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
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
When a recall campaign targeting the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators was launched, something rather disturbing happened. According to reports, Hualien County Government officials visited several people to verify their signatures. Local authorities allegedly used routine or harmless reasons as an excuse to enter people’s house for investigation. The KMT launched its own recall campaigns, targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, and began to collect signatures. It has been found that some of the KMT-headed counties and cities have allegedly been mobilizing municipal machinery. In Keelung, the director of the Department of Civil Affairs used the household registration system
RSS