The Pledge

At a press conference, five people stood side by side, each holding up a sheet of paper to the cameras. The red banner behind them read: “September 9 — See You on Ketagalan Boulevard — 3 p.m.”

The paper in their hands was not a statement, not a demand, and not meant for Chen Shui-bian. It was a document they had signed for themselves.

The Pledge was drafted by Shih Ming Te himself, when the movement was just getting started. It has two parts. The first is uncompromising: it firmly demands that Chen Shui-bian accept political and legal responsibility and step down as soon as possible, or else the movement will never end.

The second part is the key. They pledged to respect the existing constitutional order — including the lawful transfer of power and effective judicial investigation and enforcement — so that the nation could return to normal functioning as quickly as possible. And all the movement’s organizers promised to respect the majority decisions of the movement’s decision-making committee, and not to use their individual will to put their own wisdom or beliefs on display.

The reason is written into the document: lest we lose our calm or reason when the people’s strength is at its height, fall into internal disorder and division, and cause the movement to fail.

What is striking is the timing. The movement had not yet begun. No one could be sure a million people would turn out, or whether anyone would show up in the streets at all. And yet its initiators were already guarding against one thing: themselves, after success.

Political philosophy calls this precommitment. Ulysses knew that when he heard the Sirens’ song he would lose his judgment, so while still clear-headed he had his sailors bind him to the mast, instructing them that no matter how he begged afterward, they must not untie him. Constitutionalism rests on the same principle: a constitution is the set of limits a society writes for itself in a calm moment, in advance of its future moments of passion.

A month later, it happened just as foreseen. As pressure mounted on Ketagalan Boulevard, the very professors and political elites who publicly championed “peace and non-violence” began privately pressing him to adopt brink-of-violence tactics — even to charge straight in.

That he could refuse rested on more than personal will. It rested on words in black and white — this document, which almost no media noticed at the time — together with the oath the crowd recited every day.

The peace of the Red Shirts was not luck, nor a product of Taiwanese people’s mild temperament. It was designed — and designed before there was any strength to restrain.