Students at Hsinchu Kuang Fu High School at the weekend triggered controversy by wearing costumes resembling Nazi uniforms and wielding swastika flags at a campus cosplay event, prompting shock and condemnation from the Israeli and German missions in Taipei, with the Presidential Office and the Ministry of Education also quick to denounce the event and chastise the school for administrative negligence.
The incident was certainly deplorable, as it was utterly inappropriate for the students to take lightly a traumatic part of human history — when millions of people in Europe were persecuted and killed by the Nazis — by thinking that they could treat the Nazi uniforms and symbols as mere “decorative elements” in their “creative design.”
However, among the government agencies and educators who rushed to fault the school and its students for their ignorance about one of the most abominable crimes in human history, are they themselves doing any better?
Taiwan has its own tragic past, too, when tens of thousands perished as the result of the brutal and bloody 228 Incident instigated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) autocracy under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) that ushered in the White Terror era.
To this day, many relatives and friends of the victims of that political oppression still do not know why their loved ones were killed, or where their remains might be.
Yet, look around now and despite the atrocities committed by Chiang and his regime, statues of the main instigator of the massacre are everywhere, in places such as school campuses, railway stations and public parks, not to mention the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei — more than 25 hectares are devoted to Chiang with a 76m-tall monument sitting proudly at its center.
There are also streets that bear Chiang’s name, figurines and other souvenirs that portray Chiang as a “benevolent grandfather,” and the ubiquitous presence in daily life — his image on the NT$10 coin.
How do we expect youngsters to grasp the meaning of the Holocaust, transitional justice and universal human rights when statues of a dictator still stand on virtually every campus?
Taiwanese have been educated in a system controlled by the party-state and as such, quite a large proportion of the nation’s educators grew up during the White Terror era and therefore followed an autocratic curriculum. As a result, it is little wonder that ignorance and distorted values are widespread, as educators have little understanding of the true nature of transitional justice.
The poisonous stain of authoritarianism remains in many parts of everyday life in Taiwan and the incident at the school exposes just how little transitional justice has been implemented, despite Taiwan touting itself as a flourishing democracy that values human rights.
“The responsibility of the education authorities is to teach students that peace and the values of a pluralistic society are not easily won, and free thinking must be built on justice and respect, not to leave them free to use improper words and deeds,” a Presidential Office statement said in response to the incident. “The incident has shown an urgent need for education about transitional justice.”
It is hoped the incident at the school will serve as a catalyst for the government to start putting more emphasis on transitional justice in the curriculum, implementing transitional justice from the bottom up.
Failing to so do would suggest that the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is no different from that of her predecessor, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — good at talking the talk, but failing at walking the walk.
You wish every Taiwanese spoke English like I do. I was not born an anglophone, yet I am paid to write and speak in English. It is my working language and my primary idiom in private. I am more than bilingual: I think in English; it is my language now. Can you guess how many native English speakers I had as teachers in my entire life? Zero. I only lived in an English-speaking country, Australia, in my 30s, and it was because I was already fluent that I was able to live and pursue a career. English became my main language during adulthood
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
RSS