Monday marked Taiwan’s Freedom of Speech Day, a day to commemorate the martyrdom of Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) — the democracy advocate who self-immolated on that day in 1989. A memorial service was held in Chin Pao San Cemetery, where the Wing of Freedom monument stands, for the freedom fighter who chanted: “I am Deng Nan-jung, and I support Taiwan’s independence” at many social movements in the 1980s.
He was charged with sedition for publishing a draft “Republic of Taiwan constitution” in the Freedom Era Weekly, the political magazine he founded, in 1988. He sacrificed his life to protest those charges. He was a philosopher-activist who martyred for freedom — the core value of his pursuits.
Deng, who studied philosophy at college, published a series of works in the Freedom Era Weekly between 1984 and 1989. Many activists from the dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) political movement during the 1970s and 1980s, the Martial Law era when the Kaohsiung Incident happened, ran for public office. Deng went on a different path.
In the pursuit of “a small nation with good people,” he advocated Taiwanese independence. On April 7, 1989, he self-immolated by setting fire to his office when now-New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) — then-head of the Taipei City Police Department Criminal Investigation Division — led a team to break into the office to arrest him, literally “over his dead body.”
He is not a victim, but a martyr who sacrificed his life to prove his will to pursue Taiwanese independence.
Taiwan is a free and democratic country, which is independent and different from authoritarian China. Taiwan should have its own leftists to have both wings of the political spectrum.
Independence does not only mean Taiwanese could leave their historical trauma and hardship behind.
It also serves as a window of democracy to Chinese. It is China that has to change, not Taiwan.
It is lamentable that some reactionaries pretend to be progressive with no regard for Taiwan’s fragility and bow to China’s power. How hypocritical it is.
On this year’s Freedom of Speech Day, the Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation (NCLF) published the diary Deng kept during his incarceration and donated the manuscript to Academia Historica. The diary offers insights into his time in prison. It is an archival record that bore testimony to Taiwan’s history.
I was born in the same year as Deng, the year of the 228 Incident. It has been 36 years since Deng martyred himself for freedom when he was 41. It means I have outlived Deng by 36 years.
The NCLF was founded in 1999. I was the chairperson for the first two terms, for six years. The renovation of the memorial museum, which is at the former office of the Freedom Era Weekly, was completed on Dec 10, 1999. The Wing of Freedom monument was built in Chin Pao San Cemetery in 2002. Essays and poems have been published to commemorate Deng and preserve his legacy.
I paid tribute to him this year with my newly published novel, part of a series of novels that are inspired by Taiwan’s history. The novel conveys Deng’s martyrdom and belief in freedom.
Taiwan should remember its history of resisting the party-state in the Martial Law era and its pursuit of freedom to build a small and beautiful country, and to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Fion Khan
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