2/27(Sat) Remembering 228 (Host:Nicole Czakon)

[Tom Lee]

On February 27th, 1947, an angry crowd collected around government Monopoly Bureau agents that were beating a woman for selling contraband cigarettes in a Taipei park. This event triggered a series of protests throughout Taiwan that resulted in a brutal military crackdown that is reported to have killed approximately 10,000 people over several days, followed by a 38-year-long period of martial law known as the White Terror.

In anticipation of the 69th anniversary of the 228 incident, we invite you to join a discussion concerning the legacy of this event, and its memory in Taiwan. We will discuss how people first learned about this incident and how the Taiwanese understanding of what happened in this period has changed over time.

For a full, but concise overview of the event, participants are encouraged to scan through the relevant Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28_Incident

Suggested Reading 1: Taiwan Families Receive Goodbye Letters Decades After Executions
By PAUL MOZURFEB. 3, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world ... tions.html

Q1: What is your experience learning about the 288 incident and subsequent White Terror? Did you learn about this event mostly in school, from your family, or as an adult?

Suggested Reading 2: Taiwan Turns Light on 1947 Slaughter by Chiang Kai-shek’s Troops
By MICHAEL FORSYTHE JULY 14, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/world ... =undefined

Q2: Do you think that Taiwanese are too apathetic towards the 228 incident? Do you think that the Taiwanese government can and/or should do more to increase awareness? Have you ever visited the 288 Museum or the Jingmei Human Rights Memorial?

Suggested Reading 3: Q. and A.: Zha Jianying on Remembering the Cultural Revolution
By JANE PERLEZ FEB. 12, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/world ... nying.html

(as it relates the Cultural Revolution in China): "The human desire to turn away from past trauma is perhaps universal, but the amnesia many Chinese display these days is highly selective. If you ask them about the Opium War or the Japanese invasion, for instance, they won’t shrug their shoulders; they are likely to treat you with a lecture. Those events occurred much earlier, yet are well remembered because the state constantly reminds people about China’s humiliation at foreign hands. Every Chinese kid is schooled in those history lessons. But an internal mess? That’s a totally different matter."

Q3: Drawing parallels between 288, the cultural revolution, Japan's atrocities in Korea and China: do you think that there are cultural similarities in the way that East Asian countries are reluctant to acknowledge and apologize for their own transgressions? Do you think that this is a problem? How can the situation be improved?

Q4: Foreign perception of the 228 incident. Quite frequently, the information available in English regarding the 228 incident isn't the same as the information available in Chinese. Do you feel that the Western media has a distorted understanding of this incident? If so, how can the situation be improved?

********************************************************************************************************************************************
Agenda:
3:45 ~ 4:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
4:00 ~ 4:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
4:10 ~ 4:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
4:50 ~ 5:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
5:10 ~ 5:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
5:15 ~ 5:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
6:00 ~ 6:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
6:20 ~ 6:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements ********************************************************************************************************************************************
聚會日期：列於該貼文主題內
聚會時間：請準時 4:00 pm 到 ~ 約 6:30 pm 左右結束
星期六聚會地點：丹堤濟南店
地址、電話：台北市濟南路三段25號 地圖 (02) 2740-2350
捷運站：板南線 忠孝新生站 3 號出口
走法：出忠孝新生站 3 號出口後，沿著巷子(忠孝東路三段10巷)走約 2 分鐘，到了濟南路口，左轉走約 2 分鐘即可看到。
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[Luis Ko]

But the landslide victory for President-elect Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party in January may soon bring much more of that history to light..

Suggested Reading 1: Taiwan Families Receive Goodbye Letters Decades After Executions
By PAUL MOZURFEB. 3, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world ... tions.html

228到底是要紀念啥? 如果這就是228被紀念的價值.. 搖頭ing

why do people have to remember 228? why does the incident have to be raised again and again? if the purpose is only to let those politicians take advantage of it then, it sucks..

[Rock]

History repeats itself, I've heard. I'm a Taiwanese, my mother tongue is Minnan dialect. Long time ago, my ancestors went to this island. They successfully drove Indigenous Taiwanese people and Hakka people out of the best parts of this island. This is not happy history. I bet some 原住民 still want their land back, even up to now.



I guess Sitting Bull was not so happy to see those European settlers at his time, either. He, and some Indians, were also killed in the end. But now in the states, this unhappy history seems not an issue at all. Maybe it's another thing we should learn from the USA?

[Sabrina Sung]

I totally agree with Luis

228到底是要紀念啥? 如果這就是228被紀念的價值.. 搖頭ing

why do people have to remember 228? why does the incident have to be raised again and again? if the purpose is only to let those politicians take advantage of it then, it sucks..

[Luis Ko]

thank you..

[Iris Wu]

228到底是要紀念啥? 如果這就是228被紀念的價值.. 搖頭ing
why do people have to remember 228? why does the incident have to be raised again and again? if the purpose is only to let those politicians take advantage of it then, it sucks..

I didn't want to be the first one to say so... Thanks, Luis, for allowing us to follow your step!

Two families that I can relate to are my direct sources for 228 incident. One retreated from mainland China to Taiwan with KMT and the other one grew up in Taiwan and were educated under Japanese colonial rule. During the 228 incident, the one with KMT secretly let many Taiwanese hide in their residence until the event died down. Nothing could be revealed and the first-hand stories would never show on the history book. In history, there were people who created/caused the hatred between groups, but there were always healers who tried to heal the wound and moved on. If anything I want to remember on this day, I would like to choose the healing part of it.

The other family that I know of grew up in Taiwan and had Japanese education until high school/college. They were asked (recruited) by Japanese army to fight with China and sometimes were treated like human shield for Japanese army. With this kind of treatment, these people still prefer to be Japanese if there were a choice. I could not understand and probably will never understand it.

This topic is too hard for me, so I'll skip it.

[Sabrina Sung]

When some of my family discuss the political issues, their emotion become very negative even lose their reason because my family was victim.
In my opinion, if we could heal souls after we discuss or remember them, fine. Unfortunately ,it becomes worse and worse; moreover some guys( especially some politicians want to take advantage) make stories or lies to stir hate.

[Rock]

Yes, it's a hard topic. However, I won't skip it. That's the least thing I can do to support my belief, and to support others who share the same belief.

As I mentioned, I envy the US for their unity. 228 is not something special, I believe similar tragedies happened many times, in many places in the world. For example, America also had incidents, tragedies and even slavery. But do native American and African American politicians today take advantage of the dark history and put it into propaganda? I don't think so. Even if they did so, the American people, no matter what color of their skin, wouldn't take it. They would know it's a history of hate. They would know it hurts the country.

Taiwanese do have a lot to learn, from the US, as well as other countries which has overcome problems like this. I'd like to hear our international friends telling us how they solved the problems. We need it. Here in Taiwan, propaganda of hate still works, and it's a shame to every Taiwanese.

[Rock]

BTW, 當家不鬧事, I guess our next president wouldn't do it, either.

[nczakon]

Hi Everyone,

If you want to blame anyone for bringing up this incident, please blame Dan Balaban and myself, not the politicians. It arose mostly out of our frustration that people don't talk about it---and when this topic is not discussed, you can never expect people to be properly informed of what is the most likely scenario for what happened in that period of time. When I go to the Jingmei Human Rights museum or the 228 Museum, there is very little to no English text and when I ask Taiwanese about this event, they are only able to say: "228 and the White Terror are very bad things...."----and I find this unacceptable.

Don't get me wrong, this is >not< an effort for us to classify some people as being bad and others as good. This is an effort to understand what happened in order for us (and future generations) to be able to make sure something like this never happens again. My mother's family is German and they would never talk about Nazis or the Holocaust. While they never admitted this, I believe that this is because they were ashamed that they had supported the Nazis on their rise to power. Fortunately, German children and many other Western children are taught in school at a young age the horrors that can happen if you don't speak up and say the right thing.

On a final note, given how heated this issue is, I do not blame anyone for staying at home. After having read a lot of background on this subject over a short period of time, I can understand why these really difficult topics need to be taught to children at a young age---their psyche is resilient. As an adult, I am sometime overcome with so much emotion and sometimes I can not sleep. All this having been said, I believe that we are honoring the victims by making sure that there is an as-honest-as-possible record of this event.

[tashi]

Lee Ao's talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTtMXUfMLyo

The transcript:
http://blog.udn.com/gocrane/6157504

In the transcript, it seems some people manipulate the death quantity in the event.
If there is any lesson we should learn, review our history with science and think it objectively would be the first one I think.
Just one thing to point out that I only admire Mr. Lee's work on history to reveal truth, not all aspects .

[Luis Ko]

Hi Everyone,

If you want to blame anyone for bringing up this incident, please blame Dan Balaban and myself, not the politicians. It arose mostly out of our frustration that people don't talk about it---and when this topic is not discussed, you can never expect people to be properly informed of what is the most likely scenario for what happened in that period of time..

guess you don't really know those politicians i mentioned well. if the politicians are not to blame for most Taiwanese's apathy towards 228, i don't know who is to be blamed.
you are right, the purpose for people to remember this such atrocities in history is to make sure something like that would never happen again. but the thing is, i dare say, the thing is those politicians don't really care about it. what they care about is to arouse people's hatred of KMT, as i said they just try to take advantage of it. since the abolition of the Martial Law, they talked about the same issue, again and again, right prior to every major elections then, stop talking about it until next election.. sorry, my bad, they actually bring up the issue every year.. XD
the point is, don't forget Democratic Progressive Party has already won presidential election twice and governed the country for 8 years. 8 years time as the government the issue hasn't been resolved? they are still asking for apology? asking for the truth blabla..
you just can't say Taiwanese are APATHETIC towards the issue, because we know what it's going on, most of people i would say. maybe we should know more about the issue but, prefer not to, because we don't want to be manipulated by those politicians. DON'T GET ME WRONG. what i mean is if the purpose of those who always mention the issue is not for the truth then, we will never find out the REAL truth. that's why i quote the sentence,
But the landslide victory for President-elect Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party in January may soon bring much more of that history to light..

i don't think they will bring more of that history to light, but i do believe they won't stop mentioning it and using it as a way to arouse hatred of KMT.. until KMT is not their arch rival haa~

just want to say that to remember it is one thing, and dwell on it is another. guess we all want to learn a lesson or two by remembering the issue but, if that only arouses hatred after bring it up again and again and again then, it's "dwell on", but not "remember" i would say. if so, it's better we move on lo~

[Iris Wu]

To assume that older Taiwanese are not aware of 228 incident is like to assume people who support Donald Trump do not know Obama's birthplace. That is simply a wrong assumption.

Nobody denies the incident actually happened. There may be some different versions of details, such as how many victims were involved , what exactly triggered the incident and how Chiang Kai Shek was involved in the incident, but people do know that it was not right even just one got killed innocently. The apology has been made by President Lee (on behalf of KMT at that time) and President Ma officially many times, and even the DPP acknowledged that “the government has made many efforts to help 228 victims and their families to cope with their pain”, and the day has been reserved as a national holiday to remember the victims. I don't think people argue about the facts of this incident. For Taiwanese, the incident has been deep in our heart already.

"The purpose to keep bringing up this event is to prevent it from happening again" is exactly the argument that people are questioning.
First, the incident occurred in 1947 and lasted for a couple months, but in the subsequent 50 years of KMT ruling, no more similar events happened given that they had had all the power to do so. So, was the 228 event circumstantial or was it conducted by a truly evil governing body? Everyone can have their own judgment, but the incident did not happen again long before people started talking about it.

I admire and appreciate people who fought for the truth initially and made the incident recognized and justified in the history, but many of subsequent commemorating facilities, gatherings and talks, you can easily categorize them as propaganda or as a tool for people to benefit themselves from. For example, there are many local parks called “228 Memorial Park” in southern part of Taiwan, and the quality of these parks is so bad, you can almost certain many local representatives benefited from under-the-table deals by constructing these parks. It's so easy to have the political/financial gain in the name of “justice”!

As for propaganda, Luis has raised quite a lot good points. I'd like to say people who do not want to keep bringing up (or be involved in) this subject are mostly those who don't want to become some politicians' propaganda tool.

[Rock]

If you want to blame anyone for bringing up this incident, please blame Dan Balaban and myself, not the politicians.

Oh, don't say that, we appreciate your attention and help on anything here in Taiwan, and I believe that you brought it out with a good intention. Many many thanks to you guys.

However, I really doubt the intention of my fellow Taiwanese politicians and politician students who bring it out again and again. 16 years ago, a president from the DPP party was elected. He was very powerful at that time, and he had done everything he could, on this 228 thing, to please his followers. The problem is solved already; we all know the history.

I wish our next president and her party could do better things than banal tricks.

[Rock]

... It arose mostly out of our frustration that people don't talk about it...

Talking about frustration, it's so frustrating that some Taiwanese talk about it a lot when we have many more serious problems at hand, and most of us are stuck here in this separated society.