Opposing the Sunko Ink Co chemicals plant in Taichung’s Dali District (大里) was my first assignment for the environmental movement. After that, the environmental campaigns kept on coming, propelling Taiwan’s turbulent environmental movement forward. During this period, the 1986 campaign against the Dupont Taiwan factory in Changhua County’s Lugang Township (鹿港) stands out as being different from the Sunko Ink campaign.
Sunko Ink had already built a plant that was a clear source of pollution, while the Dupont Taiwan plant was still in the planning stage. Additionally, Sunko Ink is a domestic manufacturer, while Dupont is a multinational conglomerate. In 1986, martial law had yet to be lifted, and the social forces that had been restricted for so many decades were still trying to break through their political restraints.
The movement against Dupont Taiwan’s titanium dioxide plant brought together a group of small-town intellectuals who were already involved in social issues and who were also intimately connected with the now-defunct Humanity Magazine (人間雜誌).
Compared with the environmental campaign against Sunko Ink, the campaign against Dupont Taiwan ran much deeper through society. Due to the large amount of support lent to the campaign by intellectuals, its appeals took on a more literary and artistic flavor. Yang Tu (楊渡), Chung Chiao (鍾喬) and Lu Szu-yueh (盧思岳) are all accomplished writers and poets.
Their efforts brought together leading figures within society and helped facilitate a field work project and investigation by students from National Taiwan University into Dupont Taiwan. Through their extracurricular assignment, the students responded to the call of their native land, showing a concern for the truth, while also building up their capabilities for the 1990 Wild Lily student movement.
Another pioneering aspect of the campaign against Dupont Taiwan was its use of the power of civil society to repel a multinational conglomerate. In the world’s struggle against the forces of imperialism and exploitation, a very real battle was being fought.
Was this a matter of political direction or of circumstance? The forces in Taiwan opposed to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are moving toward the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). There were originally many different forces, but through cooperation and competition, many of these forces have disappeared. It was not long before I too joined this mainstream force and the political party that was about to be established, the DPP, and even took part in its operations.
During this time, many friends who engaged in the campaign against Dupont remained outside political circles, as they continued to write and teach, make movies and engage in community work. They all performed exceptionally well in their professional endeavors, but they kept their distance from politics.
Regrettably, some friends became gradually estranged due to different political ideologies, and we became opposed to each other as we joined different political organizations. I try to refrain from judging others and do my utmost to remain respectful, nor will I criticize others for their political or religious beliefs. The main reason for this is that I still value the good experiences we shared in the past.
During the great debate over Taiwanese literature in the 1970s, everyone worked together and had the strength to resist oppression. During the campaign against Dupont, they were working for Taiwan, and the simple and honest little township of Lugang (鹿港) worked to oppose the pollution that it saw coming. At the time, academics, students and residents alike were all very pure in their intentions, and I still miss the purity and authenticity of the campaign.
Today, the movements and campaigns, including political movements, are becoming increasingly and severely polarized, and this makes me think of an article of reflections by Academia Sinica’s Institute of Taiwan History associate research fellow Wu Rwei-ren (吳叡人) published in 2006. In it, Wu said that using provincial origin as a basis for power distribution had further systematized and politicized ethnic relations and made provincial origin-ethnic belonging the main political and social division in Taiwanese society.
Looking back at the campaign against Dupont, I cannot help but regret that such events must take place. Could it be that this is a historical necessity?
I miss the purity and beauty of those days, and regret the divisions and the noise and clamor of today. Thirty years have passed since the campaign, and it is a treasured memory. There is only one way to express my feelings to the friends that joined hands and fought together all those years ago: We have to work even harder.
Liao Yung-lai is a former Taichung county commissioner.
Translated by Edward Jones and Perry Svensson
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