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Students laud removal
of statue
CASTING ASIDE THE PAST: A bronze statue of
Chiang Kai-shek, which students say is a ‘symbol of authoritarian rule,’ is to
be relocated to a university archive facility
By Meng Ching-tzu and Jason Pan / Staff reporter, with Staff
writer
A bronze statue of Chiang
Kai-shek stands on a plinth on the National Cheng Kung University campus in
Greater Tainan on Thursday. The school plans to move the statue indoors next
year.
Photo: Meng Ching-tzu, Taipei Times
The National Cheng Kung University (NCKU)
earlier this week voted to remove a bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from
its campus and to relocate the structure to an indoor location.
The move came after protests led by students earlier this year.
At a school affairs meeting on Wednesday, more than half of those present voted
to relocate the statue — currently located nearby Cheng Kung Lake (成功湖) on the
campus — to the university’s archive. The relocation is slated to take place
early next year.
An official from the university was quoted as saying that “the statue is part of
history. There is no need to destroy it, otherwise these pieces of history won’t
be found in the future.”
On Feb. 28 this year, a group of NCKU students marked the 65th anniversary of
the 228 Incident by staging an art installation on campus to symbolize the
horrific and brutal moment in Taiwanese history in the hope of raising public
awareness about the nation’s past mistakes.
Members of the student organization 02 Group (零貳社) — whose name is a phonetic
translation of “protest” in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) — hung a placard
reading “1947-2012” on the statue and placed the names of victims of the 228
Massacre around the statue.
The 228 Incident refers to a massacre that sparked a massive 1947 nationwide
uprising against the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime. The uprising
was brutally crushed in a violent crackdown spearheaded by the state. That
tragic event also marked the beginning of the White Terror era that saw
thousands of people arrested, imprisoned and executed.
The students’ art installation this February stirred heated debate at the
university about whether the statue should be removed.
Chen Yi-chen (陳以箴), head of the 02 Group, said the school’s decision to move the
statue is a major breakthrough.
“This is just the beginning. We should dismantle all the symbols of
authoritarian rule which still exist on campus,” he said.
He added that the university is treating the decision as a simple act of
relocating a statue and is unwilling to consider the wider issues of
authoritarianism on campus.
“Our university is quite conservative. In classrooms, administration facilities,
in the interactions between faculty and students there are still leftovers of a
past authoritarian mentality. Such a mentality needs be removed,” he said.
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