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Editorial: The cherry-picking of history

When political ideologies are at the center of a debate on the preservation of a monument, a structure less than three decades old can carry the misleading status of a heritage site worthy of protection.

Such absurdity was in full display on Tuesday when the Taipei City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs announced that it would start the process of deciding whether or not the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall should have the protection afforded an historical site.

The abrupt announcement came soon after the Cabinet's decision that the hall would be renamed "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" and the white and blue walls surrounding it demolished.

The urgency of the statement shows the degree of political will the Taipei City Government can demonstrate when trying to protect a structure that was built in 1980.

Since the Cabinet announced its plan last Friday, the city government has left no law in its jurisdiction unturned to save the memorial and its environs. In order to guarantee that the hatchet man of the 228 Incident remains majestically enshrined, the Department of Cultural Affairs first cited the Construction Law (建築法), then the Urban Development Law (都巿計劃法), and now, ironically, the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (文化資產保存法).

If this law can be applied to a structure that is younger than Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, then why did the Taipei City Government insist upon tearing down the Jiancheng Circle (建成圓環) -- a 93-year-old landmark that was home to Taipei's oldest food market -- to make way for a modern, two-story cylindrical glass building?

And some sites on the city government's demolition list are older than that. The government has approved tearing down walls surrounding Talungtung's (大龍峒) Confucius Temple that are almost two centuries old.

And it is chillingly ironic that the very day the city government made an announcement declaring the CKS Memorial Hall a temporary heritage site, the Department of Rapid Transit Systems issued a notice to the Lo Sheng Sanatorium (樂生療養院) -- not only a 78-year-old historical site but the only public hospital for leprosy in Taiwan -- demanding its patients, most of whom have lived there for decades, pack up and move out by next Tuesday to make way for the construction of an MRT station.

Glancing at the list of enduring landmarks chosen to be destroyed by the city government, it's hard not to notice the stench of cultural prejudice in the air.

Cherry-picking history so that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his cronies can remain exalted is altogether indecent. Wonderful old buildings rich in Taiwanese culture and history are apparently not worth saving compared with one that bears the name of a dictator.

Meanwhile, the birth of democracy in this country remains substantially unmemorialized.

Lee Yong-ping (李永萍), commissioner of the cultural department, argued that given the memorial's cultural significance and aesthetic design, the hall and its walls deserve preservation status.

If her argument is valid, would it then be acceptable for the Taipei City Government to preserve the walls while letting Chiang's symbolic credibility expire? Probably not.
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