On the eve of Nov. 26, when a consortium was to sign a contract to buy Next Media Group’s Taiwanese businesses, dozens of students gathered in front of the Executive Yuan despite the cold and heavy rain, urging the government to stop Chinese influence over Taiwanese media, to oppose media monopolies and to safeguard press freedom. The students waited for a day and a night, but the authorities refused to engage them in a dialogue.
Their failure was not very surprising. Still, seeing their mobilization, organization, publicity materials, division of labor and discourse, I was pleased to see the genesis of a new, mature, social movement. I would like to call this generation the “Wild Strawberry generation.”
Many of the protesters were part of the 2008 Wild Strawberry Movement. The movement was sparked in 2008 by controversy over the Parade and Assembly Act (集會遊行法), when the government clamped down on protests against a visit by China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林). These so-called “seventh-graders” — Taiwanese born between 1981 and 1990 — successfully reversed the negative image of the so-called “Strawberry generation” by fighting against the act, which violated the spirit of democracy and freedom.
The Wild Strawberry Movement is different from the 1990 Wild Lily Student Movement. The 1980s saw an increase in the number of dissident clubs at universities, facilitating the mobilization of students into the Wild Lily Movement and helping it achieve its goal of political reform. Those who later launched and participated in the Wild Strawberry Movement mostly stood out because of their “pure” sense of justice. When the government and society paid them scant attention, the movement eventually failed. Still, the 2008 movement planted the seeds for the birth of the Wild Strawberry generation this year.
Unlike the Wild Lily movement, the demise of the Wild Strawberry Movement led to the birth of the Wild Strawberry generation. After the young strawberries returned to campus from the streets, they have established dissident organizations, prepared publications and built a network across schools. Recently, they have even reached the relatively quiet National Dong Hwa University in Hualien County, where they are organizing study groups, holding activities inside and outside school, and learning from others to enrich themselves. They have walked into rural villages, factories and urban renewal project sites, and participated in farmers’, workers’, gay and student movements. They have raised their voices against the Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co expansion project, excessive water consumption at the Central Taiwan Science Park, the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) and media monopoly.
As a teacher who protected the Wild Strawberry Movement in 2008, a partner who has closely observed and cared about the wild strawberry generation over the past four years and a mother of a young strawberry, I am glad to say that the birth of the Wild Strawberry generation is the nation’s new hope. The Wild Strawberry Movement in 2008 was haunted by the confrontation between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, as well as the unification-independence issue.
Today, such controversy can no longer confine them. They are pursuing the universal values of justice and freedom, and fighting all kinds of hegemony. Be it the People’s Republic of China (PRC), President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, or the collusive media structure of the Want Want China Times Group, they do not duck any challenges. Whoever the “monsters” may be, the wild strawberries are going to confront them. In these confrontations, I can see the nation’s future.
In a statement of transformation issued by the wild strawberries in Greater Taichung in 2008, they used the thorny Taiwan raspberry as a metaphor for their rebirth, saying that they would transform into thorny berries, sticking each and every tiny thorn into every campus and community, and hoping to take root and grow even more wild berries. Four years later, these wild berries are proving that the statement was not an excuse for a retreat. Four years later, as the first cold front hit Taiwan last month, the wild berries were growing everywhere, and the wild strawberry generation was born.
Yang Tsui is an associate professor in the Department of Sinophone Literatures at National Dong Hwa University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
You wish every Taiwanese spoke English like I do. I was not born an anglophone, yet I am paid to write and speak in English. It is my working language and my primary idiom in private. I am more than bilingual: I think in English; it is my language now. Can you guess how many native English speakers I had as teachers in my entire life? Zero. I only lived in an English-speaking country, Australia, in my 30s, and it was because I was already fluent that I was able to live and pursue a career. English became my main language during adulthood
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
RSS