Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

British pianist Brendan Kavanagh on Monday held up Taiwan’s national flag during a livestream after having an altercation with a group of Chinese last month.

When Kavanagh, who goes by the name Dr K Boogie Woogie on social media, was recording a livestream from St Pancras International station in London on Jan. 19, a group of Chinese standing in the background loudly insisted that they not be filmed, saying their portrait rights should be protected.

The Chinese, who were holding Chinese flags when the incident occured, said that they would take legal action if their faces and voices were shown online.

In the run-up to last month’s presidential and legislative elections, the old Peter Paul and Mary folksong from the 1960s kept ringing in my ears: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Of course, as this is related to Taiwan, I was thinking of the Sunflowers, the generation of young people led by student leaders Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) who brought about a major change in Taiwan’s political system when they organized the peaceful occupation of the Legislative Yuan in 2014, which helped clear the path for President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) momentous victory in 2016.

The Sunflowers displayed a clear vision for what they wanted Taiwan’s democracy to be, and took action to help bring that about. In a sense, they were true descendants of the earlier Wild Strawberry movement of 2008 and the Wild Mountain Lily movement of 1990-1991, which each in their own way were decisive influences at particular points along Taiwan’s road to democracy.