Adults at fault for Nazi incident: Tsai
FAILURE:Human rights education needs to focus on the past and take in all areas of study so young people understand the importance of universal rights, the president said
By Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
Adults, not students, are at fault for a Nazi cosplay incident on Friday last week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, adding that it was the result of the nation’s “superficial” human rights education and failure to teach young people about state repression of rights in the past.
Tsai made the remarks at the 25th meeting of the Presidential Office’s Human Rights Advisory Committee yesterday afternoon, urging Taiwanese to make an effort to let the nation’s human rights freedoms set the bar for other nations.
Since the cosplay event, students and school authorities at Hsinchu Kuang Fu High School have received an outpouring of criticism, with the former accused of ignorance and the latter of negligence.
The event also drew ire from the representative offices of Israel and Germany. The school’s principal, Cheng Hsiao-ming (程曉銘), resigned on Sunday.
“Human rights are universal values, but they can only be realized when we constantly put them into practice at the local level,” Tsai said.
Speaking about the criticism of the students who dressed as Nazis at the school cosply event, Tsai said that it is adults who are to blame, not the students.
“This happened because our human rights education has only scratched the surface. We neglect incidents of discrimination and prejudice in our daily lives, and we have failed to teach our young people what they should learn from history and state repression of human rights,” Tsai said.
Self-reflection is required of everyone, Tsai said, adding that the event underscores the imperative need to reinforce human rights education and incorporate issues related to rights in different subjects.
The president said the day when one can call the education system a success is the day when the nation’s students understand the suffering others have endured, respect each other’s rights and stand up for justice.
To fulfill that goal, Tsai said she would invite the Executive Yuan and government agencies to deliver a report to the committee on the nation’s human rights education.
Taiwanese regarded democracy and freedom as the most valuable of human rights during the nation’s authoritarian period, Tsai said.
“Because of the sacrifices made by many of our democratic forebears, we are able to enjoy a mature democratic political system today and see our freedom of speech protected by the Constitution,” Tsai said.
However, there is no end to the pursuit of human rights, Tsai said.
“When it comes to human rights standards, we should always look upward to learn. As a matter of fact, there is still much room for us to make improvement,” she said.
KMT blasts envoy over ‘Nazi’ criticism
SYMBOLIC GESTUREKMT Legislator Alicia Wang has demanded that Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey return to Taiwan and pledge his allegiance to the ROC flag
By Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday accused Representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) of “inciting hostilities between political parties” by attributing a recent Nazi costume controversy to a lack of transitional justice in Taiwan.
KMT caucus secretary-general Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) told a news conference at the legislature that as a representative of the nation, “Shieh’s duty is to protect the nation’s topmost interests and to let the involved countries understand our stance, rather than causing misunderstanding and other potential controversies.”
“Shieh is no longer a political talk show host [as he once was],” Chiang said, adding that the envoy’s remarks have tainted his diplomatic status.
Chiang called on Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) to rein Shieh in, but added that the minister would probably not be able to do so, because Shieh has President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on his side.
Chiang was referring to a controversial campus event featuring a group of Hsinchu Kuang Fu High School students dressing up as Nazis on Saturday. Government officials, foreign representatives and netizens have expressed outrage over the event. Shieh was one of the critics, attributing students’ ignorance to the nation’s lack of education on transitional justice.
Shieh said the students would have been naturally critical of Germany’s Nazi regime “if the education system had fully incorporated history about the state violence that occurred in Taiwan, but certain political parties still oppose the revelation of historical truth and continue using the Republic of China [ROC] national flag as a special symbol.”
He added that one of the traits of the Nazi regime was “using its party flag as the national flag,” making an implicit reference to the fact that the ROC flag is embellished with the KMT symbol.
He also lamented the nation’s continued “worship” of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said Shieh’s job, paid by taxpayers, is to help Taiwan develop a better relationship with Germany, “but he has failed to do his job.”
She demanded that Shieh return to the nation and report to the legislature during next month’s extraordinary session.
KMT Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) said that if Shieh does not identify with the ROC flag, he should step down as the nation’s representative.
It is Shieh’s job to protect Taiwanese children and explain the incident to Germany, “but he chose to fan the flames and rouse interparty feud, which is not acceptable,” she said.
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