Policing in Taiwan and Quebec

    This weeks readings looked at Jeffrey Martin’s article “A Reasonable Balance of law and Sentiment: Social Order in Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman’s Point of view”. The article examines social order by using a new and interesting point of view, that of policeman. Based on this article I decided to look at police conduct within Quebec and more specifically in the city of Montreal based on a native’s perspective, compared to police conduct as stated in Martin’s article.
Within the province of Quebec the main police force is La Sûreté du Québec, which is the main unit responsible for almost eveything within the province, although many municipalities may have their own police force and the except of Montreal which has the SPVM (Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal). Montreal is known for many different reasons, Expo 67, Biodome, Marché Bonsecours, Old Forum, Montreal Canadians, F1, Charbonneau Commision and more recently police brutality within the context of protests (CTV Montreal, 2014).

    When walking around Montreal you are certain to see a police officer, whether it be by car, bike, foot or horse, they are everywhere in Montreal. The most recent clash between demonstrators and police took place during the Police Anti-Brutality Protest, which took place on March 15th, where people gatheres to “publicly voice their opposition to excessive use of police force-or to call for the disbanding of armed police forces altogether” (The Link, 2014). This is an annual event in its 18th year, however, unlike most year this years protest was declared illegal mere minutes after it started due to municipal bylaws put into effect during the Maple Spring or the Montreal 2012 Student Protest (The Link, 2014). It seems that it has become expected that the SPVM kettle protestors, pepper spray them and conduct themselves in a way unacceptable of people with authority over others, compared to Taiwanesse officers there is a stark difference. In Taiwan, specifically in Taipei county the policemen have their own beat in which it consits of a couple of city blocks, containing about 200-400 households, and a sole officer is responsible for this (Martin, 2007). There seems to be very little conflict between Taiwainesse policemen and their citizens, even though each policemen is responsible for their beat, they know the people and regularly interact with them. This system of course isn’t feasible for all places and cities, however, it seems to be effective in Taiwan and other cities could learn a lot from Taipei County’s police system.

    From a native’s perspective, I think the SPVM have a tough job and they tend to get a lot of critism for doing their job. An example, is during the Maple Spring most police offficers worked double shifts and did plenty of overtime due to the ongoing protest. No job is ever easy and I think being a police officer in a large city has its challenges, we live in a society where free speech is rampant leading to everyone being able to freely express their opinion. People will always have their opinions, however, perhaps taking a look at the SPVM and making changes would be benificial not only for the police officers but also for the citizens of Montreal.

   

Image Source:
Panda Costume: http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2013/03/07/the-story-so-far-lachine-hospital-stays-with-muhc-and-protests-are-killing-downtown/

Taipei Police: http://english.tcpd.taipei.gov.tw/GIPDSD/xslGip/xslExport/108002/%E8%AD%A6%E5%AF%9F%E5%B1%80%E8%8B%B1%E6%96%87%E7%89%88%E5%9E%8B1/images/%5B1%5Dlogo_tcpd.png

References:
CTV Montreal. (2014, March 15). Montreal police hand out 288 fines, arrest five during anti-police  brutality protest. Retrieved from http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-police-hand-out-288-fines-arrest-five-during-anti-police-brutality-protest-1.1730803

The Link. (2014, March 18). Editorial: The spvm’s bylaw squad. Retrieved from http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/5713

Martin, Jeffrey. 2007. “A Reasonable Balance of Law and Sentiment: Social Order in     Democratic Taiwan from the Policeman’s Point of View.” Law & Society Review     41 (3): 665-697.

The Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism

            In article by Chang-hui Chi “The Death of a Virgin: the Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism in Jinmen, Taiwan”, the author talks about the death of a woman named Wang Yulan who a symbolic complex was built around her to prevent the spread of communism. They used her as a means to promote nationalism within the village to ensure that order was respected.

            As a Quebecer I find it quite interesting that Wang Yulan was used as a symbol to promote nationalism since I feel that currently with the Quebec elections Pauline Marois is being used as a symbol to also promote nationalism. Although the nationalism both are being used as symbols for are quite different, and only one of the women actually has a say in what they’re promoting since Wang Yulan was only being used as a symbolic complex after her body washed ashore in Jinmen.

  

Politicians will use anything they can get their hands on in order to promote their own agendas, in both cases nationalism was their goal. Currently in Quebec the Parti Quebecois’s main goal is to be elected as a majority in order to have absolute power within the National Assembly in order to further promote their own agenda and their ultimate goal is to pass a referendum to sepearate from Canada. Their strategy is to gain support from the “True French Canadians” in order for the Parti Quebecois to be elected as a majority and have ultimate power within the National Assembly. However, in Taiwan in order to promote their nationalist agenda they used Wang Yulan and promoted her worship where her body was round and made her the symbol of resistance to communism and the exemplar of traditional Chinese values in general (2009; 671). Their main strategy became to use traditional values in order to gain support and encourage people to join them in the resistance against any sort of change, as a means to promote and ensure that the countries core values don’t waiver.

 

                            

Both Quebec and Taiwan are fighting for the right to become their own countries and not have other people made decisions on their behave and allow others to dictate what their laws and value system should be. Although, to an outsider to seems that Taiwan is it’s own country, I’m sure within Taiwan its people do not feel the same way, however from a Quebecer’s perspective unlike Taiwan we own a Canadian passport and are part of a country, whereas Taiwan keeps getting shifted back and forth from Japan’s hands to China’s without their input. Taiwanese nationalism as well as Quebec nationalism is a sense of pride of where one comes from, it shows your origins and allows people to identify with a specific set of customs.

             

Image Source:

Protest sign - http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1i68475Dl1qhuzeso1_500.jpg

Quebec Nationalism - http://thepoliticalbouillon.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Flag_Map_of_Canada_with_Independent_Quebec.png

Taiwan Nationalism - http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2953/taiwanisnotchinawn1.jpg

References:

Chi, Chang-hui. 2009. “The Death of a Virgin: the Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism             in Jinmen, Taiwan.” Anthropological Quarterly 82 (3): 669-690.