The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park recently announced that extension and repair work on the National Human Rights Museum (國家人權博物館) would end, while the entrance signs completed in 2006 by former Council for Cultural Affairs chairman Chiu Kun-liang (邱坤良), and the monument with victims’ names added during the term of former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), are to be removed. This is because the offices of the former Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office are to be restored. I was stunned to hear this.
Since when is a government bureau more valuable than entrance signs that symbolize the clash that resulted from the martial law system, and more important than a memorial inscribed with victims’ names?
The museum management is apparently proceeding in line with calls for “a complete historic preservation” of the site. Since the bureau was once a Taiwan Garrison Command detention center, it has been designated as a part of the Memorial Park. The bureau became the only remaining site where political prisoners were arrested, detained, tried and incarcerated following the demolition of one of the detention centers at 3 Qingdao E Rd, now the Sheraton Grand Taipei Hotel. It is indelibly marked with the bravery of those willing to resist the authoritarian regime and unafraid of imprisonment, the most prominent case being the Kaohsiung Incident trials.
Yet the plans for commemoration began to go astray when the bureau became part of the National Human Rights Museum. During the term of former minister of culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), many locations were elevated to the status of “historical sites,” despite some not warranting the title.
Although there are no set rules to decide whether the Taiwan Garrison Command’s offices should be demolished, they are to be preserved at the same level as the detention center at 3 Qingdao E Rd, a place most notoriously stained with the blood of political prisoners. The documents under the authoritarian regime have not been entirely declassified by the government, yet the Taiwan Garrison Command’s offices are to be preserved before the truth about their history has been revealed. What kind of “transitional justice” is this?
A site once used by the Ministry of National Defense for vehicle maintenance has also been raised to the status of a “historical site.” The decision had originally been made so it could be demolished, but since it became a historical site, changes have been made to the construction plan: The museum is to coexist with the grounds of the automobile repair battalion. Since when can a place for vehicle maintenance be a historical site of injustice?
The absurdities do not end there. Over the gate of the automobile repair battalion, a sign has been installed by the National Human Rights Museum. If, based on the Ministry of Culture’s investigation, this was the gate of the then-Taiwan Garrison Command (a historical site), a “Taiwan Garrison Command” sign should have been put there. That would conform to the principle of historic preservation. Sentries stand guard next to the entrance to the museum, which is highly inappropriate. The museum represents the struggle against the authoritarian regime, whereas sentries are characteristic of the Martial Law era.
The discrepancy between the exterior (sentries) and the interior (National Human Rights Museum) has been visible in the appeal for preserving the sites related to the authoritarian regime. Some argue that the National Human Rights Museum could be relocated closer to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as a way to remember the wrongs of the past.
However, the design of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is similar to that of the Ming Dingling — Beijing’s mausoleum of the Wanli Emperor (萬曆) — and the Ming Changling — Beijing’s mausoleum of the Yongle Emperor (永樂). In a democratic country like Taiwan, this is an embarrassment.
The existence of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall runs against the grain of transitional justice, but repurposing it as the National Human Rights Museum is far from appropriate. The discrepancy between the exterior, an emperor’s mausoleum, and the interior, the struggle and sacrifice for human rights, would be too obvious. Had a museum of human rights, a symbol of democracy, been established in an emperor’s mausoleum — an emblem of feudalism — the world would have laughed at Taiwan.
The core of the White Terror Memorial Park should trace the political prisoners’ suffering and their loss of freedom during incarceration. With bureaus of the Taiwan Garrison Command preserved in the name of “a complete historic preservation,” the commemoration purpose of the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park has veered away from its original purpose. The administrators need to go back to the drawing board.
Huang Hui-chun is a historical researcher and curator.
Translated by Liu Yi-hung
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