A lot has been said in the media over the last week about the National Socialism Association, an organization cofounded by a political science student at National Chengchi University that professes to admire certain facets of Germany's World War II era Nazi party and its leader Adolf Hitler. The story was quickly picked up by the international press and resulted in sensational headlines appearing in many publications across the globe -- publications that normally rarely mention Taiwan.
Even the director of the Israeli representative office in Taipei, Rafi Gamzou, was drawn into the uproar and felt compelled to comment, denouncing the emergence of a pro-Nazi movement in Taiwan and questioning the nation's education system.
The government, embarrassed by the media frenzy, was forced to deal with the bad publicity and issue a warning via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the group, asking it to cancel a planned event.
But rather than reveal Taiwan as a nation of extremists, all the attention has done is expose the naivete of youth and a lack of awareness of what Nazi symbolism means to millions of people around the world.
As mentioned by the Israeli representative, the inadequacies of the nation's China-centric education system mean many people, young and old, receive little education about what happened in Europe during World War II and remain largely unaware of the brutality and the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.
This is borne out by the sometimes tasteless usage of Hitler and Nazi imagery in the promotion of products and the penchant among some Taiwanese for Nazi kitsch such as German World War II-style motorcycle helmets and swastika badges.
But this episode also demonstrates the efficacy of the global network of pro-Jewish activists that root out any alleged pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic activity and expose it for the whole world to see.
How else could such an obscure group (the association has just 20 paid-up members) make headlines around the world? The problem stems from the group's use of the term Nazi, which is automatically associated, wrongly in this case, with being anti-Semitic.
The group never had an-anti Jewish platform, and this was reiterated by the group's cofounder, who told reporters he bore no malice to Jewish people and that all he wanted to do was promote a strong sense of nationalism, traditional Chinese values and limit the numbers of immigrant workers coming to Taiwan.
Another of the group's cofounders, however, did talk about exterminating the offspring of immigrant workers on the association's Web forum, and this is something the authorities should look into.
But despite such extreme views, the story was blown out of all proportion by the international press, and the crazed Internet rantings of a few right-wing students did not deserve the amount of column inches that the group received.
Nevertheless, those involved will learn from this experience and probably regret ever evoking the memory of Hitler as a way of promoting their ideas.
The firestorm of criticism and media attention created by their activities will most likely dampen enthusiasm for political activity for many of the group's members.
Indeed, the group's Web site has already been temporarily closed until further notice and just one person turned up to the association's inaugural convention in Taichung last Saturday.
And despite the announcement on Sunday that it wants to form a National Socialist Party, the group will in all likelihood disappear back into obscurity, where it belongs.
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