Nazi Parade School Slammed for Misrepresenting Indigenous Massacre

The Taiwanese high school that allowed students to parade in Nazi uniforms is under more pressure after it was revealed students also depicted a highly-sensitive massacre involving one of Taiwan’s indigenous tribes.

The high school in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, has already been widely criticized for allowing students to take part in a Nazi-themed parade at its anniversary celebration on Dec. 16.

Read more: Taiwan Nazi Parade Continues Decades of Ignorance; Netizens Defend Students

A video on YouTube shows students from another class dressed as Japanese forces and indigenous Seediq people, holding toy guns and paper-made knives, to reenact the Musha Incident (霧社事件) during the same anniversary event.

The Musha Incident, also known as the Wushe Rebellion, was a major uprising involving Taiwan’s Seediq Tribe against Japanese forces during Japan’s 50-year colonial rule. In 1930, the indigenous Seediq killed more than 130 Japanese in Musha, central Taiwan, in response to oppression. Japanese forces retaliated, killing more than 600 Seediq.

Japan’s harsh response included dropping of mustard gas bombs in the area – scholars say it was the first use of chemical weapons in Asia.

Responding to the school’s treatment of the Musha Incident, Democratic Progressive Party legislator and indigenous representative Kolas Yotaka (谷辣斯·尤達卡) accused Taiwanese of “not considering the aboriginal people as human beings” and “disrespecting aboriginal history.”

The students’ teacher should take responsibility for the behavior since it showed a lacking of historical understanding, she said.

In the video of the event, a person speaking on a microphone during the reenactment says, “Kill the Japanese and reclaim China.”

Chen Chang Pei-lun (陳張培倫), or Tunkan Tansikian, an assistant professor at the National Dong Hwa University, said in an interview with Taiwan Indigenous Television that the teacher responsible had overlooked the fact that the Musha Incident had nothing to do with Chinese people. It was disrespectful of the school to reenact this false idea, he said.

National Taiwan University law professor Lee Mau-sheng (李茂生) wrote, sarcastically, in a Facebook post that the speaker “was brilliant [for asking aborigines to reclaim China]. He should go and act as Wu Feng instead."

Wu Feng was a Han Chinese who allegedly sacrificed his own life to end the headhunting practices of the Alishan Tribe; his story was included in Taiwanese textbooks for years, but was removed in 1989 because it could not be verified.

Taiwanese netizens have likewise criticized the speaker for being “totally ignorant of history.”

First Editor: Edward White
Second Editor: Olivia Yang