Wed, Jul 03, 2024 page8

• Ko Wen-je’s bad or daft historical references

  • By Hong Tsun-ming 康駿銘
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  Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), whose online influence has waned, has made another startling remark. Ko criticized President William Lai’s (賴清德) request for a constitutional interpretation of the opposition parties’ controversial “legislative reform” bill, saying that Lai’s move “undermines the Constitution and disrupts the nation’s governance.”

  Ko further asserted that, historically speaking, countries have perished not because of natural disasters or plagues, but because of crazy leaders such as Adolf Hitler. Ko was clearly insinuating that Lai is a modern-day Hitler, and he defended this comparison by saying that Hitler came to power through a “democratic constitutional system.”

  Independent Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) made a similar comparison before, criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) by citing Hitler’s “persecution of the communist party on the way to dictatorship.”

  Public figures set a bad example when they misinterpret history, especially for students who are not yet mentally mature and might get the wrong idea.

  Most historical events had their distal causes, proximal causes and triggers, rather than being isolated events that happened all of a sudden. One cannot really understand them without understanding their context. Ko’s superficial interpretation of events without regard for their context is of course a misinterpretation. Ko did not talk about how the Nazis incited populism or how they seized power through violence against their opponents, nor did he say how they expanded their power through the Enabling Act, which in turn resulted from the Reichstag Fire, in which the Nazis set fire to the German parliament. This sequence of events was the key to Hitler’s monopoly of power and the death of the Weimar Republic.

  Even if you have never studied history or have forgotten what you once learned, you can use artificial intelligence and ask: Who is now following the pattern set by Hitler? Most people would have a fair idea of what the answer is.

  International affairs professor Zheng Yongnian (鄭永年), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) so-called national policy adviser, recently said that the US would turn to fascism if former US president Donald Trump wins the election in November, and it would trigger the same series of events in some European countries. This is China’s usual tactic of using labels to rationalize everything it does, just as it suppresses Uighurs and Hong Kongers in the name of fighting “terrorists” and “separatists” respectively. In each case, China’s rulers use one-sided, decontextualized and unsubstantiated statements to fan up populist support for whatever they do.

  The false analogies made by Ko and Chin are not just aimed at getting free publicity, but also at smearing the ruling DPP and labeling the nation’s elected president a “dictator.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the TPP have repeatedly labeled the DPP and its “pan-green” allies as “green communists,” the “green Taliban,” “Hitler” and so on — all for the purpose of rationalizing their attacks of the “pan-greens.” They do not hesitate to do this even if it harms Taiwan’s democracy, freedom and the rule of law, and even if it means being colonized by Beijing. The same applies to the KMT’s and the TPP’s claim that their legislative power-expansion bill is aimed at “investigating corruption,” “reforming the legislature,” etc.

  The silliest label the two parties use is “green communist.” If the KMT and the TPP think communism is so evil, why do they keep sucking up to the Chinese Communist Party? The things they say are really an insult to the public’s intelligence.

  Hong Tsun-ming is a specialist in the Taiwan Statebuilding Party’s international section.

  Translated by Julian Clegg
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