The pursuit of transitional justice in Taiwan has encountered several hurdles, with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) naturally leading the opposition. However, there is one strong hurdle that is harder to tackle: ordinary people who are easily manipulated and put money above values.
In addition to redressing injustices committed during the Martial Law era, another major task for the ad hoc commission for the promotion of transitional justice under the Executive Yuan to be formed after the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) was passed on Tuesday last week is the removal of symbols in public buildings and spaces that commemorate or honor Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
Calls have been made sporadically to eradicate such symbols, most notably statues of Chiang in public schools and the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei — a 15,000m2 shrine honoring the nation’s most notorious dictator. However, such calls have traditionally mostly been bottom-up initiatives, given that the government did not create a legal basis for the statues’ removal until earlier this month.
Many people have sought to draw attention to the absurdity of continuing to worship Chiang in democratic Taiwan by spraying red paint on his statues on his birthday or anniversaries of White Terror era atrocities, and it is reasonable to say that without these instances of civil disobedience, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration would not have felt confident that it had enough public backing to railroad the act through the Legislative Yuan.
The passage of the act is a new milestone in the nation’s democratization and could further anoint the DPP as the nation’s driver of democratic consolidation. However, the ruling party has found itself faced with piling pressure from authoritarian sympathizers and people who simply do not care about transitional justice, because justice is an intangible value that cannot put food in their stomachs.
Immediately after the act’s passage, some pan-blue news media were quick to estimate the amount of money needed for the implementation of the act, in an apparent attempt to steer public opinion and paint transitional justice as a pointless, money-consuming and politically motivated endeavor.
The tactic seems to be working, given that the DPP administration has tried to downplay questions about whether remaining symbols of Chiang, including the memorial hall, statues, and schools and roads named after him would be removed.
Implementing changes can cost money, much like building infrastructure to improve people’s standards of living. It is dangerous and unwise to dismiss a worthy endeavor simply because it cannot be touched and will not lead to material advancement.
For people who are not direct victims of the nation’s authoritarian past, or who were born in the post-authoritarian era, it is easy to shrug off the necessity of removing symbols that portray authoritarianism nostalgically, because they do not bring back painful memories, and past injustices seem far away and unreal.
However, such attitudes reek of hypocrisy considering how often people have rallied calling for the head of perpetrators of heinous crimes. Despite the international trend of abolishing the death penalty, a vast majority of Taiwanese still insist on its use, because they believe in eye-for-an-eye justice.
Imagine how big a backlash the government would draw if it wanted to erect a statue of a man who decapitated a little girl or went on a killing spree. If that idea sounds repulsive, think about what the lives of bereaved families of White Terror victims must have been like for the past decades.
Putting an end to the lingering worship of Chiang is the least the nation as a whole could do to bring long overdue comfort to the many victims of the nation’s authoritarian history.
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