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Youth in Taiwan rock

by Cecilia Chan and Rainbow Ngai

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Teenagers and families actively participate in party campaigns.

People queue up at Freddy Action’s headquarters for their T-shirts.

The curtain of the March 22 presidential election has drawn in Taiwan.

Youth participation in politics has boomed as cheering and chanting of slogans filled every corner of the island, with both parties regarding them as a key to victory.

Eighty per cent of the 6.5 million eligible university voters were expected to cast their ballots, according to a survey conducted by the University News, a publication by the Chengchi University, Taipei.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) highly regards the young voters in the presidential election. “Teenagers are the key to the election,” said Luxia Wu Yih-chunn, director of the culture and information department of Freddy

Action, a youth group established after DPP’s defeat in the legislative election in January this year.

“The political stance of the older generation is more or less fixed; they have already determined to vote for a particular candidate. On the other hand, many teenagers or university students are new eligible voters. They may not have thought of who they should vote for, or how they can voice their opinion through their votes,” Mr Wu said.

Targeting the youth in Taiwan, Freddy Action had designed eye-catching promotional products and accessories, including stickers, flags and mobile phone straps. Mr Wu said more than 500 people queued at the headquarters for their theme T-shirts and caps everyday.

Besides promotional products, Freddy Action had gained the attention of many young people by its Chinese slogan “turn the tide”, which was a baseball term, carrying the meaning of “victory in adversity”.

Its supporters said the party gave young people the freedom to carry out their own campaign activities. Huang Chia-pin, a fresh university graduate, volunteered to get involved in both the brainstorming process and the execution of Freddy Action.

Miss Huang also encouraged her peers to join her. “I would invite my friends to join and become one of the volunteers. However I won’t force them to take part,” she said at the DPP’s election-eve rally at Songshan district, Taipei.

Another young supporter of Freddy Action, Enno Chang I-nung, also stressed the importance for politicians to listen to youth’s demands. “They (DPP) even invited us to their meetings to tell them what young people want,” she said.

The 21-year-old musician also said Freddy Action provided a new communication channel between young people and political parties.

Campaign leader of Freddy Action, Freddy Lim, who is the

leading vocalist of a rock band “Chthonic”, said that he found the campaign meaningful, although DPP’s candidate Frank Hsieh Chang-ting lost the election.

“After all, I think it is worthy, especially when I see teenagers, who are previously aloof from politics, step up,” he said at the DPP campaign headquarters after the election, “Young people, through participating in various campaign activities, have already achieved the mission, “victory in adversity”. I hope they would hold this attitude in their hearts forever,” he said.

Mr Lim said he would resume his work and prepare for his new album as the election was over. Meanwhile, he said he would maintain Freddy Action in operation, by moving its headquarters to a cheaper location, in order to provide an outlet for young people to voice their opinion.

For the winning camp, the Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD) set up three youth groups dedicated to encourage youth participation in the campaign for the presidential election, including the Youth League, the Youth Army and the Youth Unit.

The theme T-shirt designed by Freddy Action carries a slogan, “turn the tide”.

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“Young people, through participating in the activities, have already achieved the mission, victory in adversity. I hope they would hold this attitude in hearts forever.”

DPP supporters cry after the announcement of the election result.

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Tsai Shih-ping, a spokesperson for president-elect Ma Ying-jeou, said youth were a decisive group of electors that would definitely affect the outcome of the election.

“GMD’s general policies, such as student loans, undoubtedly will be steered by their demands,” Mr Tsai said, stressing that the GMD treated youth with much sincerity.

One of the youth groups, the GMD Youth League was set up in 2004 when Mr Ma was the chairman of the party, according to Chang Chun-kai, former organiser of the GMD Youth League.

“Those who joined the Youth League have intentions to pursue their career in politics and hope that the GMD would support them in the future,” he added.

The Youth Army was another election apparatus for the campaign. It had an all-girl team with about 2,300 to 2,500 female students.

They were organised into a sub-unit, named “Babes for Ma”,

and they referred themselves as “babes”, which means attractive girls. One of its leaders, Miss Yu Hsiao-wei said they were confident in what they were working for Mr Ma. And to them, confidence equals to beauty.

Miss Yu, a postgraduate student at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, devoted much of her time to participate in Mr Ma’s election campaign. Yet, she had no desire to pursue her career in politics.

She admitted that the GMD is conservative, but she said the party has realised that youth are important for the party.

“The older generation in our party is beginning to change their attitude towards youth and give young people more room to develop,” said Miss Yu.

“The GMD gave us a lot of freedom to do what we think is suitable for the campaign…Greater freedom encourages youth to participate,” said Miss Yu.

The GMD also extended its rally to the virtual world which is popular among the youth.

“Ten Rifles” was a design team in Mr Ma’s election campaign. The team, established by 10 students from different universities across Taiwan, emphasised the importance of creativity in their products and blog on the Internet.

Their mission is to encourage youth to express their political opinion through their creativity.

“We are not pushing people to participate in politics. What we are initiating is care for politics,” said the chief of “Ten Rifles”, Jin Zhi-lu, who studies at the Chuan Yuan Christian University.

Their group name “Ten Rifles”was inspired by their sheer determination to support Mr Ma’s campaign. GMD supporters alleged President Chen Shui-bian had staged his assassination, known as the “two stray bullets” incident in the 2004 presidential election

to win sympathy votes. Hence the “Ten Rif les” symbolises their courage to confront any DPP campaign strategies.

Animations and videos on the website also facilitated political discussions.

“The virtual world can bring a lot more people together than parading on the street,” Mr Jin added. Since January, more than a million had visited their website, Enjoy Taiwan.

He said the DPP’s campaign, Freddy Action, was very outspoken. “But they can never gather a million on the street but we did attract a million of visitors to our website.”

“The Internet is a much more accessible spectrum for people,” said Mr Jin. He believed that the virtual world is an indirect way for interaction, where the political apathy would not be excluded.

After the election had ended, Mr Jin told Varsity that “Ten Rifles” would continue their creative work. “Creativity, as a channel, can be a watchdog of the government,” said Mr Jin.

Though both parties carried out large-scale campaigns among young people in the presidential election, it did not imply greater participation of youth in politics, said Jou Yi-cheng, founder of the Third Society Party, which was a new party established last year.

“The two political parties knew very well that it was important to win the support of the younger generation,” said Mr Jou, who joined the DPP at the age of 21.

He had been an active member before he left the DPP last year. He then established his own party and ran for the legislative election in January. His attempt was in vain,

“Throughout the campaign, teenagers can only do the periphery work. Young people help in the campaign strategies and the organisation of activities. However, their influence to the overall direction of the party is negligible,” he said.

“Although the (two major political) parties place emphasis on the new generation, they are regarding teenagers as little kids instead of adults,” he said.

Mr Jou added that the parties were trying to please young people by allowing them to participate and have fun. But, he added: “Politics is something more serious and mature than singing and dancing along.”

Excitement and joy are written on GMD supporters’ faces after gaining victory.