Postcolonial remembering in Taiwan: 228 and transitional justice as “The end of fear”

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the contested dynamics of postcolonial remembering in Taiwan. Focusing on the long-suppressed 228 massacre in particular and the White Terror period in general, we bring Taiwan’s postcolonial remembering into international and intercultural communication studies by analyzing two contemporary sites: Taipei’s 228 Memorial Museum and the Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park. As our case studies demonstrate, Taiwan’s postcolonial remembering offers unique indications of how public memory work can help move a culture toward a sense of reconciliation, thus promoting what one of our collaborators called “the end of fear.”

KEYWORDS:

• Taiwan
• 228
• postcolonial remembering
• 228 Memorial Museum
• Cihu Memorial Sculpture Park
• transitional justice
• Tsai ing-wen

Acknowledgments

For their conversations about and/or editing suggestions on this essay, thanks to Soumia Bardhan, Hamilton Bean, Andrew J. Gilmore, David Gruber, Dongjing Kang, Emily Lin, Trevor Parry-Giles, Qingwen Dong, Todd Sandel, Xing Lu, Xiyuan Liu, Michelle Murray Yang, and the blind peer reviewers at the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.

Notes

1 The CPC continues to claim the TSM is “a myth” fabricated by the “the Western media” (“Tiananmen Massacre,” 2011). For a call for a truth and reconciliation commission, see “An Essay on” (2017).

2 Works published in cultural studies, international studies, trauma studies, and others are cited throughout the essay; the closest “communication” piece we found was Liao (1993).

3 All interviewees quoted herein are cited anonymously to protect them from political retribution, following the terms established by the Colorado Multiple Institution Review Board, protocol #15-0407.

4 For centuries, travelers referred to the island of Formosa; Taiwan is the island’s post-World War II and postcolonial name, albeit this too is contested and wrapped within dueling claims to sovereignty.

5 Huang was among the founders of the Formosa League for Re-Emancipation (FLR); following 228, he worked in Guangzhou and Taipei to curry U.S. support for anti-Chiang rebellions (see Lin, 2016).

6 While we discuss the Taipei 228 Memorial Museum, readers will also want to visit the National 228 Memorial Museum (http://www.228.org.tw).

7 Interview with the authors in Taipei, June 2016.

8 Interview with the authors in Taipei, June 2017.

9 Interview with the authors in Taipei, June 2017.

10 The Generalissimo occasionally donned Western suits, as seen in Chiang (1957).

11 Interviews with the authors in Taipei in June 2016 and 2017, and on Green Island in June 2017.

Additional information

Funding

Research conducted in China and Taiwan in 2016 and 2017 was funded in part by the CU Denver Center for Faculty Development, the CU Denver College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, and the CU Denver Center for International Business, Education, and Research.