The 2004 Hand-in-Hand Rally in Taiwan: “Traumatic” Memory, Commemoration, and Identity Formation

Abstract

This article investigates how a collective memory of trauma was produced in the course of commemorating the 2-28 Incident in the context of the 2004 election campaign, and how this memory production led to the parallel formation of a Taiwanese national identity. The 2-28 Hand-in-Hand Rally was designed to remember the 2-28 Incident as a historical trauma in order to be forgotten. The remembering of the 2-28 Incident must be regarded as a constructive process as opposed to a retrieval process. The memory of the 2-28 Incident was selectively constituted in favor of sovereign power.