Over at Japan Focus, Gavan McCormack writes on Kang Chol-hwan and his visit to the White House. It’s definitely worth reading — just because I found much of it problematic doesn’t mean you will. That being said, I have to make a comment about this section, because it really did strike a nerve with me:
The story is scarcely a classic but, written more than a decade after his escape, it was one of the first North Korean refugee biographies to be published in the West (first in French, then in English) and it offers a plain, grim, moving story of prison camp life through the eyes of a child and boy. Kang’s co-author, Frenchman Pierre Rigoulet, had been a contributing editor to the Black Book of Communism (first published in France in 1997), and it was perhaps his contribution to tailor Kang’s story so that North Korea is presented as one more example of the monstrous perversion of communism. Kang and Rigoulet make no attempt to locate North Korea in the context of the trauma and tragedy of Korean history, the half century of Japanese colonialism, the externally imposed division, the terrible civil war turned by external intervention into a catastrophe, and the prolonged Cold War that continues on the peninsula to this day.
I’m sorry, but that is just, well, perhaps it’s best to put it this way — I’ve never heard someone criticize Elie Wiesel’s Night for its author’s failure to locate Nazi Germany in the context of the trauma and tragedy of early 20th century Germany, the Great Depression, vindictive WW I victors and the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of Stalin’s Soviet Union and the German people’s long history of foreign interventions by the Hapsburgs, French, Russians, Swedish and just about everyone else in Europe prior to German unification.
And I hope I never do.
7 Comments
Well, I can see why you’re disenchanted, M. Professor McCormack, the reviewer of the book, is one of these “citizen of the world” types who so enjoys the “plague on both your houses” type analysis. From his particular way of phrasing, my guess is that he is a UK, Canadian, or Irish citizen (the last would be best from an irony standpoint, as I’m of Irish descent me-self).
For someone who finds Christian fundamentalism so deplorable, I wonder what he’s doing teaching at an “International Christian University” in Tokyo. I’m glad he’s able to choke down his disdain long enough each month to accept his paycheck.
I always enjoy reading these type of analyses, because the analysts are always careful to refrain from calling for the seemingly logical current remedial measure — that is, for the USFK to depart from Korea forthwith, so that the inhabitants of the pensinsula can be finally free to “…find, and fulfill, your destiny” (Zeus to Perseus, Clash of the Titans).
(Quote: “…Rather than more intervention ? to bring about ?regime change?? ? what Korea needs is to be left alone to redress the long-continuing trauma caused by the massive interventions of the past.”
That’s about as close as he lets himself come, I reckon).
So, what do you other non-American non-ROK citizens here think — particularly those of you who share (to at least some extent) the Professor’s skepticism about the blundering American cowboys?
Should Truman have just left well enough alone in July 1950? Remember, the US military government had ended the previous year, and all US occupation troops had withdrawn; what more could a good liberal non-intervenionist desire? All we had left in the ROK on 25 June 1950 was a 400 man advisory group; Truman initially authorized MacArthur only to use enough force to rescue them.
Maybe it would have been better if the Americans had just kept their hands off and allowed the country to be reunified?
Seriously. I’m not being sarcastic (ok, maybe half-sarcastic). Or, if you like, you can go back even earlier, to 1945; the decision to divide the country in 1945 was made so casually (not in the context of the times, but seen from a later perspective) that a hypothetical decision to forego any US occupation of the southern half, and instead let the Soviets occupy the whole thing, could well have been easily seen by the Americans as a “religious” duty (”let this cup pass”).
I’ve taken the history of these things for granted for so long that it’s still disconcerting to consider an alternative. But I suppose that’s what it means to have your mind “broadened”, which no doubt the good professor considers one of his most sacred duties.
And Korea would have been unified under Soviet occupation, as was eastern Europe. I don’t know, I suppose it’s “theoretically” possible that the control of the entire country from the outset might have moderated the severity of the inevitable Communist regime, as Prof McCormack implies (at least that’s the way I read him).
And Prof McC would have been spared the need for this particular bit of recrimination (of course he would have found something else about the US to equally deplore, but that’s another subject…)
For myself, I’m tempted to take a plane to Japan, get liquored up, and follow Prof McCormack until he gets into a taxi — at which time I’d enjoy climbing up on it and vigorously jumping up and down (at least until the Japanese cops hauled me off, unless some of you would agree to be my “buds”, helping me fight them off and then escaping to further adventures, the secret desire of every wild American GI).
Wouldn’t change anything but I’d feel better — not to mention reinforcing the stereotype which is always sardonic fun.
No reason to apologize for the Nazi reference; it’s the right antitdote for the sort of moral equivocation in which the likes of McCormack like to indulge, e.g., using the word gulag to refer to both the NK camps and the injustices of the pre-Kim Young Sam ROK regimes
In a libel suit, truth is a defense. Similarly, the ability to present facts suggesting a reasonable, factually supported comparison ought to be a defense to Godwin’s Law. You were really in the zone this time. Thanks for the links, btw.
I think Godwin’s Law shouldn’t necessarily apply when you’re talking about something that is genuinely on the scale of the Nazis and/or the Holocaust.
japanfocus.org has same smell as Nikkyouso-The Japan Teachers Union which is extreme left-wing organization.
i think the shame here is this incessant desire to label. Paul H.(and i usually agree with him) for some reason points out that McCormack MUST be canadian or from UK. Why, because he can see both sides? Who cares where he is from? Gorea goes the same way with his little note about the teacher’s union and their leftist bent.
I say: who cares? did you learn anything from reading this piece?
Why is it so hard to believe that Koreans south of the line can do the same things as their estranged brethren north of the line? if you’ve lived in the ROK for any length of time, you’ll have to have seen their capacity for propaganda and indoctrination. if you couldn’t then see the parallels, might that not be because you yourself are indoctrinated to believe that north=bad and south=good automatically?
I forgot to add that I think Marmot has misread this one. McCormack’s point in saying that the two authors “make no attempt to locate North Korea in the context of” everything under the sun is not a criticism. it’s just a statement of fact, likely an expression of the author’s opinion (shared by Marmot, I believe) that such an act in the course of writing this story would have been superfluous.