Taiwan finds itself in a period of transitional justice. Taiwanese, determined to make social dialogue a reality, are facing challenges with courage and hope.
An article on Monday last week titled “Taiwan’s hopes for transitional justice” by Academia Sinica research fellow Wu Nai-teh (吳乃德) in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) made a big impact as it pointed out several ways to create social dialogue.
The best place for implementing these ideas is the museum at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
During President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) first term in office, the Ministry of Culture ran a memorial hall review and art transformation project, but the project did not generate enough ideas.
The media reported that many programs remained unannounced, stuck in the Executive Yuan, Whether they were not announced following passionate decisions over political name rectification in 2007 and 2008 will never be known.
During the first name rectification campaign in 2007, almost 100 White Terror and 228 Incident victims and family members stepped into the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall for the first time in their lives to express their support for changing the name to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.
It is difficult to imagine what they felt as they did so.
In 2008, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) undid the name change and proposed an exhibition that would show Chiang’s mistakes as well as his achievements, something he never followed through on during his eight years in office.
Wu’s article brought up the complicated issue of whether the memorial hall should be kept.
Before politicians make a decision, he wrote, it would build mutual understanding to use the memorial hall as a museum in which people could talk about the nation’s contested history, as was intended by the theme for International Museum Day in 2017: “Museums and Contested Histories: Saying the Unspeakable in Museums.”
The theme for this year’s International Museum Day is “Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion.”
Perhaps this could offer Taiwanese society an opportunity to collectively gain a deeper understanding of difficulties encountered and achievements gained in transitional justice experiences in Germany and South Africa, as well as countries in eastern Europe, South America and Asia.
Using the memorial hall space to host comparative exhibitions, films, symposiums and other activities addressing transitional justice in Taiwan and abroad, while also collecting and publishing visitors’ opinions would be a transparent and creative way to gauge public opinion and build mutual trust, while respecting democracy and freedom.
The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Human Rights Museum, the National 228 Memorial Museum and the Transitional Justice Commission should work together with private museums to gain an understanding of what most members of the public are thinking.
Using the museum in this way would have the lowest social cost, while offering the best opportunity for dialogue and making use of soft power.
It is also a precious and unique opportunity gifted to Taiwanese by their forbears’ sacrifice and struggle, which built the freedom that Taiwan enjoys today. It is an opportunity for all of Taiwan to show the world how it implements transitional justice.
Tsao Chin-jung is president of Taiwan Art-in Design.
Translated by Perry Svensson
A recent report concerning a student who is suing his teacher posed the question in its headline: Does failing a student in two subjects constitute bullying? The college student in Chiayi County apparently sought NT$2 million (US$63,603) in state compensation, but a court dismissed the case. The first reaction of many might have been to ask: What has happened to students nowadays? Some say that teachers have lost their authority, while others say students are overindulged. Some even start reminiscing over the days when “whatever the teacher says goes.” However, the real issue might be overlooked if emotional reactions like that are the
When I visited Taiwan last summer, I called on the nation to use its status as a technology superpower to build superweapons. It is obvious to me as I return a year later that Taiwan is now answering that call. By 2030, Taiwan envisions a domestic drone hub, capable of producing large quantities of drones per year. The nation continues to tighten cooperation across the private sector, scientific researchers and the elected government, on creating new and innovative production avenues for defense, while efforts to become central to the “democratic supply chain” are only increasing. Anduril is seeing all of these positive
Singaporean former Prime Minister and current senior minister Lee Hsien- Loong(李顯龍) last month stood on Chinese soil and told Beijing that Singapore cooperates because of “shared interests”, not because of common “ethnic descent,” a significant statement that has upended China’s cognitive warfare tactics of “ethnic nationalism.” Along with using its military buildup and economic growth to expand its international dominance, China has long deployed ethnic politics to promote the idea that all ethnic Chinese around the world, regardless of citizenship, share a tight bond with the Chinese motherland, by which it means the regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
President William Lai Ching-te’s (賴清德) May 20 second-anniversary address was not just a routine policy review; it was damage control. US President Donald Trump’s remarks — that he did not want to see anyone move toward independence and that the delivery of a major Taiwan arms package could depend on the progress of US-China relations — unsettled Taiwan’s public and created an opening for opposition parties to question whether Taiwan was being treated as a bargaining chip in Washington’s dealings with Beijing. Lai’s speech was designed to close that opening. The address covered the expected ground: sovereignty, cross-strait relations, defense spending,
RSS