“Who controls the past … controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
These two sentences from George Orwell’s 1949 book 1984 have become a warning to the world from a novel universally acknowledged as a classic.
These two sentences make the reader contemplate the complicated, interwoven relationships between past, present and future, yet their significance is not restricted to understanding the present based on past history, or to looking into the future from the present. It directly explores the deeper-lying aspects of the problem — the formidable triangular relationship between power, history and the future.
Having understood the fundamental significance of Orwell’s view that those who control the government control history, it is not very difficult to also understand the fierce dispute surrounding the amendment to the history curriculum in the 12-year national education program.
The new history curriculum has three main characteristics.
First, the senior-high school history curriculum is changing the three-component framework — Taiwanese, Chinese and world history — and replacing it with the four components “understanding the world,” “China and East Asia,” “Taiwan and the world” and “a framework of regional divisions.”
This part of the reform is based on the fact that, in the past, the teaching of Taiwanese and Chinese history has ignored their interactions with other countries, and the changes are intended to nurture a global outlook among young students.
However, Chinese history, originally an independent part of the curriculum, is now part of the China and East Asia component, resulting in accusations of “desinicization.”
Second, history is no longer told using the traditional dynastic chronology, but instead takes a thematic approach. The goal is to increase flexibility and applicability through the historical themes that are affecting society and the world today.
However, there are questions regarding how to choose appropriate themes to avoid government manipulation or the influence of government policy.
Third, social sciences now include transitional justice.
The Anti-Black Box Curriculum Movement (反黑箱課綱行動) — which mainly consisted of high-school students and was formed in 2014 as a reaction to the greater China historical outlook of then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九)“micro-adjustments” to the high-school curriculum — demanded that transitional justice be included in the curriculum.
Student representatives also participated in the latest curriculum review process — a reflection of its focus on students.
Transitional justice aims to maintain constitutional and democratic order and promote harmony.
However, it is a source of constant controversy and political conflict. It has always been difficult to build social consensus and find appropriate ways to communicate the meaning of transitional justice.
My field of study is modern history, with a focus on the history of East Asia and international relations. It gives me a deep understanding of the importance of interactions between nations and regions. I also have experience from historical perspectives such as transnational and migrant history, which internationally have become big new trends in the field of history.
These are the reasons I support the traditional dynastic chronology in elementary schools, but the new thematic approach for high schools.
East Asian history was mainly centered around China from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty in the late 19th century. This institutionalized “Chinese world system” or “Chinese-Barbarian order” resulted in a “Confucian cultural circle” and a “Chinese script cultural circle” that has been influential to this day.
More attention should be given to the question of how to give a true and comprehensive view of history while giving proportionate importance to China.
Due to divisions over national identity and how to position the country, Taiwan is largely split into two political forces with differing ideological foundations.
The question of how to address the two differing conceptual understandings of “China” and “Taiwan” within the distinct social frameworks of the blue and green camps is a great challenge.
Given the inability to build a social consensus on this issue, the dispute over the right to interpret history will continue unabated.
Then again, ever since Taiwan’s first curriculum spat, in 1995 — which was about the addition of Taiwanese history and approving the text book Get to Know Taiwan — there have been several such history-related battles.
Although the debates never end with a soft landing, the scope of the dispute keeps shrinking.
Taiwan has lived through three decades of pro-localization, and the definition of the nation in mainstream society has shifted from “China” to “Taiwan.”
This is the reason the curriculum dispute in 2014 during the Ma presidency did not focus on whether Taiwanese history should once again be included in Chinese history, but rather on whether Chinese history should be given a larger chunk of the curriculum.
Taiwan’s civic society will continue to mature in the post-democratization era, and although the controversial history curriculum reform continues to be ideologically sensitive, the government can no longer ignore dissenting opinions and continue to act in accordance with its own ideological convictions.
How should history be taught? This is a focus of social conflict in Taiwan, but it is also an opportunity for reform that cannot be ignored.
John Lim is an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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