Chthonic

While I was living in Taiwan I caught black metal band Chthonic a couple of times. The band recently played the Ozzfest in the states and the lead singer Freddy Lin addressed the UN Below is his speech taken from Metalunderground:

This is the speech made by Freddy, Chthonic's vocalist in New York City and Washington, DC on the 12th and 13th September's press conferences.

Freddy Lim, Vocalist of ChthoniC
2007/09/12

"As a musician, I am here to make noise for my fans. As a Taiwanese citizen, I am here to make noise for my countrymen. I have sung across America for more than 2 months for my fans, and now I will take the opportunity here to speak for my fellow Taiwanese.

Taiwan's sparkling talents range from sculptor Ming Chu, to the internationally-acclaimed director Ang Lee, to the internationally renowned Cloud Gate dance troup, to the Sahara-crossing ultra-marathon runner Kevin Lin, to Major League Baseball players such as New York Yankees star Chien-ming Wang. Taiwan's creative gifts and energy can not be contained within borders or forced to abide by the restrictions of political deal-making. The 23 million people of Taiwan are living diligently and sensibly, with the wish to freely thrive in this world as equal partners on our shared planet. Like the people mentioned above, we are not politicians, and all we can do is to fight our best in our own career, to use the cultural power to fight against Chinese strong military threats, and -- through the artistic language -- to spread ideals that our countrymen believe about how the international society puts limitations on Taiwan.

During our two-month American tour, most fans and media have supported the message that we carry during this tour. At our concerts, the fans show their anger toward those politicians in United Nations by shouting and even cursing; back home, these fans even put their efforts of supporting Taiwan into their daily life, like a report I've just received from a fan who wrote about Taiwan for her Social Justice Action class project to spread the message to her classmates and friends. For these young people, it's very logical and natural to support Taiwan to join the international society and for Taiwanese to share the same international rights that they have, but the politicians in United Nations seem to think it's more logical and natural to sacrifice Taiwan in their political games."




Pic taken from Michael Turton's blog A View From Taiwan