Mingi Hyun — he of Asia’s Security Perils fame — write in the JoongAng Ilbo why joint North-South events to mark the 60 anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule are no cause to celebrate:
All Koreans should celebrate Korea’s independence from Japan’s atrocious colonial rule. However, celebrating it with a tyrannical regime ruins the spirit and meaning of an important day in Korean history.
Read the rest on your own.
8 Comments
How many countries would be on the list of “liberators” of Korea, then? The U.S. wasn’t the only one fighting the Japanese. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, China, the United Kingdom, and some other countries all had a hand in defeating the Japanese.
What would be an appropriate acknowledgement? Most of these same countries helped out in the Korean War, and there are several prominent memorials to them over that (except for the Chinese, of course, who switched sides).
Of course liberation from the Japanese and saving from communist aggression are not the same, but they are spaced by a mere five years and because the division of the peninsula is a somewhat direct offshoot of Japanese occupation, I could see why acknowledgement of foreign fighters twice in the same summer may not always occur.
I’m not saying I think this is the way it should be, but Liberation Day is a day to commemorate an end of suffering, whereas 6.25 events focus on the fighting people — foreign and especially domestic — who laid down their lives for Republic of Korean freedom.
It’s not like the French are given a prominent place of honor on the Fourth of July in the United States.
Now before everyone blasts me, and certain posters blast me for dissing the country I was born and reared in, I would like to see more acknowledgement of the Allies on 8.15, but I’m just trying to put some perspective on it.
Kushibo — It may very well be a day to “commemorate an end of suffering,” but one should point out how that suffering ended. For that matter, I’m all in favor of paying greater tribute to France on July 4 — without France, we’d be speaking better English today, and that needs to be noted on the holiday so future generations never forget. That being say, there is more than a slight difference between the French role in securing US independence and the Allied role in securing Korean independence. Or perhaps more to the point, there is more than a slight difference in the American role in securing US independence and the Korean role of securing Korean indepedence.
BTW, I happened to agree that the “Allied,” rather than the US, effort should be acknowledged on Liberation Day (as is the case on 6.25), even if the ratio of U.S. to Allied forces in the Pacific was much higher than it was in Europe.
“Or perhaps more to the point, there is more than a slight difference in the American role in securing US independence and the Korean role of securing Korean indepedence.” Thanks Marmot for pointing out exactly why I’ve said that it’s odd that the media here seems to go to great lengths not to mention who liberated Korea.
The Korean media actually have far worse problems than amnesia every August 15. Think of how folks like Lee Kyunghee over at the Herald like to sanctinoniously and frequently remind us that the United States was the only country to use nuclear weapons, without refering to the context or the result of that 1945 decision.
I’m not big on symbolism, but the inter [strike]intra[/strike] Korea soccer game as it is being put out is going too far.
The unification flag, which I think was said to be anti-state some years ago, is not only going to be featured, but the ROK flag is prohibited. And the seats were reserved for members of civic groups. I’d like to see a list of the civic groups asked to participate, while most Koreans are kept out translated into English, and published in the Washington Post and New York Times and featured on CNN and Fox News. My guess is that it would be an eye opener.
Does anybody know of a list or partical list in Korean of the civic groups that will be in attendance? Or, will we have to wait until after the games? Or, will they not be mentioned then?
Will The Priest be out of jail by then?
Or was his arrest warrant vacated by the recent string of amnesties handed out?
Also, to put this fraternal festival of deceit into better perspective, from the BBC:
. . . To mark Liberation Day on 15 August, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is due to grant an amnesty to 4.2 million people, nearly 99% of whom have minor traffic-related convictions, however, more than 2,000 of those being pardoned are currently in jail or on parole - including scores of politicians and former officials convicted of corruption and other violations.
The opposition has questioned the planned pardons, saying some of the people on the list are close aides of President Roh, and were convicted of serious offences such as bribery and electoral fraud.
Next week’s South Korean amnesty will the biggest since 2002, when former president Kim Dae-Jung pardoned 4.8 million people.
Unified in vice is more like it . . .
“It??s not like the French are given a prominent place of honor on the Fourth of July in the United States..”
An interesting point. I speculate that a tradition of honoring France on July 4 may not have gotten off to a solid start in the early days of the Constitutional US republic.
The French revolution of 1789 became a point of contention between the early “factions” (Jefferson vs Hamilton) in domestic US politics, much to Washington’s distress.
I vaguely recall an anecdote from diplomatic history, about one time that Washington as President had to decide whether or not to leave the portrait of the executed Louis XVI hanging on the wall while receiving an ambassador from the French republic. (I think he did decide to leave it up, can’t remember how it came out, I think the French ambassador just ignored it. Indeed, I’d like to think that if the French embassy had privately complained, Washington would have had the wit to reply that there was no accompanying portrait of Marie Antoinnette. But, I suspect he was too polite a man for that sort of thing).
Then thereafter there was the undeclared naval war of 1798, and then the odious military dictatorship of Napoleon (he also seized US merchant vessels that his navy and privateers mangaged to catch up with, ones that were trading with England and thus violating his “Continental system” of counter embargo to the British blockade. Indeed the British pointed out at the time that the US had almost equal cause to go to war with Napoleon as it did with the British in 1812, over their seizure of US ships trading with France and their impressment of US sailors).
In the 1820’s I think Lafayette in his retirement made a triumphal tour of the US and was feasted and feted in a stagecoach tour that lasted for months. Contributed to the naming of all the “Lafayette’s” and “Fayettevilles” that you find down in Dixie, in locations that were being newly settled at this time.
So we did manage to get some gratitude expressed in the appropriate French circles, way back when.
Further note: Also, I think the sharp break in French historical tradition between the Bourbon monarchy and the successor French republics cannot be overemphasized and this contributed to the lack of US honoring France on July 4.
For the next 100 years (well into the Third Republic) the revival of some form of monarchism was still politically viable in France (and of course it did occur, in 3 different versions lasting for decades).
(I guess a monarchy revival was theoretically possible in South Korea as well, post 1945! Learning about that here recently was quite a revelation).
Even today in theory there are at least 3 “pretenders” to the French throne (Bourbon, Napoleonic, and descendants of house of Orleans (?) (based on the French monarch from 1830 to 1848, not sure that I’ve got this last one correct).
Given this political problem, I think any official French attendance/participation at US Independence day celebrations could have been quite awkward for long periods in the 19th century. I suspect even today any such French official participation in such a ceremony has to be kept quite “generic”. For example I suspect a French consul cannot officially “tolerate” any formal display of the French royal flag (white flag with 3 fleur de lis).
If I recall correctly, all the heraldic lineage and battle honors of the military tradition of the royal French army regiments pre-1789 (also the royal navy so crucial to victory at Yorktown) were discarded (and not even brought back by Louis XVIII 1815 through 1830). And therefore there is no formal “lineage” connection of the pre-revolutionary French royal army and navy with the modern French military
(Not absolutely positive of this last contention, hopefully “DDA” will speak up here with the appropriate amount of spluttering indignation if I’m wrong).