ABSTRACT
Writings about memory tend to emphasize the many ways shared memories are tied to places (lieux de mémoire) (Nora 1989). In the article “Forgetful Remembering,” Johannes Fabian nuances the positive value ascribed to memory and remembering, and remarks that there are more studies in which “remembering clearly was critical, contestatory and at times subversive” (Fabian 2003: 490). History writing, by its very nature, makes use of contrasting representations of memories to suppress and memories to celebrate. As Gallerano puts it,
the political function of historiography is to regulate memory and oblivion in order to shape the characteristics and the collective identity of a community and to distinguish it from others; and to construct, thanks to the past, a project and a prophesy for the future.
(Gallerano 1995: 90) In Taiwan, the project of recovering historical memory cannot be separated from the broader context of politics. Democratization since the late 1980s has gone hand in hand with the active promotion of the creation of a Taiwanese identity by stressing cultural heritage and historical tradition. In seeking to forge a national cultural identity, the Chen administration (2000–2008) emphasized a discourse of Taiwanese pluralism in which citizens of Han Chinese and indigenous descent are colorfully marked, and which is no longer defined in terms of a nationalist Chinese uniformity. The change in political leadership after the March 2008 elections is not likely to be able to turn back the clock, in spite of the new administration’s pro-China rhetoric. Rather, the Ma administration will probably be compelled to appropriate precisely those issues in the Taiwanese collective memory which lend themselves to being interpreted as part of the Greater China inclusive discourse.