Tuesday was the anniversary of the martyrdom of freedom advocate Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕). On the morning of April 7, 1989, New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) — acting on orders as then-head of the Taipei City Police Department Criminal Investigation Division — led a team into the offices of Freedom Era Weekly to arrest Deng, who had always supported freedom of thought, a cause he had long before sworn to fight to the very end for.
Rather than allowing himself to be taken into custody, Deng chose self-immolation. He was 42 years old.
Hou was later promoted to head of the National Police Agency during the tenure of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), and when New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) took office, Hou was his deputy. Hou has been unstinting in his service of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
During the 1980s, Deng made major contributions to three major political reform movements: The lifting of martial law; the creation of a new constitution; and the establishment of a new nation. Having championed the 228 Justice and Peace Movement and helped to break the spell of the party-state, he had come to be seen as an “activist philosopher.”
By choosing to take his own life, he demonstrated his resolve to pay the ultimate price to keep him from a denial of freedom. His sacrifice was a huge contribution to the development of democracy in Taiwan.
Deng was not a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, but through his Freedom Era Weekly he fought for his idea of a collective of free people.
“I am Deng Nan-jung,” he said, “and I advocate Taiwanese independence” — words that exemplify perfectly his commitment to his vocation.
While he is no longer with us, his spirit lives on. His eulogy says it so well: The flames that engulf shall not destroy.
Last year, Yilan County and Tainan took the lead in designating April 7 as Freedom of Expression Day, organizing various events to illustrate the significance and values of freedom and liberty. This year, Freedom of Expression Day is being extended to other cities and areas, including Kaohsiung, Yunlin County, Taichung, Pingtung County, Chiayi County, Changhua County and Taoyuan. Even more cities and counties are set to designate April 7 as Freedom of Expression Day.
Thought can only blossom when freedom of expression exists, and only when this is allowed to happen is the development of a vibrant culture possible. Freedom of Expression Day has about it the idea of a cultural festival. The events for this year’s Freedom of Expression Day included concerts and lectures on the theme of advocacy.
The concerts were about music’s ability to liberate the body; the lectures about promoting profound introspection; and interwoven into this, the spirit of the Sunflower and Umbrella movements — born of the passion and commitment of young people in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
During the KMT-imposed Martial Law era, it was the Taiwan Garrison Command that enforced the law, casting a shadow of oppression over the nation. That role is now played by China.
Many artists and people working in the arts live with Beijing looking over their shoulder, finding it difficult to be faithful to themselves in how they express their ideas. In the past, the struggle was to wrest back stolen freedoms; now, it is to protect those freedoms, and make sure they are not stolen again. Different times, different decades, but Taiwan retains a duty to freedom and liberty.
While commemorating Deng’s martyrdom of 26 years ago, we must not forget to continue to march along the path to freedom.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Paul Cooper
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
After more than three weeks since the Honduran elections took place, its National Electoral Council finally certified the new president of Honduras. During the campaign, the two leading contenders, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, who according to the council were separated by 27,026 votes in the final tally, promised to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan if elected. Nasralla refused to accept the result and said that he would challenge all the irregularities in court. However, with formal recognition from the US and rapid acknowledgment from key regional governments, including Argentina and Panama, a reversal of the results appears institutionally and politically
Legislators of the opposition parties, consisting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Friday moved to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德). They accused Lai of undermining the nation’s constitutional order and democracy. For anyone who has been paying attention to the actions of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature since they gained a combined majority in February last year, pushing through constitutionally dubious legislation, defunding the Control Yuan and ensuring that the Constitutional Court is unable to operate properly, such an accusation borders the absurd. That they are basing this
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) was on Monday last week invited to give a talk to students of Soochow University, but her responses to questions raised by students and lecturers became a controversial incident and sparked public discussion over the following days. The student association of the university’s Department of Political Science, which hosted the event, on Saturday issued a statement urging people to stop “doxxing,” harassing and attacking the students who raised questions at the event, and called for rational discussion of the talk. Criticism should be directed at viewpoints, opinions or policies, not students, they said, adding
RSS