The Shilin Wang Family Anti-Eviction Struggle
The Wang family struggle against forced eviction in Shilin was another event which contributed to the solidification of “activist subculture” among young people and students in Taiwan
The Wang family struggle against forced eviction in Shilin was one of the major events which contributed to the solidification of “activist subculture” among young people and students in Taiwan, with many of the participants in the struggle also participating in the Sunflower Movement. The Wang (王) family, lived in a housing unit which was slated for demolition by a development company, which hoped to build luxury condos as part of the Wenlin Yuan (文林苑) urban renewal project organized by the Le Young Construction Company (樂揚建設). Having lived there for over a decade, the Wang family refused to leave their home, leading to the demolition of their housing unit on March 28, 2012. Yet the Wang family continued to hold out by occupying the site of their formerly demolished home.
Photo credit: Lennon Ying-Dah Wong/Flickr/CC
Along with the demolition of the Chang (張) family pharmacy in Dapu, Miaoli, the struggle of the Wang family was one of the highest profile cases of eviction in Taiwan in recent years. Namely, it is a problem in Taiwan that under land appropriation or urban renewal laws, development companies can sometimes appropriate residential land against the wishes of residents, leading to cases in which families as the Wang family become holdouts against the redevelopment of the land they live on. Sometimes this is accomplished with the aid of local politicians who receive kickbacks from the development company or even organized crime.
The Wang family struggle went on for several years and in many ways was a precursor to the Sunflower Movement occupation of the Legislative Yuan. Volunteers even became needed to watch the site of the Wang family’s home 24/7, in order to guard against further attempts by the construction company to demolish the home, police incursions by law enforcement acting on behalf of the construction company, or even intimidation attempts by members of organized crime. As such, the Wang family home became a self-organized space, in which volunteers divided up the necessary labor to keep watch over the Wang family home 24/7 over the course of several years. In the course of this, as with the Sunflower Movement’s Legislative Yuan occupation encampment, the Wang family’s occupation encampment became the site of a number of artistic works by youth activists. Or perhaps we can even see in the Wang family the preoccupation with a sense of “home” which we also saw in the Sunflower Movement, with regard to the attempt to defend Taiwanese sovereignty.
Photo credit: Lennon Ying-Dah Wong/Flickr/CC
However, the end of the Wang family struggle occurred during the course of the Sunflower Movement, with Wang Yao-te (王耀德), the son of Wang Kuang-shu (王廣樹), who owned the Wang family home, allowing construction companies to demolish the temporary housing unit which the family was occupying on March 14th, breaking ranks with the rest of the family. The Wang family later agreed to an out of court settlement with Le Young on March 28th.
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