What I meant was, is there anything in Li’s books or elsewhere that backs up your claim that more WSR than BSR were killed in the 228 massacre?
You said he claims that “many were recent immigrants from Fujian”, but does he actually say that most of those killed were WSR?
Brian
[quote=“ac_dropout”]Li Ao,
Was pretty radical for his time. His books love putting down the KMT.
Too my knowledge I’m not aware of any other book that specifically covered the subject of 228.[/quote]
Yes AC, we can see from your posts that you are not aware of much at all… you just spew forth trivia from your own unfounded conclusions… like all ROC national are Chinese… that the Aboriginals are Chinese too, and other shit like that…
Your posts of the 228 incident and what it represents as part of Taiwans recent history are also distorted… factually incorrect and mixed in with your own lies… But of course according to you the earth is still flat
so what more can one say…? More foot binding?
No, Mr Z I believe you’re wrong on that point. We all encourage people to a good debate of diverse opinions substantiated by facts. We are not talking about theoretical situations, but an historical event. AC’s hysterics aside… I’d say the majority of readers would like to see a well informed debate, rather than some off the wall comments.
Regardless of people being uncomfortable by events of their countries past history, the true development only comes when people can openly discuss past events. AC was trying to also say it was a celebration of 228, which is so far fetched that he should stop making comments like that… nobody in Tawan was celebrating 228…
“Nobody in Taiwan was celebrating 228.”
“Nobody in Taiwan was celebrating 228.”
“Nobody in Taiwan was celebrating 228.”
[quote=“ac_dropout”]Li Ao,
Was pretty radical for his time. His books love putting down the KMT.
Too my knowledge I’m not aware of any other book that specifically covered the subject of 228.[/quote]
Really? How about “Ererba yanjiu” (1989), “Ererba yanjiu xuji” (1989), “Ererba yanjiu sanji” (1989)?
Then there’s all of the other stuff that comes up as part of his studies on other people and institutions (such as CKS). When you are as prolific as Li Ao, things like this come up all the time. His long-running TV show also covered 228.
As for put-downs, of late Li Ao has taken every opportunity to put down the pan-greens. Whoever’s in power, really.
What I don’t understand is, all of this information is easily found by looking on any university library website. So why didn’t you bother to log on and look? Sheer laziness doesn’t mix well with strident declarations of ignorance, ac. Oh, and I’m still waiting for the page reference.
I’ve started a separate thread on Li Ao in the Taiwan Politics forum if anyone is interested in discussing this fascinating political and intellectual figure (whether you like him or not, he’s still a fascinating guy).
[quote=“zeugmite”]“Nobody in Taiwan was celebrating 228.”
[/quote]
What you are showing pictures of is the 2-28 hands across Taiwan demonstration, one of the biggest political demonstrations ever held.
It was held on 2-28, not in commemoration of the KMT led 2-28 massacre, but as a show of defiance against the butchers in Beijing.
Sure they were happy that they managed to get 1.5million people out, considering Taiwan’s population is 23 million.
You are very very off topic here, zeugmite. Also, try to keep things separate, there’s a difference between commemorating 2-28 and hold an anti chinese agression demonstration on the same day.
They were happy to get a free DPP election rally by diverting the meaning of 228 towards shouting down the most convenient bogeyman – a tried and true election tactic. The DPP rally reached a loud and cheerful climax on 2/28 at 2:28 PM. Most of the participants were given free DPP and TSU party paraphrenalia. CSB, who was in the picture, is the head of the government. Families of victims complained about the hijacking of the somber occasion by raucous politicking.
Why should 2/28 have anything to do with the PRC? Well let’s brainstorm some words: evil = PRC = mainlanders = here be death = (228) = death! I say! = WSR = traitors = sellouts = KMT = PFP = Lien = Soong = blue = orange = red = Abian dong suan! Bingo! Case closed.
Perhaps that was crass of the DPP but let’s face it… 228 was in fact started by mainlanders who caome ove and slaughtered thousands of innocent people…
Again I stress that no-one here was celebrating the 228 massacre… except for perhaps you and AC…
[quote=“zeugmite”]
They were happy to get a free DPP election rally by diverting the meaning of 228 towards shouting down the most convenient bogeyman – a tried and true election tactic. The DPP rally reached a loud and cheerful climax on 2/28 at 2:28 PM. Most of the participants were given free DPP and TSU party paraphrenalia. CSB, who was in the picture, is the head of the government. [/quote]
OK let’s see. I don’t recall it being a DPP only rally. You did see a lot of DPP speaker trucks, but they were rallying against Chinese missiles, and not against Lian/Soong. I don’t recall shouting any slogans against Lian Zhan. As a matter of fact, nobody standing in the chain near me shouted anything.
News to me. You care to share some links with us?
2-28 was a public holiday right before the election, so it was an excellent choice. Also, your bile above - were you present? did you see any shout “Down with the mainlanders”? I was there, and i saw a rather large bunch of Taiwanese holding hands. It looked very representative, I would say.
And no, I did not see any negative election propaganda either.
That was Li Ao’s premise. He argued that 303 should have been the proper naming of the holiday. Since from 228 till the arrival of re-enforcements from Fujian military division, the only significant group of people dying was the WSR.
He also cites that there were Hakka vs. Hoklo rivalries that use the riot and chaos as a mean to kill each other. Under the fog of war these deaths could be later attributed to the KMT with no one the wiser.
Li Ao claims that there were roving mob of Japanese speaking individuals that would kill people who could not speak Japanese, since it meant, even though they might have been Hoklo. They were most likely Hoklo who came over with the KMT.
Satellite TV,
Thank you for taking the time in misrepresenting me.
I didn’t state nor comment on the emotional state on how people commemorate this holiday on Taiwan. My original comment was the wisdom in framing the holiday as a WSR vs. BSR situation; idolizing a woman that broke the law; and using it as a tool to taint 1 political party on Taiwan.
Li Ao’s, The 228 you didn’t know, was a book published to counter the mob mythos.
You’re very mischievous, aren’t you?
Who, but who, idolizes the cigarette seller? Who can even remember her name? Who can remember the name of the man who came to her defense and was killed for his efforts? [edit: it’s been a while since I read the original reports; I can’t remember if he came to her defense or whether he was beside the melee when he was shot dead] You seem to take considerable delight in misrepresenting both the historical record and the way 228 is dealt with here as a commemorative occasion. Why, because I put it to you that few in the party mechanism feel genuine horror at those events because they feel the government was doing what was necessary. I acknowledge 228 can be a political football, but the hand-in-hand thing was aimed at China, not the KMT. The KMT was welcome to take part, but it refused to do so. People in this place who refuse to acknowledge the historical crimes that allowed them to prosper and oppress with impunity deserve no sympathy.
I suggest to you here and now that the reason the KMT is still tainted by 228 is because (apart from LTH, who is probably reviled for it) few party members are willing to come out and distance themselves from the party heroes who engineered the killing of so many unarmed civilians. Not one of the generals was held to account. Not one. Chen Yi was probably fed to the dogs (relax, I’m speaking metaphorically) because he was a politically convenient kill that sated a certain desire for revenge among Taiwanese at the time.
Counter? Says where? As I said before, unlike his earlier stuff, it is a coffee table book you can easily dip into for interest, and you can dip out when it’s time to go to the KTV with your friends. No effort required. No evidence discussed, all taken at face value. Now isn’t that consistent with a mob mythos?
Still waiting for your page numbers.
Given the state of ROC in the midst of a civil war, wasn’t putting down a peasant revolt on Taiwan neccessary? Implying the ROC had the resources as a war time government to have a negotiation, is misleading. Top negotiators are trying to deal with the CCP and USSR at the time.
Did the rioters had some sort of mechanism to enter real negotiation with the ROC, not just Chen Yi? Not really just a bunch of elite civilians thinking they were doing the right thing.
Did everyone on Taiwan acknowledge the rag tag leadership to be representative of their qualms or even acknowledge them as leaders to negotiate on their behalf? To my knowledge most of these people were the better educated Taiwanese not political leaders with the ability to enact anything on Taiwan.
Not to mention “Committee to Deal with the 228 Incident” were not killed until the Thirty-two settlement principles and ten claims(demands) were made, well after 228. Were these demands viewed as too threatening to ROC soveriegnty of Taiwan by the people in Nanjing? Half of the mainland is occupied by peasant revolters as well from Nanjing point of view.
There was also “Taiwan Province Political Structuring Association” who also claim to represent the Taiwanese.
Sound like social chaos if anyone can claim to be the representative leadership of the Taiwanese in a situation like this.
Did these self appointed Taiwanese leaders get undermined by other Taiwanese like Hsieh Shua-hong (謝雪紅), who organized the
I have to say I am absolutely delighted by your response. It captures so cleanly and so vividly the terrible problem that Taiwan faces in coming to terms with the past. I cannot say whether your position is representative of the average blue camp supporter, but if it is, then it really points to something that is going to be tremendously difficult for Taiwan to overcome, and why 228 is still central to this debate.
When someone lacks empathy, ignores the facts, twists words, defends or jokes about wholesale slaughter, resorts to populism and pseudo-intellectual theorising, and is absolutely free to insult the memory of victims and salute the actions of the most debased of killers, then we have a real challenge. The challenge is this: what is there left to talk about?
In one way your words are the most sophisticated and unregulatable form of trolling: using a semblance of argument to disspirit and silence anyone else who remotely cares about this topic, let alone anyone who actually knows anything.
The same
zhujianlun,
That has to be the most verbose personal attack I have ever read.
So what are the rights of government to ensure they have the authority of governance? Individual rights vs. State rights are how you framed your last premise.
Have you ever read the 32 demands? Could they been interpreted as threatening the ROC authority?
Have you noted that nowhere in the 32 demands did it advocate political equality for all residence of Taiwan? In fact it echoes the current pan-Green xenophobic desired laws to restrict the ROC president to those “ROC Citizens that have been born on Taiwan.”
But let’s say that committee was not representative of all the Taiwanese on Taiwan. So which committee was the legitimate representative of the Taiwanese in your opinion shortly after 228? Let’s start there.
My motivation is to get a fair interpretation of 228. If you concede the woman was targeted for simply not following the letter of the taxation law, then let’s move onto the next phase of 228 and various preconception around those issues.
zhujianlun,
That’s why it is a mythos. If you hear the average BSR pan-Green supporter tell the tale. It is a tale of victimization of the unfair KMT or WSR treatment.
Like the mythos of the stablization of the rioting environment right before the KMT unfairly, unjustly targeted people for death.
Like the mythos of Japanese occupation government was better than the ROC government on Taiwan.
If one keeps an open mind and read a lot of the documentation on the events, one can see 228 has been manipulated into a holiday to condemn WSR and the KMT. Which is unfair to everyone in Taiwan, ROC.
But it was a WSR mistreatment. It was a holocaust against us Taiwanese so the WSR can have more living space. Everything was getting better before the KMT turned Taiwan into a colony and it is a fact that Japanese colonies were better run than Chinese ones: just look at Korea and Taiwan and all the positive legacies left behind compared to Chinese HKSARS.
Hmmm … that’s funny, the Koreans seem to have a very different view of how their “colony” was “managed” under Japanese occupation than you do. Why don’t you just move back to Japan?
Because I am born in Taiwan just like LTH,Taiwan’s GW.
