Scholars and human rights activists gathered in Pasadena on April 5 to honor the late Shimu of Tai Ji Men and call for a solution of the long-lasting case.
by Daniela Bovolenta
An article already published in Bitter Winter on April 16th, 2024.
CESNUR, Human Rights Without Frontiers, and Action Alliance to Redress 1219 organized on April 5, 2024, the fifth United Nations International Day of Conscience, at the Hotel Le Méridien Pasadena Arcadia in Pasadena, California, a conference on the theme “Remembering Shimu’s Fight: Conscience and the Tai Ji Men Case.” The conference honored the deceased Madam Yu Mei-Jung, the Shimu of Tai Ji Men, i.e., the wife of the movement’s Shifu (Grand Master). Dr. Hong Tao-Tze.
The same Dr. Hong opened the conference with a moving tribute to his wife, who shared with him a life devoted to promoting throughout all continents conscience, peace, love, and justice. She also shared the persecution. When on December 19, 1996, Tai Ji Men academies and private homes of dizi (disciples) were raided, and Dr. Hong was detained, Madam Yu voluntarily came forward to offer explanations but was detained herself. She continued to suffer during the long development of the Tai Ji Men case. Yet, Dr. Hong said, she maintained an unwavering spirit and never let resentment prevail. We should, he concluded, turn reminiscence into motivation, continuing to fight for justice inspired by her example.
After a video presenting the World Leader Summit of Love and Peace, held in New York at the United Nations’ headquarters on April 4 to celebrate the 5th International Day of Conscience and amplify the power of hope for a better world, Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist who serves as editor-in-chief of “Bitter Winter” and managing director of CESNUR, opened the first session of the conference. He hailed Madam Yu’s fight for conscience, noting at the same time that “conscience” has become a contested word.
Introvigne mentioned the theory elaborated by two theologians, Protestant H. Richard Niebuhr and Catholic Sister Anne E. Patrick, that we have in fact two consciences. A “passive conscience” is our internalized habit of respecting the rules. A “creative conscience” tells us when respecting the rules would lead to injustice—or perhaps the rules are wrong. According to Sister Patrick, the “creative conscience” is often more developed in women. That we accept this theory or not, Introvigne concluded, we can recognize in Madam Yu a model of a creative and balanced approach to conscience, respecting the rules and the authorities but also acknowledging that sometimes the authorities may be wrong and commit injustices that we should firmly resist and expose.
Introvigne then presented the speakers of the first session. Sara Susana Pozos Bravo, a professor at Universidad Sâmann of Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico, defined freedom of religion or belief as a “macro-right” that includes both the right to freely believe, propagate beliefs, and act according to them, and the right not to be defamed or slandered because of our beliefs. When these rights are violated, as in the case of Tai Ji Men, this is a sign that a society does not respect nor honor the primacy of conscience—a value Madam Yu promoted through all her life, Pozos said.
Stefania Cerruti, External Relations Manager of MEDIS, the Major Emergencies and Disasters International School, reminded the audience that the word “disaster” was born during the Renaissance, an epoch that passionately believed in astrology, to indicate a misalignment of stars (“aster” means “star” in Greek), which had catastrophic consequences. That we believe in astrology or not, Cerruti said, the truth included in the word “disaster” is that disasters come from disharmonies in the natural or human world. Madam Yu helped Tai Ji Men organize relief and resist both natural disasters such as earthquakes and the human-made disaster of the fabricated tax case. Her example reminds us, Cerruti concluded, that women play a unique and needed role in disaster prevention and relief.
Christine Mirre, Deputy Director of the United Nations ECOSOC-accredited NGO CAP-LC (Coordination des associations et des particuliers pour la liberté de conscience), evoked the role of women in the literary and philosophical salons that created the new culture and philosophy of the Enlightenment in 18h-century France, also advancing the cause of women’s independence, education, and political activism. While their influence at that time was mostly felt in France and Europe, Madam Yu—Mirre said—visited all continents with her husband Dr. Hong and brought a message of peace, love, and conscience to the global community. She was, Mirre concluded, the ideal heir of the great French women of the 18th century.
Peter Zoehrer, an Austrian journalist and blogger, and the Executive Director of FOREF (Forum for Religious Freedom Europe), compared the role of Madam Yu in co-operating with Dr. Hong and of Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, the wife of Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Movement. Both Madam Yu and Dr. Moon were and are not simply the loyal wives of well-known spiritual leaders. They were and are themselves active in promoting peace internationally and became the co-founder of global spiritual movements. Both also experienced opposition and persecution, with cases that have not been solved to this day such as the Tai Ji Men case in Taiwan and the repression of the Unification movement in Japan.
Marco Respinti opened the second session of the conference by emphasizing love as a key teaching of Madam Yu and the love bond that united her to Dr. Hong as the key to understand her life and achievements. Respinti devoted to Madam Yu what is believed to be the oldest love poem in human literature, “The Love Song of Shi-Shin,” written by Sumerian king Shu-Sin, who reigned about 1973–1964 BCE, to his spouse. Inscribed on a clay tablet, it is conserved at the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul, Türkiye, and its inspired words are a fit tribute to Madam Yu, Respinti concluded.
Respinti then presented the four speakers of the second session. Camelia Marin, Deputy Director of the NGO Soteria International, reviewed the basic facts of the Tai Ji Men case, which also affected Madam Yu and the women of Tai Ji Men. Their great suffering, Marin said, was not in vain. One day the solution of the Tai Ji Men case will be their well-deserved reward, and we will then understand how important and decisive their fight was.
Rosita Šorytė, from the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB), discussed Madam Yu’s role in the international world of martial arts, a field in which Tai Ji Men dizi (disciples) became globally well-known and won gold medals in top international events. Šorytė evidenced that the idea of a flow of a universal energy (Qi or Ch’i) is at the core of both Qigong and Chinese martial arts. She mentioned the great master of martial arts Wong Fei-Hung, who died in 1925, and the analogies between the story of his life and politically motivated persecution and the injustices vested on Shimu and Shifu in the Tai Ji Men case.
Thierry Valle, President of the already mentioned NGO CAP-LC, presented the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was not simply the wife of American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt but emerged as a key leader herself, playing a crucial role in the process leading to the drafting and passing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Similarly, Valle said, Madam Yu was not simply “the wife of Dr. Hong,” although he could always count on her unwavering support. She became herself a respected and effective leader in Tai Ji Men’s efforts to promote love, peace, conscience, and human rights, as well as resilience in the face of injustice.
Hans Noot, President of the Dutch Gerard Noodt Foundation for Freedom of Religion or Belief, distinguished between four different levels of religious liberty, according to which countries can be classified. He noted improvements in Taiwan, which has perhaps reached level 3. The solution of the Tai Ji Men case, Noot said, would be crucial for Taiwan to achieve level 4, i.e., a full democratic protection of freedom of religion or belief that will decisively improve its international image as a beacon of democracy in the region.
Willy Fautré, co-founder and director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, presented the third session, which opened with a video where Tsai Fu-Chiang, a Tai Ji Men defense lawyer, offered a very detailed summary of the legal reasons justifying a rectification of both the illegal 1992 tax bill and the confiscation of Tai Ji Men’s sacred land in 2020 that was based on that fabricated bill.
Fautré then introduced two Tai Ji Men dizi (disciples) who offered their testimonies in the third session. Arthur Hsieh, a product manager, evoked the sad story of the Swiss Mountain Villa, near Taipei. The Villa was bought in 1995 by Dr. Hong and destined to be a large event venue and a learning center for Tai Ji Men, with facilities for hosting overseas dizi when they come to Taiwan. From 1997 to 2020, the property was first frozen then used as a collateral in the fabricated tax case against Tai Ji Men. Only in 2020 was the Swiss Mountain Villa finally returned to Dr. Hong. By then, because of the problems that lasted for so many years, the property was in a sad state of abandonment and remains a testament to the injustice of the Tai Ji Men case. Hsieh reported how the protest against the injustice that hit Tai Ji Men marked all his youth, and how Dr. Hong’s teachings on the primacy of conscience inspired him to continue his fight.
Kavien Lin, director of project management in a semiconductor company, mentioned the moral and political issues involved in the widespread use of artificial intelligence, and the growing need of multiplying tests to guarantee security of the integrated circuits. Yet, Lin said, it seems that in the world capital of semiconductors, Taiwan, less strict tests are applied to the activity of bureaucrats and the National Taxation Bureau. The severe controls prevailing in private industry unfortunately do not seem to apply to the public sector, as demonstrated by the Tai Ji Men case, Lin concluded.
Fautré offered the conclusions of the conference by noting that Tai Ji Men, Dr. Hong, and Madam Yu developed a massive effort to call the attention on the injustice of the Tai Ji Men case. They reached a stage where domestic efforts were no longer enough. A united coalition of international scholars and human rights organizations is needed, Fautré said, to continue the fight until victory,
A final video presented the public hearing of June 17, 2010, at the Legislative Yuan, where the Ministry of Finance and the NTB of the Central Area promised that the Tai Ji Men case, which was gathering attention among politicians, would be solved within two months. This, of course, never happened. After another fourteen years, the fight continues and efforts by dizi and their international friends are still needed.