Chasing Chiang: Follow The Leader in Taiwan – washingtonpost.com
Interesting story of how the current Taiwan government is renaming memorials etc. to try to remove the association with Chiang Kai-Shek. I didn’t know they changed the airport name, nor that they are changing the name of the memorial hall. To me, since I grew up with the old names, they’ll be with me forever.
It’s just a another living example of how it’s the victors that writes the history you see. Governments can and will always try to rewrite history.
For individual Taiwanese, Chiang — the stoic military leader who retreated to the island in 1949 at the end of China’s civil war, along with 2 million followers — remains a polarizing figure. Political persuasion determines how his legacy translates: Either you see him as a brutal dictator who held the island hostage under martial law, or as the man who valiantly defended Taiwan against Chinese Communist invasion. Because supporters of the first view are calling the shots these days, the dictator, who died in 1975, is taking a beating.
If you’re on the side of the fact that CKS was a dictator, can you still hold on to the lessons of all the bad things he’s done if your public starts to forget his name? Do you always look at someone’s accomplishments by the worst things they’ve done? Can you not honour someone for his accomplishments but still realize they weren’t perfect or wasn’t god like.
From an outsider point of view, you can see both sides of the argument. But in general, I take the view of keeping history as truthful as possible. Can you not see someone as both good and bad? Hell, being flip-flop doesn’t get any one anywhere in politics. That perhaps is a job for historians.
My grandfather was one of the soldiers who followed CKS to Taiwan after the civil war. I like to think that some of the honours and memorials for CKS is a memorial to what my grandfather and grandmother lived through when they were young. So I hope that not everything will be erased.
I guess that’s the burden on the legacy of the great names in the world. One day you’re great, the next day you’re not.
For the rest of us; I can only hope that I’m not only judged by my poor deeds and mistakes, but for whatever little good I bring to the world and the people who know me.
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It’s just a another living example of how it’s the victors that writes the history you see.
That’s exactly what the Chiang government did. It eliminated “Taiwan” from all the names, and replaced them with “China.” Now the DPP is restoring the names they once had.
The fact is that there are no monuments to Mussolini in Rome, none to Hitler in Berlin, and none to Franco in Madrid. The eastern Europeans got rid of all the monuments to communism, and in India the statues of the British Raj were mostly moved out — many are in a space in the Bombay Zoo. What’s happening in Taiwan is normal in post-colonial and post-authoritarian states: when the democratic government comes in, it gets rid of the colonial identities and restores the old names.
It’s irrelevant whether Chiang did anything good for Taiwan. He was a murderer who killed somewhere between 5 and 10 million people. He oversaw an authoritarian, colonialist state that blotted out local identities and murdered tens of thousands of locals and Chinese in Taiwan, parasitized off the economy, stole billions from hardworking taxpayers, ignored the rule of law, and instituted corruption and ethnic politics that plagues Taiwan to this day. Organized crime types donate to community centers and churches. But nobody says that we should remember the good they did…..because they were evil.
Like Chiang.
Michael
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. While I do not necessarily agree with your point of view. I believe in enough freedom of speech to let your comment through. This is a personal blog meant to express a personal opinion and is not meant to be a arena for debate.
I think you give many good examples of the post dictator state in many cities, I would stand to argue that it’s part of history, good or bad and should be remembered.
You have a very strong point of view that you are of course, entitled to. I hope you can respect that I don’t agree with you, but nor do I think Chiang was a saint.
I welcome anyone interested in pursuing this discussion further with you to visit your blog.
Thank you.
I have to agree with you — sanitizing history to reflect the current view, instead of the actuality of what was… well, there’s something inherently wrong with it. Times change; public opinion may change, but events of the past don’t. Good or bad, they are what they are. Accepting and building the present and future for the better is a proper course. Agonizing over and trying to erase what was isn’t.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that, May. Good food for thought.
I think it’s difficult to look at both the good and the bad someone does. If they cause more harm than good, was the good worth it? I don’t know anything about what CKS did, so I’m not saying that’s the case with him. Heck, I don’t care if George Bush has done any good at all considering the mess he has made in the world.
Did your grandparents ever tell you stories about their experiences? I’m sure they’d be interesting.
I agree that no one is just one thing. No one is pure evil and no one is a pure benevolent “god/saint” (the dualism exists in the Good book).
Without getting too much into a debate regarding the politics behind it all – I believe it is important to temper the bad with the good deeds, and tempering the good with the bad deeds. Otherwise, we are prey to the fallacy of “us vs them”, painting everyone as either “good or evil” as we are psychologically prone to do.
I do know that my Grandmother was one of the people crying in the streets when CKS died.
The ancient Egyptians may be the earliest society that did this — erase the name of the predecessor from public monuments and his/her symbol from the view of the people. As you travel through Egypt and see the hieroglyphs on those amazing temples, you’ll also see where hieroglyphs were chiselled out. It seems that as each pharoah succeeded the one before, they would chisel out all hieroglyphs representing the name of the previous pharoah on all temples and statuary, and replace them with their hieroglyph — a way of enforcing loyalty, perhaps. Often that pharoah died before they could chisel replacement hieroglyphs in — usually the dark corners of the temples which is why you see the evidence today. So this practice of changing names, replacing statuary has a 5000 year tradition.
It doesn’t make it right, but I can understand the reason. Would I want to see W’s name on everything everywhere once we get rid of him? Will I want to see his image? Lord NO! I’d be out there chiseling them out and pulling them down.
It also happens when it’s someone good. Cape Canaveral in Florida was renamed for John F. Kennedy after his assasination. A few years ago, the put the name back to Cape Canaveral.
It’s merely the sign of life moving on. History is always perspective – what was bad to one is good to the other. Think of all those people who support ‘W’ — they’d want to keep his image around…