228 museum protests city decision on future

Some analyst thought the situation wouldn't be so bad if both sides learned to live with the past and moved ahead. Ho Jung-hsing (何榮幸), a senior journalist, said the dispute is ideological not legal.

Ho said the real problem for both sides is the fact that the historical phases are compressed into very short time frames, forcing people to look at the Incident's historical and cultural issues from political viewpoints.

For this same reason some Taipei City Councilors boycotted Lung's original appointment, when she was invited to return to Taiwan after several years abroad and head up the cultural bureau. At the time some councilors had said Lung was not a "Taiwanese," which made the renowned writer irate.

New Party City Councilor Chin Li-fang's (秦儷舫) proposal that the city government give the foundation more "management autonomy" and skip financial support sparked another ideological struggle.

She said that "since the foundation has the ability to raise funds itself and as Iap was upset about the city's interference, why on earth should we [the Taipei City Government] budget NT$50 billion to support it?"

Responding to this, DPP City Councilor Chen Hsiu-hui (陳秀惠) said the Incident was a tragedy for "real Taiwanese" -- a remark that outraged Chin, who like Lung is a second generation mainlander.

Iap says peace will prevail all over the world only when people can enjoy freedom and dignity. If there's no dignity, he would rather do nothing than "wait and see" what happens next.

Some rumors are already spreading that mainlanders and the New Party will come out to take over the museum by winning Tuesday's bid.

If they don't -- Lung, who lacks manpower -- will have to take over the museum's day to day activities.

Back to the drawing board?

With such strong opposition from the Taipei City Government some are saying the new administration should come to the rescue.

"Since the whole problem comes from the Taipei City Government, which is currently ruled by the KMT," a "strategy consultant" of the museum said, it might be one kind of solution to ask the President-elect Chen Shui-bian to built a "national 228 memorial museum" in his term.

"Since we can build the Taipei 228 memorial museum in three years, we can certainly build a Taiwan 228 memorial museum in the next four years if necessary," the consultant said.