Remebering Chiang Kai-shek
When discussing the future of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) statues nationwide, it is necessary to first ask want kind of memories we want to leave for future generations.
A statue is a statement of values as it pointedly tells people what they should remember. It is often about honor and intended to shape identity, and political statues have many political implications.
Chiang was a dictator and a butcher, and most of the Chiang-statues in Taiwan were constructed on his orders and those of his son, former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), with the intent of creating leader worship.
Simply making treating as a joke these spaces and symbols that were created deliberately and carry a sacred significance, or to treating as regular worldly works of art is an act of ridicule and a show of ignorance of history.
What we need is a society with a sense of history; what we need is to remember, not to forget.
Chiang Kai-shek is a controversial person in Taiwanese society and the presence of his statues is a cause of social division: They should thus be removed, in particular from school campuses.
One example is Columbia University in New York City, where students are calling for the removal of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the US and one of the signatories of the US constitution.
The reason for such calls is Jefferson’s racial prejudice and the fact that he was a slave owner. There are even radicals who want to remove statues of former US president George Washington for similar reasons.
It must not be forgotten that these statues where erected by later generations and that racial prejudice and slavery was still common at the time. Human rights began to gradually develop and spread, and this period must not be compared to the slaughter that took place during the mid-20th century.
This observation is not intended as a defense, because if these men’s actions contradicted the values that we hold today or infringed on the rights, lives or property of some people, this is something that we still have to recognize today.
It is important that society recognize our past, but that does in no way mean that “he” must continue to be present, as it would only transform him into an ever-present “deity.” Instead, we could set up relevant monuments or create installation art.
Erecting monuments would also be problematic, as it implies excessive conceptualization and abstraction, and plays down pain and hardship, but at least it would be a more appropriate approach than leaving the existent statues and would also contribute to a process of remembrance.
Removing the statues is not just a theatrical protest in which students act and imitate the revolutionaries of the French revolution — as French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist Raymond Aron criticized the 1968 student uprising in France.
The goal in Taiwan is to achieve substantive justice and to eliminate division in Taiwanese society.
Hsu Hsiang-pi
Taipei
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