Hsieh Hsueh-hung (謝雪紅) was a Taiwanese communist organizer who fled to China in 1947 to escape repression following the 228 Incident.
However, after several years in China, she was labeled a “rightist” and subjected to “struggle sessions” by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明), a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, described Hsieh as “a broken soul, born in a broken age. What she eventually left to posterity was just a broken history.”
Hsieh was by no means the only one to have met such a fate.
The same could also be said of the victims of the 1950s White Terror.
I have taken part in filming the story of White Terror victim Lin Yuan-chih (林元枝).
In the course of field research for the film, I discovered that most of those involved, including Lin’s relatives, the descendants of other victims in the same case, elderly people from the same village who knew him and even farmers who helped hide him when they were children, were not very clear about Lin or what happened to him.
They did not know why he was on the top of the list of fugitive “traitors and bandits.” They did not know how he joined the Communist Party, how he went on the run or why he was imprisoned for 19 years although he was never sentenced by a court.
They only knew that he ran away because of the 228 Incident.
The other details gradually faded away during the 38 years of repression under Martial Law.
It was a tragedy of those times, and what remains of it is a broken history.
Many years have passed since martial law ended in 1987. Surviving victims have received compensation, but that period in history is still shrouded in mystery.
Neither the general public nor the families of victims are clear about what happened. It may well be that many files have been opened so that they can be read at any time.
There are indeed reams of academic research waiting to be read.
Memorial museums have been established in various places and they present a wealth of visual information — all you need to do is walk in.
However, how many people, in the midst of their busy lives, are likely to visit the National Archives and read the files kept there?
How many people would have the patience to read academic theses in detail?
Although memorial museums have photographic and film materials that bring the history to life, they usually have few visitors. In such a social atmosphere, although many historical truths have been made public, how many people really know about them?
If the truth stays enclosed in archives or research reports, it will never be spread among the general public or blend into the history of this land.
If we want to repair that broken history in the memories of Taiwanese, the government should popularize it through avenues such as news reports, television dramas, films and education, so that the public would get to know more about the stories of victims of repression.
Only when Taiwanese are no longer ignorant about the history of the White Terror would most of them accept the legitimacy of the Transitional Justice Commission, and only when the majority of people have arrived at a consensus would the proposal for a lustration law, such as those enacted in former communist nations, be able to move ahead.
Weng Chien-tao is an elementary-school teacher.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS