우물 안 개구리

Frog in a Well welcomes a guest posting from Sayaka Chatani on the issue of Korean War Criminals and the difficulty Korean historians have found in addressing them in modern Korean historiography. Sayaka is a PhD student in the History Department of Columbia University. Her research interests are in the transnational history of early to mid-twentieth century East Asia, mainly focusing on the colonization and decolonization of Korea and Taiwan.

Introduction

Colonial legacies are one of the most hotly debated political issues in South Korea. The phrase “legacies of Japanese imperialism (ilche chanjae)” is ubiquitous in newspapers and in bookstores, and the topic not only triggers controversies among academics, but inspires social movements, and leads the government to adopt policies to resolve the remnant problems.

Among the many controversies surrounding the history of Japan’s colonial rule in Korea, much attention has centered on the question of collaborators. Many Korean historians argue that former pro-Japanese collaborators subsequently prevented Korea’s unification and brought about significant harm to South Korean society. They see punishing them as a prerequisite to restoring a healthy society.¹ In the context of ‘setting history straight,’ The South Korean government has confiscated the property of descendants of nine collaborators.² A presidential fact-finding panel has finished its second investigation to identify the names of pro-Japanese collaborators, and continues working on a third investigation.³

In contrast to their excitement over the issue of collaborators, historians have only given very limited attention and analysis to the issue of Korean war criminals despite the significant number of Koreans put on trial and executed as Japanese prison guards. When a few Japanese and Korean historians do face the issue, they tend to simplify the complex experiences of Korean war criminals to fit the dominant minjung discourse that blames a distinct group of collaborators for betraying the majority of Korean people. The fact that Korean war criminals were both victims and victimizers makes it difficult for nationalist historians to openly discuss the issue.

(more…)

1. For example, Ahn Byung-ook, “The Significance of Settling the Past in Modern Korean History,” Korea Journal, Autumn 2002, pp.7-17, and Chung Youn-tae, “Refracted Modernity and the Issue of Pro-Japanese Collaborators in Korea,” Korea Journal, Autumn 2002, pp.18-59 [↩]
2. New York Times, “World Briefing, Asia: South Korea: Crackdown On Collaborators” May 3rd 2007. [↩]
3. The Korea Times, “202 Pro-Japanese Collaborators Disclosed.” September 17, 2007 [↩]

On the second page of the June 25th issue of The Korean Free Press (자유신문 自由新聞) there is a very small article which shows how long the process of eliminating the most outwardly visible elements of “Japanese remnants” (일제잔재) could take. While newspaper articles today continue to point to long lasting legacies of the Japanese colonial period, more than four years after the end of Japanese colonial period legislation and executive orders continued to be used to get rid of some of the more glaring reminders of the recent colonial past, including the use of Japanese subtitles for foreign movies.

The Showing of Movies with Japanese Subtitles will be Prohibited after the End of This Month

That was not the only Japanese remnant to be dealt with in the newspaper on that day in 1949. The newspaper article just above this one reported that 柳混龍, a 43 year old former “Kempei spy” (憲兵密偵) had been arrested in Cheju-do.

In the opinion pages of the 2007.09.17 issue of Chosun Ilbo, there is an article which discusses the nationalism (민족주의) of Korea’s “386 generation.” The main point of the article is to dissect and critique the “pro-North leftists” (친북좌파), laud the rise of the new cooler “post-386 generation”, and discuss the alternative visions offered by Korea’s New Right movement (뉴 라이트). The article opens, however, with a nostalgic visit to “Intro to Nationalism 101″ and a little bit of history.

The first half of special is written by Shin Ji-ho (신지호), a self-declared former leftist activist who abandoned the revolution, went on to get a PhD in political science from Keio in Tokyo and become the president of what appears to be the institutional embodiment of the New Right’s political wing, the Liberty Union (자유주의의연대), the website of which is cleverly located at the appropriately post-386 internet location of 486.or.kr. Now, the Liberty Union should not be mixed up with the Korean Freedom League which is a distinctly “Old Right” organization that used to go by the name of the “Korea Anti-Communist League” and before that the “Asian People’s Anti-Communist League” (which should not to be mixed up with its sister organization, the World League for Freedom and Democracy based in Taiwan, which used to be known as the World Anti-Communist League). Indeed, as the English version of its website shows, the Liberty Union simply wants what, apparently, all Korean organizations with websites want: unpolluted skies, green fields, impossibly green trees, beautiful rainbows, blue butterflies, and cute children holding flowers.

Shin’s article is faithful to the stated principles of neo-liberalism of his organization, but he also makes the case for a form of “patriotic globalism” (애국적 세계주의) which is based on a pride in a country which protects freedom and champions republicanism. As he explains it:

진정한 애국은 동일한 혈연, 언어, 문화에서 나오는 선천적, 생래적 감정이 아니라, 개인의 자유와 번영을 보장해주는 국가공동체에 대한 후천적, 인공적 열정에서 비롯된다. 고로 자유공화국만이 진정한 애국의 대상이 될 수 있다. 이것이 바로 ‘공화주의적 애국’이며 ‘민족주의 없는 애국’이다.

There is material to work with here, but the real clash between post-nationalists of different political leanings is not so much on the technical details of what we should call the cosmopolitanism of the future, but how it will address social injustice and whether it will embrace unfettered market liberalism. Not a debate I want to bring up here.

However, it is very interesting to me to see in articles, like these, how easily the “New Right” can expose the hypocrisy and backwardness of the nationalism of Korea’s mainstream left, and champion, with apparent ease, the forces of tolerance, international cooperation, and cosmopolitan identities. There is much in common here between the cosmopolitan conservatives of Korea and those within Taiwan’s (now ironically named) Nationalist party (國民黨).

Now the real reason I wanted to bring up this article was to point out something from Shin’s opening “Intro to Nationalism 101″ which goes like this:
(more…)

Sayaka over at Prison Notebooks has been reading up on the history of Korea’s wartime B/C war criminals for a short paper she has been writing. In addition to the main paper, which I hope we will see online at some point, she has posted a few weblog entries with some observations about what is out there:

Notes on the Works on Korean War Criminals in WWII
Notes on the Works on Korean War Criminals in WWII (2)

I’m sure she would love to hear from anyone who has seen any academic work on the topic she might have missed. There seems to be less out there in the way of scholarly research than she expected (except for the writing in the recent press related to the Truth Commission which absolved most of them of their convictions).

Near Kwanghwamun this afternoon there were a number of nationalist Anti-China placards set up. Could China someday become the new Japan? I think it is too early yet. A few decades of colonial rule has a more lasting effect than a historiographical squabble or two.

Our happy history. Don’t travel to China!

That monster in the Han river was perhaps not created by the US military as the recent blockbuster movie suggests…It is in fact China! The poster lists the major historical issues with China: 백두산, 고조선, 고구려, and 발해.

Seodaemun prison was open to the public today and as I write this posting various patriotic performances are underway on the grounds of a prison where the prisoners of the Japanese colonial regime and the postwar dictators of South Korea lived, died, and were horribly tortured.

Cutouts of “Righteous Army” fighters could be found near the entrance with removable heads so that any patriotic visitor could pose for a patriotic picture.

If the poorly armed righteous armies, which were sometimes hard to distinguish from violent bandits when they raided villages for food, are not your kind of independence fighter, you can also pose with other pro-independence terrorists¹ found elsewhere on the prison grounds.

1. For a discussion on current definitions of this contentious word see this Wikipedia article or see some of the Google offerings. For more on a recent controversy over the use of this term see this article and the response of the accused, which also mentions the changes in meaning of the word across time. The response to the response can be found here. [↩]

Leaflet being handed out near the Japanese embassy today:

On every trip I have made to Korea I have come across leaflets handed out at station exits accusing some distinguished person of being a pro-Japanese traitor (친일 매국노) but I think this is the first whose alleged treason was committed during my own lifetime.

This afternoon I dropped by the “Independence Hall” (독립관) found near the independence gate. It was open today for the festivities. Inside you can find many rows of names of martyrs for the cause of Korean independence along with their cause of death and a comment on what kind of independence fighter they were (Manchurian guerrilla, 3.1 activist, righteous army, etc.).

In addition to some glass cases with articles about the independence activists, there is an altar where incense burns. The smell was wonderful and the visitors respectful as they walked around the hall.

The two empty boxes of incense near the altar revealed that both kinds of incense burning were Japanese brands. Perhaps a donation from repentant Japanese corporations?

I didn’t attend the liberation day festivities last night or the ones that continue outside city hall as I write this posting. I did drop by this morning, however, and was able to catch sight of the massive plastic redecorating of the building:

We were also in time to watch what I think has to be the absolute worst martial art performance I have ever seen just outside the entrance.

We also witnessed the departure of a large group of 국민대학교 students leave on some kind of patriotic hike, complete with flags attached. I am always impressed at the willingness of young people to dress up in the same T-shirts and, in this case, to almost all use the exact same brand of backpack.

It’s August 15th hear in Korea and you know what that means? It is a time to celebrate Korea’s independence from its colonial master in 1945 and some argue that more efforts should be made to remember that this day was also when the Republic of Korea was officially established in 1948. As with many national holidays like it around the world, it is most of all a time for nationalism in all of its manifestations.

It is time to waste massive amounts of pink and white colored plastic to cover Seoul’s city hall with the national flower. It is a time for for a group of flag draped youth to perform some kind of Tai Chi-looking dance outside of city hall so badly one wonders if they even bothered practicing. It is time to call Kim Dae-jung a pro-Japanese traitor for bowing to an image of the dead emperor Hirohito in 1989. It is time to burn two different brands of Japanese incense at the altars of dead independence activists. It is time to pose for pictures behind headless cutouts of armed anti-Japanese activists. It is time to call for boycotts on trips to China for their government’s historiographical imperialism. It is time to confiscate the land of descendants of pro-Japanese collaborators. It is time to remove Japanese derived technical words from your military vocabulary. It is time to remove flags from glass cases in the schools because such a heinous practice is a remnant of the Japanese colonial period.

In the next few postings I’ll a few more details on the day’s events, along with some of news related to the celebrations in the Korean media.