Lilies in the Square

In March 1990, the chill of early spring had not yet fully faded from Taipei, yet on the broad plaza before the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall a tide of youth gathered — powerful enough to shake the entire national order. Thousands of university students from across Taiwan sat in protest on the cold stone ground, taking as their emblem the wild lily, a flower symbolizing autonomy, purity, and resilience, and raising a deafening cry against a political structure long since ossified.

The spark of this movement lay in the absurd political reality of the time. Although Taiwan had lifted martial law three years earlier, the nation's highest organ of power — the National Assembly — was still occupied by a group of "ten-thousand-year representatives" elected on the Chinese mainland in 1947 and never re-elected since. These aging delegates not only never had to face voters, but that very year sought through legal amendments to expand their own power and terms of office — an act that utterly enraged a society hungry for democratic reform. On March 16, a handful of NTU students were the first to begin a sit-in at the memorial plaza; the single spark swiftly set the prairie ablaze.

Within just a few days the sitting students swelled from a mere handful to several thousand, gradually developing a rigorous self-governing organization. On the plaza they established a decision-making committee, discussing and voting on every action through democratic procedure, displaying remarkable self-discipline and reason. They put forward four great demands: dissolve the National Assembly, abolish the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion, convene a National Affairs Conference, and set a timetable for political and economic reform. Each of these demands struck at the very heart of the authoritarian system, calling for sovereignty to be truly returned to the people. Through cold nights the students sustained one another with song, speeches, and hunger strikes; the wild lily on the plaza only grew more steadfast amid the wind and rain.

Facing this irresistible student force, President Lee Teng-hui, newly inaugurated that same year, displayed a political wisdom utterly different from the past. Rather than deploying the state apparatus to crush the protest, on March 21 he personally received more than fifty student representatives at the Presidential Office, listened to their demands, and promised face-to-face to convene a National Affairs Conference and advance constitutional reform. This historic dialogue between students and the highest power brought the movement to a peaceful and fulfilling close. Having achieved their immediate goals, the students rationally announced their withdrawal from the plaza and departed unharmed.

The impact of the Wild Lily Movement reached far beyond those six days of sitting. Upon the powerful mandate of public opinion the movement created, Lee Teng-hui was able to press forward with his blueprint for reform. The following year, the ten-thousand-year representatives who had clung to power for decades finally retired en masse, and the legislature achieved comprehensive re-election; the Temporary Provisions, too, passed into history. From that point Taiwan's constitutional order took its single most crucial step toward democratization. A peaceful protest launched by students had pried loose the heavy wheel of history in a manner so rational and graceful.

That this movement could gather such tremendous force within just a few days was inseparable from the society-wide yearning for change at the time. After the lifting of martial law, the energy of Taiwanese society surged like spring waters breaking through the thaw; social movements of every kind rose one after another, and the people's imagination of democracy grew ever clearer. Yet the pace of reform in the political system lagged far behind society's expectations — and the existence of the ten-thousand-year legislature was the most glaring symbol of that gap. That the students chose the plaza of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as the site of their sit-in carried a profound symbolism in itself: before this monument built for an authoritarian leader, they would proclaim, in the most peaceful and rational posture, that a new era belonging to the people was about to dawn.

What was especially precious was the rare maturity and self-restraint this movement displayed in the history of Taiwanese social activism. The students strictly upheld the principle of nonviolence, maintaining astonishing order and cleanliness on the plaza; they made every decision through open and transparent procedure, refusing the intervention or co-optation of any political party and insisting on the autonomy and purity of the movement. This rational and restrained style of protest not only won the broad sympathy and support of the public but also set a model for the citizen movements of Taiwan's later years. While the democratic transitions of many nations were accompanied by bloodshed and turmoil, Taiwan was able to advance its reforms in so graceful a manner — and for this the Wild Lily Movement deserves no small credit.

With the passing of years, many of the once-callow students who sat on that plaza became pillars of Taiwan's political, academic, and social-movement worlds, and the years they shared became an indelible democratic awakening for an entire generation. That we can today enjoy a regularly re-elected legislature and decide our nation's direction with our ballots is because a group of young people, on that slightly cold spring more than three decades ago, guarded the seed of democracy on the plaza with the innocence and resilience of a wild lily — quietly, yet with unshakable resolve. That lily standing firm in the wind seems to bloom still on the plaza of history, reminding future generations that Taiwan's democracy never descended from nowhere, but is a lamp watered and guarded by the hands of generation after generation of people unwilling to remain silent, with reason and with courage.