Taiwan Church News 3277 Edition December 15 - 21, 2014 Editorial The Editorial: Taiwan The Formosa "By Pacific's western shore, beauteous isle, our green Taiwan. / Once suffered under alien rule, free at last to be its own. / Here's the basis of our nation: four diverse groups in unity, / come to offer all their varied skills, for the good of all and a world at peace." This is the lyrics of Taiwan the Formosa, sometimes called Taiwan the Green. It was first drafted by Rev. Tin Jyi-giokk in 1992 and finalized in October 1993, intending to present the diverse meanings of Taiwan's geography, environment, history, nation-building, constitution, folks, diplomacy and identity. After Taiwanese composer Hsiao Ty-zen set it into music, Taiwan the Formosa became the indispensable song in the world-wide assemblies seeking Taiwan independence. Therefore, it is also nick-named as "Taiwan Anthem". However, the drama of our great poet is pre-destinated, though, the project of nation-building is not yet complete: Rev. Tin Jyi-giokk peacefully passed away around 5:00 pm on December 11th, 2014, one day after UN Human Rights Day. Rev. Tin Jyi-giokk was born at Tong-kang on June 27th, 1922, witnessing Taiwan's modern social history in his centenary life and playing important roles to push church forward to engage with Taiwan's crisis: he joined to draft PCT's Declaration of Human Rights in 1977; he stood by the political dissidents and victims families after the broke out of Formosa Magazine Incident in 1979; he comforted the victims and families of Lin Yi-hsiung's families assassination case in 1980 and helped turn the murdered site into Gi-kong Presbyterian church. These courageous efforts of Rev. Tin Jyi-giokk, striving for Taiwan's democracy and freedom, are not only humanitarian, but also due to his deep faith that God has a nation-building plan for the Taiwanese to build an independent country with hope and peace. Yet, Rev. Tin is never silent about any complacency evident in his beloved PCT. In 2004, warning in his paper titled "Does the most native PCT with Taiwan consciousness beget the apostate descendants?" at a Taiwanese Romanization International Seminar, Rev. Tin straightly criticized that PCT spent too much energy in ecclesiastical power games to pursue "four diverse groups in unity". Seeing the serious suppression and decline of mother tongues across Taiwan ethnic peoples, especially the most marginalized aboriginal languages, Rev. Tin strongly demand PCT's Confession of Faith be translated into various ethnic languages. Because the spirit shown in the lyrics of Taiwan the Formosa is unity and cooperation between ethnic peoples, not the exploit and discrimination as the arrogant Hoklo chauvinism or the self-demeaning attitudes facing toward the Peking-language hegemony. In 2011, when Rev. Tin accepted an interview from Taiwan Church News, he said "For me, life refers to the meaning, not enjoyment". Then, He wished God could give him more time, through using purely Romanized Taiwanese, writing down his own autobiography and a book about Taiwan church history in the title as "Christianity within Taiwan History". Though the book of Taiwan church history has not yet finished, Rev. Tin re-edited a Romanized Taiwanese Textbook(Tâi-Gú Pe-Oe-Ji Sin Kàu-Kho-Su, or abbreviated as RTT) and published it on May 27th, 2013. Rev. Tin, on the RTT book event in 2013, sincerely expected this textbook could arouse Taiwanese passion for learning their mother tongues. Through learning and thinking in the mother tongues, he hoped Taiwan people could search and find out their identity and destiny. And Taiwan the Formosa will live vibrantly everlasting until comes the new heaven and the new earth! |