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The Liberty Times
Editorial: Ma sides with killers over victims
An official Presidential Office news release on April 5 had this to say: “This
morning, on the occasion of the 38th anniversary of the death of former
president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Vice President
Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) went to Chiang’s mausoleum in Taoyuan County’s Cihu Township
(慈湖) to pay their respects.”
At 10am, Ma arrived at the mausoleum and presided over a ceremony outside in
which fresh flowers were placed at the site and where attendants bowed and then
observed a moment of silence. After this, Ma and Wu entered the mausoleum to pay
further respects to Chiang.
With the president and vice president both paying their deepest respects and
expressing feelings of bereavement for Chiang, a former dictator and murderer,
it is safe to say that no other killer in world history has ever been accorded
the amount of respect that Chiang has.
Before this, when the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee was
reviewing amendments to the Regulations for Handling of and Compensation for the
228 Incident (二二八事件處理及補償條例), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tuan
Yi-kang (段宜康) said that the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall was planning
a product design competition. For this competition, participants would be
invited to submit designs for various creative products inspired by the “happy
marriage” and “happy family life” of the former dictator and his last wife,
Soong Mayling (宋美齡).
Tuan criticized this plan, saying that Chiang presided over the 228 Incident and
the White Terror era and was therefore responsible for ripping marriages — and
in some cases entire families — apart, not to mention the disappearances of many
people.
The competition was called off after Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台)
requested that the memorial hall cancel the plan, although another member of the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Standing Committee still came to
Chiang’s defense, saying that without Chiang there would be no KMT.
In response, Ma remarked that history must be looked at objectively, that one
must empathize with those who lost their families in these massacres and that
nobody should attempt to deny that events such as the White Terror era and the
228 Incident happened.
However, Ma also reportedly said that it is hard to judge a historical figure
from just one point of view, but that one must clearly differentiate between
right and wrong if the pain caused is to be eased, and if we want the world to
know that Taiwan is capable of self-reflection.
Nevertheless, not long after uttering these words, Ma went straight to the
mausoleum in Cihu to pay his respects.
So just what sort of differentiation between right and wrong is that meant to
be? And just what angle was Ma viewing this particular historical figure from?
Was Ma not rubbing salt into the wounds of those who lost their families in
these massacres?
Whether we are talking about the 228 Incident or the White Terror era, Chiang
was always the killer, while the people of Taiwan were his victims. This is an
established historical fact. On the one hand, Ma says we need to empathize with
those who lost family members in these massacres, but then he also runs off to
Cihu each year to pay his respects to Chiang.
At the same time, Ma has also long given up on Chiang’s goal of shazhu bamao
(殺朱拔毛) — a play on words referring to killing then-People’s Liberation Army
general Zhu De (朱德) and getting rid of then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東.)
So, when Ma talks about how it is hard to judge a historical figure from just
one point of view, what he really means is that while we need to offer our
condolences to the victims, the killer also needs to be commemorated.
Let us stop and think about this for a minute. Suppose a German leader held a
memorial for the victims of concentration camps and then every year turned
around and commemorated Adolf Hitler. Would everyone think such a leader is on
the side of the killer or those that were killed?
Murder is murder and the victims cannot be brought back to life. This is a
simple thing to understand. Given that Ma shows so much respect to a “killer,”
it follows that Ma is insincere in offering his condolences to the victims. Ma
does not only do this in Taiwan, he also does this in China.
Ma once defined the Tiananmen Square Massacre as the CCP regime’s use of
violence to suppress a democratic student movement. However, after he became
president, he said that 20 years after the June 4, 1989, massacre, China’s
economy has succeeded in opening up and this has greatly improved living
standards in China.
Ma also said that in the most recent decade, the Chinese authorities have been
paying much more attention to human rights. What Ma basically means by this is
that the Tiananmen Square Massacre brought about progress, that killers have
their reasons and those killed need not be mentioned.
It also implies that the various human rights abuses Chinese people have been
subjected to in recent years and the self-immolation of Tibetans are also things
for which the Chinese authorities need not take responsibility.
Regardless of whether it is in Taiwan or in China, Ma chooses to take the side
of killers, and this is by no means accidental. This is because Ma sympathizes
more with dictators than he does with ordinary people. Despite having signed two
international human rights covenants, Ma has paid no attention whatsoever to the
declining human rights situation in this country.
Ma is manipulating referendums, he is exploiting his dual role as national
president and chairman of the ruling party, and he has access to considerable —
and ill-gotten — party assets. In addition, he is cooperating with China’s
dictators, and not the leaders of China’s democracy movement, in the pursuit of
his “China dream.”
This has seen people such as the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and World
Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer being refused entry to Taiwan.
This is not only a nightmare for Taiwanese, but also one for the Chinese.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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