Taipei's Islamic ''Grand Mosque'' rejects ROC government and CIA claims of local Taiwanese ''terrorism'' recruitment

WEB

POSTED OCTOBER 1

Taipei's Grand Mosque (台北清真寺) yesterday voiced its complete and utter

surprise over the ROC National Security Bureau's (NSB, 國家安全局)

''claim'' that it was investigating ''incidents'' of a radical Muslim

organization recruiting members in Taiwan. In Taiwan? Could it be? No

way.



The NSB claimed yesterday that a radical Muslim organization had sent

people recruited in Taiwan to a ''Middle Eastern country'' for

training in terrorist attacks, adding that the organization had also

promised the recruits that they would be financially and richly

reimbursed upon their return to Taiwan.



According to a Chinese-language United Evening News newspaper report,

the NSB received information from international channels, most likely

the FBI or CIA, no? The report went on to say that the bureau has a

very complete and detailed record of the Taiwanese recruits' travels;

BUT so far, the Taiwanese recruits have not committed any acts of

terrorism or killed any ''imperialist Zionists''.



Given that Taiwan is likely to join the U.S.' visa-waiver program by

October, these reports come at a very sensitive time. People are

worried. Home-grown terrorists in Taiwan? Quiet, peaceful,

Buddhist/Taoist Taiwan?



Taipei Grand Mosque Executive Secretary Ismail Wang (王夢龍) -- a

Taiwanese national -- of course ''denied'' the ''claims'' of a local

terrorist recruitment drive and said that the NSB was just worrying

too much. ''Don't worry so much,'' NSB, he said. "You guys worry too

much."



Wang went on to say that radical groups could try to recruit Taiwanese

poor people who usually live in the rural parts of the country. He

added that in a society as stable as Taiwan, people are not likely to

be recruited by radicals. Then again, what does Wang know? And is he

telling everything he knows?



According to Wang, there have only been two or three Muslims in Taiwan

who received money from Libya and Kuwait, but the money was given by

public sector groups and not religious ones. Those who received funds

from the Middle Eastern countries are always just scholars and

businesspeople who help promote Islam, Wang said, adding that such

funding has been commonplace for years.



This report followed by about a week another news story in Taiwan

about a "Flag-stomping rally staged near grounds of Taipei mosque" in

which

Muslims in Taiwan from several nations, including Taiwan nationals and

people from Iran and Indonesia, gathered to decry a recent film which

satirizes Mohammed. Some protesters brought a home-made US flag and a

French flag for demonstrators to step on.



Following more than a week of Islamic global protests, dozens of

Muslims in Taiwan rallied outside the Taipei Grand Mosque yesterday,

protesting the anti-Islam film Innocence of Muslims as well as

publications of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in the French

satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.



Holding up signs saying “Freedom of speech is not the freedom to

insult” and “We love Mohammed” — among others — Muslims from dozens of

countries including Taiwan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia and Iran

gathered outside Taipei Grand Mosque following the Jumah prayer

session yesterday.



They chanted slogans praising Allah and the Prophet Mohammed while

urging a cease to the insults poured on the religious prophet.



The film Innocence of Muslims, produced by California-based Sam

Bencile, depicts Mohammed as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child

abuser and described a donkey in the film as “the first Muslim.”



It was later reported that the real name of the film’s writer and

producer is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian-American Coptic

Christian.



“We are here to voice our opposition to the insults of Islam by anyone

or any country, especially when such insults are made based on false

information,” a Taiwanese Muslim, Shen Tai-fu (沈台福), said.



“Any educated person should know to look at the facts before saying

anything,” he added.



“Any Muslim would feel humiliated by the film and the cartoons,” said

Nadeen Ahmed, an Indian Muslim. “How can they do this?”



A Pakistani Muslim, Shuiab Ahmed Qureshi, said that all human beings

and all religions deserve respect.



“Everyone should enjoy freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean they

have the freedom to insult,” Qureshi said. “We Muslims respect Jesus

as a prophet — Christians should show the same respect too.”



Some protesters brought a home-made US flag and a French flag for

demonstrators to step on.



Meanwhile, the Chinese Muslim Association issued a statement of

protest and urged the US government to stop the film’s producer,

Bacile, from continuing to carry out an act that upsets world peace

while requesting that YouTube remove the film from its Web site.



“How could a country that promotes democracy and freedom gain the

trust of the international community if its laws allow injuries to be

made to the core values of a religion and the values of fairness and

justice upon which the country is founded?” the statement said.



The statement called on Muslims to refrain from conducting any acts of

revenge or harm to the innocent which could otherwise become an excuse

for others to smear the image of Islam.

THE HIDDEN CHAMBER, a thriller of a novel about Taiwan by Chang Hua

[reviewed by Leinad Moolb, international book reviewer] Writing under the pen name of Hua Chang, aka Chang Hua, has written a fascinating book titled THE HIDDEN CHAMBER, available now on Amazon -- KINDLE EDITION. http://www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Chamber-ebook/dp/B009E9ZWME/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1348485747&sr=8-4&keywords=chang+hua The story takes place in Taiwan, where a Taiwanese woman is going nuts day by day, living alone and hardly ever going outside to interact with others, even shopkeepers. She has a secret and it haunts her. One day the phone rings and suddenly she is brought face to face with a past she had not really wanted to remember. The location is Taipei, in the 1990s, and readers see a Taiwan still coming out of the grip of the Martial Law Era, where secrets, both military and personal, had to be guarded carefully. The island nation just off the coast of communist China is beginning to bloom and blosson economically, and for young people, the world looks promising. But the girl in this story marries the wrong guy, after her traditional mother sets her up with a matchmaking service, and it's downhill from there for the poor hapless newly-married girl. The book is a page-turner and anyone interested in Taiwanese culture will find Hua Chang's novel is very interesting helping of stinky dofu mixed in with some sweet mooncake delicasies as well.

Hang Hang Liao Liao -- HAKKA TV news segment

http://www.ch5.tv/VOD/content.php?media_id=133210"

HANG HANG LIAO LIAO -- news segment from Hakka TV

http://ap.ch5.tv/phpplay/publish.php?PHPSESSID=204549623650603166e3c23&url_id=189393&embedskin= Dan Bloom interviewed by Reporter Lee at 9:36 into the news hour. Listen and look!

Taiwanese-American novelist pens 'Taiwan' novel -- THE THIRD SON

FAMILY DRAMA: Set in Taiwan during the White Terror period and focusing on oppression, and sibling rivalry and the healing power of love, 'The Third Son' will be published in America in April 2013

PHOTO OF AUTHOR: http://www.annemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/croppedawayportrait.jpg


FEATURE NEWS: New U.S. novel offers glimpse into Taiwan’s dark past

by Dan E. Bloom

TAIPEI -- From Amy Tan's successful Asian-American novel "The Joy Luck Club" to Maxine Hong Kingston's "China Men," both published more than 20 years ago and opening the gate of opportunity for other Asian American writers, novels about Taiwan, China and Japan have become a staple of the U.S. publishing scene.

Now comes Harvard-educated Boston native Julie Wu, like fellow Harvard alum Jeremy Lin child the of Taiwanese immigrants to America, with a new entry in the genre that for the first time in American fiction includes the events of 228 and the White Terror period and told as part of a family drama about love and sibling rivalry.

Wu, 46, was born in Massachusetts to parents who met and married in Taoyuan. She went to Harvard, studied opera, obtained a medical degree and became a doctor, married and had children, and now her first novel, titled "The Third Son," is already attracting plaudits and awards even before publication.

In a recent email interview from her home in Boston, Wu explained how the book, which recently won a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, came to be and who she hopes its audience will be.

When asked how the title of the book came to her, Wu explained: "'The Third Son' is the title I came up with back in 2001 when I started the novel, more than ten years ago, and it has somehow lasted through all my revisions. The hero of the story, Saburo, is indeed the third son in his family, and his character was inspired by my father, who was also the third son. I think everyone has experiences with and expectations of how birth order affects status within the family, so just stating that someone was born third already suggests the kinds of struggles that are at play." "In the novel, Saburo is beaten daily, and his parents clearly treat his siblings better," Wu added. "While certain aspects of Saburo’s experience were inspired by my father’s life, some were not. As a novelist, of course, I am writing fiction." Wu's parents hail from Taoyuan and met as adults there, she said. The backstory of their romance and marriage is not in her book, but she recounted the events for this reporter. "My uncle was set up to be formally introduced to my mother as a marriage prospect back then, but because of a last-minute change, my father was sent in my uncle’s place," Wu said. "My mother’s family was upset at this change in plans, so they left without being introduced. But my parents had caught sight of each other, and my father pursued my mother on his own. It was a quick and happy courtship." "But happy, lucky, and conflict-free love stories are boring in fiction, so the love story I created in my novel is quite different," Wu said. "In the opening scene, Saburo saves a girl during an American air raid over Taiwan during World War II when Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire, and he spends the rest of his childhood looking for her. When he finally finds her, she’s already being pursued by others, including his brother. Even after they marry, he has to fight for her all the way to the end." Wu was born in America but travelled to Taiwan in her 20s to do some research for a different book that she had in mind at the time, she took a lot of notes that she still refers to sometimes, she said. "I also went to Taiwan with my family when I was ten years old and four," she added, noting: "Since my book is a historical novel, I did a lot of research online and in books, and magazines about Taiwan life in the 1940s and 1950s. Of course, I also interviewed my parents and continually asked them questions about that period. I would have liked to travel to Taiwan again, but I have two young children and traveling is much more difficult than it used to be." Wu said she keeps up with current news events in Taiwan from her home in Boston, mostly online through sites like the Taipei Times, The Boston Globe and Facebook and Twitter as well. "Taiwanese culture and politics seem very intertwined to me," she said. "They both interest me." Wu grew up in the Boston area and went to Harvard as an undergraduate, majoring in literature but as a reader not as a writer. "I started writing a couple years after I graduated from Harvard when I was doing graduate studies in opera at Indiana University in 1989. I never finished my opera degree, but I did start a novel and take an excellent writing workshop in Indiana, and that was really my first step along the writing path." Wu has a medical degree and worked for a few years in primary care, she said, but after she had her two children, she decided to stay home and focus on writing. Her husband is also a doctor and works as a pulmonologist, she said. "A couple of years after I left Indiana I went to Columbia University’s School of Physicians & Surgeons to become a physician," she explained. "I did my internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Now I'm a novelist, and I should say, one of the beautiful things about being American is feeling that you can change your career at any time." The genesis of "The Third Son" was long and convoluted, and took a lot of time, She initially started writing a novel when she was in Indiana in 1989, thinking that it would be partially set in Taiwan. But when she had started asking her parents questions about Taiwan, they told her things that they had never revealed before, and she realized that the first novel she was trying to write was boring compared to her parents’ own background. "In 2001, I finally had the time to sit down and interview both my parents properly, and their stories stunned me," Wu said. "So you could say that 'The Third Son' began as a kind of biographical novel about my parents, but over the years, as I learned more about writing and received some feedback, I realized that if I wanted to write for readers beyond my own family I would have to be willing to change the facts to make the story more dramatic, moving, and thematically cohesive." She did and the result is a powerful story about Taiwan that is set for publication by Algonquin Books early next year. "In the end, the historical details and events are as accurate as I could make them, but the characters and their actions are figments of my imagination," Wu said, adding that she hopes her novel will appeal to anyone, anywhere, any country, regardless of nationality or gender. "The issues I focus on in the book -- oppression, sibling rivalry, and the healing power of love -- are universal." One of the issues Wu's novel speaks up about is 228. When asked if she thinks American readers know that term or know much about that time in Taiwan history, she replied: "In my experience, Americans are universally ignorant of the February 28th Massacres and the White Terror, except for scholars of the region, although I recall that even a classmate of mine who majored in East Asian Studies at Harvard, graduating in the late 1980s, still knew nothing about 228 or the White Terror period. I would say that censorship by the Taiwanese government at the time was very successful in this regard, as with many atrocities in corners of the world." She added: "I do find it disturbing that so few Americans know even the basics of Taiwanese history or politics. I hoped that setting my story during this period would help people understand on a personal, emotional level, the origin of current conflicts in Taiwan and across the Strait." Since her novel takes place partly during the Japan Colonial period in Taiwan when Japan ruled the island as a colony, Wu said that there are some Japanese characters in her novel, too. "In particular, I created a Japanese schoolteacher who has a lot of influence on Saburo." Wu added, noting: "And, as readers will see, some of the Taiwanese characters in the novel go by their Japanese names." When asked if her parents had read the book, either in drafts or in the final copy, Wu said they had, noting: "They both read it, bless their hearts, many drafts of the book. I am extremely lucky to have had them as resources and also grateful that they gave me license to truly make the book the best work of fiction it could be." Wu said that she sees herself as both a Taiwanese-American novelist and an American novelist. "I see myself as both," she explained. "I’m totally Americanized in how I think and lead my life, so my point of view is American. At the same time, I am fascinated by my heritage and Taiwanese history."

Will readers in Taiwan have a chance to read 'The Third Son' in Chinese? Wu said she hopes to see a translation of her novel someday for Taiwanese readers as well.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/09/08/2003542259/3