[BOOK] 2015 PEACE TOUR
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Transcript of [BOOK] 2015 PEACE TOUR
Peace Tour 2015: The 70th Anniversary of
the Liberation/Division of Korea
Date l 8th August 11– th August 2015
Places to Visit l Seoul, Ansan, Cheolwon, Hwacheon, Dongducheon, Yangjoo
Host The Institute for Korean Historical Studies, Human Rights Foundation ㅣ
“Saram”, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), The
Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK)
Organizer The Korean People Artist Federation, The April 9 Unification & ㅣ
Peace Foundation, Geumjunggul Humanrights & Peace Foundation, Civil
Peace Forum, Asia Peace & History Education Network,Catholic Human
Right Committee
The 2015 Peace Tour is sponsored
by the 2015 Scenario for Change of
Table of Contents
Welcoming Remarks p.2
Program p.7
Host / Organizer p.9
List of Participants p.17
Symposium Program p.20
2
2015 Peace Tour - Welcoming Remarks
Kim Seong Bo
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies
The liberation that the Korean society faced 70 years ago gave way to
the many possibilities of what kind of society to construct. The moment
it was acknowledged that the war and violence was finally over, the
desire to create a new society became stronger than ever. And because
that desire was strong, various actions for its realization also outpoured in
diverse ways. Amid delirious joy, the hopeful notion that anything could
be possible stemmed from “peace”.
However, the division and occupation of the U.S. and Russian military
as well as the Korean War solidified the division of the peninsula and
subsequent violence invaded the peace. As the violence became
structuralized political and social conflicts were created, which are
continuing explicitly to this day. The numerous types of military action
that encircles the Korean peninsula, the hatred of “pro-North Korea” that
has a stranglehold on our everyday lives, the complete indifference toward
the universal nature of human rights It can be said that feeling
sensitive to these phenomenon and fervently contemplating over how to
put that sensitivity into real life action is a one way to contribute to the
“Peace Movement”. Peace movements have always been difficult chapters
in history but we know well that it had never once been stopped.
It is meaningful that we are simultaneously welcoming the 70th
anniversary of two historical watersheds: liberation and division. This tells
us how important it is to candidly face the origin of the violence that is
3
plaguing the Korean society today. It also lets us know that the
seemingly failed liberation has always existed around us. It is through
detailed diagnosis of violence and pondering over the many kinds of
action to overcome the violence that we can continue on the course of
liberation.
More than ever before, the present times call for the rethinking of the
value of peace.
It is at this time that civic groups and research institutions from home
and abroad have come together to jointly arrange the <Peace Tour 2015:
70th Year since Liberation/Partition>. We have already experimented in
this new form of solidarity through the 2013 <Peace Tour: Marking the
60th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice>. Through the title “Peace
Tour”, we are striving to realize the notion of putting peace into action
by encompassing both theory and reality.
The variety of programs scheduled from August 8 to 11 tells us that
we are all key actors of the peace movement and we also have collective
resolve that this movement will never cease. It is without a doubt in our
minds that mere participation itself is being part of the peace movement.
I sincerely welcome you for participating in the undertaking to solidify
peace.
4
2015 Peace Tour Welcome Address on behalf of the ASCK
Owen Miller,
Lecturer in Korean Studies, SOAS, University of London
여러분 반갑습니다 저는 런던 대학교 에서 코리아 한국. SOAS (' ')
역사를 가르치는 입니다Owen Miller .
I'd like to welcome everyone to the 2015 Peace Study Tour on behalf
of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. Formed in 2003 in
New York, the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) is
dedicated to the promotion of mutual understanding between the people of
the United States and the people of Korea, both North and South. As
you might be able to tell I am not from North America so I think I
must be here representing the rather small European branch of the
organisation! One of the goals of ASCK is to help scholars, students, and
the general public learn about North and South through accurate,
historically informed an analyses, and thus we are happy to be a
co-organizer of this Peace in Korea Study Tour along with Human Rights
Foundation “Saram”, People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy
(PSPD), and The Institute for Korean Historical Studies.
I'd like to say a few words to highlight the very international nature of
this important tour. This year, ASCK participants come from: Thailand,
Italy, the UK, Japan, the US, Switzerland and a few who are based in
the Republic of Korea. I wish we could also have participants from the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But that will have to be a
5
worthy goal for the future.
Our backgrounds and interests also vary: many of us are academics,
some of us are students and some are activists. Perhaps some of us are
all three. All of us have a deep general interest in Korean history, while
some of us have a very focused interest - e.g. in South Korea's Truth
and Reconciliation Commission, in North Korean social history or in the
history of Sino-Korean relations.
Some of us speak Korean, some of us do not. Some of us are of
Korean descent, some are not. What we have in common is a deep
interest in issues of justice and peace, not just in Korea but all around
the world. We know that international solidarity is important, and that
getting to know people on a personal level makes this more easy and
long-lasting.
I am a first timer on this tour and I'm personally very excited about
what I will learn and what I can take away to pass on to my students
back in the UK and enrich their encounter with Korean history. This tour
offers a unique type of direct learning experience that is difficult to
achieve in other ways. This is an opportunity to learn about events in the
places where they happened, to learn about movements from the people
who have built and participated in them and to see the physical remnants
of modern Korean history at close quarters. And of course it is also a
unique opportunity to meet a wide range of interesting and stimulating
people and hopefully make some new friends or meet some new
collaborators.
Finally I would like to wish everyone here a very safe, enjoyable and
fruitful tour.
6
7
2015 Peace Tour Program
Time Program VenueFacilitator /
Lodging
1stday:Saturday,August8
Conference PSPD2ndfloor
conferencehall
(Seoul)
Moderators: Lee Tae-Ho, Clara Hong
09:30 ~ 10:00 Welcome Welcome: Kim Seong Bo, Owen Miller
10:00 ~ 12:00 Session I: East Asia before and after World War II; Korea’s division system
12:00 ~ 13:00 Lunch
13:00 ~ 15:00 Session II: 70 Years since partition; Korean peninsula present and future
Lodging: Seowon Guest House 15:00 ~ 15:30 Break
15:30 ~ 17:30 Session III: Overcoming war and partition; Korea and beyond
18:00 ~ 20:00 Dinner
2ndday:Sunday,August9
07:30 ~ 09:00 Travel to Ansan, Gyeonggi Province from PSPD Facilitator: Lee Tae-Ho
9:00 ~ 10:50 Visit Danwon High School & Memorial
Gyeonggi Province
Interlocutor: Kim Ikhwan
11:00 ~ 13:20 meet families of Sewol Ferry victims / Lunch
13:00 ~ 14:30 Return to Seoul Seoul Guide: Institute for Korean Historical Studies (Yeoksa munje yeonguso)
14:30 ~ 15:40 former KCIA facilities in Imun-dong,Seodaemun Prison / Museum
16:10 ~ 17:40 Dinner Lodging: Seowon Guest House Walking Tour, Tongin-dong
3rdday,MondayAugust10
07:30 ~ 10:30 Travel to Hwachon from PSPD Breakfast will be provided on the bus
10:30 ~ 11:30 Vietnam War training camp & memorial GangwonProvince
Guide: Institute for Korean Historical Studies (IKHS)
11:30 ~ 12:20 Lunch
12:40 ~ 13:20 Kkeomeok Bridge (Korean War Site)
15:00 ~ 15:40 Cheorwon / 3rd Infantry Division
16:00 ~ 16:40 Seungil Bridge / railway to Geumgang Mts
Gangwon Province
Hakmaru pensyeon. Cheorwon, Gangwon Province 17:00 ~ 17:50 Civilian control line
18:00 ~ 20:00 Dinner with Yugongni villagers /meeting with landmine victims
4thday,TuesdayAugust11
8
08:00 ~ 08:40 Breakfast Hakmaru pensyeon
08:50 ~ 9:40 ruins of North Korean Workers’ Party Headquarters
Guide: Institute for Korean Historical Studies9:40 ~ 10:30 Leave for Dongducheon Gangwon
Province10:30 ~ 11:40 Camptown STD Inspection Office / Meet with Durumi-bang activists
12:00 ~ 13:00 Lunch GyeonggiProvince13:00 ~ 13:50 Yun Kuem Yi murder site
14:10 ~ 15:00 Sangpae-dong Cemetery for camptown women
15:30 ~ 16:20 Yangju Highway (Hyosun and Miseon Incident)
16:20 ~ 18:00 Return to Seoul
18:00 ~ Closing Ceremony @ PSPD Seoul Lodging not provided
9
HOST
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies
Human Rights Foundation “Saram”
People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD)
The Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK)
10
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies was established on February
21, 1986, as a private research institute, with these aims: first,
facilitating collaborative researches on issues of Korean history, second,
sharing the fruits of our research with the public, third, suggesting a
desirable direction Korea should take in the future through reflections on
its history, and fourth, contributing to making Korea a more democratic
nation and bringing about peaceful reunification of the peninsula.
The institute has relied on the participation of citizens interested in
historical studies in its management, as well as historical researchers.
Critical Review of History, a quarterly journal established in 1987, has
made a great contribution to sharing modern studies of Korean history
with the public. Also, Critical Studies on Modern Korean History was
first published in 1996, as an academic journal on modern history of
Korea, and has spearheaded fresh and in-depth studies on this
controversial area of Korean history.
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies hosts an annual symposium,
where lively and fruitful discussions on recent issues of Korean history
are had by top researchers. Also, the institute hold places for debate and
conferences, leading critical historical research. Furthermore, with an aim
of sharing the recent historical studies with more citizens, it hosts lectures
and history trips, open to the public.
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies has regular academic
exchanges with various overseas research institutes in Japan, China,
Taiwan, Germany, etc., as well as cooperates with domestic institutes and
non-governmental organizations. The institute is an active member of an
international solidarity for promoting peace and human rights in East
11
Asia.
The Institute for Korean Historical Studies firmly believe a right
historical awareness is a key to solving many thorny issues in Korea.
Join us! Your participation will make a difference for human rights, peace
and justice for all.
Human Rights Foundation “Saram”Human Rights Foundation “Saram” was
founded in 2004 in order to support
organizations or individuals who defend
human rights. The foundation have been dedicating its work on various
aspects of human rights movement: Financial Support Center for
financially challenged human rights organizations; promotion of human
rights dialogue though the publication of human rights magazine <Saram>
and <Saram Saeng-gak>, the publication company specializing the
publication of human rights books; various events and activities including
human rights tour programs and etc.
In 2013, the foundation established Human Rights Center “Saram” with
the support from the people. The organization expects that people will
learn, think and try to fulfil human rights in “Saram”. We dream of a
society where everyone is treated equaly without any discrimination. We
also dream of a state that fulfills its duty rather than to act as an
oppressor. We will continue our work until our dreams come true; a
world where the dignity of human beings are protected in harmony with
nature.
12
People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD)
Until the 1980s, achievement of democracy was
driven by students’ movements resisting government
violence and oppression. Eventually the military
dictatorship, which lasted over three decades, was
terminated by the power of the people. Nevertheless, democratization of
the society was not fully realized immediately.
The true realization of democracy could only be achieved by the people
who ordinarily participate in politics and closely watch the abuse of
power of the state and the corporate. The PSPD was founded in 1994 by
activists, scholars and lawyers who had engaged in various democratic
movements during military dictatorship decades. Hoping to open a new
era of participatory democracy and human rights, the PSPD has been
working on institutionalization of civil participation in democracy, state
power and socioeconomic reform.
Missions of the PSPD
Alternatives We research and propose alternative policies, bills and
measures for enhancing livelihood and rights of ordinary people.
Watch We watch closely whether the power is abused.
Participation We operate with membership fee of more than 10,000
members, irregular donations, and involvement of members and
volunteers.
Solidarity We would like to hold up solidarity as forming a society
that honest, hard- working persons enjoy a decent life and anyone
participates in democracy.
Center for Peace and Disarmament of the PSPD
The PSPD noticed the visible transformational processes of dismantling
13
separation in the Korean Peninsula after the South-North Korea Summit in
2000. We began to discuss the expected influences of a nuclear issue of
North Korea, a new obstacle in the ice-melting environment in the
Korean Peninsula in half-century, and the war on terror led by the U.S.
Facing the changes of times, the PSPD reached the conclusion that we
should deal with overcoming the separated situation and preventing the
international military conflict with more clear visions and responsibilities:
the civil movements in Korea had aimed at the democracy and social
justice in South Korea.
Even before the establishment of the center, the PSPD had carried out
some campaigns to improve the transparency and accountability of the
area of defense such as the protection of informants in the military
industry.
The start of the Center for Peace and Disarmament meant the expansion
of the PSPD’s experience towards defense and security beyond authority
monitoring through civil power. Members of the center felt the need of
‘democratization of field of security’, which meant challenge to the
exclusive interpreting power about security by the state and security
experts. They also paid their attentions to the importance of solidarity
with the subjects of new visions and philosophy to prepare a new social
and world paradigm.
Missions of Center for Peace and Disarmament
- Peace Initiatives in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia
- Monitoring the military spending and Disarmament
- Promoting civil participation
14
The Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK)
We are scholars working in the United States and other countries who
join together out of concern about current US policies toward the Korean
peninsula.
We believe that current problems on the Korean peninsula and between
the US and the two Koreas, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
and the Republic of Korea, can only be solved through dialogue,
cooperation, and the active pursuit of peace. We feel the responsibility to
speak out against policies that increase tensions in Northeast Asia and
may lead to another catastrophic war in Korea. We wish to add our
voices to a constructive discussion on how to achieve a peaceful, unified
Korea existing in harmony with its neighbors, including the United States.
The Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) is dedicated
to the promotion of mutual understanding between the people of the
United States and the people of Korea, both North and South. The goals
and activities of ASCK include:
1. Helping scholars, students, policy-makers and the general public learn
about Korea, both North (DPRK) and South (ROK), through accurate,
historically informed analyses;
2. Contributing to the constructive and peaceful development of
US-ROK and US-DPRK relations;
3. Facilitating the exchange of scholars and students between the US and
the DPRK.
We realize that this is a critical moment in US-Korean relations. Our
organization is committed to promoting a US policy toward Korea that is
informed, humane, and in everyone's mutual interest.
15
ASCK History
The Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (ASCK) was founded
at a meeting at Columbia University on March 29, 2003.
16
Organizers
The Korean People Artist Federation
The April 9 Unification & Peace Foundation
Geumjunggul Humanrights & Peace Foundation
Civil Peace Forum
Asia Peace & History Education Network
Catholic Human Right Committee
17
List of Participants
18
강건한 Kang, Geon Han
강혜빈 Kang, Hye-bin
권영태 kwon Young tae
권유경
김국환 Kim, Kook-Hwan
김난 Kim, Nan
김대용 Kim, Dae Yong
김덕자 Kim Duk ja
김도민 Kim domin
김미원 Kim Mi won
김민화
김상균 Kim Sang gyoon
김선영 Kim Seon young
김손자 Kim, Sonja
김수지 Kim, Suzy
김승환 KIM Seung Hwan
김영미 Kim Young mi
김원식 Jason Wonsihick Kim
김은경
김정아 Kim, Jung Ah
김종백 Kim Jong back
김태경 Kim Tae kyung
김현숙 Kim hyun sook
난새 Nanse
데이비스 찰스 Davis, Charles
로빈슨 태미 고 Tammy Ko, Robinson
마츠사카 히로 Matsusaka, Hiro
매리김 Kim, Mary
문선영 Moon sun young
박강성주 Park-Kang, Sungju
박미경 Park Mi kyung
박수홍 Park Su hong
박주연 Park, Joo Yeun
박현숙 Park, Hyun Suk
배건욱 Bae, Kun Wook
배경식
배지우
벨로스 조슈아 Bellos, Joshua
사토 유코 Sato Yuko
서재정 Suh, Jae-Jung
세토 토모코 Tomoko, Seto
쉐논 츄 Chew, Shannon
스탁 제프리 Stark, Jeffery
신수정 Shin Su jeong
신지현 Shin, Jihyun
심기호 Sim, Ki-Ho,
애퍼제시 존 Eperjesi, John
양수빈 Yang Su bin
엘빈웡 Wong, Alvin
여재희 Yeo, Jae Hui
오웬 밀러 Miller, Owen
유다정 Yoo da jeong
유왕선 Yu , Wang-Seon
19
이진 Lee, Jean H
이경숙 Lee Kyeong suk
이경주 LEE Kyeong Ju
이경희 Lee, Kyunghee
이광희 Lee Kwang hee
이규정 Kyujeong LEE
이미현 LEE Mihyeon
이상희 Lee, Sang Hee
이숙현 Lee, Sookhyun
이영아 LEE Youngah
이용덕 Lee Yong-Duk
이지원 Lee Ji Won
이지혜 Lee Ji hye
이태호 LEE Taeho
이현옥 Lee, Hyeon-Ok
이혜정 LEE Hea Jeong
이효성 Lee Hyo sung
임광순 Lim gwang soon
임지현 Lim, Jeehyun
임헨리 Em, Henry
장완익 Chang Wan Ick
전영욱
정욜 Jeong, Yol
정근식 Jung, Keun-sik
정다혜
정민주 Chung Hye min
정병욱 Jung Byung Wook
정혜민 Chung Min ju
제인진 카이슨 Kaisen, Jane Jin
조진석 Cho jin seok
줄리아니 조르지아 Giuliani, Giorgia
찬로카나키트 판디트 Chanrochanakit, Pandit
최덕효 Choi, Deokhyo
최명운 Choi Myung Woon
최현모 Choi, Hyun Mo
케빈그레이 Gray, Kevin
킴벌리정 Chung, Kimberley
프리데릭 바르타사트 Barthassat, Frederic
한준구
홍승혜 Hong, Seunghei Clara
홍천희
황수영 Hwang Soo young
20
Symposium Program
21
Session 1: East Asia Before and After World War II, Korea’s Division System, and Continuing Conflicts Over History
Chair: Yang Mi-gang (Co-Chair, Asia Peace & Education Network)
Presentation 1. The Korean Peninsula and the Post-World War II Division System in
East Asia
Lee Sam-Sung (Professor, Hallym University, Department of Politics
and Administration)
Presentation 2. Controversy over South Korea’s History Text books and the New
Right’s Historical Perspective
Kim Jeong-in (Professor, Chuncheon National University of Education,
Department of Social Studies)
Presentation 3. The Onset of Cold War Divisions in North Korea and the Korean War
Suzy Kim (Professor, Rutgers University, Department of Asian
Languages & Cultures)
Session 2: Seventy Years since Liberation-Partition, The Korean Peninsula Present and Future
Chair: Clara Hong (Professor, Yonsei University, Underwood International College)
Presentation 1. Finding a New Path for the Korean Peninsula: Beyond THAAD to
Collective Security
JJ Suh (Professor, International Christian University, Politics and
International Studies)
Presentation 2. The Emergence of Mass Right-Wing Organizations and the Rightward
Shift in South Korean Politics
KimDong-Choon (Professor, SungKongHoe University, Sociology)
Presentation 3. The National Security Stateand the Peace Movement in South Korea
Park,Jung-eun (Co-Secretary General, PSPD)
Session 3: Overcoming War and Partition Korea and Beyond –
Chair: Lee Tae-Ho (Secretary General, PSPD)
Jane Jin Kaisen, “Some Artistic Reflections on War and Division”
Lee, Jung-ae, “The Division System and Zainichi Koreans”
Im Jae-seong, “Conscientious Objectors’ Movement for anti-militarism
22
[Session1: East Asia Before and After World War II, Korea’s Division System,
and Continuing Conflicts Over History]
Presentation 1
The East Asian System of Grand Division and the Korean Peninsula
Lee, Sam-Sung (Professor, Hallym University)
The postwar Europe was an era of “long peace,” borrowing J. L.
Gaddis’ words, despite the Cold War, while the same period in East Asia
witnessed a hodgepodge of cold and hot wars, including the civil conflict
in China as well as the destructive wars in Korea and Indochina.
The barbarism and violence associated with fascism and war were rather
more intense and grotesque in scale in Europe than in East Asia. The
legacy of the historical scars, however, has been deeper and more
enduring in Asia to this day. The postwar history of Europe is largely a
record of movement toward a more integrated community both in
economic life and security, while the ideal of “one community” remains a
mirage in East Asia even long after the end of the Cold War.
This tells something very significant about the nature of the historical
evolution of the East Asian international order for the last century. That
means a striking historical continuity more than discontinuity in this
regional system in double senses: continuities between prewar and postwar
eras, one the one hand, and between the Cold War and Post-Cold War
periods, on the other hand. It is a plain truth that the integration of
China into the capitalist world economy since the 1980s brought about
great changes in the terrain of international conflict and cooperation in
23
the region. East Asian international scene for the last twenty plus years,
however, increasingly testified that geopolitical and military tension can
intensify despite the development of economic interdependence among
nations.
These observations necessitate a (re)conceptualization of the unique
nature of the East Asian international system of the postwar era. The
discourse of Cold War/Post-Cold War, which has been the dominant
conceptual framework in international studies around the world, is not
properly qualified to capture the nature of East Asian regional system.
The concept of the East Asian System of Grand Division, which was
minted by myself in early 2000s, was intended to better understand the
uniqueness of the past and present East Asian international system.
The conceptual limitations of the Cold War/Post-Cold War dichotomy,
in explaining the East Asian international system, derives from its
reductionist tendencies. The Cold War concept places the U.S.-Soviet
bipolar relations at the center of all historical causations, in the first
place. Moreover, the concept tends to reduce the ultimate sources of the
postwar international conflicts to the dimension of politico-ideological
tension, thereby downplaying the other dimensions of geopolitical or
historico-psychological tensions. In addition, the Cold War/Post-Cold War
dichotomy, in its conceptual consequences, stresses qualitative discontinuity
between the eras of the Cold War and the Post-Cold War. It can nicely
explain what happened in Europe, while it hinders more than help a
proper understanding of the nature of what happened in East Asia.
As an alternative way to reconstruct the postwar East Asia, the concept
of the East Asian Grand Division focuses, first, on the historical
continuities between the empire system of the first half of the last
century and the postwar era, and between the Cold War and Post-Cold
War systems within the postwar East Asia. Second, the concept highlights
the element of geopolitics and the historical-psychological dimension as
well as the political-ideological tension as the determinants of the regional
24
international system. Based on these considerations, my theory attempts to
conceptualize the nature of the historical continuities (more than
discontinuities) between different eras in East Asia.
In this presentation, the following themes will be discussed:
1. The Uniqueness of the Postwar International Order in East Asia and
the Conceptual Limitation of the Cold War/Post-Cold War Dichotomy
2. Theoretical Premises of the Theory of the East Asian Grand Division
(1) The Role of Second-Tier Great Powers in Regional International
Order
(2) Historical Memories Matter
(3) The Duality and Limitation of the Historical Effects of Economic
Integration and Interdependence
3. The Duality of Division and the Multi-dimensionality of Tension, and
the Patterns of Interaction
4. The Historical Formation of the East Asian Grand Division
5. The Evolution of the Grand Division during the Cold War: the Two
Phases
6. Change and Continuity in the East Asian Grand Division after the
End of the Cold War
7. Exploring Exits from the Systemic Trap of the Grand Division
(1) Imagining a Peace Belt along the Grand Division Line
(2) Reflections on the Tension of Political Systemic and Ideological
Differences
(3) Designing Alternative Ways of Transnational Dialogues on History
25
Issues
8. Building a Peace Regime on the Korean Peninsula
(1) A Three-Step Concept of Peace Building on the Korean Peninsula
(2) Peace Treaty on the Korean Peninsula and the Idea of a Nuclear
Weapon-Free Zone in Northeast Asia
(3) Three Implications of a Korean Peace Treaty
26
[Session1: East Asia Before and After World War II, Korea’s Division System,
and Continuing Conflicts Over History]
Presentation 2
Controversy over South Korea’s History Textbooksand the New Right’s Historical Perspective
Kim, Jeong-In (Chuncheon National University of Education)
Brief Abstract / Summary (by the translators)
In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crises South Korean society
fully entered the era of neoliberalism. At the same time, the conservative
bloc in South Korea had to endure “10 lost years” under the
[progressive] governments of Kim Dae Jung (1998-2003) and Roh
Moo-hyun (2003-2008).
Kim Dae Jung’s Sunshine Policy, the Inter-Korea summit between Kim
Dae Jung and Kim Jong-il in 2000, and the Roh Moo-hyun government’s
reform program in 2004 that included a proposal to dismantle South
Korea’s National Security Law provided the impetus for the formation of
New Right political organizations like Jayujuui yeondae (Association for
Liberalism).
The New Right differentiated itself from the Old Right by privileging
(neo)liberalism and rejecting statism. This novel formulation of a
conservative political agenda was able to rally the conservative forces
27
through Anti-North [Korea] / Anti-Communist projects, giving the New
Right a formidable political voice.
The New Right chose history specifically, history textbooks used in
junior and senior high schools as the terrain to engage in an
ideological war with progressives. They referred to progressives and
Leftists in contemporary South Korea as servants of North Korea
(Jong-Buk). Historians like Kwon Hee-Young (Academy of Korean
Studies), describe current history textbooks as having a socialist historical
interpretive structure. The conservative daily Chosun ilbo carried editorials
with headings like “South Korean Workers’ Party-like Historical
Perspective Still Drilled into Junior High Students’ Heads.”
In terms of both economy and politics, the historical perspective of the
New Right is grounded on the belief that the market will regulate itself,
and a fundamental and visceral anti-North Korea sentiment. It is a
perspective that emphasizes South Korea’s historical and political
legitimacy, advancement (seonjinhwa), and civilization (munmyeong), in
contrast to North Korea that is semi-civilized, ruled by a government that
is the world’s worst violator of human rights.
In explaining South Korea’s economic development, New Right history
textbooks (e.g. published by Gyohaksa) would point out that South
Korea’s economic planners left corporate management to the entrepreneurs
and (for the most part) did not tell them where to export their goods.
One of the reasons why other countries have not been able to emulate
South Korea’s success is that they do not have entrepreneurs like Lee
Byung-chul (founder of Samsung Group), Chung Ju-yong (founder of
Hyundai Group), et al.
With this kind of attack on current history textbooks and their authors,
28
the so-called history war between conservatives and progressives have
been growing sharper and harsher. It is time to pull the history debates
away from the arena of political media and back into the academic arena.
Continuation of the history war only aggravates conflict throughout South
Korean society.
29
[Session1: East Asia Before and After World War II, Korea’s
Division System, and Continuing Conflicts Over History]
Presentation 3
Onset of Cold War Divisions in North Korea and the Korean War
Suzy Kim (Rutgers University)
We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly
stable as the slave empires of antiquity that is, the kind of world-view, the
kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state
which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of ‘cold war’ with
its neighbours . [I]t is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost
of prolonging indefinitely a ‘peace that is no peace’.
George Orwell, “You and the Atom Bomb,” Tribune (19 October 1945)
The division system in Korea is undeniably situated in the 20th century
history of the Cold War, but with the continued division of the Korean
peninsula marking its 70th year this year a quarter of a century
after the so-called end of the Cold War, there have been persistent efforts
to understand the precise relationship between the Cold War and the
evolution of the division system in Korea, as well as the significance of
the Korean War in the development of the Cold War. That is, how do
we explain the continued division of Korea long after the end of the
Cold War? Conventional historiography of the Cold War has focused on
the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that
30
created a bipolar world without outright fighting due to the possibility of
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) in a nuclear holocaust. Such
simplistic rendering has already been challenged by scholarship that have
tried to overcome the Eurocentric perspective by examining the effects of
the Cold War in the Third World where there was much bloodshed, as
well as by expanding the historical timeline of the Cold War as far back
as the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that gave birth to the Soviet Union1).
While cognizant of the productive efforts to define the
particularities of the Korean division system within the East Asian Grand
Division, my paper attempts to situate the Korean division historically
within the global Cold War and its competing ideologies about what
would become of postcolonial societies2). Rather than a focus on
nation-states as actors that would necessarily highlight conflicts that
emanate from their interests to gain hegemony, I focus on the
transnational flows and linkages across national borders that clearly show
a world aligning into opposing camps over the substance and form of
modern life. In other words, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution unleashed a
radical alternative to capitalist modernity, and many living under the yoke
of colonial rule took this option seriously as an antidote to both
colonialism and capitalism. The clash over such competing visions already
erupted in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) in the 1930s, even before
World War II. The latter global conflict only managed to put on hold the
differences between the capitalist and socialist camps in order to counter
the common fascist threat. This is not to say that the Cold War was
inevitable; only that it was possible given the right conditions as
predicted by George Orwell in 1945.
One of those necessary conditions was the introduction of atomic
weapons. The timing of Orwell’s first known use of the term “cold war”
1) Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006); David C. Engerman, “Ideology and the origins of the Cold War, 1917-1962,” in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, eds. The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Origins, Volume 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
2) 이삼성 동아시아 대분단체제 전후 동아시아 질서의 개념적 재구성과 냉전 냉전과 동아시아 분단체제 , “ : ‘ ’,” 한국냉전학회 창립 기념 학술대회 자료집 (June 25, 2015)
31
in October 1945 cannot be ignored. As indicated in the epigraph, he uses
the term in a piece titled “You and the Atom Bomb,” published just over
two months after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
early August 1945. Ominously, he concludes that “in a state which was
at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of ‘cold war’ with its
neighbours it is likelier to put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of
prolonging indefinitely a ‘peace that is no peace’.” Orwell’s prediction
turned out to be all too accurate, and while “large-scale wars” that
involved the detonation of nuclear weapons were avoided, the lack of
such “deterrence” plunged the rest of the world into “proxy” wars. If the
history of capitalism (and socialism) explains the great ideological divide
across the 20th century over the course that modernity would take, then
the history of science explains why this division turned into a “cold” war.
While the geopolitics of international relations sheds light on the
macro-structural history of the Cold War and Korea’s place in it, this
birds-eye view relegates Korea to mere “proxy” status as a chess piece in
great power politics whether the great powers are constituted by the US
and USSR during the global Cold War or the US, Japan, and China in
the regional East Asian divide. Rather, a micro-social history of the Cold
War reveals the ways in which the onset of the Cold War was
experienced by those living through it in places like North Korea as one
significant (ongoing) site of Cold War’s unfolding between 1945 and
19503).
North-South Divide
Changes in North Korea between 1945 and 1950 were dramatically
depicted as a major point of difference between the North and South,
ideologically solidifying the rather arbitrary geographic division that had
3) While North Korea was not officially formed as a separate state until September 1948 with the formation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), I use the term North Korea as shorthand to refer to the area north of the 38th parallel, occupied by the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1948 in agreement with the US proposal for a temporary division of the Korean peninsula in August 1945. The following two sections of the paper are based on examples from Chapter 1 of Suzy Kim, Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013).
32
been instituted by the two separate occupation powers, with the US in the
South and the USSR in the North after Japan’s defeat in August 1945.
For example, a North Korean poster exclaims: “Look! At the Brilliant
Democratic Construction in the North.” It is a deliberate attempt to
differentiate the North from the South in terms of its aspirations to create
a working class utopia as indicated by the tools that identify the two
men in the poster as a peasant and a worker, iconic subjects of socialist
revolution. The worker points dramatically to what their utopian vision
entails: in the distant background are tractors on vast stretches of land to
represent mechanized agricultural production for an abundant and
self-sufficient food supply; this would be complemented by the rapid
industrialization represented in the form of factories, belching out thick
black smoke. This particular image is undoubtedly masculine with two
male figures in the foreground, but there were plenty of representations of
heroic women as well.
A cover of Chosŏn Yŏsŏng (Korean Woman) the primary women’s
journal published in North Korea at the time celebrated the one year
anniversary of the passing of the Gender Equality Law in July 1946 that
gave women and men equal political, social, and economic rights.
Through the legislation, women gained the right to vote and hold public
offices, rights to free marriage and divorce, property and inheritance
rights, rights to education and an equal wage. Polygamy and prostitution
were also banned. The cover shows a heroic Korean woman, leading the
revolution toward gender equality wearing the traditional Korean dress.
She is a married woman, denoted by the way her hair is tied up in a
bun, and she holds a flag of the Democratic Women’s Union, the mass
organization of women responsible for the publication of the journal. She
is clearly leading the charge for the liberation of women, but not just in
North Korea. She is standing on top of the globe, on the northern side
of the Korean peninsula, with chains stretching into the southern zone,
symbolizing the fact that women continue to be shackled in the South in
33
need of liberation by northern women.
By the time division was formalized through the founding of separate
states in the South in August 1948 and in the North in September 1948,
once illiterate peasants had learned basic reading and writing, composing
short autobiographies that described exactly how their lives had changed
in the North. A poor peasant by the name of Sŏ Yŏng-jun from North
Pyŏng’an Province Sŏnch’ŏn County submitted the following
autobiography attached to his resume in order to join the Democratic
Youth League4). He wrote:
As a poor peasant by birth since before my grandparents, we lived as tenant
farmers to Mr. Kim Un-pu in Sŏkhwadong for 13 years and in 1925 lived as Mr.
Pak Pyŏng-ŭp’s [farmhand] in Sŏkhodong, not only oppressed and exploited but
also bitterly suffering a wretched life (pich’amhan saenghwal), not able to go to
school, caring for my younger siblings until I was 12, and then in order to support
my siblings, I started farming at 13 until liberation when we were allotted land,
and I was able to farm freely and live a life of freedom (chayusŭrŏn saenghwal).
Before liberation, I couldn’t even read, but after liberation in 1946, I started
attending Korean School until 1947, learning to read and participate in
organizational life (chojik saenghwal) and beginning a collective life (tanch’ae
saenghwal), joining the Youth League on May 26, 1946 and the Peasant League
on February 10, 1946, and then I took charge of physical education for the Youth
League in our village, training the league members every morning and having fun
with this work, and then I wanted to have an organizational life (chojik saenghwal)
and joined the Workers Party in January 1947, beginning my organizational life
(chojik saenghwal) and taking charge of the party cell on January 6, 1948 and
carrying on the cell life (saep’o saenghwal) to this day.
Born in 1926, Sŏ Yŏng-jun had not learned to read or write until he
was 20 years old, after liberation in 1946, which can be surmised in the
very pages of the handwritten autobiography. Difficult to fully appreciate
4) National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 242, Shipping Advice 2006, Box 16, Item 23 Youth League North Pyŏng’an Province Sŏnch’ŏn County Nam Township Committee (1948).
34
in the translation but visible in the original are the rough block letters,
spelling errors, and the lack of punctuation and structure to the sentences.
But, also visible are the differences in his work life and educational life
before and after liberation, which is marked throughout the short
paragraph with the use of the word saenghwal no less than nine times.
His “wretched life” of tenancy and suffering had turned into a “life of
freedom” supported by the 7000 p’yŏng (just over 2 hectares or almost 6
acres) of land he had received in the 1946 land reform. Moreover, his
decision to join one organization after another in quick succession
suggests that he was eager to embrace a collective lifestyle that changed
his daily routine as signaled by the morning exercises he notes in his
autobiography. Such changes made a stark contrast to the ways in which
the South was depicted as another colony of the US, where peasants and
workers continued to be exploited.
Socialist Modernity
Aligning with the socialism camp already during the colonial
period, Paek Nam-un (1894-1979), the North Korean Minister of
Education, viewed the socialist experiment in the Soviet Union as
providing a “profound lesson” and “roadmap” for North Korea. He left an
illuminating travelogue after his visit to the Soviet Union between
February 22 and April 7, 1949 as part of the North Korean delegation to
sign the Treaty on Economic and Cultural Cooperation with the Soviet
Union5). During a visit to a chocolate factory, Paek noted the packaging
of consumer products in Soviet society that focused on preserving the use
value of the product that is the function and form of the product
rather than as a ploy to increase the exchange price. In other words, the
materiality of the product determined the way the product was designed
and made rather than its exchange value as something to be bought and
5) RG 242, SA 2008 Box 9 Item 89, Paek Nam-un, Ssoryŏn Insang [Impressions of the Soviet Union] (Pyongyang, 1950) reproduced in Paek Nam-un, Ssoryŏn Insang [Impressions of the Soviet Union], ed. Pang Ki-jung (Seoul: Sŏnin, 2005), 80, 10. For a succinct biography of Paek, see Pang’s introduction.
35
sold for profit. Moreover, Paek saw the mechanization of the production
line in the Soviet Union, not as enslaving the worker as in capitalist
societies, but as freeing workers from tedious work to be placed in
control as masters over the machines, monitoring and directing the
production process, with time left in the day to live a cultural life.
Touring various sites from factories and educational facilities to museums
and art galleries, Paek was struck by the collective forms of entertainment
in the various “circles” (ssŏk’ŭl) and the extent to which everyday life
was connected to the arts through music, dance, sculpture, and
architecture. He wrote:
All the recreation and pastime is directed toward collective circles, developing the
cultural standard of socialist life to a new level everyday life is connected to the
arts, and it is the highest civilizational life and the happiest in the world in terms
of making life artistic6).
His travelogue was filled with precise and meticulous descriptions,
including lists of memorable museum pieces and detailed features of
building interiors and public spaces. He explained his reasons for doing
so in the “timeliness that must be grasped historically for a scientific
worldview, which is a necessary condition to recognize Soviet society that
has created a new history of humanity.”7)
Appropriate to his position as the Minister of Commerce, another
delegation member Chang Si-u (1891-1953) also noted the details in the
various stores from the uniforms that the sales clerks wore to the manner
in which the merchandise was displayed. He particularly noticed the
practical construction of the sales counter8). In contrast to the glass cases
back home that were deemed to be more expensive and fragile, Chang
praised the wooden counters that were sturdy and easy to make while
6) Ibid, 223, 264.
7) Ibid, 20.
8) RG 242, SA 2008 Box 9 Item 52, Chang Si-u, Ssoryŏn ch’amkwangi [Visit to the Soviet Union] (Pyongyang: Sangŏpsŏng minju sangŏpsa, 1950), 50
36
also providing more room to attend to customers. He concluded that the
Soviet counter was practical as opposed to showy, serving its purpose in
assisting customers rather than focusing on displaying commodities.
Moreover, he observed how the development of machines had transformed
the artistic form in the Soviet Union to make art more accessible to
people through mass production, pointing to the way architecture,
craftwork and other works of art were no longer produced by hand but
mechanized, reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s point in “The Work of Art
in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936)9). He concluded that art
had not only become part of everyday life, but life itself had become
artistic, noting how “The Soviets have absolutely made art part of one’s
everyday life. As a smoker who cannot withstand not being able to
smoke, they become restless when they go to a dance hall. Even in the
making of a door lock or frame, they must have some kind of
engraving.”10) Finishing his travelogue, Chang lamented the fact that
Korea could not be like the Soviet Union fast enough, urging the workers
in his department to learn from the Soviet Union as a model. Eventually,
many of the sites that the delegation visited, including the subway, the
kolhotz, the Kremlin, the National Pediatrics Hospital, Lenin’s mausoleum,
and the Leningrad Palace of Young Pioneers became prototypes for
similar sites in North Korea. However, such modeling of the Soviet
Union as the vanguard of socialism was not viewed to contradict the
principle of autonomy and independence that the North Korean leadership
advanced as the primary condition for a modern Korean state. In fact,
Paek saw mutual aid and cooperation with the Soviet Union as the basis
for a strong independent Korea with chuch’esŏng (subjectivity), referencing
a derivative of the term Juche already in 1950 before Kim Il Sung’s
famous 1955 speech to which the birth of the ideology is traced.11)
9) Ibid, 85-86.
10) Ibid, 84, 87.
11) Paek, 205.
37
Imminent War12)
Revolutions must end as the radical changes are institutionalized, but for
North Korea, the end came early with the Cold War. Militarization and
centralization of power went hand in hand as the peninsula headed for
civil war. By October 1948 the founding of separate states in the North
and South heightened tensions along the 38th parallel as North Korea
moved to build up its “38 guard units” (38 kyŏngbidae) and the
“self-defense forces” (chawidae) in order to thwart southern attacks13).
Beginning in June 1949, the organization of border security and
self-defense units became an agenda item at almost every party meeting
in Inje County in Kangwŏn Province located right at the 38th parallel14).
Supplementing the military and the police, these units were responsible
for protecting factories, government offices, granaries, and the
transportation and communication facilities, and for taking villagers to
safety should there be a southern attack. They were also given the right
to inspect people’s identification cards, take suspicious persons to the
closest police station, and carry simple self-defense tools such as sickles,
knives, and batons. Local commanders included leaders from the youth,
women’s, and peasant unions.
Military training, particularly of youth league members and students,
began in August 1949 with instructions in military strategy, weapons
training, and aeronautics15). Such preparations were hardly an
overreaction as the border threats were real. In July 1949, there was a
large-scale attack by the so-called Tiger Unit (horim pudae) from the
South that caused extensive damage to local villages, and on August 6,
1949, there was yet another skirmish in Nam Township16). As a result
12) This section is an excerpt from the concluding chapter of Suzy Kim, Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013).
13) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje County Executive Committee Meeting Minutes No. 25 (1948.10.21), NHCC, vol. 2, 632. Also in RG 242, SA 2007, box 6, item 1.55.
14) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje County Executive Committee Meeting Minutes No. 48 (1949.6.8), NHCC, vol. 3, 348. Also in RG 242, SA 2007, box 6, item 1.65.
15) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje County Executive Committee Meeting Minutes No. 54 (1949.7.21), NHCC, vol. 3, 527, 845 50. Also in RG 242, SA 2007, box 6, item 1.19.
16) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje Executive Committee Minutes No. 58 (1949.8.25), NHCC, vol. 3, 528; North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje County Executive Committee Minutes No. 71 (1949.12.10), NHCC, vol. 3, 879.
38
of these clashes in Inje County, 40 people were killed, 18 were
kidnapped, 22 were injured, 38 households with 156 people fled to the
South, 92 farm animals were lost, 136 houses were burnt down, and
1,127 sacks of grain were destroyed17). In a counterattack, the Inje
County self-defense forces occupied the southern half of Nam Township
south of the 38th parallel for 12 days between August 6 and 20, 1949,
mobilizing some 6,552 people until heavy rains disrupted the supply route
and they had to retreat18). As a result, 63 people were killed and 97
houses destroyed in the South while the North sustained 25 casualties
with 31 houses burned or destroyed.
Immediately after the fighting in Nam Township, the recruitment of
self-defense corps members in Inje County was expanded. Before the
fighting, it had been limited to the ages of 18 to 40; now, it was open
to those between the ages of 16 and 45, thereby organizing almost all
able-bodied residents into defense units19). The number of defense unit
members increased to 8,295 5,130 men and 3,165 women out of a
county population of 33,722, mobilizing almost a quarter of the residents
and over 70 percent of those eligible to join. Consequently, by 1950 an
extensive security and surveillance network had been established. Every
five households formed one surveillance unit, keeping an eye out for
illegal lodgers and strangers from out of town, protecting local facilities
and infrastructure, maintaining public health, and preventing fires20). The
units were organized and directed by the people’s committees, not by the
local police force, since their duties were broadly defined to include not
only security but also monitoring sanitary conditions and the spread of
infectious diseases. There were outbreaks of cholera in the first half of
1950, already a major problem in the South since 194621). Being so
17) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje County Executive Committee Meeting Minutes No. 73 (1949.12.27), NHCC, vol. 3, 936 40. Also in RG 242, SA 2007, box 6, item 1.62.
18) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje Executive Committee Minutes No. 58 (1949.8.25), NHCC, vol. 3, 528 36.
19) North Korean Workers’ Party Kangwŏn Province Inje County Executive Committee Meeting Minutes No. 54 (1949.7.21), NHCC, vol. 3, 421, 534 35. Also in RG 242, SA 2007, box 6, item 1.19.
20) “Inje County Internal Affairs Bureau Document No. 1 4: Summary of Police Station Work (Secret)” (1950.6), NHCC, vol. 18, 310.
39
close to the border, Inje County was exposed to the spread of epidemics
from the South while being repeatedly subjected to instances of sabotage;
the most serious cases involved looting and arson of important facilities
such as factories and granaries. Indeed, many villages along the 38th
parallel had to come up with strategies for defense even before directives
from the central government, organizing firefighters and security guards
for public facilities such as telephone lines, railways, and granaries. They
were especially vigilant against unauthorized travelers. People with
criminal records and those with family members who had fled to the
South were most suspect; they were specifically placed under watch “in
order to prevent beforehand any possible incidents.”22)
According to public opinion gathered by North Korean secret
surveillance in 1950 before the start of the Korean War, peasants reacted
to rising tensions with worries about daily survival. They were concerned
about the bad harvest the previous year and wondered who would be left
to till the land if people continued to leave for the factories and mines.
Others in charge of defense wondered how long they had to continue
guarding the area, with one complaining that he was “sick of it” (kol i
ap’ŭda). After cattle were stolen and a guard kidnapped by infiltrators
from the South on February 6, 1950, residents were disillusioned by the
lack of response from the defense units, expressing skepticism about their
competence and effectiveness. One peasant woman in her late forties
complained that the guard units had no countermeasure despite the
kidnapping, claiming she would join them “if they would be willing to
go kill ’em.”23)
Physical confrontations were augmented by strategies to win the hearts
and minds of the people. In 1949, there were repeated reports of South
Korean planes dropping propaganda leaflets, trying to convince North
21) “On the Implementation of the Summer Cleaning,” Puk Township Police Chief (1950.6.9), NHCC, vol. 18, 32728.
22) RG 242, SA 2012, box 8, item 28, Kangwŏn Province Ch’ŏrwŏn County Department of Interior (1950).
23) RG 242, SA 2012, box 8, item 28, Kangwŏn Province Ch’ŏrwŏn County Department of Interior (1950).랍취되여도 대책도 없이 그 놈들을 하로에다 잡아죽겨쓰면 같이 나가서 해보겟다.
40
Korean soldiers and defense units to join the South24). The leaflets
offered free medical care for injured soldiers, arguing that they were not
the enemy but that Kim Il Sung and his “cronies” were. “Why fight to
the end just to have the Soviet Union as your homeland?” implored a
leaflet as it promised safe passage to anyone who “returns to the bosom
of the homeland” with the leaflet in hand. Many were not easily swayed,
expressing disdain for and hostility toward the planes, wondering why the
People’s Army did not shoot them down. Others, however, were
impressed with the planes and the kinds of resources that the South was
able to mobilize, with one woman expressing concern that subsequent
planes might drop bombs rather than leaflets and that it was “time to
prepare to move into the mountains.”
The woman’s statement was ominous to say the least, but no one could
have predicted the catastrophic war that was to take over three million
lives, or 10 percent of the Korean population, over the course of just
three years, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in modern history
outside of the two world wars. By 1952, there were “no more targets”
left standing in the North, where, by war’s end, American planes had
dropped 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm, compared to
503,000 tons of bombs used in all of Asia and the Pacific during World
War II25). While South Korea sustained 1,312,836 casualties, including
415,004 dead, North Korean casualties are estimated at two million,
including a million civilians, which meant that the war had claimed, on
average, at least one member from every family in the North26).
The war left long-term physical and psychological damage that
continues to shape North Korea’s domestic and foreign policy down to
the present day. Not only is it exceptionally guarded against the
24) RG 242, SA 2010, box 2, item 76, North Korean Workers’ Party Hwanghae Province (Top Secret) (1949).다시 생각해보라 쏘련을 조국으로 하기위하여 결사적으로 싸울필요가 있을까? 쏘련 스탈린 김일성 공산당 인민군패전 중엄 멸망 넘어올때는 반듯이 이종이를 갖이고 오면 = = = = = = ! (친절히 안내하겠다 빨리 뉘우치고 조국의 품안으로 어서 돌아오라 국군은 따뜻이 맞이 해주마) . !25) Head of Bomber Command in the Far East, General O’Donnell, quoted in Foster-Carter, “North Korea:
Development and Self-Reliance,” 47; Charles Armstrong, “The Destruction and Reconstruction of North Korea, 1950 1960,” Asia-Pacific Journal 8, Issue 51.2 (December 20, 2010).
26) Bruce Cumings, The Korean War: A History (New York: Modern Library, 2010), 35, 63.
41
infiltration of foreign influence, whether in the form of tourists or the
Internet, but it has one of the longest conscription stints in the world at
ten years of mandatory military service for almost all males who meet
physical and background requirements27). This may explain why men
have increasingly come to dominate all levels of the social and political
hierarchy in the postwar period despite the importance accorded to women
before the war. With the war ending in an armistice rather than a peace
treaty, North Koreans have been mobilized to continue preparing for a
war that might resume at a moment’s notice against a far superior power,
the United States. The Korean War has become the single most defining
national experience, leaving North Koreans with a fiercely autarkic
mentality as a form of internal cohesion against outside threats.
It should be apparent by this point that I am questioning the declared
end of the Cold War, situating the unended Korean War within the
history of ongoing Cold War and the divisions it has spawned. The
stockpiling and proliferation of nuclear weapons continue to be problems
today, and while state socialism proved inadequate as an alternative
modernity in the 20th century, problems associated with capitalist
modernity continue unabated. What the history of division in Korea shows
is that the Cold War divide was as much about alternatives to liberalism
in the social and cultural realm as it was to capitalism in the economic
realm. Confronted with the realpolitik of the Cold War, the utopian vision
of overcoming class and gender inequality and ethnic and national
divisions in the name of proletarian internationalism was forsaken. Across
the political spectrum, the primary method by which to overcome
divisions today resorts to forms of ethnic nationalism and/or cultural
relativism that champion essentialist arguments against the threat of
Western universalism. The same could be said of North (and South)
Korean appeals for minjok t’ongil (national reunification). It is yet another
27) Although conscription terms were codified at three to four years in 1958, actual service terms reportedly extended up to eight years. The ten-year service requirement became law in 1993. See 2009 Pukhan kaeyo [2009 overview of North Korea] (Seoul: T’ongil yŏn’guwŏn, 2009), 97.
42
fallout of the Cold War itself.
43
[Session2: 70 Years since partition; Korean peninsula present
and future]
Presentation 1
THAAD in Northeast Asia
J.J. Suh (International Christian University)
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
[Session 2: 70 Years since partition; Korean peninsula present
and future]
Presentation 2
The Conservative Swing of South Korean Politics and the Emergence of Popular Far-Right Organizations
Kim Dong-choon (SungKongHoe University)
(Summary Translation)
1. Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye’s Pro-North Korean Branding
The continued seizure of power by the conservatives, with the Park
Geun-hye administration following Lee Myung-bak, is the result of the
post-Korean War rightwing and the breakaway middle class disappointed
with the economic policies of the previous ten years of democratic
government under Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. After the 1997
financial crisis, the two democratic administrations took the lead in
adopting a neo-liberalist economy, which aggravated economic polarization.
The seizure of power by Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye cannot
simply be attributed to nostalgia for regionalism or authoritarianism. The
masses desired strong leadership that could address their anxieties about
the economy.
Since the inauguration of the Park Geun-hye administration, the
ruling party, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), and the Ministry of
National Defense that illegally intervened in the presidential election have
defined those who have criticized such intervention as national enemies
62
who are “pro-North” and “leftist.” Elections have become wars, the
opposition party an enemy, and the supporting masses an object of
“pacification.” As Schmitt says, “politics is what distinguishes me from
the enemies” (Schmitt, 2007: 19-79).
How can we explain this condition in which elections, party
politics, and the independence of the judiciary are guaranteed by law, and
yet the president and the intelligence agencies are intervening in politics
in the name of national security? Is this indeed anything new? Are we to
doubt the common knowledge that South Korea has been “democratized”
since 1987? Or did certain conditions such as the division of the Korean
peninsula or US hegemony in Korea work as factors that thwarted
“democratic consolidation” in South Korea? Theories such as “democratic
consolidation theory” or “post-democracy theory” that attempt to explain
the political transition from authoritarianism to democracy can offer only
limited insight into current Korean politics. Despite attempts to achieve
“high quality democracy” for a while now, such procedural democracy
can always be reversed, and accordingly so-called democratic institutions
and apparatuses can be rendered powerless.
This did not just happen over the past year, but rather needs to be
explained within the timeframe since the 1987 democratization, especially
during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations when
neo-liberal political and economic changes were instituted. As the far-right
political forces seized power, aspects of authoritarianism, totalitarianism,
and fascism that remained in South Korean state and civil society have
appeared in new forms today.
2. Emergence of Far-Right Activism in South Korea
Far-right activism emerged in South Korea when the Kim Dae-jung
administration came into power. In the case of Europe, when leftist or
63
liberal forces such as the Labor Party and the Social Democratic Party
took power, rightists were motivated to come out into the streets,
advocating racist nationalism. In South Korea, the seizure of power by
liberalist progressive forces left conservative rightists with a sense of
crisis, which led them to conclude they no longer held exclusive support
of the state, triggering their activism.
As Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun held power throughout much
of the 2000s, those who had participated in the student movement or
social activism began to gather and organize rightwing organizations. Even
before the emergence of such rightwing organizations, there were frequent
rallies and protests led by mega-churches or veterans’ associations.
Although such activism by veterans’ associations and elderly groups
(reminiscent of white terror immediately after liberation and during the
Korean War) may not be entirely equivalent to the blatant terrorism of
the past, their violence tactics indeed reject law and order, and any
possibility for reasonable conversation and discussion.
Since 2000, mass rallies by Protestants have become quite severe in
their distinctly pro-American and anti-North Korean stance. The main
participants who have rallied against the abolishment of the National
Security Law or for democratization through regime collapse in North
Korea have been Protestants mobilized by conservative mega-churches
such as the Full Gospel Church. Some churches even held prayer
meetings for North Korean “collapse” publicly.
Meanwhile, as the media took on a pro-government stance under the
Lee Myung-bak administration, anti-government and progressive political
satire became radically popular on the Internet. Concurrently, far-rightist
political satire, jokes, and cyber games started to attract the younger
generation; especially noteworthy is the emergence of far-rightist
organizations online. Ilbe (short for Ilgan Best) is the most representative
example. Ilbe emerged through a combination of the political stance in
the “Politics and Society Gallery” and anti-honam (southwest) regionalism
64
of the “Baseball Gallery” on the DC Inside website. Ilbe has thus become
an exclusive rightwing humor community by Internet users saving certain
kinds of posts from DC Inside. The far-rightist characteristics of Ilbe can
be summarized as anti-democratic and anti-progressive (anti-Communist
and anti-North Korean rightist), anti-women (sexist), anti-foreign (racist,
xenophobic), anti-honam (regional discrimination).
Subsequently, rightist organizations in South Korea since 2000 have
become politicized and some have even resorted to violence. Although the
autonomous emergence of the younger generation of rightists is most
noteworthy, they have not come out on the streets or used violence,
opposed to rightist middle-aged former military personnel or the elderly.
3. Support for Rightist Organizations under Lee Myung-bak and
Park Geun-hye
When Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun came to power, so-called
interest groups that had previously received support from the state and
local governments lost their status. Support for non-governmental
organizations by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and
other government organizations was institutionalized, as newly formed
interest groups since the 1990s have become the new beneficiaries of
state support. Accordingly, the conservative Grand National Party and
conservative media such as the Chosun Ilbo attacked the state, claiming
that the state was colluding with civil society to strengthen state power.
Aware of such popular opinion, the state gradually decreased its support
of interest groups.
However, even during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun
administrations, various local governments and institutions were still
illegally controlled by conservative interest groups, and the government
budget for interest groups was still distributed in favor of those
65
conservative groups.
As Lee Myung-bak came into power, those interest groups which
had felt disadvantaged during the previous ten years of democratic
administrations started to raise their voice and publicly approach the
government. Furthermore, as the candle light protests occurred at the
beginning of the Lee administration, the ruling party and the conservative
media blamed certain interest groups for participating in the protests. The
state cut support to those interest groups which had received support after
the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations came into power.
Thus, conservative organizations again came to monopolize support from
the state as they had in the past.
4. Are the Old Right and the New Right Different in South
Korea?
Far-right organizations and radicalism have often emerged in times of
crisis under modern capitalism. Radical rightists tend to emerge violently
when institutionalized parties or labor unions do not represent the
economic needs and interests of the unemployed or under-employed
workers, and when the institutions and laws of liberal democracy do not
represent their demands. Similar to socialist movements in the early to
mid-20th century, rightist radicalism has its roots in mass discontent and
feelings of isolation and deprivation, resorting to physical violence under
the leadership of far-rightist organizations.
The period when rightist terrorism and activism reached its peak in
South Korea was between liberation in 1945 and the 1950s. The period
of military dictatorship between the 1960s and 1980s was when the
ideology and position of rightists were absorbed and represented by state
power, the military, and the police; while the period since is when
rightists became active because they felt a sense of crisis from being
66
alienated by “progressive or leftist” activists in the political arena.
Rightists started to come out on the streets since 2000 because
democratization threatened their political standing.
Old rightist organizations were mainly composed of North Korean
refugees from the 1940s-50s such as members of the Northwest Youth
Association, the unemployed, families who had suffered damage from
leftists, and some Christians. Active rightists since 2000 are mainly
former military personnel such as members of the Veterans’ Association,
Korean Disabled Veteran’s Association by Agent-Orange in the Vietnam
War, and Special Duty Veterans’ Association, along with newly emerged
Christians from mega-churches. The biggest difference between “old”
rightist activism and the “new” one is the emergence of Christians. South
Korea, where Christians of conservative church organizations such as the
Christian Council of Korea are mobilized by their ministers for rightist
activism, is most similar to the United States in the 1970s. Meanwhile,
except the fact that members of Ilbe are only active online, they are
similar to neo-Nazi rightists of Europe in the 1990s. In other words,
young people who are not socially recognized, unemployed, or steeped in
patriarchal culture or male chauvinism tend to become the main forces of
new rightist activism. However, these young rightists are not using
physical violence or being mobilized for political purposes as is the case
of young far-rightists in Europe or terrorist forces in the Arab world
today. Although feelings of deprivation, failure, or anger prompted these
young men to gravitate toward discourses of radical regionalism,
anti-North Koreanism, and female hatred, they lack the ideology that can
firmly motivate them to act.
Indeed, the motivation for former military personnel to
participate in rightist organizations such as the Veterans’ Association or
the Korean Disabled Veteran’s Association by Agent-Orange in the
Vietnam War is closely related to “benefits” like financial support from
the state rather than desire for social recognition. North Korean refugees
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who had joined the Northwest Youth Association, taking the lead in the
anticommunist fight, had also been related to such “benefits.”
Anti-communism masked the past of the rich pro-Japanese, who were able
to use it to secure their property against confiscation of collaborator
properties, which matched the interests of North Korean refugees needing
money. The rich used the refugees who secured their means of livelihood
through their support. That rightists whether old or new unite and
dissolve according to interests instead of ideology means that they have
almost entirely depended on the financial support of the state in South
Korea.
With the active support and collusion of the government,
various rightist organizations composed of former military personnel
commit acts of violence, such as use of abusive language, interference in
other interest groups’ events and counter-rallies, threatening progressive
leaders, breaking into the Unified Progressive Party building and
assaulting related personnel, and breaking into a newspaper company and
damaging its property. Members of these organizations think that no one
can disturb them because they are patriots who have sacrificed themselves
for the nation and have made clear their anti-North Korean and
anti-Communist stance. They believe that they are justified in their use
violence in order to eliminate pro-North Korean and leftist politicians who
in their view are national enemies. They consider procedural democracy
or discussion meaningless. However, it is doubtful whether they could
continue their activism without the financial support and collusion of the
state.
5. Concluding Remarks
The emergence of far-right activism can be interpreted as a sign or
tendency for fascism. Fascism in the past, particularly after World War II,
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can be seen as a failure of democracy. They were mostly a reflection of
a sense of crisis felt by the rich upon the emergence of leftists or
progressive social movements. Fascism tends to emerge when institutional
politics cannot represent the grievances and needs of the masses.
Far-rightist activism in South Korea since 2000 emerged out of a sense
of crisis from, and a resistance to the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun
administrations that had rejected anti-Communist or anti-North ideologies,
as well as against the progressive parties seeking to engage with North
Korea and socialist thoughts.
Various civil society movements since the 1990s, the emergence of
progressive discourse on the Internet, and resistance to criticism of
liberalism on Social Network Services also gave motivation for far-right
activism. Moral superiority and self-justification claimed by civil society
movements and progressive intellectuals faced stiff negative reactions from
the rightists. And rightist activism was further fueled by the Kim and
Roh administrations themselves that had staked a progressive stance but in
reality made the lives of workers and the poor more difficult. For these
reasons, the old equation that fascism reflects the emergence and failure
of the left can be applied to the case of South Korea.
Although the discourse claimed by these rightists do champion the
supremacy of the state as in other countries, it does not espouse the kind
of racism or social conservatism as in advanced capitalist countries.
Instead, an extreme anti-Communist, anti-North Korean, and pro-American
stance comprise the major proportion of its discourse. It may be a
distorted vision of Korean rightists who cannot realize imperialism.
Meanwhile, core members of the Park Geun-hye administration also
possess the same stance or ideology as the far-rightists. Thus, they are
tempted to use the far-rightists to secure their own hold on power,
willing to defend and support their activism. Far-rightist activism is a
poisoned apple. If one swallows it, one is destined to become like the
US where 9/11 became the retaliation for having used Osama bin Laden.
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[Session 2: 70 Years since partition; Korean peninsula present
and future]
Presentation 3
The Security State and Korea’s Peace Movement
Jeong Eun Park(People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy)
The South Korean government, which continues to equate national
security with peace, has aimed to become a security state by latching
onto the dominant power and expanding military spending. It has
monopolized information and expanded its domain of making exceptions
and maintaining secret information. At the foundation of the national
security state are consumptive spending on peninsular division, which
sacrifices the safety of citizens, and an apparatus of repression. However,
due to extreme economic inequality, the majority of citizens are already
in a state of anti-peace. Thus it is necessary to keep asking the question,
what kind of peace do we wish to achieve? Furthermore, we must
include the question of why peace is necessary for the reunification of
the Korean Peninsula. Peace calls for the respect of human life and
dignity and a world without discrimination. Achieving peace is possible in
a society in which anyone can live a safe and sustainable life, conflict is
prevented, and democracy mediates. Ultimately it is a question of what
kind of nation and community we are striving to become.
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The division systems of both North and South Korea, which are
structured through abnormal systems, are strong and firm. The
overwhelming superiority of security authorities the military, National
Intelligence Service, Defense Security Command, prosecution, etc. and
conservative media under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun
Administrations and the administrations that followed still reign. Each time
an administration faces crisis, furthermore, the tactic of positioning North
Korea a scapegoat is still being used. With the harsh reality of the
international community as a pretext, the ROK-US Alliance was not a
means but rather an ideology that was propagated, and neither the
intellectual community and its discourse nor the political party landscape
of the dominant conservative power has changed. After the financial crisis
in 1997, South Korean society has experienced extreme polarization and a
shift to materialism, severely damaging the democratic values that had
once been achieved. It became even more difficult to expect a fair market
and to have confidence in the rule of law. In this enormous system of
peninsular division the priority for the peace and security of citizens gets
pushed out, and the individuals that get tossed into the market must
survive on their own. Such economic inequality does not help to improve
inter-Korean relations or to overcome the system of division.
In such a reality, the pressure of having to choose between autonomy
and alliance now carries over to having to choose between China and the
U.S. For South Korea the necessity to align with the strongest country
permeates naturally. Such choices, however, do not present a way for us,
those who live on the Korean Peninsula, to acquire universal and
sustainable peace. The fact that both North and South Korea reinforce
military spending and continue the discourse on security makes clear that
military conflict cannot be resolved. North Korea’s abandoning its nuclear
weapons program is also unlikely.
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It is necessary to go beyond the established security state and its
discourse. Reconciliation will otherwise be impossible, and consequently
we would have to continue to submit to having a symbiotic relationship
with the “enemy” and the system of division would become permanent.
Achieving genuine peace while living with unsustainable economic
inequality and under the neoliberal system of accumulation would be
difficult, and resolving the issue of division would be unlikely. The peace
movement, therefore, cannot simply work to dismantle the maintained
structure of division and the mechanisms of war. Simultaneously, the
movement must resist the mechanisms of violence which destroy human
dignity and are spread across society.
There must be a discussion on whether the peace movement is effective
by changing through access or promoting access through change. For
example, concerning the prospects of creating a peace state and achieving
reunification, discussions are needed at great lengths regarding the shift
from the current security state to a peace security state (or a security
state that aims for peace), as well as the national vision and the
foundation of social construction that the peace movement must pursue.
The discussions must also include the possibility of actually carrying out
a peace movement in spite of a severely regressive democracy and
intensified economic inequality; whether solidarity and growth can be
possible among diverse progressive groups, such as peace and human
rights groups; whether Korea can demonstrate leadership and gain trust in
North East Asia; and whether South Korea, in its current state, can
actually shape the state of North Korea in the future.
South Korea’s peace movement, like many civil society movements, is
losing its vitality. There are external factors that hinder the movement,
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such as the increased degree of fatigue regarding issues of the peninsula
and North Korea and the dominance of ideological camp logic; the
deterioration in financial capability and the quality of living; the absence
of a political power that embraces or represents the values of peace; etc.
There is also difficulty in recruiting and training activists and forming
long-lasting connections with policy experts. Extraordinary effort is needed
to strengthen the infrastructure of the peace movement. The peace
movement must be expanded beyond issues of everyday life. Activism
that reveals the direct ties between decreased spending on division and
the peace and safety of citizens needs to be strengthened.
Japan’s Abe Administration’s recent push for a security bill exercising
the nation’s right to collective self-defense goes beyond a mere change in
security policies. Rather, creates a shift in Japan’s national identity to that
of a dangerous nation. Throughout this process Japan is facing extreme
danger to its own constitutionality and democracy. The US-ROK-Japan
security triangle is taking concrete form. Korea signed the ROK-US-Japan
military intelligence pact, and discussions on the deployment of THAAD
are in full swing. The legislation that will allow the overseas deployment
of Korean soldiers is its last stage before being enacted by the National
Assembly. It is the job of the civil society to resist the actions of South
Korea and Japan. Powerful solidarity for peace is urgently needed in East
Asian civil society.
73
In response to the topic of this panel, Overcoming War and Partition
Korea and Beyond, I will share somepersonal reflections on whatprompted
me as an artist and filmmaker to work with issues that emanate from the
Korean War and division of Korea by talking around a few art projects.
I was adopted to Denmark in 1980 during the peak of overseas
adoptions from South Korea. As an adoptee growing up in a white
suburban working class family in Northern Europe, I was not
taughtKorean history at all. Rather, I grew up within humanitarian savior
narratives of transnational adoption in which adoptees are constructed as
objects without a history, or as persons without a past.However, in 2001,
just before entering art school, I went to Korea for the first time since I
was adopted and on this journey I managed to find and reunite with my
Korean birth family in Jeju Island. This was a formative event for me
not only on a personal level in that I saw the discrepancies between
official narratives of adoption and my own story, but also artistically in
that it prompted an interest in histories that have been marginalized.
Themes I have dealt extensivelywith in my artworks and filmsinclude
[Session 3: Overcoming War and Partition Korea and Beyond] –
Some artistic reflections on war and division
Kaisen, Jane Jin (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Copenhagen / The
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark)
74
transnational adoption, gendered effects of war and militarism, legacies of
colonialism, and the political history of Jeju Island. These are all topics
that I see intrinsicallyconnected to the division of Korea. At the same
time, they cannot be isolated to Korea but must be seen within broader
transnational geopolitical and historical contexts.
The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger
The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tigeris a narrative experimental film
from 2010 that I made in collaboration with visual artist and filmmaker
Guston Sondin-Kung. The film traces ways in which trauma is passed on
from previous generations to the present through a sense of being
haunted. It follows a number of Korean diasporic women in their 20s and
30s who return to Korea and explores how the physical return of the
diaspora confronts and destabilizes narratives that have been constructed to
silence histories ofbiopolitical mobilization andviolence committed onto
certain parts of the population.
The film creates a strategic genealogy by relating the stories of three
generations of women: the former ‘comfort’ women who were conscripted
into military sexual slavery by the Japanese military between World War
I and II women working assex workers around US military bases in
South Korea since the division of Korea and children who were
adopted from South Korea to the West since the Korean War.
Since my first journey back to Korea, I have been part of a growing
contingency of transnational adoptee artists, activists and academicswho
have generated critical discourse around transnational adoption in South
Korea and in the west. 2004was a significant year in terms of
transnational adoptee organizing as the first Gathering of Overseas Korean
Adoptees took place in South Korea that year. The event was attended
by more than 400 adoptees from 15 countries and provided a forum for
adoptees to meet and share experiences. Around the same time, groups
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such as ASK: Adoptee Solidarity Korea and Track: Truth and
Reconciliation for the Adoptee Community of Korea were formed as
alternatives to largely apolitical adoptee associations. These groups have
been committed to put attention to social issues related to transnational
adoption, among others by aligning with single mothers and birth families.
Women artists played a significant role in forming these organizations and
artists also organized among themselves, examples of which arethe artist
collective UFOlab (Unidentified Foreign Object LABoratory) andthe
Korean diaspora artist group and networkOrientity Exhibition .
An incentive for making The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger was
to inscribe transnational adoption within the history of Korea and to
record aspects of adoptees’ collective process of political becoming,
focusing especially on how women adoptee artists have played a
significant role in shaping the growing critical discourse on adoption
within the Korean transnational adoptee community and beyond.Several of
the artists who have played an important role in this endeavor function
asmain protagonists in The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger. Among
those are visual artist Nathalie MiheeLemoine,writer Maja Lee Langvad,
poet Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, writer Jane JeongTrenka, filmmaker Tammy
Chu.
The film speaks from a collective set of voices in an endeavor to
create an alternative to dominant representations of adoptee search and
return that tend to focus on individual adoptees’ search for biological
rootsrather than the broader social, historical and political frameworks in
which transnational adoptions from South Korea emerged and which is
intimately linked to the Korean War and its aftermath.
Another motivation for the film was to trace connections between the
history of transnational adoption and other histories of migration from
Koreastemming fromgendered effects of war and militarism. The Woman,
76
The Orphan, and The Tiger was conceptualized while I was studying in
New York and Los Angeles and interfaced with Korean diaspora
communities in the United States.I became interested in the U.S.’ role in
the Korean War and how militarism, particularly in the form ofsexual
intimacies between Korean women and US servicemen,has played a role
in shapingKorean migration patterns to the U.S. Grace M. Cho, one of
the protagonists in the Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger, eloquently
details in her book Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and
The Forgotten War, how this tabooed and often times painful history
enveloped in family secrets, appears only in fragments and is passed on
through a sense of haunting from one generation to the next. In addition,
the film, through the voice of visual artist SoniKum, traces legacies
Japan´s colonization of Korea and experiences of the Korean diaspora in
Japan. The voices of these young diasporic women are accompanied in
the film by testimonies from Korean and Philippina women involved in
the U.S. military prostitution industry in South Korea and women who
were forced into military sexual slavery by the Japanese army to contour
the transgenerational effects of militarism on the lives of women.
With my artworks I attempt to point to relationships between power,
representation, and productions of meaning by on the one hand exposing
and destabilizing dominant narratives and representational logics that serve
to suppress, exclude, or demonize certain subjects or perspectives
while pointing to sites of emergence by proposing alternative readings or
translations that can also give aesthetic shape to the traumas and fractures
that accompanies modes of erasure and silencing.
The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tigershows how the Korean War is
officially represented among others through panoramas of the Korean War
Memorial in Seoul and in archive footage fromU.S. newsreels from the
1950s. However in the film,these official images are contested by the
voiceovers of the women protagonists who give alternative accounts and
77
testimonies. The official Korean War representations are also contrasted
byfilmed footage fromthespaces of the military camptowns that remain
largely invisible and isolated.
Thestrategic genealogy established between the ‘former comfort’ women,
women working around US military bases, and transnational adoptees, is
not meant to insinuate that these issues can be conflated or that they are
directly related, but rather to point tohow these histories emerged out of a
similar nexus of colonialism, militarism and war, as well as how they
were tabooedand silenced for decadesbecause of patriarchy, nationalism,
and class-inflicted marginalization.
Reiterations of Dissent
Following The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger, I began an
ongoing art project titledDissident Translationsconsisting of threevideos
installations and a multi-media archive installationabouthow thesuppressed
history and fragmented memories of the Jeju April Third Uprising
continue to reverberate in the present moment.
Working on The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger, I was compelled
to understand some of the details of what occurred in the short interim
period between the decolonization of Korea from Japanin 1945 and the
outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. Working on the Jeju project also
provided me a deeper context for understandinghow my birth family has
been impacted by the ideological tensions of Korea´s division that was
felt intensely on Jeju Island up until the late 1990s when truth and
reconciliation efforts around the Jeju April Third Incident finally began to
take shape in public.
A main workin the Dissident Translations project is a multi-channel
video installation and film titled Reiterations of Dissent. Told mainly
through the voices of individuals (Hyun Ki Young, Huh YeongSeon,Kim
Kyung Hoon, Kim SeongNae, Jong Gong Chul, Kim Dong Man, Song
78
Seung Moon, Koh Nan Hyang, Kim Jong Min, and Kim Dong Chun)
who have been active in efforts to investigate and narrate the events
surrounding the Jeju April Third, Reiterations of Dissent conveys
perspectives that have been largely suppressed and remain disputed to the
present daybecause of ideological arguments over the history.
Rather than providing a linear chronological account of the Jeju April
Third Uprising and Massacre,Reiterations of Dissent presents a
multi-layered archive of experiences, events, and perspectives.The work is
composed of six different video narratives that uncovers various
underlying political motivations and portrays how the un-reconciled trauma
of Jeju April Third continues to resonate through multiple forms: the
island's present landscape, evocative literary representations, recurring
memories of survivors and relatives, shamanic rituals that mediate between
the living and the dead, and in protests against re-militarization of Jeju
Island with the construction of the Jeju Naval Base.
Similar for The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger and Reiterations of
Dissent is an attempt to give aesthetic form to the ramifications of
division through a diasporic lens. The division of Korea represents to me
a political primal scene and trauma that continues to permeate the present
because of the un-ended status of the Korean Warwith the effect that
certain histories remain unresolved and a real process of healing and
recognition is suspended.Because of this suspension, past and present
cannot be separated but is constantly conflated and there is no neat
resolution. This manifests in my works in the form of multiple and
layered montage sequences and fragmented narrativeswhere temporal and
spatial dimensions overlap.
For me as an artist it has been a gradual process of going back in time
to the sources of the Korean War. Going back in time has also been a
process of approaching the present and the root cause of what, as a
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transnational adoptee of Korean descent, Iregard as the traumatic stalemate
that conditions my subjectivity - and this might be shared with many
diaspora subjects - a sense of separation and disjuncture - that cannot be
undone but that I can try nuance and approximate.
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[Session 3: Overcoming War and Partition Korea and
Beyond]
The Division System and Zainichi Koreans
Lee, Jung-ae (Zainichi Koreans)
Hello! My name is Lee, Jung-ae. I am a third-generation Jaeil
Joseonin[1]. I am sure the last name Lee must be unfamiliar to you
already, but the term, ‘Jaeil Joseonin,’ would be even more unfamiliar.
When I visited Korea in 2005, I didn’t see so many Koreans who knew
what Jaeil Joseonin was. Also, when Koreans heard me introducing
myself as ‘Lee’ and that I am a Jaeil Joseonin, the South Koreans looked
at me with wary eyes.[2] I later heard that some Koreans thought the
Jaeil Joseonin in Japan betrayed Korea and chose Japan out of their
administration for richer country. Buy both my dad’s and mom’s parents
who used to live in Jeju Island went to Japan after being deprived of
everything, like pretty much everyone was at the time, to survive. The
Koreans who moved to Japan during the colonization period were the 1st
generation Jaeil Koreans[3]. My parents who were born in Osaka were
the 2nd generation, thus it makes me the 3rd generation. Now, the
Korean expatriate community has 4th and 5th generation Jaeil Joseonins.
Because of the frightening Japanese colonial period and such a painful
history of division into North and South, we, the Korean expatriates in
Japan, have been suffering for more than a century. From the historical
81
perspective, it would be proper to refer Korea as Chosun, thus it would
be also appropriate to refer the Korean expatriates in Japan as Jaeil
Joseonin, but the word, ‘Chosun,’ is a very uncomfortable one to use
here in Korea, but especially far too onerous in Japan[4]. I do not
enjoy speaking Japanese (in Korea), but if I dare to say it, ‘Chosen’ or
‘Chosenjin’[5] are objects of all sorts of discrimination and contempt in
Japan. So, the Korean expatriates with dual citizenship in Korea call
themselves ‘Jaeil Hankukin’ or some from both sides of Korean expatriate
communities just call themselves as ‘Jainich[6]’ leaving ‘Korean’ out.
This is only one of many examples that show how deeply the Korean
expatriate communities are divided and how deep-rooted the discrimination
is in Japan. There is one more thing with the titles. In Korea, we are
often referred to as ‘Gyopo,’ but I think we should be referred to as
‘Dongpo’. Frankly, I don’t feel comfortable being called as a Gyopo,
because the term feels alienating. How Gyopo is different from Dongpo?
Gyopo refers to a compatriot who lives permanently in other countries as
the citizens thereof, and Dongpo is a term for a person from same
country or race with a positive connotation. I wish the South Koreans
would call us, the Jaeil Chosunin, and be kind to their Dongpo.
If I were just any Jaeil Dongpo or Jaeil Chosunin, I wouldn’t have
come here today. I am here because I wanted to talk about my
nationality. One may assume that I am a Japanese, because I was born
and raised in Japan, or that I am a Korean, because I am living in
Korea. Unfortunately, none of the above. I am a national of Chosun.
People often ask if it means that I am a North Korean, but no. Again,
I am a national of Chosun. Then, South Koreans ask if I am a
Chosunjok[7].
Here goes a very complicated story about my nationality. To be exact,
I am a ‘Chosenseki[8]’ holder. Under the international law, I am a
stateless person. I have never met anyone who understood my situation
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at once. I had to explain my status over and over to make others
understand - to Ms. Lim, the cartoonist who draw the story of my life in
‘Story of Lee Jung-ae, the Jaeil Dongpo, in Seoul’ and even to my
husband, Mr. Kim, Ick. Even the Japanese people who came up with
this idea don’t know what it is - considering how ‘flexible’ they are
about their history, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. So, when I
have a business at the Immigration Bureau of Japan, I have to spend
hours to explain and persuade the ignorant officials. The Japanese
government has been saying that ‘a person can choose to hold the
Chosenseki,’ but I have lived all my life believing that it was my
nationality. Chosun has been my nationality since my grandfather was
born and I was born. Chosun is my identity. And I do not want to
recognize my homeland having been separated into two. If I acquired
the Korean citizenship, I would be accepting that my homeland is
divided. Over my dead body! No! On the very day when the two
Koreas are unified, I will apply for the citizenship of ‘United Korea.’
Lee, Jung-ae, the 3rd generation Jaeil Chosunin, the dreamer of
unification of homeland, the ardent lover of land, language and race of
Korea, the only Chosenseki holder living in Korea, the writer of Story of
Lee Jung-ae, the Jaeil Dongpo, in Seoul (Lee, Jung-ae, Lim, So-hee
(cartoonist), Bori Publisher, 2015) and a member of Prisoner of
Conscience Supporters.
[1] Translator’s note: As North and South Koreas prefer
‘Chosun’and‘Hankuk,’respectively,astheirnationaltitle,‘JaeilJoseonin’
meansKoreanexpatriatesinJapanwhoarepro-NorthKorea. Those who
are pro-South Korea are called‘JaeilHankukin.’
[2] Translator’s note: the Korean last name, ‘Lee,’ is pronounced
‘Yi’in South Korea and‘Lee’in North Korea
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[3] Translator’s note: as the Korean expatriate community was
divided into pro-South and pro-North later, the references to
Korean expatriates were also divided.
[4] Translator’s note: it is so, because: Koreans have inferiority
complex from Chosun Dynasty being lethargically colonized by
Japan; North Koreans chose to refer their nation as
‘Buk(North)Chosun’;andJapanesesentimentofbelittlingKoreansasthese
condclasscitizens.
[5] Translator’s note: ‘Chosun’ and ‘Chosun person’ pronounced in
Japanese.
[6] Translator’s note: ‘Jaeil (in Japan)’ pronounced in Japanses.
[7] Translator’s note: ‘Chosunjok’ is a general term for
Chinese-Koreans.
[8] Translator’s note: A nationality granted by Japanese
government, for immigration administration convenience’s sake, to
the Koreans who lived in Japan as of 1945 and thereafter and
held no citizenship of Republic of Korea, Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea or Japan.
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[Session 3: Overcoming War and Partition Korea and
Beyond]
Conscientious Objectors’ Movement for anti-militarism
Im Jae-seong (Conscientious Objector)
The conscientious objection movement in Korea began to surface to
public attention when Oh Tae-yang, a Buddhist and a peace activist,
publicly raised his conscientious objection to military duty in December in
2001. Oh’s public statement prompted three dozens or so nongovernmental
organizations in Korea to gather together and form solidarity in support
of conscientious objectors. The main demand of these activists was that
the Korean government provide alternative channels, other than military
service, for fulfilling one’s duty to the nation and stop putting
conscientious objectors away in prison. Thanks to their campaigns, the
Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) finally announced its
decision in September 2007 to allow conscientious objectors to serve in
alternative social services. The decision finally put an end to the
five-decade history of punishing and condemning conscientious objectors.
The MND’s decision, however, was soon overturned by the Lee
Myung-bak administration that came to power afterward, which cited the
“inadequacy of the public consensus on the issue” as the reason for
cancelling the decision. As a result, numerous young people who could
have served their duty in social and non-military positions since March
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2009 are now forced to risk going to prison. There are over 700 such
young persons in Korea today who are incarcerated solely for their
conviction that they ought not to aim their weapons at others for murder.
This essay examines the history of conscientious objection in Korea
with a focus on social movements. The participants in those movements
may have failed to stop conscientious objectors from going to prison, but
that does not mean that all their efforts have ended in vain. The social
movements in support of conscientious objection not only raised the
public awareness of the importance of alternatives to military service, but
also created and spread practices and language of resistance against the
military authoritarianism that has long characterized the Korean society.
The majority of studies on conscientious objection focus on the
institutional history and implications of alternatives to military service, and
have thus failed to capture the significant progresses made on the social
front. This essay, by contrast, approaches conscientious objection as a
series of anti-military movements and voices.
I have a personal stake in this research. It was in 2002, while I was
still an undergraduate student, that I first began to participate in a
movement for conscientious objection. Fighting for the human rights of
others, I have come to discover the new meaning of picking up a gun
and aiming it at others as a soldier. This discovery led me to
increasingly question whether I, myself, was ready to become a soldier.
While campaigning against Korea’s participation in the Iraq War in 2003,
I finally decided to become a conscientious objector, and joined A World
without Wars, a nonprofit organization for conscientious objection. I was
scheduled to enter the army on December 13, 2004, but decided not to
go, and was sentenced to one year and a half in prison as a result. After
I finished my term in prison, I entered a graduate school to do in-depth
research on conscientious objection and pacifist movements, and have
been writing on these and related topics since then.
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Given this personal background, I cannot help but include my own
experiences and thoughts as a conscientious objector, activist and
researcher in this essay. The main focus of this essay is on the history
and trend of the conscientious objection movements in Korea, but I will
not shy away from expressing the emotions and ideas I have had as a
conscientious objector myself. For I believe that speaking honestly of my
personal experiences is itself a method for assessing both the past and the
future of the movements for conscientious objection in Korea.
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