Friday, May 17, 2013

A Letter of Protest

To one Chinese nation: I salute you, China, ancient and wise nation of old and Taiwan (ROC) in particular - peace be with you and all your generations:



I condemn in the strongest way possible the continuing violence against my compatriots in your territory. I do not think I can watch idly by while my countrymen and women are presently subjected to the pain and duress of this unjust threat that looms over their citizenship with me.

They have absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand and do not deserve to suffer for its evil - an evil we can only together attempt to address that it may withdraw its foul presence from the peace of our region, sooner than later.

These are our citizens, human beings who have sought in good faith to apply for and to work an honest job within your economy under your nation's patronage and your government's protection.

Rest assured we will honor our obligations to shelter and protect your citizens or any other citizens from any nation who came in peace to the shelter of our Republic, and uphold their human rights within our territory not because it is expedient or "politically correct" to do so right now but because it is only the natural way of things for this nation and so it shall be this way for my Country till the end of time - peace embraced with peaceIt is only right and just.

Are we not a democracy? Both of us know the strengths and weaknesses of our chosen system. Right now, the effects of your lack of action to shelter the innocent in your care and protection is weakening what reason now prevails, both in the popular and in the political domain, that preserve those courses of action that will allow us to peaceably and responsibly resolve this unwanted and unneeded sea row, an issue now necessary and vital to our mutual national concerns and freely determining from what is true and what is not, how to effectively proceed.

I do not know the source of your belligerence and am admittedly still confounded by it. I hold no memory in my remembrance of our history of a division like this ever plaguing our peoples.

Yet as I seek to be prudent with what is weak in our systems, I trust also in the strengths of democracy as I must and so should advise you now most urgently that your failure to address the safety concerns of my compatriots in your care is stymieing the process instead of helping it.

None of us can resolve this issue on our own, only together - empowered in our will by the good will of both our peoples - can we run the gauntlet that will bring our Countries back into the fold of the peace our peoples have always steadily and quietly enjoyed.

Let us return again to the root of your passionate protests and know that we are just as passionate a people as you are in loving and protecting our own. I know that in this regard we both agree, we must truly love our peoples. And do so because both our nationhood hold to the truth that all human life, with all its foibles and vulnerabilities is of precious value and unlimited potential, each endowed equally and individually with natural rights and that this is the reason we are both a work of freedom; a democracy - to unleash in our citizenry the creativity, greatness, and nobility of the human potential and to protect and preserve their life and dignity.

I believe if we reflect upon this thinking more deeply, we will understand each other. We will understand as I do now hope we understand - that each human life to us is sacred - that you may feel how we too value our own and so understand the reason I must appeal in this protest to your reciprocal sense of civic solidarity:

Please extend to my people under the shelter of your care, the safety and the respect they deserve.

I am truly sorry for your loss, I truly am. Please, I humbly implore you - let us work now to reverse the tide.
I am just as eager for justice to give adequate redress to your sense of loss - to unveil the truth, properly compensate Hung Shih-cheng's next of kin, and pay the debt of remembrance both our nations now owe your deceased compatriot by recognizing in the living memory of his hope and the pain of his family and friends the present need to strengthen the mechanisms and institutions that work to help prevent similar tragedies from reoccurring, safeguard the integrity and completeness of the laws that serve to govern, protect, and conserve our seas and its riches, and affirm the peace both our sovereign peoples have always enjoyed together.

I believe agreements may only be made from seeds born from common understandings. Furthermore, I believe we are able to reach these understandings because we are simply born from the same spirit and that this seeking to freely allow truth itself to prevail - because truth ultimately will - is simply part of our strength as a democracy. For I do believe in us and desire for both our nations along with all our kindred nations, a future worthy of our common humanity.

Thank you so much for your patience. I am hopeful you will receive with reason and compassion, my most sincere and humble letter. God bless us all.

Mabuhay!
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UPDATE 20130527: Thank you, Mayor Hau Lung-pin - for being one of the first who stood up for peace and sanity between our peoples - peace be with you - Mabuhay, Taipei!