Would Confucius Support the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan? · Global Voices
Opinions are divided in Taiwan following the end of #CongressOccupied protests against a secretly negotiated trade deal with China. Members of the movement left the country's legislature on April 10, 2014 after occupying the building for more than three weeks.
Protesters conceded after the speaker of the Legislative Yuan, as the Taiwanese Congress is called, promised to pass legislation monitoring future agreements proposed by the executive branch before deliberating on the current Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA). Some had worried the deal would make Taiwan vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing.
While members of the Sunflower Movement, as the protests were dubbed, exited the building, protesters from the Free Taiwan Alliance and the Alliance for a Referendum on Taiwan decided to continue their public gathering outside the legislature. However, they were forcibly removed from the scene by police on April 11 at 7 a.m.
In response, 2,000 protesters demonstrated outside the police station. 310
The next day, supporters of the police also organized a gathering criticizing the protesters for disturbing public order.
Online, some have questioned protesters’ voluntary exit from the Legislative Yuan, while others believe the protest against police has shifted the attention away from the trade agreement to police violence.
Many pro-government and pro-police comments have emerged. There are quite a number of debates concerning who is to blame for the aggression against protesters.
Lidance looked into the two different positions that the Taiwanese generally take on the Sunflower Movement in a blog post:
學生控制立院議場後，網路上立刻出現「挺學運方」（以下簡稱A）與「挺政府方」（以下簡稱B）的大規模混戰。
我認為A的倫理思考是「批判式」的，B則有很濃的「直覺」傾向。
A方，也就是挺學運方，當他們看到衝突暴力的場面，思考的並不是暴力的表面道德價值，而是暴力的意義：「為什麼他們要採用暴力？」
B方，即挺府院方，當他們看到暴力場面，會運用道德直覺給予評價，包括否定學生暴力與肯定警方的國家暴力。
After the students occupied the legislature, we could see the furious debate on the Internet between the pro-protester side (A) and the pro-government side (B).
I think the A side is more “analytic” in their thinking and the B side tends to be more “intuitive”.
When the pro-protester A side witnessed violence, instead of making a direct moral judgment of the violence, they reflected on its purpose and ask, “Why do they use violence?”
When the pro-government B side witnessed violence, they evaluated it based on their moral intuition, and they opposed the students’ violence and accepted the police and the government’s violence.
Political satire of a peaceful protester by <PERSON> and reposted by Med Front. CC BY-NC 2.0. The <PERSON> was chained with all the “requirements” of a peaceful protest, including: lawful, rational, no disruption, no demand, no social cost and etc.
Some believe the pro-government opinions are rooted in Confucianism, an ideology that has great impact on Chinese society. In Taiwan, there is an ongoing discussion on on whether Confucianism can get along with democracy. 368