Hi all,
Today I just participated in the protest that took place in front of the Feng Shan county government offices and it was enlightening to be sure. It's left me with a lot of different ideas and feelings.
You see, believe it or not, even though I've considered myself an environmentalist for a long long time, I've never participated in a protest before. This was my first one.
It's been an interesting experience because it's put into reality what before I could only guess at.
First, The reason...
A man has been breading and selling animals on his property in Kaohsiung, county. When he couldn't make money off the dogs he would simply stop feeding them and toss their bodies in the river behind his house. He was caught, fined $100,000NT, which he didn't pay, and now he's doing it again.
Second, What happened at the protest?
Well, when I showed up there were 5 of us and about 30-40 police officers with riot gear standing in front of the building. I felt like it was a bit of over-kill, but then three bus loads of supporters showed up and the protest began in earnest. In all I think there were about 100 of us in the tiny square.
The woman who was leading the protest was firey and angry and brought us up to the steps, nose to nose with the cops, and demanded to see the governor. As the time passed, more people came out to talk with us, but it wasn't who we were there to see. The chants went load and more talking and a bit of struggling. At one point we tried to go in, but that wasn't happening because most of our protestors were quite old. The cops seemed to know this by the bored, relatively unconcerned look on their faces.
After a time someone came out to talk with us, the foreigners who had showed up. All in all we were about 7 foreigners, which was a little disappointing considering how many foreigners I hear bitching about animal cruelty here.
The man's name was Kris Wang, and one of our foreigners knew him to be the secretary of the Governor. He said that he was unaware of the problem and that now that they know, they will do something about it. I got his phone number and email, and if they don't follow through on their promise to do something, I will make that information public.
The resolution that was reached was that they would go to his place and shut him down today.
I pray they do it, or we'll go back again with more people.
Third, what now?
The question that is going through my head, which I cannot answer except with time and vigilance is:
Can we believe the government will do anything?
I don't doubt that the higher ups probably didn't know about this. It's possible, perhaps probable, because unless it's a BIG problem, they wouldn't hear about it. Now it's a BIG problem, but I'm sad to say that animal cruelty is not something that would surprise anyone in Kaohsiung, least of all the Governor.
In this particular issue, there doesn't seem to be any money at stake. This is just one man, and perhaps he's paid someone to look the other way, but he doesn't appear to be a powerful corporation or stakeholder. Thus, it should be an easy fix: arrest him.
He was given a fine, he disobeyed it. He's breaking the law, simple.
I don't know if it'll play out like that, but for something like this that won't upset the powerbase, so there's little reason to protect him when there's a popular uprising against him.
Time will tell...
When I know more of what has taken place, I will post it.
Thanks for reading
--Tim
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