Politicians the world over have never wanted for hyperbole. However, far too many in Taiwan appear incapable of learning that some references are not only beyond the pale, but only damage themselves, not their targets.
The “H-bomb” was dropped once again in Taipei this week amid the debate over the review of the Judicial Yuan and Council of Grand Justices nominees.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus convener Sufin Siluko (廖國棟), an Amis, said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was trying to centralize government authority, bringing her close to leading the nation like Adolf Hitler.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members were quick to protest, but while they certainly can complain about the authoritarian reference, they do not have a strong defense on the Hitler question.
There have been too many such ludicrous comparisons over the years from both sides of the political divide. Even worse has been the occasional bid to hold Hitler up as an example of a great leader.
In July 2001, then-KMT legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) said former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) “can-do” mentality could lead to a dictatorship like under Hitler, amid efforts by the KMT to claim that it had always embodied “Taiwanism” by promoting the common good of the nation and its people compared with Lee’s “Taiwan first” policies.
That was the same month that the DPP got into trouble for a television advertisement aimed at encouraging young directors to make commercials for the party about Taiwan and local politics without worrying about challenging the “status quo.” The problem was that the DPP did just that by putting Hitler in a lineup with Lee, former US president John F. Kennedy and then-Cuban president Fidel Castro as leaders willing to speak their minds.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was often compared to the Nazi dictator by everyone from KMT politicians to fugitive former Tuntex Group chairman Chen You-hao (陳由豪), who fired off a blast from his hideout in China during a scandal about political donations in February 2004.
A month later, the KMT used a photograph of Hitler in five newspaper ads that compared Chen to him and called on voters to end Chen’s “dictatorship” on election day. The KMT apologized to the Jewish community for the ad, but not to Chen.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) in February 2011 compared the DPP’s calls for party unity to Hitler’s and Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) appeals for unity.
The sheer stupidity of such name-calling beggars belief.
Yet what also beggars belief is that the KMT caucus can — with straight faces — accuse Tsai of trying to “dominate” the Executive Yuan, “dictating” to the Legislative Yuan and “manipulating” the Judicial Yuan, and say that her government is turning into a far-right authoritarian regime and then not only go back more than six decades to Germany for someone to compare her to, but also 1,300 years to Empress Wu Zetian (武則天) of China’s Tang Dynasty.
The truth is that if pressed for an example of a president who dominated all five branches of government, most Taiwanese only need to think back a few decades to Chiang’s arrival and rule over Taiwan.
Chiang, his son and their successors from the KMT dictated policy within the party and to the legislature, acting as if their will was the party’s will and therefore the nation’s will, but of course the KMT caucus cannot admit to that.
Since it appears that Taiwanese politicians are deaf to appeals to stop trotting out Hitler every time they want a bogeyman, it is incumbent upon the rest of us to tell them to shut up and read some history books every time they do. Just as long as it is not the history books the KMT foisted upon the nation.
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