Editorial: From passive remembrance to active awareness

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3084 Edition
April 4-10, 2011

Editorial

Editorial: From passive remembrance to active awareness

Translated by Lydia Ma

On April 3, 2011, just as President Ma was getting ready to address a crowd of 
demonstrators who’d come to  ppose the Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co. 
project, he was rebutted by protest leader Lin Shih-hsien and asked by another 
protester to sign a declaration that he intended scrap the building project, 
but the President refused to do so.

Ma’s refusal to scrap this project and Lin’s verbal rebuttal and attack drew a 
lot of media attention on that day. Questioned about his response, Lin said he 
regretted that President Ma dodged the topic altogether and further angered the 
crowd. He also apologized to anyone who might have been offended by his verbal 
attack and rebuttal, but pleaded that reports of this event stay on the topic 
of nuclear energy and on whether the President was planning to cancel the 
building of Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology. Regardless of whether President 
Ma came across as contemptuous of the will of the people, the fact that we can 
now speak up so boldly against a national leader’s incompetence without fearing 
reprisals is something worth cherishing and celebrating nonetheless. 

It’s been a long journey for Taiwan from the imposition of martial law where 
criticism of a president would likely be rewarded with a severe beating, to 
boldly speaking one’s mind anywhere without fear of government reprisal.

Though we should be proud of this achievement, we must nevertheless remember 
that freedom of speech in Taiwan came with a heavy cost and through the 
sacrifice of many people. This freedom didn’t grow effortlessly from a tree and 
it took some violent shakings and sacrifices for people to take hold of it. One 
of the sacrifices we saw on the road to democracy was the life and death of 
Deng Nan-jung, an editor-in-chief of a banned newspaper who set himself on fire 
22 years ago to protest the lack of freedom of speech.

In the book of Deuteronomy, we read about God instructing the Israelites to 
remember God’s commandments  and to always keep these close to heart and pass 
them on to their children so that all may go well with this new nation. We know 
that this is not how they would always behave and the sacrifice of many 
people’s lives was required for God’s people to become aware of their condition.

As we remember our ancestors during Tomb Sweeping Day, let’s also remember our 
heroes and emulate how they laid down their lives for their country. Let’s 
remember their sacrifice for this land and think about what kind of legacy we 
want to leave for future generations. 

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