Sitting hunched over a green plastic stool, and sweating profusely as the sun beams down on him, Indie Daadee (音地大帝) is one of the few familiar faces at the protests by high-school students protesting against the Ministry of Education’s adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines. Two young fans disrupt his mid-afternoon sweat bath to get their photo taken with the Internet satirist famous for his scathing critiques of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during last year’s Sunflower movement.
A constant presence at the anti-curriculum protest, Indie Daadee, whose real name is Yao Chieh-hsiang (姚介祥), has played mostly a peripheral role at the site itself, only offering suggestions to students if asked, but not part of the decision-making process of the protest’s future direction.
“I’m more their on-the-spot stage host. I usually just come up to the front and say stuff to fill up time in between speeches or performances,” he said.
Photo: Aaron Wytze Wilson
Indie Daadee and prominent Sunflower leaders like Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) were thrust into the public spotlight when they occupied the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber for 23 days in protest against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement.
Well-connected, well-organized and media-savvy, the Sunflowers were successful in part because of their accumulated experience participating in previous social movements, including the 2012 anti-media monopoly protests and the Dapu home demolition protests the following year.
SUPPORT FROM AFAR
Photo: Aaron Wytze Wilson
However, Lin, Chen and former Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) have been noticeably absent from the recent protests aimed at the new China-centric history curriculum.
“Lin Fei-fan has sent one message asking how the situation was going, but aside from that, they haven’t become part of our student movement,” said Liao Chung-lun (廖崇倫) another student leader of the movement, and a prominent presence at the protest site.
“We don’t know how it happened, but that’s just how it was, right from the beginning,” added Hsiao Chu-chun (蕭竹均), 17, a student spokesman of the Apple Tree Commune Club.
Although Lin and Chen have shared multiple posts about the protest on their Facebook feeds — with Lin stating approvingly that “there is no need for [him] to give [the students] any suggestions, because they’re already very mature” — there has been little face-to-face interaction between the Sunflower students and anti-curriculum protesters.
Huang, who recently announced his candidacy for a legislative seat for New Taipei City’s 12th constituency on the New Power Party ticket, was noticeably absent when the members of his party visited the students. Still, Huang has supported the students from afar, making numerous appearances on television talk shows, calling the new history curriculum changes “absurd.”
Chiang Cheng-yu (江承昱), a fourth year university student and an experienced member of last year’s occupation of the Legislative Yuan, says the decision of Chen, Lin and Huang to stay away from the protest site and contact to a minimum was a deliberate one.
“They would prefer the focus of the protests to remain the high school students and the issue of the new China-centric history curriculum,” Chiang said. “These students are like blank pieces of paper: we don’t want our own experiences and views to confine their development and decision making.”
Chiang is one of many experienced Sunflower protesters that have offered assistance to the high school students, but haven’t taken part in the decision-making process and direction of the protests — which has had both advantages and disadvantages.
Hsiao said that their inexperience in running a protest has meant that the decision-making sometimes becomes excessively long, but adds that everything the movement has achieved so far has been because of the high school students. “This really is a student-organized protest,” he said.
FINDING THEIR VOICE
But the absence of the Sunflower leaders is also a result of a new generation of students finding their own voices. Hsiao and Liao are both 17 years old, and would have been too young to join previous social movements.
Additionally, the leaders of previous student movements have also moved into the political arena, leaving the dirty day-to-day dealings of organizing protest movements to others. While Huang is running for a seat in the legislature, Wild Strawberry movement leader Urda Yen (嚴婉玲) and Wild Lily movement leader Fan Yun (范雲) are now part of the Social Democratic Party.
Political parties, much like the Sunflower leaders, seek to avoid accusations that they are manipulating the students. Consequently, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party has also expressed support for the students from afar.
But support from afar appears to suit most of the high-school students just fine. Student leader Chen Chien-hsun (陳建勳) has received numerous messages of support that express admiration for the amount they’ve accomplished. Chen says this is because young Taiwanese have a stronge sense of civic consciousness.
“They see this as a new generation of students taking up the struggle,” Chen said. “We’ve done more than they could ever have done in their time.”
Growing up in an age where participating in social movements seems to be a rite of passage for Taiwanese youth, perhaps the inspiration to protest is the most valuable assistance the Sunflowers could ever provide to the high school students.
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