Wildfire Collection: Thirty Years Anniversary Edition

Chapter 3 Preface to the 30-Year Commemorative Edition of Wildfire (3)
Not just the bored citizens, but also the bored and "bad" citizens.I get so many letters from mentally ill people.Usually the letters are very long, and the frequency of letters is very high, only one letter in three or two days, and they are persistent.All patients share a common symptom: witch hunt delusions.The crooked text describes the process of being followed by the Kuomintang, wiretapped, stolen mail, framed, poisoned in tea, and drugged in food.There is a man who has been writing to me for a long time about national affairs (he has also been writing to President Reagan and the Pope for a long time).One day I read his name in the newspaper: he was arrested for distributing "anti-government speeches" on the street.Most of the patients are college students.Their illness is not necessarily caused by the totalitarian rule, but the totalitarian rule of the Kuomintang deeply controls their only thinking, making them unable to move.

In "Chinese, Why Are You Not Angry", many people see hope; those who are indifferent are moved, and those who endure are inspired.But I am no longer naive.At the same time, I have discovered that this oven is not simply deflated, it has a fundamental structural problem.

I started writing strategically, starting from the article "Difficult Situation".

The most important goal: how to push to the most dangerous edge of speech suppression, but still remain in the mainstream media with the greatest influence?How many predecessors wrote from "China Times" to "Zili Evening News" to non-Party publications, and then disappeared.I clearly know that I want to stay in the mainstream media to do the biggest "subversion" and be a worm in the core of the most popular apple.

Jin Hengwei, editor-in-chief of the supplement, said: "You can write freely, and don't have any police chiefs in your heart. We will deal with the issue of scale."

But, how could I not have the Chief Police Officer in my heart?Jiangnan has just been killed, and his bones are still cold.My father used to have nightmares for me; told me how he saw people sinking into the sea in the middle of the night covered in sacks, and countless people disappeared.My fate worries him; he knows I have no foreign passport.

So in life, I keep a low profile.On the one hand, in order to preserve the life of writing, on the other hand, I don't bother to be a hero out of the popular culture.I don't do interviews, I don't appear on TV, I don't give speeches, I don't make public appearances.Of course, you can't associate with opponents.For an extremely long time, readers did not know that the author of "Wildfire" was a woman.Each article had to be written in solitary contemplation.

When it comes to writing, I know I cannot directly attack the system, as is done by non-Party publications that come and go.What can be discussed and criticized are social issues such as the environment, public security, and education.However, in that totalitarian system, anyone who can think will find that all social problems are inevitably rooted in politics in the end, which I cannot write about.

I also don't think it's necessary to write.If a person has the ability to think independently, he will see the crux of the problem and find his own answer.I am also convinced that the unfair system exists because individuals allow it to exist; the more fundamental problem than the system lies with the individual.

So every article of "Wildfire", whether it is "Kindergarten University" or "Whose Home is Taiwan?" ", all point the ultimate responsibility to the individual, that is, the small citizens themselves.

Non-Party publications also accused me of "only killing flies, not tigers", or seeing the crux of the problem.I can't explain: it's a strategy, so I don't directly hit the "tiger"; it's a belief, because I really think that the "fly" has a greater responsibility than the "tiger".

I wrote the most provocative words with what I thought was the most sincere state of mind, and the level of criticism gradually increased.The newspaper office took many "caring" calls from "relevant units" for me, but when I compared the director of the art museum to a "political officer", the editor couldn't stop it. The "Department of Political Affairs and Warfare" has already issued an official document prohibiting the military from reading the "Wildfire" column and the "China Times".Now General Xu Linong, the director of the "Political and War Department", wants to invite me to dinner.

General Xu is gentle and elegant, modest but sharp.During the dinner, someone suggested that I should call him "Uncle Xu", but I smiled and didn't answer.He looks really like a kind, lovely and personable elder from other provinces, but he has to fight each other in his own position. "Your article," he said, "is disastrous to the country and the people."

I agree with him in my heart. If "country" and "people" refer to the one-party state of the Kuomintang.

After returning, he wrote "Orwell's Taiwan? ":
… What is the purpose of speech control?Are the means appropriate?How's the effect?Most importantly, is there any need for control?What are the serious consequences of mind control?Does it meet Taiwan's current situation and future needs?
This article finally couldn't be published in the newspaper, so I had to secretly mix it with other articles and publish it as a book.

The Kuomintang Arts and Crafts Association asked me if I would "see an official".Which "official"?I asked.Mr. James Soong, Director of the Cultural Industry Union.

Mr. Song and his wife and I dined in a small room in Lai Lai Hotel.The couple's attitude is natural, their words are sincere, and there is no trace of bureaucracy.We exchanged some views on major events in the current situation, and found that there is not too much difference in the understanding of each other's ideas.

The "Ministry of Education" asked me if I would like to speak to the Minister.In Minister Li Huan's office, I stated to him my views on Taiwan's military training and education: the army and the party should leave the campus completely.Minister Li was very humble, listened intently, and took notes.

After "Wildfires" was published, the column stopped for a while.At the end of [-], I left Taiwan.Rumor has it that "Wildfire" was finally "killed" and I was "deported".In fact, the departure was due to family factors, and the "wildfire" stopped because I was concentrating on breastfeeding and parenting. "Wildfire" was under considerable pressure and the risk of being banned, but it was not "blocked".

[-] copies within four months, making it technically impossible to block and ban, is certainly a reason, but it may not have nothing to do with the quality of the Kuomintang leaders themselves.Xu Lienong, James Soong, and Li Huan, although they are all maintaining a system riddled with holes, are political figures with complex thinking and mature experience, and they can see the direction of the social tide conveyed by the "wildfire".They did not resort to brute power to resist this trend.

These people represented the mainstream of Taiwan politics in [-].Ten years later, it all became the so-called non-mainstream and relegated to the fringe.But the new mainstream that replaced them, the political struggles of the [-]s, turned out to be more hideous than the imagination of the [-]s.

In [-], martial law was lifted.Taiwanese have finally won "freedom from fear".It's just that there are many other kinds of fears besides political fears, which emerged one by one in the [-]s.

In [-], "Wildfire Collection" became popular in mainland China.College students felt that those words were written especially for the mainland.

In [-], I was in Moscow.Reform and opening up are shaking the "national foundation" of the Soviet Union, but the KGB still monitors my whereabouts, and the whereabouts of any foreign writers and journalists.Gorbachev's think tank tried to get in touch with Taiwan, and I was entrusted to forward the information to the "Presidential Palace"; "President Lee Teng-hui" replied: The time is not yet ripe.The "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Shen Changhuan publicly reiterated to the media the need to "anti-communist and anti-Russian", and was very angry with my article advocating a new understanding of the Soviet Union and contacting the Soviet Union.

……

In October [-], tens of thousands of people marched in Moscow, and a million people marched in East Germany.

In the [-]s, I walked from Taipei to Beijing, and then from Moscow to the streets of East Berlin. The autumn colors were bleak, and it was the end of the era.I saw the writer speaking to the crowd, and the crowd shouting to the sky, and the sky, indifferently, began to rain coldly, washing away the tears of grief, indignation and passion on people's faces.

It was the worst of times and the best of times, the darkest of times and the brightest.Because of the darkness, people are full of the strength to pursue the light and the passion to resist the darkness, and black and white are distinct, and the goal of struggle is so clear.Strength, passion, purpose—the [-]s was a time of idealism.Only after gaining the "light" and facing the darkness of the individual self in the "light" and discovering that the darkness is even deeper and unfathomable, did we enter the [-]s, the end of the century, when we were in doubt.

anyone can fall

We are all ten years older.

I keep fifty letters from readers of "Wildfire" at hand.That 17-year-old middle school student wrote with tears in his eyes: "I fight authority, authority always wins." How do you see the world now?Is the graduate of the Normal University who was beaten into a serious injury in the middle of the night in the military academy and has nowhere to appeal, is he alive and healthy now?Who is the mentally ill person who was arrested by the military police now fantasizing about being persecuted by?What kind of life is the housewife living on the slopes of Tamsui with the house split in two?
What does the writer who wrote impassionedly about "Wildfire" and believed that "all social problems are ultimately inescapably rooted in politics" admit now?What have you learned?
I admit that politics is not the root of all problems.It's just that in the totalitarian system of the [-]s, politics occupied all spheres of life, thus covering up some deeper issues, such as culture.

The Kuomintang has gone through a big game of "Trojan horse massacre of the city", and it is no longer the party of the [-]s that ran amok with spies; it is a democratic party with a real foundation of public opinion.The DPP is not the oppressed political heresy of the [-]s, but an opposition party with sufficient checks and balances and even the possibility of ruling.The democratic system dreamed of in the [-]s has been realized, so how can we explain the dictatorship within the party of the New KMT and the desire for power of the DPP? What is the root cause of the act of "the democratic parliament seeking self-interest through legal channels"?
(End of this chapter)