wfn.org | Wild Strawberry Student Movement Takes Off Across Taiwan

["enews" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>Taiwan Church News

>2960 Edition

>November 17~23, 2008

Wild Strawberry Student Movement Takes Off Across Taiwan

Reported by: Chiou Kuo-rong, Chen Wei-jian, Chen Yi-shuan

>Written by: Lydia Ma

Chanting slogans that call for an apology from the nation’s  president and premier and reform of the Assembly and Parade Law,  students across Taiwan gathered at Freedom Plaza to fight for human  rights. Their determination set off a street movement across Taiwan  unlike any previous street movement. What sets this movement apart from  all others is its non-violent nature. In fact, students could be seen  exercising – bending their waists, lifting their arms, running –  at some points during the sit-in to make sure that their bodies stayed  flexible and warm. Students who participated in the sit-in at Freedom  Plaza presented skits ridiculing the government for resuscitating  martial law era tactics. According to event organizers, these protest  sit-ins were deliberately conducted without prior registration and there  are no plans to register with the government. This is to reflect  protesters’ disapproval of the Assembly and Parade Law as a means  for the government to crush dissent and take away human rights. In fact,  one of the three purposes of the sit-ins is to demand reform to this  law, besides demanding an apology from President Ma and the Premier Liu,  and the resignation of National Police Agency and National Security  Bureau heads. Event organizers further emphasized that they would not  call off the sit-ins unless all three demands were met.

>Events in North Taiwan

One female graduate student who participated at the sit-in demonstration  in Taipei said that she is worried about whether the demonstration will  endure and remain focused. Because the sit-in is staged fairly close to  the national government’s headquarters, it has drawn intense media  attention. Every move students make during the sit-in is closely  scrutinized and debated on television and those who seek to derail the  movement often misrepresent information. Therefore, a simple can of coke  or beer or lunchbox could be taken out of context by the media to  ridicule students and distract them from their mission. This student  feels that students at the sit-in care too much about impressions others  make of them and this needs to be changed. She explains that whenever  society seeks to bring change through movements, the government will  always resist and vilify efforts to bring change from outside the  system. If protesters get embroiled in defending their image, rectifying  every false accusation, or care too much about people’s  perceptions, they will tire themselves out simply trying to answer every  claim made about them. Therefore, if the “strawberry  generation” really wants to become “wild strawberries”  fighting for social reforms using street protests, they must be in the  right and self-confident. This means that they should carefully  scrutinize their own actions down to the last detail to ensure they are  blameless so that the purpose of the movements will not be derailed.

One participant noted that the lack of interaction among protesters and  lack of apparent leadership is one of the weaknesses of the Taipei  sit-in demonstrations. Nevertheless, sit-in demonstrations in Taipei  included many students who came from other nearby cities and the  creativity and flexibility of the sit-in demonstrations reflect the  young generation well. The students take shifts, alternating between day  and night, weekday and weekend, to keep the movement going. One student  pointed out that President Ma greatly underestimated the students’  resolve when he predicted the sit-in protests would fizzle out in two  days.

>Events in Mid-Taiwan

According to one college pastor in Taichung, participation from  Christian fellowships as a group in sit-in demonstrations is rare in  Taichung because of midterm exams. Most Christians go to the sit-in  demonstrations alone. In contrast to the Wild Lily student movement, the  Wild Strawberry student movement in Taichung is much less passionate. So  far, most participants are students majoring in social sciences and  humanities. This pastor commented that it seems harder to get students  interested in social issues nowadays. Hence, this pastor is working on  getting the word out via MSN and emails. He urges students to pass on  information about the sit-ins to raise student awareness. Nevertheless,  it seems just a bit harder to get around most students’ minds  because a lot of them are not aware of the issues and still immersed in  mid-term exams.

>Events in South Taiwan

Students staged peaceful sit-in protests in Kaohsiung city in front of  the police department. One Christian student noted that there was a  church nearby, but no one from the church ever came out to lend support.  >From this, one can assume that Taiwanese churches are divided over  whether or not to support the student movement. So far, only the  Presbyterian Church has been actively supporting the sit-in protests in  South Taiwan. This student shared that it seemed insincere for churches  to pray for a spiritual revival in Taiwan and then turn their backs on  social issues and injustices afflicting the country. Furthermore, church  unity should extend beyond “heavenly” issues to social,  “earthly” issues.

Regarding whether students care less about social issues nowadays, some  Christian students argue that under the influence of the mass media,  many students are affected by biased reports. In addition, they are not  taught that they should be concerned about social issues. Hence, besides  staging sit-in protests, participants of the Wild Strawberry student  movement must also move beyond sit-ins and make their requests known by  engaging the public.

One college pastor’s view is that this student movement is fairly  autonomous. Active participation from Christian organizations may shift  focus away from what is really at stake. Hence, this pastor proposes  that churches play a behind the scenes, supportive role. This is what  college ministry centers are doing in Tainan city. Members from the  college ministry center and Tainan presbytery went to visit protestors  last week to extend their support. When they met with student leaders  from Cheng-Kung University, college ministry leaders voiced their  support while stressing that they would remain neutral to give students  autonomy. Hence, the Tainan college ministry leaders’ position is  to urge students to critically think and be concerned about the issues.  Though it would urge students to sign petition forms calling for  Assembly and Parade Law reform, it would not push for their  participation in the sit-in protests.

For more information about the Strawberry Student Movement, visit  http://action1106.blogspot.com

*******************

Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages. You  may translate and re-use the articles if you acknowledge the source as  "Taiwan Church News" and list the names of the reporter and writer.
Visit our web site: http://www.pctpress.org (Chinese)

>http://enews.pctpress.org/ (English)

Please direct comments and questions to: enews@pctpress.org

If links are not working or you desire to receive e-news as plain text  attachments, please let us know. Thank you!

>********************