Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts

Monday, March 7, 2022

Taiwan Supports Ukraine: The Rally Planned in Two Days

Untitled



You know what consistently impresses me about Taiwan? Not just the vibrant activism -- hopefully we all know about that by now -- but the speed and dedication with which people can pull together a solidarity event in very little time. Today's event at Liberty Square  was pulled together in a few days, and not everyone working to make it happen was a veteran activist (though some were). 

And yet it happened, and it was successful (if a bit windy). A few hundred people showed up -- about as much as a typical Tiananmen Square remembrance event, if not more -- including locals and international residents. Signs were both made by participants and available on-site, and glossy, professional fliers with QR codes were available to make donating to any of the organizations on supportukraine.tw easy.

The website itself was also built very quickly and between their work and the government donation account -- prominently featured through the link above -- hundreds of millions of NTD have already been donated.

Figures from across the Taiwanese political landscape agreed to speak on very short notice, and everything ran smoothly. Speakers included DPP legislator Wang Ting-yu, independent legislator Freddy Lim, DPP deputy secretary and Sunflower leader Lin Fei-fan, DPP Matsu Islands director Wen Lii and KMT youth league director Thomas Liu, as well as short talks by Ukrainians in Taiwan and international supporters. 

There were two genius moves, as well: first, ensuring everyone had a translator, so everyone in the audience could understand each speaker. This was especially crucial for a successful international event, where many in attendance spoke English, Mandarin or both, but were not necessarily native speakers of either. 

The second was having a photo op for international participants from a variety of countries under the arch inscribed with the words "Liberty Square" and above a sign saying We Are All Ukrainians Today. Flags for Thailand, Hong Kong (the protest banner), Lithuania and more appeared, along with signs showing the support of Belizeans in Taiwan and, well, more. 

If I hadn't known that the whole thing was organized so fast, I never would have guessed.

It's, well, impressive. 

I don't have much to say about the actual speeches. I was chatting with a friend while Wang Ting-yu spoke. Lin Fei-fan noted that the sunflower was both a symbol of the Sunflower Movement he helped lead and the current Ukraine resistance, and used that as a starting point to note similarities in the two causes. I was too bad gawking at Sexy Legislator Freddy Lim to really note what he said (the bleeding edge of defending democracy, that kind of thing.) Wen Lii was a crowd-rouser, Thomas Liu not as much.

I especially liked Lin Fei-fan's speech. It's easy to buck what seems like trite or shallow analysis and say Taiwan and Ukraine are not very comparable at a deeper level. And that's true. But it was smart to compare them in this particular way.

You know why? Because that is exactly what Russia is doing. As they attack Ukraine, they're running fake news that China has invaded Taiwan. Clearly they see parallels; it's on us to see the parallels that they see. Drawing attention to areas of consensus -- the values we share together, represented by the sunflower in this case -- is smarter than pointing out discord.

It was amusing at the time that Liu got almost no applause and his continued use of "Republic of China" rather than "Taiwan" went down like a bowling ball in a lake. Now, I feel kind of bad -- I might have a general ugh the KMT reaction, but even I understand the need for bipartisanism on this issue. 

Finally, I reflected a lot today on writing or thinking vs. doing. It probably doesn't amount to much that I wrote this post. Now you know the Taiwan activist scene can pull off a good event with solid speakers in zero time. You know the import of some of the things that happened during the event. Attending is a form of doing, and it has a small impact: the number of people in a crowd matters. 

But actually doing? I have some background knowledge of how exactly this rally was pulled together post-haste, and that's the model. That's the goal: showing solidarity from Taiwan is a small act, but it's an act. It goes beyond wordsy mouthfoam about thoughts and prayers, at least. 

We need more action like this. 

One quick note before we get to pictures. There's a lot of International Socialist Alternative folks looking for supporters at these events. Do what you want with that information, but in addition to some goals I'd agree with, there's an undercurrent of "Western imperialism is also using this as an excuse to further their own goals" and not a small amount of Uighur genocide skepticism on their website:
China was active alongside the US in the 1980s covert war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, even allowing the CIA to establish two electronic spying stations at Qitai and Korla in Xinjiang. Deng’s regime helped to train thousands of jihadi terrorists including many Uighurs — a dark chapter that demolishes the credibility of its current hardline stance against terrorism in Xinjiang. 
They'd probably deny that that's genocide denialism. I say it is. Their "we are pro-Taiwan independence" (good) but "against the DPP because they attack trade unions" rhetoric doesn't quite hold up either. The DPP aren't a pro-labor party but the role of unions in Taiwan is so much murkier than they make it sound. These ISA petitioners are everywhere at these events. Sign whatever you want, it's not my job to stop you, but know this first. 

Anyway, you're probably here for the pictures, so enjoy some:


Untitled


Untitled


Untitled

Untitled

Untitled


Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled




Untitled










Monday, October 25, 2021

Book Review -- Taiwan's Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan



Available from Routledge and on Amazon


Most political research and scholarship on Taiwan focuses on the major political parties, or at least the ones that have something of an election track record. Much energy has been spent dissecting the KMT and DPP from an academic perspective, and I suspect more successful small parties like the TPP and NPP will receive similar scrutiny in the future. Perhaps, given the New Party and People First Party’s erstwhile success, they’ll get some attention too. 


Then there are the tiny parties: the TSU (effectively dormant), the Social Democratic Party (whose only elected official happens to serve in my district), the Trees Party (still around?), the Statebuilding Party (perhaps an interesting subject of inquiry given that their only elected legislator was just recalled), Can’t Stop This Party (composed of Youtubers) the Minkuotang  (MKT, which later merged with another odd little party) and, of course, the Green Party Taiwan (GPT). 


Nobody seems to write about them much, mostly because they’re either quite new or don’t have much political influence. They don’t win a lot of seats, so they don’t get a lot of attention.


That has changed with Dafydd Fell’s Taiwan’s Green Parties: Alternative Politics in Taiwan, an insider account of the formation and evolution of the GPT, with ancillary-but-important looks into their frenemies, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Judean People’s Front Trees Party. 



 “We’re the People’s Front of Judea…listen, the only thing we hate more than the Romans are the Judean People’s Front.”



When reading Taiwan’s Green Parties, I kept thinking about how, well, incestuous Taiwan’s progressive and activist political scene are. Many of the fallouts recounted in the book seem to be just as much the ups and downs of personal friendships — and friendships often end — as they are any real difference in concrete political beliefs or policy ideas. The Trees Party didn’t form because they are different in ideology from the GPT. They formed because they had different approaches to the same ends, and they realized they were being marginalized in the GPT. Imagine finding out you weren’t invited to movie night, because the new guy has convinced everyone you’re awful for always ordering pepperoni pizza instead of only vegetarian options. Yes, we’re talking about you in the group chat.


The Green Party went on to form a brief alliance with the SDP, only to have it fall apart with recriminations on both sides. Again, the SDP and Green Party aren’t really that different in ideology and you can be sure they all know each other. They — and everyone else in their ideological ballpark — all attend the same lectures, readings and protests. They probably go to the same cafes. The DPP can poach them because the DPP has already recruited some of their friends. (Yes, that is how it works.) 


In this respect, the Statebuilding Party seems to be actively forging a different path: forming in southern Taiwan and not necessarily recruiting from the same pool of Taipei cafe-goers. For that alone, they’re worth keeping an eye on, especially as their one legislator has just been recalled. In fact, future comparisons between Statebuilding and GPT might be interesting to consider: of the KMT revenge recalls, the NPP have survived whereas the GPT’s Wang Hao-yu (defected to the DPP right around the time of his recall) and Statebuilding Party’s Chen Po-wei have both gone down. Statebuilding actively avoids recruiting from the same pool of activists but will form alliances with them, whereas GPT can’t seem to form lasting alliances, and doesn’t seem to realize that the frequent poaching they experience is indeed detrimental.


On this claustrophobic theme, it also struck me how small Taiwan politics really is. I’m nobody at all, neither an academic nor an activist, and I’ve personally met enough people mentioned by name in this book that it might take more than one hand to count them. Mostly, we’ve perhaps talked briefly at the same gathering. In one case, a good friend’s name popped up, as it always seems to. 


As for the research itself, it’s impeccable. For details, head to Frozen Garlic’s review. He’s a trained political scientist, I’m not. In more general terms, however, I appreciated how in looking through the GPT’s past, Fell adjusts the benchmarks that might be used to determine whether a party is competitive, and then goes to some length to justify that modification. It has a magnifying effect: from far away, using benchmarks met by parties with records of real electoral success, the GPT looks like a failure from start to finish. Zooming in, however, and adjusting the scale and field accordingly, the ups and downs of the GPT can be better teased out and analyzed. 


Frozen Garlic categorizes these waves as “clear failure,” “dismal failure” and “utter failure”. He’s not wrong, but looking at what factors underpinned each era of various failures still provides a wealth of information on what it’s like to work for a small party, how these parties get funding and how much, how they campaign (or not) and how they interact with each other as well as other parties. 



From that time I met SDP politician Miao Po-ya, who gets a mention in the book. 



The short of it: it’s stressful. It isn’t a way to build an actual paid career — instead, dedicated members find themselves pouring their own funds into keeping the party afloat. It’s a constant balancing act between trying to figure out how to get votes, and sticking to your principles. But then you make that choice, and others in your party strike that balance differently, and that disagreement spills over into disorganization: not just presenting a chaotic face but actually being unable to get their act together. Then the elections come and go and, while perhaps the GPT could have won more if they’d been better able to cooperate and seize very obvious opportunities that came their way, they don’t. Recriminations follow — either their leaders were too focused on votes and blowing up social media, or not nearly focused enough on actually wining votes. People leave. Perhaps they are poached by the DPP, or leave politics, or start a new party. A new era begins…


Through all this, this same group of people seems to be more interested in dissecting ideological differences or severing ties with each other than it does facing any sort of common enemy. This is why they can’t seem to agree on a coherent policy regarding how much support to give the DPP, work with other small parties on their own side to form alliances or even take a clear line on national identity, even though they have one. They can’t work with the ideologically similar SDP, they’ll work with the TPP (often seen as light blue) to attack their ideological cousins the NPP, but one of their candidates did a photo op with an MKT candidate because it made sense vis-a-vis local Hakka clan affiliations — even though the GPT and MKT are worlds apart? Hm. I would question the strategizing, to put it mildly.


Because the GPT tries to be more about ideals than building a political legacy, they not only have very little influence in actual politics -- all of the things the more powerful parties have done in line with the GPT’s ideas don’t seem to have been inspired by the GPT in any direct way). It’s hard to keep committed people this way, however. If there isn’t a realistic path to actual political impact through the GPT, you’re going to get true believers — those are great, but people do need money to live. So only a few of the most committed will actually do the work, and everyone else will float in and out.

Why? Because while they may agree on the politics, there’s a point at which people start focusing on building actual careers. So often, activism takes a backseat. And the ones doing the work complain about how disorganized it is, how branches of the party are withering, how people aren’t showing up. And to be honest, it seems they've got a point.


When someone does get an opportunity — to, say, garner some support from a popular presidential candidate like Tsai Ing-wen, or work in a DPP cabinet in environmental affairs — they face criticism from their original party for selling out. I would ask: are you really sticking to your ideals if you are insisting on paths that will obviously and clearly never lead to getting any of those ideals enshrined in policy? At what point does an idealist act as contrary to their own ideals as they claim the “sellout” does, if they’re always creating their own insurmountable hurdles to getting their ideas injected into popular and influential discourse? 


If a party can’t figure out who your own voters are and where to focus your efforts, is that party indeed showing more ideological purity than those who choose differently, and actually get some change pushed through? What good is ideology if you can't win a lick of influence?


Other than squabbling, factionalism and general disorganization, there was some discussion of the GPT’s actual platforms, and to what extent other parties, activists and voters were even aware of them. One interviewee noted how challenging it was to clarify these positions: when you post a policy analysis and proposals on Facebook you get essentially zero attention. When you post an attack on a hated figure like Han Kuo-yu, the views, likes and comments come pouring in. Other parties seem to think the GPT only cares about the environment, and the GPT doesn’t seem to have done much to counter this except ask people to read their charter. 


I sympathize with this: as a blogger I know what it’s like to see something ultimately meaningless take off, when your favorite or most in-depth work doesn’t. However, every other party of moderate success has figured out this balance. The GPT could do this, if it could set goals, agree on them and work towards them as a cohesive and organized unit. What doesn’t work is telling people to do more work to learn these things. They won’t. It doesn’t matter if they should. They won’t. 


Another thing that jumped out at me while reading Taiwan’s Green Parties, which is an unqualified positive for the GPT: their willingness to engage globally. I don’t just mean their work with the Global Greens, but also intra-party. Robin Winkler is a naturalized Taiwanese citizen who seriously considered running for office more than once (I don’t think any other party has considered running a naturalized citizen, but correct me if I’m wrong). Linda Arrigo headed their international affairs department. While every party is willing to employ foreigners, the GPT seems a breed apart in not just welcoming people like Arrigo and Winkler, but not necessarily thinking of them as different or ‘apart’ simply because they’re not originally from Taiwan. 


All in all, however, Taiwan’s Green Parties is an excellent book — equal parts enjoyable reading and academically grounded — and well worth a read for anyone interested in obscure corners of Taiwanese politics, especially on the left. It's academic, but written engagingly. However, the ideal reader will already have a strong notion of Taiwanese party politics before they pick up this book, so as to properly contextualize the names, small parties and other affiliations that crop up. 


Recommended food pairing for Taiwan’s Green Parties: a pint at your local and lots of popcorn


Wednesday, April 7, 2021

On Freedom of Speech Day, Let's Remember Nylon Deng's Story



Not enough is said about Nylon Deng (Deng Nan-jung / 鄭南榕), at least not in English. The Nylon Deng Liberty Foundation provides a great deal of information in Mandarin, but the only page in English is simply gleaned from Wikipedia. Finding resources can be difficult, as some use the Mandarin form of his name (Cheng or Zheng Nan-rong), whereas most will use the Taiwanese Hoklo version (Deng), and surprisingly, he's not the only Taiwanese person of note with the English name Nylon.

While people who care about Taiwan's history and future certainly know who he was, it would be difficult for any sort of curious Taiwan neophyte to learn more than the basic outline of his story if they were not proficient in Mandarin. 

What is written is often written by those in-the-know for others in-the-know, containing brief summaries of what we assume everybody knows. But they don't, always. 

The two best resources to do this are Wikipedia (yes...I know) and Jerome Keating's blog. When one of the best sources is Wikipedia, the pickings are slim indeed. In history books, again, he gets little mention: out of every general history I've read, he is mentioned briefly in Wan-yao Chou's A New Illustrated History of Taiwan, and gets a name-check in the preface of the latest English edition of Su Beng's Taiwan's 400-Year History, and is the object of exactly one sentence in Denny Roy's Taiwan: A Political History, where he is called Cheng Nan-rong.

This is a shame. I would go so far as to say that understanding the spirit of Nylon Deng is key to understanding the spirit of Taiwan. Among foreign residents I know, there seems to be a dividing line between those who've never heard of him and those who admire him as strongly as any locals. Among local acquaintances, again, I have politically-oriented people in my circles who view him as an icon of the struggle for Taiwan's freedom and independence, and others who have to pause at the name to recall who he is. 

I've never met someone who has learned his story and come away unmoved or unchanged by the experience, and so on Freedom of Speech Day, I feel compelled to provide a version of his story that fills in the gaps and perhaps helps to clarify why he is a hero to some, but forgotten by many. 

So, I think it's about time a more complete telling of his story was available online, in English. Let's start with the Nylon Deng Liberty Foundation and Memorial Museum, and then discuss his life and accomplishments.




The Freedom Era office where Deng self-immolated has been turned into a small museum, with the area where he died left untouched. His remains have of course been removed, but the burnt walls, floor and furniture have all been left in situ, behind glass panels. 

I urge everyone to visit: the address is #11 3rd Floor , Alley 3 Lane 106, Minquan E. Road Section 3, Songshan District (台北市松山區民權東路三段106巷3弄11號3樓). It's open during business hours and you can ring the bell to be let in. 




However, rather like most online resources, the museum is also entirely in Mandarin. With advance notice, an English-speaking guide can be arranged, and Freedom Era, the 1990s film about Nylon, does have the option of English subtitles. We were able to view it at the museum and at one of my visits, DVDs could be purchased. But that's about it. Otherwise, if you want to learn more, you're on your own.



Deng was born in Taipei in late 1947, about six months after 228. This may be one of the reasons why he became an active figure in the movement to push for wider recognition of that massacre. His father was Chinese, from Fuzhou, and his mother Taiwanese, from Keelung, and he himself noted both the significance of having one "Mainlander" and one Taiwanese parent, as well as the tragedy of his birth year. He spoke out both of his family being targeted for their background, but also of being protected by neighbors.




He would say of his background that although he had Chinese ancestry, he supported Taiwanese independence, a message that might resonate with many today. No small percentage of my friend circle, for example, have grandparents who came to Taiwan in the 1940s, and yet all of them think of themselves as Taiwanese. Even the ones who aren't particularly 'green' or 'blue' support independence; I don't know many people under age 40 who don't, and data suggest that very few identify as 'Chinese'.

Deng studied engineering at National Cheng-kung University, but found he was more interested in philosophy, at a time when students were still bombarded with KMT propaganda as part of their education. Famously, he transferred from Fu Jen Catholic University to National Taiwan University, but then walked out for refusing to take the then-required class in Sun Yat-sen Thought. This is also around the time he met his wife, Yeh Chu-lan, who became a political figure in her own right after Deng's death. I've heard stories about their relationship, which I staunchly view as none of my damn business.




After finishing school, Deng wrote for several magazines, including Deep Cultivation and Politician, and would spend hours at the Legislative Yuan listening to proceedings (which is not something I had thought one could do at that time!)

In the early 1980s he started Freedom Era, a magazine aimed at fighting for "100% freedom of speech". If you've ever seen the graphic of an open mouth in a prison cell, with one bar bent, this is where it comes from. If you have any familiarity with "political magazines" from earlier eras in Taiwanese history -- most notably the Japanese era when publications such as Taiwan Youth and Taiwan People's News were founded  -- you'll know that Freedom Era was a continuation of the tradition of activist publications in Taiwan.



The KMT government banned the magazine several times, and it was re-opened under a new name each time. It was said that readers always knew where to find it regardless of the name, and in any case, all of the names were similar. Freedom Era racked up 22 publication licenses this way; you can see the stamps for them in the museum. 

Freedom Era included contributions by many leading activists and writers of the day, including the usual Tangwai pro-independence set but also some we might find surprising today, such as Li Ao, a writer from China known now for having been anti-KMT, but also pro-unification. A volunteer at the Nylon Deng Memorial Museum noted wryly that such collaboration did not last. Wan-yao Chou points out in A New Illustrated History of Taiwan that had the democratization movement gone differently, perhaps pro-democracy 'blues' and 'greens' could have worked together more. Instead, they seemed to split among independence/unification lines.

Deng was always clear, however, that he advocated for independence; Taiwan's democratization should not be in hopes of unification, but sovereignty as Taiwan. One of the most famous snippets from his speeches is simply "I am Deng Nan-jung, and I support Taiwanese independence" -- nothing flashy or unique, but not something most people would have dared to say in 1987.

According to the preface of Taiwan's 400-Year History, Deng helped smuggle copies of the book to Taiwan. The book itself is is Su Beng's seminal (and highly editorial) history of Taiwan the first of its kind to give Taiwanese readers the chance to frame their own history as something separate and unique, not a part of any concept of "China" or "Japan". 



Many of Deng's remarks became famous both in their time and after. These include"if I could only live in one place, it would be Taiwan. If I had to choose one place where I would die; that place would be Taiwan." And, in a sense of dreadful premonition, "the KMT will never take me, they will only take my dead body" and "I'm not afraid of being arrested or killed, I'll fight them to the end." 

Back to the story. This cat-and-mouse game continued with the KMT, and one can only imagine the extent to which Deng himself was aware of how it might end.




In the mid-1980s, Deng served a few months in prison for violating censorship laws. In 1987, helped organize 519 Green Action -- a protest on May 19th at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall demanding an end to Martial Law, which was lifted in July of that year. It's hard to say who attended the protest as so many turned their backs to cameras, but one might guess that many were ordinary citizens.

Shortly after Martial Law was lifted, Deng initiated a campaign to push the government to designate 228 as a national holiday. To this day, Deng's brother, co-activists and the Nylon Deng Liberty Foundation and others collaborate on efforts to boost the remembrance of 228, most notably a march through the area where the incident occurred. The march typically covers the site of the Tianma teahouse where Lin-Chiang Mai was beaten for selling cigarettes illegally, the Executive Yuan and the radio station in what is now 228 Peace Park where protesters took over the broadcast and asked all of Taiwan to rise up against the KMT. 

By 1989, the year of his death, Martial Law was well over, Chiang Ching-kuo was dead, and Lee Teng-hui had succeeded him. Lee does not deserve direct blame for Deng's death, certainly the sorts of reforms he pushed through against the protests of a reticent KMT took time (did you know that some Taiwanese political prisoners remained behind bars until the early 1990s? Here's just one example). However, I think it's important to remember that when Deng died, the Chiangs were gone and the man credited with a critical role in democratization was at the helm. The world isn't simple; things don't always make narrative sense. 

In 1989, the KMT moved to arrest Deng for "insurrection", as he had published a proposal for a revised constitution. It is unclear when Deng had begun collecting cannisters of gasoline, but he stayed in his office for about 70 days as friends brought him food and water. Remember, he'd also said the KMT would never take him, only his dead body (國民黨抓不到我的人,只能抓到我的屍體). Anyone with forethought would have understood what he was planning.




Then, a police charge led by Hou You-yi -- now the popular mayor of New Taipei and possible 2024 KMT presidential candidate -- attempted to charge his office. Rather than be taken, Deng poured the gasoline he had collected around his office and set himself on fire. He died in the blaze, which was covered by Formosa TV.

Here is something else you should know: that footage can be seen in the film Freedom Era. It's extremely difficult to watch. I shut my eyes for much of that part; I just couldn't. Even so, I could hear Yeh Chu-lan screaming on the tape. As much as I might like to, I will never forget that sound. 

A few years ago, Hou came under fire for some stunningly insensitive remarks about the Nylon Deng tragedy: that they weren't just trying to arrest a man, but also "save a life". 

There are no words for this. Even if Hou was unaware that Deng had been collecting gasoline cannisters -- and perhaps he was -- he would likely have known that Deng had said the KMT would take nothing but his dead body. Maybe he thought it was a bluff. Perhaps he truly believed no lives would be lost that day. Somehow, however, I believe he was aware that a person with a spirit like Nylon Deng was never going to come quietly. I believe he knew that Deng's words were sincere, and went in anyway. 

This is the man who might run for president in a few short years. As long as I've lived here, I don't think as a foreigner if it's my place to show up alone at a Hou 2024 rally carrying a massive sign which is simply a picture of Nylon Deng, holding it silently in the air. But if he does run, and any of my Taiwanese friends want to do it, I'd be happy to help both make and hold the picture. 

Deng's funeral procession was massive: there's a film about this too. Thousands of people turned out despite threats of violence, and if I remember correctly, much of the organization was handled by the Presbyterian church in Taiwan. I don't recall if Deng himself was Christian, but he'd worked with the Presbyterians before, and a pastor had met with him shortly before his death (link in Mandarin). Apparently, at that time, he pointed at a cannister of gasoline under his desk, announcing his intent to self-immolate if the police attempted to arrest him. 

As the funeral procession got underway, not only was Deng's daughter, Deng Chu-mei, attacked with acid (she was unharmed), but Chan I-hua 詹益樺, a fellow activist, also self-immolated on what is now Ketagalan Boulevard, in front of the Presidential Office, when the police would not let him pass.

Although I can't remember the source, I have a memory of photos of Yeh Chu-lan and Deng Chu-mei soon after Nylon's death, as Yeh stepped into politics. It's heartbreaking. Deng, in elementary school when her father died, also drew a picture of him in Heaven, asking him not to smoke or eat too many sweets, along with a poem: "My father is like the sun; if the sun is gone, I will cry and cry, but still I cannot call it back."

A friend of mine once told me that Nylon Deng knew that his self-immolation could be the spark that would ignite pro-democracy and pro-independence activists and get done what needed to happen for Taiwan. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that despite admonishments that Deng is being forgotten, not everyone has let his memory slip away.

His death has inspired the spirit of independence activists who came after him, many of whom visit the museum annually. I wouldn't be surprised if some were to go there today.

Taiwan in 2021 sits at the crossroads of what seems like an impossible situation: China refuses to renounce the use of force to annex the country, but the consensus of the 24 million people who live here is that this can never be allowed to happen. It is unclear to what extent the world would step in if China were to invade, and I think it's likely they are intending to try eventually (although it's difficult to say when). 

What resolve can one muster in the face of this, if not indomitable spirit to keep fighting and refuse to let the CCP have this country? Whether you think self-immolation was the right choice or not, Nylon's will to not give in is what has continued to inspire admirers from his death until today.

In the 1990s, the Freedom Era office where Deng died was opened as a museum, as mentioned above. It's free to visit, but only open for limited hours as the staff are volunteers.



In 2014, not long before the Sunflower Movement, students at Cheng-kung University in Tainan fought with the administration over naming a public square after Nylon Deng. The administration rejected the students' vote, and one professor even likened him to an "Islamist terrorist". Yeh Chu-lan and Deng Chu-mei invited the NCKU president to the Nylon Deng Memorial Museum, though I doubt he went. 

In 2016, the Executive Yuan named his death Freedom of Speech Day, although there's no accompanying day off as with other national holidays.

Over the years, Deng's words continue to be enshrined in Taiwanese music. "If I could only live in one place, it would be Taiwan, if I had to choose one place where I would die; that place would be Taiwan" can be heard at the very end of Dwagie's Sunflower, and "Nylon", his song focused on Deng -- which takes on the rhythm of a Buddhist sutra more than a rap -- uses many of Deng's own words, including the darkly prophetic quote about his self-immolation, and features vocals by his widow, Yeh Chu-lan. Chthonic also has a track (Resurrection Pyrehonoring Deng, with what I believe is a fan-made video. Indie rapper Chang Jui-chuan included him in "Hey Kid", a song about those who fought for freedom in Taiwan and the lessons a father hopes to pass on to his children about their struggle.







In addition to the tributes by some of Taiwan's most well-known musicians linked above, Deng has also been memorialized in visual art. Most recently, a now-closed exhibit at the Tainan Fine Art Museum -- Paying Tribute to the Gods: The Art of Folk Belief -- imagined Deng and Chan as guardian gods. Their neon likenesses reminded one of Matsu's Thousand-Mile Eyes 千里眼 and Ears on the Wind 順風耳 as they stood guard over a ceremonial palanquin at the center of the final exhibition room. Around the palanquin, one could read paper-based ephemera from their lives, as films played on screens at the back. One of the films, of course, was Freedom Era. 



I'm not sure exactly why I'm telling you all this. I'm not from Taiwan. I suppose I have no cultural or ancestral right to consider Nylon Deng a hero, but I do. I can see why new generations of politically-minded Taiwanese do, too. 

So rather than complain that not enough people are aware of Deng's legacy, or that his spirit is not being suitably honored, I figured that the best I could do was to recount the story on Freedom of Speech Day 2021, in English, in as complete a form as I am capable of, so that more people might know. 

Try to remember in 2024, when it will really matter. 


Thursday, March 18, 2021

Sushi marketing gimmick? Big news! The Indigenous reaction? Ignored by the media.


Honestly, I don't really care about the whole salmon sushi marketing gimmick. However, it bears a little investigation.

A little over a hundred people in Taiwan changed their name to include the characters for salmon (鮭魚) in order to get free sushi (with some adding more characters, presumably hoping they'd get more free stuff). Officials pleaded with citizens not to waste government offices' time with this and reminded everyone that only three name changes are allowed under Taiwan law, so any miscalculation could cause the change to be permanent. This allegedly happened to poor Mr. Salmon Hsu, which the Taipei Times still hilariously calls "a man surnamed Hsu" as though we don't all know his given name now. One guy apparently made his name 36 characters long to jokingly include all the free stuff he wants, such as a stay at the Caesar Park Hotel. 

Okay, whatever, time to move on. 

Then I noticed a few posts from Indigenous activists on Facebook pointing out an extremely salient point: for decades, Indigenous Taiwanese have been fighting to get their full traditional names (and if I understand correctly, only their traditional names, without 'Chinese' names) on their National ID cards, and although progress has been made, they have mostly been met with resistance from the government. 

As activist Savungaz Valincinan pointed out, it sure was easy for Taiwanese to change their names to all sorts of ridiculous things for a marketing ploy, including those who added far more characters than the usual character limit of 15 (the character limit for Romanized names is 20).  Indigenous Taiwanese had to fight tirelessly to use their traditional names, some of which may be longer than the character limits, an issue which still causes problems.

And yet the salmon story was picked up by AFP, which caused it to appear in The Guardian, Channel News Asia and Hong Kong Free Press. Taiwan News, Taipei Times and Focus Taiwan also covered it. None mentioned the fact that apparently name changes are easy if you want free sushi, but if you're Indigenous you have to organize and protest for generations to even begin to approach that right. I would not have connected these two issues if not for Indigenous people pointing it out; certainly the media wasn't interested in that angle of the story. 

Technically, if your name exceeds the character limits, government officials can hand-write it on your card, which they have done for some people. In practice, I don't know how easy it is for Indigenous Taiwanese to actually do this, nor should they have to take special steps to have it done. I would imagine a fair number still face resistance from the bureaucracy, both unintentional (not that that makes it acceptable) and actively aggressive.

A little history: when the Qing colonized Taiwan, Indigenous people who 'assimilated' were 'given' Chinese names. When the Japanese took over that colonial endeavor, Indigenous and Han Taiwanese alike were encouraged to take official Japanese names. When the KMT then took up the mantle of colonizer, Indigenous Taiwanese were forced to change their names back to whatever they had been in Chinese, and if they didn't have such names, they were haphazardly given random names, with several surnames often unthinkingly sprinkled across family units, with no respect for their own naming customs. 

It wasn't until the late 20th century that the government began to allow the use of traditional names on National ID cards, but the character limits remain, and societal prejudice remains, which may cause some Indigenous people to choose not to pursue this. In addition, restoration of a traditional name is limited to one change, whereas Chinese-language names can be changed up to three times, meaning that Indigenous Taiwanese pursuing name restoration still face more restrictions than Mr. Salmon Hsu. 

As Savungaz Valincinan pointed out (linked above), the government has rejected petitions to address this issue because allowing longer names would "create social cognitive difficulties". A robust society should have no issues accepting members of that society as they are with their real names as they are given, so I don't know what social cognitive theory has to do with someone's real traditional name. Something tells me the person who gave that non-response isn't a specialist in the field. Just a hunch. 

Perhaps these so-called "social cognitive difficulties" (lol) could be ameliorated if the media took a greater interest in Indigenous issues, including where they intersect with viral "human interest" news. Perhaps more people would simply be aware that these hypocrisies if they were reported on more. Perhaps "oh haha people are changing their name to salmon for free salmon" isn't just the cute flash-in-the-pan story we can laugh at today and forget tomorrow.

Why don't they? Partly, I think they just don't see it. I wouldn't have seen it if not for the labor of those activists. I freely admit that: I'm not better than anyone else and I'm aware that I have blind spots, even if I don't always know what it is I can't see.

It doesn't affect most people, so the media doesn't pay attention. They may not even realize that they should be paying attention, because it's just not in their worldview. If AFP thought of it at all -- which I doubt happened -- they likely thought the rest of the world would enjoy a lighthearted salmon story but not a real issue affecting the descendants of the original inhabitants of Taiwan. Perhaps when it comes to local reporting, representations of the name rectification movement in Taiwanese news reflect a Han-centric worldview that still considers Indigenous people and issues affecting them as "Other", as scholars noted back in 2012.

Which sure seems like "social cognitive difficulties" creating their own justifications for existence like one giant arc of circular logic.

But journalism on Taiwan would be better if people did notice. Although I now intend to get back in my lane as this issue doesn't affect me, I'd like to encourage them to try. More people won't know that a lot of these issues run deeper unless they're reported more robustly.

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Photos from the Black Lives Matter Solidarity and Hong Kong Outlander rallies


Untitled


I just wanted to share some photos from two important rallies that took place in Taipei yesterday - the Black Lives Matter Solidarity Rally outside the National Taiwan Museum, and the rally organized by Hong Kong Outlander (a Taiwan-based group of Hong Kong civic activists) at Freedom Square later that evening. Both were well-attended - not as big as some protests I've seen, but a great turnout for these sorts of solidarity gatherings.



Untitled
There was some local presence at the BLM rally. I hope in the future, there will be more

In between the two, there was at least one rally to express support for Taiwan (well, the ROC)'s continued "sovereignty" over the Senkaku Islands (ugh). I think it might have melded with a pro-Han Kuo-yu rally, or a "Recall President Tsai" rally? It's not clear and I don't care enough to sort it out, but anyway all 9 or so attendees did a great job of enthusiastically calling for more attention to be paid to their cause, before the nursing home curfew kicked in.

If you actually care about these guys, Taiwan Report has a bit more information. 


Untitled

Black Lives Matter in the US have expressed that they've been heartened to see global support from gatherings like these, and racism certainly is an issue that needs to be tackled in Taiwan, not only against non-white foreign residents (most notably Southeast Asian members of the community as they form the largest demographic, but other non-Taiwanese BIPOC as well), but also against Taiwanese Indigenous who face discrimination in their own country. Both Indigenous activists and foreign resident activists spoke at the event. 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence were observed - the same amount of time that Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into George Floyd's neck.


Untitled 

At the end of the Black Lives Matter rally, which drew a large crowd of foreign residents, the organizers expressed support for the Hong Kong rally later that evening (there was some disagreement over this, but it was quickly defused).






The Hong Kong rally was also inspirational. Though part of it felt more like a pop-up market than a rally, I kind of like that about these sorts of events and purchased a Tsai Ing-wen plushy and rainbow Taiwan pin. Notable speakers included my new favorite person, a professor who went on a profane tirade (he said something along the lines of "fuck the Communist Party of China's mother!" in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Taiwanese all in a row). I could find out his name, but I'd prefer his brilliance live on, ensconced in mythology.

I do notice a harder edge to the Hong Kong rallies these days - "free Hong Kong, revolution of our times!" is still a popular chant, but "Hong Kong is Hong Kongers' Hong Kong" (it's just as unwieldy in Chinese) and "Fuck China!" are starting to catch on. Black and white bauhinia and "Free Hong Kong" flags are starting to share space with "Hong Kong Independence" flags. I've thought all along that there's no real middle ground here where Hong Kong can maintain its unique character and be a part of China, and independence is the only reasonable (yet sadly, seemingly impossible) solution, so I personally am happy to see this.

Untitled

Unfortunately, there were not very many Taiwanese at the Black Lives Matter rally, and few foreign residents (other than Hong Kongers themselves) at the Hong Kong rally. The Black Lives Matter rally didn't get a lot of local press in Mandarin, although the English-language media all covered it in advance. A few public figures on the Taiwanese left - including Sunflower leaders Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting - were present at the Hong Kong rally, but not the BLM rally (though both are supportive of the cause).

Untitled

All I can really say is, both of these issues are important, and they are interrelated. That said. I see some BLM criticism of Hong Kong protests online, with some disappointment by Hong Kongers that the Western left doesn't have a lot of support to offer them. This is coupled with criticism of some Hong Kongers' leaning into the support they've received from the American right, which one would be correct to describe as 'hypocritical' on the part of the right. 

 For Hong Kongers, as with Taiwan, I won't judge anyone for taking the support they are offered - even from a deeply unsavory and hypocritical source - when there are few other helping hands extended. Though when I see, say, Tsai Ing-wen publish a cartoon that makes her look buddy-buddy with Trump or Joshua Wong retweeting Marco Rubio, it does make me want to barf more than a little.

In any case, both deserved their own rallies, and it's important that both happened.



Untitled
The crowd did get larger as the night wore on


However, I would have liked to have seen more cross-pollination - it seemed to be all the same people (myself included) who go to these sorts of things going to both, not a larger trend.


Untitled
Lin Fei-fan surrounded by reporters (I'm not a reporter so I just snapped an amusing photo)


In the future, with rising energy for BLM solidarity in Taiwan and ongoing support for Hong Kong, as well as a growing awareness of the need to fight discrimination in a Taiwanese context, whether it's against other Taiwanese or foreigners of color, I hope there is energy for a larger gathering that brings these groups together to fight for what are, at the end, common goals.


Untitled
I would not take a photo of myself at a BLM rally, but I figure Bear Guy - a common sight at Taiwanese protests - was fair game at the Hong Kong rally.