Typhoon forces student activists to end occupation
By Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter
Student activists yesterday announced the end of their occupation of the Ministry of Education forecourt as Typhoon Soudelor approached.
Activists assembled in front of the ministry’s doors bowed three times to thank supporters and apologize for the movement’s failings.
They immediately began removing supplies and tents, repeatedly yelling “go to hell” to police officers guarding the ministry doors.
“Our demands have already achieved initial success,” National Taichung First Senior High School Apple Tree Commune Club spokesperson Chen Chien-hsun (陳建勳) said, citing a legislative cross-caucus resolution calling for schools to be free to use old textbooks and for the curriculum guidelines to be sent back to a “curriculum review committee.”
“Society has already started to pay attention to us, which is already an outstanding accomplishment,” Chen said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and DPP mayors have promised to continue to “pressure” the ministry to “suspend” the guidelines, he said.
Suspending the guidelines was the protesters’ former “bottom line” for ending their occupation.
Chen added that the pressures faced by students and safety concerns were also behind the decision to withdraw, as the tents they have might not be able to withstand the storm.
He said the next task for the students would be monitoring whether schools chose to use pre-adjustment textbooks.
By the time of the announcement, the students had occupied the ministry’s forecourt for 162 hours, after charging into the complex in the early hours of Friday last week.
The occupation was to protest against “China-centric” adjustments to high-school social studies curriculum guidelines and the suicide of student activist Dai Lin (林冠華).
A memorial service for Lin was held last night at the forecourt immediately prior to the students’ announcement, with mourners dropping flower petals into a basin of water between rows of candles.
The students’ announcement came after a series of prominent pan-green political figures urged them to withdraw.
Independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) visited the students in the evening, promising that the city would prepare moving trucks to help them remove their tents and supplies from the forecourt.
He also promised to arrange a meeting between the students and Taipei Department of Education Commissioner Tang Chih-min (湯志民) to explain his role as chairman of the committee that passed the guideline adjustments.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) and Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) made appearances earlier, following an Executive Yuan meeting, to urge students to depart.
“There has never been a movement for democracy, fairness and social justice that achieved success in a single bound,” Chen Chu said. “I understand your determination to fight on, but many objectives can be divided into phases.”
She urged the students to withdraw in the face of the typhoon and begin a new phase of the movement if the ministry failed to implement the Legislative Yuan and Executive Yuan resolutions calling for a review of the curriculum guidelines review process and drafting an “Educational Neutrality Act,” as well as allowing schools to continue using the old textbooks.
The fate of the students’ demands remained unclear, with Chen Chien-hsun stating in the morning that the ministry had not had any contact with them since the cross-caucus resolution on Tuesday.
An afternoon appearance outside the ministry doors by Deputy Minister of Education Lin Teng-chiao (林騰蛟) sparked student anger after Lin only introduced representatives of a National Parent Association (全國家長會) and responded to reporters’ questions, refusing to have a dialogue with the students. After student activists rushed forward and took his microphone, he quickly disappeared through the ministry doors to hisses from the activists.
The National Parent Association representatives urged the students to return home, promising to continue efforts to revise the curriculum guidelines.
However, they also refused to talk with the students, instead quickly disappearing through the ministry doors after students asked whether they supported the suspension of the guidelines.
The background of the National Parent Association was unclear, with the National Alliance of Parents Organizations (全國家長團體聯盟) chairman Wu Fu-pin (吳福濱) earlier expressing support for the student activists.
