By Daniel Nardini
To all of my readers, I ask all of you to get out and vote. No matter how hard the circumstances may be, it is important to get out there to vote. The mid-term elections are historically important, and this one in particular is. Voting in a free and fair election is one of the ways we do not become a one-party state. In hard and uncertain times like this, I always remember two films I had watched a long time ago. Both of them take place in Taiwan, and are very much part of that island’s history. The two films are The Warriors of the Rainbow, and Formosa Betrayed. Although both films talk about different eras in Taiwan’s history, they have one thing in common. They refer to anti-Fascist struggles against two oppressive forces.
The Warriors of the Rainbow is the true story of the Austronesian peoples who fought against Japanese colonial oppression. They fought to preserve their identity, their cultures, and their way of life. The Japanese colonial authorities used every means of repression at their disposal including poison gas. The Austronesian peoples fought with only rifles, bows and arrows and head-hunting knives. Because they knew the lay-out of the land, the Japanese Imperial Army had serious problems trying to crush the Austronesian peoples. Yes, there are a lot of very bloody scenes in this movie, but this was the reality of the fight between the Austronesian peoples and the Japanese colonial authorities. It was a very bloody and uneven fight where despite being out-gunned and out-numbered, the Austronesian peoples fought for every foot of their homeland. In the short-term they lost, but in the long-term their fight meant that though they were beaten they were never defeated. In the end, the Japanese were gone but the indigenous peoples of Taiwan still hold on to their ways of life and their ancestral roots despite the Japanese colonial authorities’ attempts to erase them.
Formosa Betrayed is about the murder of an American citizen named Henry Liu by the Nationalist Party of China on Taiwan in 1984. This murder took place in California, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation became involved in trying to solve the case. These agents eventually were sent to Taiwan where they found out that the government there itself was the one which committed the murder. I should explain that this all took place during what was known as the White Terror period in Taiwan, which lasted from 1949 to 1992 (I actually saw part of this period when I lived there). The film is fast-paced and quite frightening because it is based on true events where the Nationalist government in Taiwan murdered an American because of Henry Liu’s criticisms of that government. For me, this film hits too close to home since I lived Taiwan in roughly the same time period. Back then, the newspapers were heavily censored, people could be arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned and even executed without trial, and where the government was a one-party state that answered to no one. This film, which I have seen many times, deals with this dark period.
In both of these films, the people had to physically fight to gain their freedom from tyranny and one-party rule. These anti-Fascist struggles cost many, many lives and their outcome was never certain. Yet the people fought so they can have the one thing Americans have now, and that is the right and constitutional protection to vote in free and fair elections and to be a free and sovereign people. So, to all of my readers, I highly recommend seeing these two films and then vote.
Two Anti-Fascist Films
By Daniel Nardini
The Warriors of the Rainbow is the true story of the Austronesian peoples who fought against Japanese colonial oppression. They fought to preserve their identity, their cultures, and their way of life. The Japanese colonial authorities used every means of repression at their disposal including poison gas. The Austronesian peoples fought with only rifles, bows and arrows and head-hunting knives. Because they knew the lay-out of the land, the Japanese Imperial Army had serious problems trying to crush the Austronesian peoples. Yes, there are a lot of very bloody scenes in this movie, but this was the reality of the fight between the Austronesian peoples and the Japanese colonial authorities. It was a very bloody and uneven fight where despite being out-gunned and out-numbered, the Austronesian peoples fought for every foot of their homeland. In the short-term they lost, but in the long-term their fight meant that though they were beaten they were never defeated. In the end, the Japanese were gone but the indigenous peoples of Taiwan still hold on to their ways of life and their ancestral roots despite the Japanese colonial authorities’ attempts to erase them.
Formosa Betrayed is about the murder of an American citizen named Henry Liu by the Nationalist Party of China on Taiwan in 1984. This murder took place in California, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation became involved in trying to solve the case. These agents eventually were sent to Taiwan where they found out that the government there itself was the one which committed the murder. I should explain that this all took place during what was known as the White Terror period in Taiwan, which lasted from 1949 to 1992 (I actually saw part of this period when I lived there). The film is fast-paced and quite frightening because it is based on true events where the Nationalist government in Taiwan murdered an American because of Henry Liu’s criticisms of that government. For me, this film hits too close to home since I lived Taiwan in roughly the same time period. Back then, the newspapers were heavily censored, people could be arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned and even executed without trial, and where the government was a one-party state that answered to no one. This film, which I have seen many times, deals with this dark period.
In both of these films, the people had to physically fight to gain their freedom from tyranny and one-party rule. These anti-Fascist struggles cost many, many lives and their outcome was never certain. Yet the people fought so they can have the one thing Americans have now, and that is the right and constitutional protection to vote in free and fair elections and to be a free and sovereign people. So, to all of my readers, I highly recommend seeing these two films and then vote.