Print

Mail

wiki links

Johnny Neihu's NewsWatch: Forget 228? You mythed something

By Johnny Neihu 強尼內湖

Saturday, Mar 03, 2007, Page 8

A few weeks ago I was walking our dog Punkspleen (龐客脾) around the grounds of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. He pissed on most of it, as is a healthy dog's wont. But then, as I stood before the temple for the old dictator, something happened that made me reflect on what has changed in this strange land, and on the little things that invoke the past and the fear that shaped it.

There we were, Punkspleen and I, standing quietly outside Peanut's memorial chamber among 100 people or so, waiting for the changing of the guard at the top of the hour. Among the crowd were screaming children and one or two Westerners. There was also a band of Japanese tourists, no doubt curious about a ceremony for a man who preferred to kill communists instead of their brethren.

The replacement guards and their lieutenant arrived, marching in that dangly, frippish, effeminate fashion beloved of our military police. But before I could try to peer across the crowd into the chamber, a policeman came up to me and said: "No dogs."

Lately, some in the pan-green camp have said the hall should be transformed into something honoring democracy. I'm not sure that's a good idea. Its bombastic architecture is perfectly suited to the memory of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) -- and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), who built the thing. Come to think of it, of all the changes to names in Taiwan that might take place, this one would be almost obscene: A bombastic testament to a failed general would morph into a palimpsest for democrats who can't come up with their own symbols.

One thing I am sure about is that if we renamed the hall as "The Hall of Love, Cuteness and Taiwanese Democracy" and melted Chiang's statue into some blob of a postmodern artwork, you could forget about a dog sitting quietly outside: Punkspleen could piss on the opus itself without the intervention of police.

Would this be because a leashed dog is the pet of choice for Taiwan's middle class, and that its urine would not be out of place on a symbol that would honor the forgetting of terror?

As Punkspleen and I moved toward the stairs that descend from the exterior of the CKS Temple, a plainclothes policeman came up and said: "You don't have to go." I said: "No matter. I'm law-abiding."

And so we left, eventually arriving at another memorial across the way: the 228 Memorial Peace Park, which Punkspleen pissed all over as well.

This week saw the 60th anniversary of the 228 Incident. Bore yourselves senseless reading about the green-camp, blue-camp appropriation of it elsewhere. A depressing number of political types, including Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), haven't the slightest understanding of the brutality of that period. Hau's "soothing" comments, like those of former mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) this week and on years past, are anesthetics that seek to annul, not address, the anger and distress of those who lost family and friends. In this regard, Hau, like Ma, is a real "sonofageneral," and I want nothing to do with them -- at least in this week's column.

Instead, today I want to tell you a story about people still feeling the impact of 228 and the decades that followed. Like the social legacy of the 228 Incident, it has no happy ending -- yet.

The instigator of the story is the Researcher, who has spent decades investigating local culture and politics. For many years, the Researcher traveled to one rural community to understand what made it tick, until one day an awful secret was discovered.

Back in March 1947, the Mayor of that community was held responsible for bloodshed that occurred when KMT troops fell out with county authorities in the wake of the 228 Incident. On the local authorities' request, the Mayor sent men from his villages to help them protect the city's residents from the rampaging soldiers, and a battle broke out.

After several years, when the government felt it was safe to crack down in the area, the Mayor and some of his colleagues were accused of corruption, arrested, jailed, tortured, accused of being communist bandits and executed.

In the 1990s, the Researcher published groundbreaking work on the KMT's seeding of conflict in the community and the ruination of the Mayor and his family.

Family members still in Taiwan have spoken of police persecution, rape, character assassination and the mistreatment of children, all in an environment of suspicion, hatred, mental illness and powerlessness. This tale of torment and cruelty continued in some cases until the 1980s. Tensions, usually under the surface, remain in the community to this very day, which still cannot come to terms with the exploitation of its factions by the KMT's very intelligent operatives.

As the Researcher published this material, a person belonging to the community under scrutiny objected -- let's dub this chap the Journeyman. The Journeyman was a model KMT figure -- military-trained, for starters -- but eventually moved into academia. Soon after the Researcher broached the topic of the Mayor with community members, it is alleged that the Journeyman, whose family were no friends of the Mayor's family, told locals that the Researcher was a "spy" -- for whom was not made clear. Events co-organized by the Researcher to celebrate and document the unusual gifts and accomplishments of the Mayor were subjected to interference.

Now, in the 21st century, the Mayor has been rehabilitated. There have been concerts held in his honor and academic conferences in Taipei and elsewhere that have brought people from other lands interested in his life and times.

Then, a few weeks ago, the Researcher discovered that the most recent book about the Mayor had been written by none other than the Journeyman, courtesy of funds from -- wait for it -- the Democratic Progressive Party-run central government. This book was a detailed study of his life and provided a lot of material that appeared to contradict the Journeyman's earlier, hostile views on the Mayor and his activities. But there was no caveat emptor, no concession that the Journeyman had played an active role in the demonization of a person that the KMT murdered to ensure the community did as it was told.

Worse, the Journeyman's book plagiarized the Researcher's years of research, including photographs and translations from Japanese-language sources.

So, now, after suffering years of slurs and innuendo, the Researcher has taken legal action against the Journeyman and the government department that oversaw this debacle.

Demonize a man, then, having failed at that, praise him while filching the work of another you have demonized? Lu Xun (魯迅) himself would be impressed with the cheek of it.

This is only one story of thousands of how 228 Incident and White Terror victims and perpetrators cannot shake their histories. The political culture of shamelessness and misanthropy that the KMT brought did not die, dear reader. It exerts itself in subtle ways, even now.

Every year the 228 Incident holiday rolls around, and, as with such holidays in other places, people enjoy a day off and avoid the hoopla that accompanies official services. We can't be too hard on young people for this. They have never directly experienced the kind of fear that kept the discontented in check and the KMT in power.

But deep in my heart I know there are some among them who ask how this could be, and the good news is that Taiwan is now a free enough country for them to find the answers for themselves without fear of retaliation -- something that the Journeyman thought might still be effective in obstructing the work of the Researcher a decade ago.

Either way, 2007 is not merely a 60th anniversary of the 228 Incident. We have heard some fine words and a lot of crap about the meaning of all the violence in Taiwan's history. But it is misleading to refer to the 228 Incident as an "historical" matter. This is a year in which exploitation and belittling of the suffering continues apace as the memories of those who suffered fade and expire.

Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
This story has been viewed 2376 times.