What others have said
This letter in response to your editorials on Thursday and Friday (“Comic book is no laughing matter,” April 28, page 8 and “Lame excuse for a lame comic book,” April 29, page 8).
First: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” (James Madison, The Federalist No. 47).
Second: “It is characteristic of a tyrant to dislike everyone who has dignity or independence; he wants to be alone in his glory, but anyone who claims a little dignity, or asserts his independence, encroaches upon his prerogative, and is hated by as an enemy to his power” (Aristotle, Politics).
Third: “The tyrant is proud, and there lies his doom. He is proud because he thinks of strength as his own; thus he is in the clown role, as a mistaker of shadow for substance; it is his destiny to be tricked” (Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces).
Fourth: “If there is a single theme that dominates all my writings, all my obsessions, it is that of memory — because I fear forgetfulness as much as hatred and death” (Eli Weisel, Nazi Holocaust survivor, in his preface to From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences).
Fifth: “Do we need conditioned adepts or free-thinking students? Scholastic fact--factories keep many a good pupil too busy to think and educate him in progressive immaturity. Students are caught up in compulsive school regimentation which imprints on them dependency and awe of authority” (Joost Meerloo, Pavlovianism Strategy as a Weapon of Menticide).
Sixth: “If you want a vision of the future, just imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever” (George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four).
The six quotes listed above speak for themselves. The following quotes about Orwell’s “memory hole” is precisely the exact metaphor to describe what has been done by the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) publication of a comic book history of the Republic of China military — a comic that, coincidently, “deletes” 20 years that were crucial in the development of democracy in Taiwan. The KMT is conducting its affairs every day more and more as an autocratic, totalitarian, tyrannical regime.
It is acting in the very same manner as the Chinese Communist Party that removes undesirables from photos by airbrushing them.
According to a Wikipedia article on the subject of memory holes: “A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records, such as from a Web site or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened” — a concept first popularized by Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Finally, “In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the memory hole is a small chute leading to a large incinerator used for censorship.”
Michael Scanlon
East Hartford, Connecticut
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS