Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday blasted the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for comparing the government to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan because of a proposal to remove a large bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) at a Taipei memorial hall.
The plan by the Transitional Justice Commission calls for the statue to be removed to transform the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall into a park for “reflection on Taiwan’s authoritarian history.”
However, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that the DPP government is removing the statue for partisan reasons, adding: “How are they any different from the Taliban?”
The comment was in apparent reference to the destruction of two famous Buddha statues in Afghanistan’s Bamyan Province and the dismantling of religious icons when the Taliban first took power in the late 1990s.
Rejecting the comparison, DPP caucus deputy secretary Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) said that the KMT was misleading the public.
Through Taiwan’s democratic process, the plaza at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall has been renamed the Liberty Square (自由廣場), and the removal of Chiang Kai-shek’s statue would be part of that process, Tsai said.
“Take a look at all the democratic countries in world; none of them has what Taiwan is still doing now. That is, continuing to venerate a dictator from the past, worshiping him like a deity, and some people are still paying tributes, and honoring him like a great hero,” he said.
“Taiwan’s case is unusual compared with other countries: We have experienced the transformation from authoritarian rule to a democracy, but did not undergo a revolution, or some form of bloody armed conflict,” he added.
DPP Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said he agrees with one KMT official’s suggestion: renaming the memorial hall the “Anti-Communist Park,” as it conforms with Taiwan’s efforts to deter military attacks from its communist neighbor.
“Chiang Kai-shek made a lifelong struggle in fighting the Chinese Communist Party. This is the one thing that Taiwanese of all political stripes can find common ground and approve of his anti-communist ideology,” Lin said.
Pro-Taiwanese independence advocates also condemned Johnny Chiang’s comparison and voiced their support for the removal of Chiang Kai-shek’s statue.
“Johnny Chiang must be mentally deranged. It is the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek that ruled over Taiwan as a despot who is most like the Taliban,” the group Taiwan Republic said in a statement.
“Johnny Chiang’s Taliban comparison is ridiculous and distorts history to deceive the world,” it said. “Removing the statue is a wise decision by the Transitional Justice Commission, and we ask the government to work on it as soon as possible.”
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