Religion is the greatest force to usher change, the German and South African representatives to Taiwan said yesterday at a prayer meeting to mark the 71st anniversary of the 228 Incident.
The event, held at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Taipei, began with a prayer for the 228 Incident, with the organizers saying that the truth about the Incident has yet to be revealed and continues to cast a shadow over the nation.
German Institute Director-General Martin Eberts said that church members played an important role as just and unyielding social figures when Nazis ruled Germany during World War II and Communists ruled East Germany.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
It was the church that helped unite people in those societies, Eberts said, adding that the non-violent way in which it conducted itself to achieve social unity won the church greater support.
South African Representative Robert Matsebe talked about the importance of reflecting on history, citing how his nation’s apartheid regime caused many deaths.
History should not be allowed to repeat itself and it is very important to clarify what responsibilities the aggressors should shoulder, Matsebe said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Victims must be cared for and perpetrators punished, he added.
Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) was also at the prayer meeting.
The 228 Incident refers to an uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947, and was violently suppressed by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime. The resulting brutal crackdown left tens of thousands dead and led to nearly four decades of martial law.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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