The recent irrational behavior displayed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members protesting the name change of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall was truly appalling. (KMT's name change fight opens rift, May 28, page 2). It was more like a fight among rogue people.
More puzzling, however, was a question posed by KMT Legislator Kuo Su-Chun (郭素春), who said, "Now that we have a memorial to democracy, does that mean democracy is dead, too?" ("KMT supports plan to rename street," May 24, page 4). Kuo apparently has a hard time making the connection between those people who sacrificed their lives for democratic principles and naming a memorial hall to honor them.
However, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin's (郝龍斌) idea of renaming a section of Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building the "Anti-Corruption Democracy Square" was a good idea ("City strikes back in name-change game," May 23, page 1). All the people of Taiwan, not just KMT members, should support the plan.
Hau, however, should recruit a group of artists to paint a large picture on the renamed square depicting corrupt people -- especially KMT members under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) -- looting the national treasury while countless onlookers shout at them to stop looting and return the stolen goods to the people.
Anyone walking on the square will be reminded of the KMT's illegally obtained assets. Perhaps this could hasten the return of the stolen assets to the treasury.
Honesty and democracy are universal values, yet KMT members have proven unable to clean their own house, whether under the leadership of former chairmen Lien Chan (連戰) or Ma Ying-yeou (馬英九) or under Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄). An "Anti-Corruption Monument" to stress the importance of integrity would remind everyone that the KMT itself has shown little integrity.
The Taipei City Government should create an "Anti-Corruption Park" where statues of corrupt people could be erected for visitors to judge or examine their wrongdoings.
It is very difficult to fathom why KMT members often think they have nothing to do with corruption, even when the whole world has known for decades that the KMT was and still is the most corrupt political party in the world.
As US General George Marshall, quoted in Sterling Seagrave's book The Soong Dynasty, once said: "Mao's greatest asset was the Chiang regime's dismal corruption."
Still don't get it? Well read your history, please.
Kris Liao
San Francisco, California
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In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
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