parliamentary, constitutional-legal framework. This justice currently exists in the hopes of hundreds of thousands on the streets. And is now in the rapid process of growing a body.



As part of this growth, however, the movement will need to confront the relation between justice and democracy. It was mentioned in the response above that the handling of the trade pact which sparked these protests is 'detrimental’ to Taiwan’s democracy. And yet it was Taiwan’s democracy that gave birth to this situation nonetheless.



How could it be that the democracy in place would subvert itself and render justice exiled?



The answer is simple, and again concerns ideology: the representational democracy of Taiwan is exhibiting the same symptoms as every other neoliberal state formation. They are democracies in only the vaguest sense. All neoliberal democracies, in practising market capitalism, privilege the private interests of a multinational ruling class over the public interests of its ruled classes. This is no secret. And without exception this is sanctioned as authoritatively as its subjects are willing to tolerate. More in some places, less in others; yet the form is identical.



The plutocrats of Taiwan demonstrated this with exceptional unsubtlety in its handling of the CSSTA. But it was not the first instance of its kind and most certainly won’t be the last, unless the opposition to its practices include a breach at the ideological level. One of the movement’s most prominent slogans is: return the pact defend democracy. But we need to ask ourselves, why would anyone need to defend a democracy if it truly was one? Moreover, why should any protester restrict their politics to that which has only previously existed?



If the movement is bold enough to revolt against the existing order then it is already in the process of inventing its future. Please allow me to speculate for a moment on this future—strike me if I am wrong. But is not the justice that the movement serves the beginning of a new political order altogether? Is it not one where the people of Taiwan are no longer mediated subordinates, with regard to domestic and overseas affairs, but its immediate determinants? One thing is already clear in the present: the movement already decided upon revolutionary and not purely reformist means to make this case. There is no reason to be coy about it. Otherwise it would have been content to collectively lobby parliament, consult existing representatives, and have saved itself the trouble of upturning its individual lives. These orthodox channels are ineffective to say the least.



So, having come this far, does it still make sense to bargain with the Ma administration over an explicitly facile “due process”? And exactly what difference would it make to receive an apology from a puppet? Recall Egypt in 2011 for an instant: no protester was asking Mubarak—a murderous totalitarian—to do a better job or show regret; the entire order had to go. Taiwan’s governing order, a syndicate of foreign and domestic masters, must give way to the people of Taiwan. Determining how this should be done is the hard task, and cannot be answered by the occupations or big rock concerts alone—however good they feel. Because the task always begins the day after the rally. And that lies beyond the convenience of disavowing concrete political positions.



They have conducted their politics—if we can truly call it that and not simply business—according to a “black box” ideology, but opening it up and shedding new light on it stakes an ideology too. This opportunity to define the future is as rare as it is unprecedented.



Commit to it and organise!



In solidarity and with deep respect,



yours,

Ah Mai.



Taipei, 2nd April 2014