Monday’s release of a list of 3,090 pro-Japanese collaborators will provide some interesting food for social debate for quite some time, I’d image.
List of 3,090 Pro-Japanese Collaborators Made Public
Ex-leader Park on list of 3,000 Japan collaborators
Colonial Collaborator List Released
Collaborator list criteria questioned
Korea’s three major dailies aren’t going to be too pleased, given that the founders of all three made the list. Like duh, tell us something we didn’t know. OhMyNews has a ton of stuff and I’m sure they’ll be putting out more — it’s their readers that in large part paid for the project (after the National Assembly cut off funding), after all.
48 Comments
I don’t know, but as someone who is not Korean and therefore not affected, I do not feel entitled to offer an opinion as to what extent collaborators and their descendants should be excused, reviled, or punished.
I question the validity of the list and its true purpose. It seems to me like a great deal of money went into this project and I would like to see the culmination of their research rather than a mere list. It seems rather predictable as to what the effects of this list may be. I would like to know what kind of NGO this is and their purpose. What constitutes a collaborator and who can we expect on this list besides the obvious? The money in my opinion, should’ve been spent on something more constructive and important.
The first and fourth links in the list are goofy. They just lead us back to Marmot’s Hole.
Or is this really a sign that you’ve truly gone Ahssa: shameless plugs for your list inserted in your own posts?
An example would be this.
3,090 collaborators? That is a joke. Collaboration was the norm rather than the exception.
Making rank or class a criteria for labeling someone a collaborator is less than stupid. Park Chang-hee’s case is a good example. He was able to use his abilities to rise in the ranks. Would he have been less of a collaborator if he had been less talented and remained at a lower rank?
As I’ve said before, Farmer Jo who sold his rice (or his daughter) to the Japanese military is just as much a collaborator as Newspaper Chairman Kim who wrote under Japanese colonial censorship.
I’m not blaming Jo or Kim for what they did. They were both trying to survive as best they could.
Andy, I respectfully disagree, though I share some of the spirit of your point.
A Farmer Cho (Jo) who sold his rice to the military would be in a different league from a Farmer Cho who knowingly sold his daughter into sexual servitude (of which there were some). When the government changes, does that make everyone engaging in normal economic and social activities a collaborator for continuing their lives as best they can? Such a definition would be so broad as to be meaningless.
Perhaps a more appropriate definition would be a person whose actions deliberately and knowingly prolonged or enhanced Japanese rule, especially if it led to greater cruelty to Koreans (or others in the Japanese sphere, such as Manchurians, American prisoners, and even other Japanese).
Farmer Cho would not be a collaborator for selling rice, but he would be if he sold his daughter. A Korean who entered the Imperial military for training because he genuinely believed (as some lately discredited “former nationalists” preached) that gaining military training would be helping building up a Korea skill base that would eventually assist in winning Korean independence would perhaps not be a collaborator.
These are all gray areas and we cannot always determine the motivations behind people, most of whom are long dead. But at the very least some ground rules and definitions must be provided.
Having citizens’ groups run this makes this much more unlikely to happen in a way that ensures some semblance of fairness.
It’s a small hope of mine that some of the fervent anti-Japanese on this witch-hunt get burned themselves.
What was the application ratio for policing jobs under Japanese rule? I believe it was substantial… on the neighborhood of 80:1. Why many Koreans changed their names to Japanese before it became mandatory?
We (Koreans and non-Koreans alike) do not need a list of collaborators. We need good history — i.e., less “han” and politics, and more knowledge and understanding of the period. And a Guy Fawkes-like character would be a good idea, too.
I agree with Kushibo to a point. To say that anyone in the course of self preservation that interacted with the Japanese is a collaborator is ridiculous. I would define collaborator as anyone who sought to lessen the amount of suffering they had to endure by helping the Japanese. Of those the group that is particularly offensive are the ones like Park Chung Hee who, I would argue, enlisted with the motivation of eventually using his position and connection for bettering his own personal lot in life and the claim that he served in the Japanese military to glean needed skills that eventually would be used to fight and gain Korean independence is a feeble excuse. As for Park Geun Hye, I see no reason to hold her accountable for the sins of her father. That makes as much sense as trying to punish the descendants of slave traders for human rights violations.
Every time something like this comes up I can’t help but start whistling a bit of Jethro Tull:
Let us close our eyes;
outside their lives go on much faster.
Oh, we won’t give in,
we’ll keep living in the past.
As for Park Geun Hye, I see no reason to hold her accountable for the sins of her father. That makes as much sense as trying to punish the descendants of slave traders for human rights violations.
I don’t usually write/comment on political issues, mainly because my knowledge and understanding of politics is limited, but this quote from James mirrors my thinking. I don’t understand why the descendants of collaborators should pay for their crimes, and I don’t understand what actual good such witch hunts can accomplish. They (the witch hunts) are not rational attempts at a solution, but emotional lashing out in absense of closure. At least, that’s the way I’ve always seen them. It is entirely possible that there are elements I am unaware of or do not understand.
I don??t understand why the descendants of collaborators should pay for their crimes
I had also felt that way, and once asked a close Korean acquaintance of mine why that view was as prevalent as it was.
His reply was that to the extent collaborators profitted from their collaboration, many Koreans felt that it was not fair to allow them to pass such benefits on to their offspring, whether the benefits were financial or otherwise.
I agree but isn’t there a family that accqquired a huge tract of land in the Hwa-seo area near Suwon thru their collaborative activities only to have the government take it away in the 90’s. To this they demmanded and recieved not one but over the course of time a number of huge awards? For those of you who know, please clarify this. I agree that the off spring should not be allowed to keep ill-gotten wealth but for the majority of families have used this to purchase homes in Kangnam that have appreciated greatly and to educate their descendants-what should happen to them. It is unrealistic to take away their assets just because their education was paid for with blood money and ludicris to suggest they make payments for the rest of their lives.
There is a difference between the guy that used his collaborative position with the Japanese to swindle many people out of the family land and the farmer who supplies rice to the Japanese army and gets a little more money which he is able to save up and then uses to purchase some more land. Neither is very honorable but I don’t think the land in the second case should be confiscated while the land in the first should be.
By some accounts many Koreans joined the Manchukuo armed forces intending to get military training, then desert with weapons and ammunition. Some volunteered for officer training intending to desert with their units.
Others were drafted when university students were mobilized in 1943, then were sent for officer training regardless of their desires.
While there were many true collaborators, not every Korean who held a Japanese commission was a Kim Suk Won.
Collaboration was the norm rather than the exception.
Right on, Yangban. Its a list 3,090 scapegoats so Koreans can say that their ancestors didnt collaborate with the Japanese.
So what’s a collaborator in your definition, then?
anyone who wasn’t killed under the japanese occupation. if you were’nt with us then you’re were against us. and if you weren’t killed then you were only putting in a half asses effort, and are no better than a collaborator.
It makes no sense to me why SK has decided to allow certain groups to further fray the society via this issue. With the passing of authoritarian rule then the passing of the Three Kims era of leadership, at perhaps no time like it in the modern past, Korea should be busy looking to the future. This issue is wrongheaded, but to make it worse, it is squandering a key window of opportunity.
It means nothing to me. I have nothing invested in it. If it is what South Korea feels like doing and/or watching, fine.
I will stick with the conclusion I came to on the issue to cut through the knot —
Does “pro-Japanese” mean “anti-Korean”?
Korea does not seem to be able to live in the future, only grovel around in the past. While they are busy trying to ferret out the bad people (by their yard-stick), China will roar past them, and they will be consigned to the scrap heap.
I’m afraid their time in the sun is coming to an end. They are not paying attention to all the signs around them, probably cause they are too busy, trying to find out who forgot to put out the garbage in 1917……. and then be able to say, as a typical korean .. it wasn’t my fault !!!!!!!
usinkorea wrote:It makes no sense to me why SK has decided to allow certain groups to further fray the society via this issue.So is the government supposed to limit the group’s right to free speech? I don’t particularly like what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, but until they commit libel, are they breaking any laws? Last time I checked, democracies were supposed to allow opinions they didn’t care for (within broad limits, of course).
Kimchee-breath wrote:Korea does not seem to be able to live in the future, only grovel around in the past.I don’t know about that. Most people I know wish the issue would just go away, or they just pay no mind to it. The fact that it’s in the papers doesn’t mean everyone’s behind it.While they are busy trying to ferret out the bad people (by their yard-stick), China will roar past them, and they will be consigned to the scrap heap.So your impression is that the entire economy has ground to a halt because of this?
usinkorea,
if things get too far out of hand and its damaging society too much then they can always play the anti-american or anti-japanese card again. it always wors a treat to distract ppl from the real issues (if this is one) and drum up a bit more hate for those terrible foreign countries.
or perhaps the government will allow it as it seems to be mainly the opposition that have been named, so it could be worth a few political points.
Collaboration was the norm rather than the exception.
Let the Koreans follow their wonderfull tradition. Kill all the collaborators and their relatives. If they are dead already, dig up their graves spit over the bones.
Only this Korean-syle of *mourning* ancestors fits into the 5,000 years long Chosun’s history.
Hannara party should say “OK. We are done with the pro-Japanese list. So, let’s start working on the pro-Commie list”.
This list means absolutely nothing. It only provide the excuse for the next administration to collect the names of Commie collaborators during the Korean War.
Or, the pro-North list. Tabulate the names of persons who have said anything pro-North or given anything (money, food, material) to the North.
Japan is — once again — made a whipping boy and a means of furthering the Uridang and other alleged leftist’s political agenda. It also serves to deflect public attention away from the failures of the ruling party.
Such groveling in the past does not appeal to most koreans (IMHO) who want to get on with living, thus this little red herring is a waste of time and money since many are quite aware of what is going on.
Perhaps a list of the institutions that funded this list would be more telling since it is obviously another part in *someone’s* plans, perhaps someone that does not like the newspapers and wishes to supplant them as being the only true and decent source of news in Korea?
Hey Korea, how about a list of everyone who was, or is presently, connected to organized crime. Let’s round them all up, strip them of their bank accounts and property ownership and get things straightened out around here.
hardyandtiny,
That’s actually pretty funny. If they rounded up all the crooks, traffic congestion would be a thing of the past.
Chaebol=organized crime
Kushibo,
2 points. 1. It seems to me the collaboration issue is being pushed by Uri Party, thus the presidential office, as much as by some civic group. 2. There is also nothing keeping those who recognize the folly in this from speaking out as well. Where are those voices? They sure don’t seem to be in the active majority. It is the same with the anti-US alliance situation. I would feel a lot better about Korea’s future if Korean society felt the drive to put out as many counter-arguments to the ones that seem to undermine Korea’s future.
I never said the groups should be silenced. I said they were wrongheaded.
That is argument against the National Security Law. I think is better to fight harmful thought with effective counter-arguments.
Rowan touched on something that I hadn’t thought about until yesterday.
At least there is one thing about the collaborationist issue I don’t completely shake my head at —- it is Koreans looking to hang other Koreans. Unlike the colonization itself, the Cheju Island Massacre, the Kwangju Massacre, the rule of Park Chung Hee, Chun Do Hwan, Roh Tae Woo, the assassination of Park Chung Hee, the 1997-98 IMF collapse, and all the others — they haven’t found a way to lay the majority of the blame on the United States.
I ran into this from the Stars and Stripes over at USFK Forums, and I wanted to post it here to see what the Korean commenters and Korean language skill guys thought about it.
It is an article about getting name tags for USFK base workers who have been long time staff.
“Kang Hyung-do, the USFK Korean Employee Union??s Uijeongbu chapter president, said he understands U.S. soldier??s use the words to be friendly with base employees, but that long-term workers ?? and younger employees ?? find the terms offensive.
??We think Col. Newton??s proposal is really great, affirmative and encouraging for us,?? Kang said. ??We hope this ?? can help to improve the human rights of our Korean employees.???”
???
I thought it was part of the Korean language culture to refer to everyone as uncle, aunt, grandmother, grandfather, older brother, or older sister???
How could using those terms be a violation of the base worker’s human rights???
Unless I’m competely wrong on the language item, this is bizzare to me.
And, on a side note, it seemed to me apart from the 65+ generations, the next highest group of people with pro-US-SK alliance sentiment were the base workers I had taught over the years……
This is just me trying to sign up for the free gravatar…
usinkorea wrote:2 points. 1. It seems to me the collaboration issue is being pushed by Uri Party, thus the presidential office, as much as by some civic group.”Seems to” and “is” come with a distinction. Initially the Uri Party pushed this, but as Marmot says, the National Assembly cut off the funding, after which citizens’ groups took up the cause (and “citizens’ groups” should not necessarily be assumed to be following the will of the citizens in general).
But let’s not forget that the Uri party or their leftist allies might also get bit on the ass with this. Remember the Uri muckamuck who resigned because it turned out his father was a Kempeitai or some other Imperial law enforcement officer? If the Uri people are smart, they know that lots of people have family secrets they themselves don’t know about. If they’re not so smart and they don’t realize this, then they deserve to be blindsided for getting the wheels moving on this.2. There is also nothing keeping those who recognize the folly in this from speaking out as well. Where are those voices?Um, the newspapers like Chosun Ilbo, which is at least in the top ten among all Korean newspapers, isn’t it?They sure don??t seem to be in the active majority. It is the same with the anti-US alliance situation. I would feel a lot better about Korea??s future if Korean society felt the drive to put out as many counter-arguments to the ones that seem to undermine Korea??s future.They have jobs. They don’t have time for weekly demonstrations like the anti-government, anti-corporate, anti-American, anti-Japanese professional protestrs (like “Jinbo” do).
It takes a lot of work to bring out the tens of thousands they occasionally do in favor of USFK or what not.I never said the groups should be silenced. I said they were wrongheaded.You said, “It makes no sense to me why SK has decided to allow certain groups to further fray the society via this issue.”
Not allowing them would be silencing them, wouldn’t it?That is argument against the National Security Law. I think is better to fight harmful thought with effective counter-arguments.Rowan touched on something that I hadn??t thought about until yesterday.
At least there is one thing about the collaborationist issue I don??t completely shake my head at ??- it is Koreans looking to hang other Koreans. Unlike the colonization itself, the Cheju Island Massacre, the Kwangju Massacre, the rule of Park Chung Hee, Chun Do Hwan, Roh Tae Woo, the assassination of Park Chung Hee, the 1997-98 IMF collapse, and all the others ?? they haven??t found a way to lay the majority of the blame on the United States. Huh? It’s not all about anti-Americanism. This is anti-Japanese, though. But in some sense it will be good to let it take its course so the han aspect can dissipate somewhat.
As for Koreans looking to hang Koreans, it reminds me of a favorite mantra a relative taught me long ago: “Koreans are a very peaceful people; they only invade themselves.”
Marmot others:
What (if anything) was done about “collaborationists” in the American zone (approximate boundaries of current ROK) in the immediate aftermath of the initial American occupation (ie 1945-6?)
Nothing about this subject in the offical US military history:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/pd-c-02.htm
The main political concern of Koreans in the American zone in the 1945-47 period seemed to be resistance to the proposed UN “trusteeship” for the entirety of the peninsula and agitation for immediate independence.
How about after the end of occupation in 1949? (Prior to the war starting). Was anything about “collaborationists” done then?
Were lists published, were trials held? (I’m thinking of comparing/contrasting to postwar France; don’t recall the details, but I know there were trials of prominent members of the Vichy government and I think at least a few were executed).
Or was this even an issue in the ROK of that period? If not, then perhaps the current “interest” in this subject says more about current ROK politics than about a genuine historical concern for justice.
Considering what the Japanese Army did in China after the 1937 invasion, I don’t think anybody in the world (to include current citizens of the ROK) has the right to judge Koreans of the 1905-1945 era for serving in the Japanese administration.
Unless such Koreans were complicit in the actual fining, imprisonment, and/or execution of other Koreans, ones who were peacefully politically opposed to the Japanese occupation. Note carefully my use of the world “peacefully”…
I see your point with the wording on the “allow” comment.
What I meant was allow by not actively countering them in open debate.
And I want to see more average Koreans engaging in the debate rather than media orgs which Koreans believe are just tainted with politics - which I think tends to lead to them being viewed as preaching to the choir.
And I agree most Koreans have lives to focus on rather than combating the other groups, but if the issue is central enough, they should engage in it.
I’m not sure the collaborator hunt is such an issue or not. Maybe. Maybe not.
And I thought about the anti-Japanese angle after I posted the comment.
We could say it is the same process as blaming the US for all those things just switching Japan for the scapegoat.
But, I think it is still valid to say searching for these pro-Japanese collaborators is a differnt spin than usual in Korea — even if anti-Japan thought is a root cause.
It isn’t an effort to strike a blow on Japanese pride or effect Japan in any direct way.
It is basically Koreans looking to blame Koreans for (in part) the colonization by Japan.
That is a good bit different from the comfort woman issue or the list of the common anti-US focal points in my other comment.
University and newspaper founders, businessmen, writers, artists, scholars, and the man who took a dirt-poor country and built it into an economic powerhouse were Japanese collaborators?
Maybe Koreans should thank God for their collaborators.
By the way, I would not be surprised to see a Dictionary of American Collaborators published in Korea in the next ten to twenty years.
Paul,
The details are hazy in my memory — but here they are.
South Korea’s new government did seek to purge pro-Japanese elements through trials or hearings, but they were closed by the government before getting too far into the process.
That has long been one of the key arguments against the early ROK government. North Korea has been viewed as correctly purging its pro-Japanese, but the SK government is viewed as having thwarted the effort to do it in the South, because many of the key figures in the South after war would have been purged.
I forgot…
I don’t know if they are available online in the declassified documents archives, but there are some interesting items from the US authorities back to DC related during this period about the ROK effort to start the collaborator purge.
What kind of NGO is wasting this money? I pay taxes in this country and why is my money going to dig up some corpse so someone can say they did something (collaborated) with the Japanese?
I am shamed that my Korean brethren spend good money on a blame game.
The only issue is that the Japanese are evil bastards who you can??t trust as far as you can throw them.
You want a definition of collaborator?: those not buried at tongak-gu national cemetery.
The problem is the Japs and the one place that should be left to speak Japanese is in hell.
The obvious regional politics goes on…
The “true” crime of the “collaborationist” isn’t so much for working with the Japanese, but for working with conservative Korean forces that doled out the vast bulk of the pork into a very small and limited geographical area meanwhile heavily suppressing organized labor all at the same time suppressing democracy, freedom of expression, and using excessive force on civillian population. And this is why America is seen as being part of the “collaborationist” milieu, and hence anti-americanism. This isn’t to say this is what I believe, but making the point this is how some disenfranchised Koreans would see it.
The Japanese angle is a nice sugar coating to frenzy the mob to address this point.
After being in Korea for awhile, you expect them to see this familiar regional politics angle. I get this sense that some people can’t read Korean, so they haven’t seen the one zillion and one comments or “reepul” in Korean BBS with lines like, “You Junla Bbalchisan!” everytime there is news like this.
Paul H, in 31.
Can I insert a phrase and two sentences into your paragraph?
Considering what the Japanese Army did in China after the 1937 invasion, especially most cruel soldiers to Manchurians were Korean applicants to the Japanese Imperial Army by calling them ??second rank Japanese??, I don??t think anybody in the world (to include current citizens of the ROK) has the right to judge Koreans of the 1905-1945 era for serving in the Japanese administration. Please note that it was officially said the legal status of the Koreans was same with the Japanese after the Annexation of the peninsula, though it was not rare to see discrimination from the Japanese. Many Korean soldiers and civilians brandished their legal status against natives in all the countries that Japan occupied, and changed their sir name voluntarily to strengthen the effect.
Paul H. asked: Or was this even an issue in the ROK of that period? If not, then perhaps the current ??interest?? in this subject says more about current ROK politics than about a genuine historical concern for justice.Oh, it definitely was.
This topic has always been around. The difference is now that there was finally a pseudo-intellectual activist government willing to get the ball rolling on it.
The only good thing I can see coming of this is for some people to finally get it out of their system. Throw up that nasty little bit of acid and your stomach will finally feel better.
This bout of watered-down McCarthyism will eventually stop when the true believers doing this start realizing they’re decimating their own ranks (like when they realize Grandpa or Dad was doing something other than what he said he was doing).
I also don’t think South Korean society as a whole is ready to rip down the elements that created the Miracle on the Han. Once they start down the path of hounding out the pro-Japanese bastards, it is going to take on a life of its own, and it will pop up some skeletons in the closets of the biggest supporters of the hunt, and it will reach its dirty hands into the backgrounds of many of the orgs SK prides itself in for making it such a rich, prosperous, advanced industrial nation.
And when these skeletons hit the light of day, I do expect they will be reburied fairly quickly….
I think that the Korean word Han is somewhat misunderstood. Han is not about to blame or punish others. But I have to admit that the Koreans themselves misuse or abuse this word (as the controversy of pro-Japanese collaboration shows). Anyway, I will elaborate Han sometime soon.
So muruneko, Kushibo, others:
is there/will there be a Korean equivalent of the filmmaker who made “The Sorrow and the Pity” (early 1970’s film documentary about Vichy France?)
Maybe (#44), but probably not soon (and I’m not familiar with the movie you mention).
The Korean War along with the continuing North-South conflict that ensued, and the military rule that came afterward area all direct offshoots of Japanese rule. Since things are still going on, there is nowhere near the type of closure France had twenty-five or thirty years after WWII ended.
I suspect too that with Japan and Korea there is a very real love-hate relationship: Japan is admired for so much, its economic growth model, (for good or bad) education model, management styles, animae, wealth, power, etc but there was never much closure that was brought to the relationships between Japan, Korea and other Asian countries like there was with Germany and most of Europe. Germany so far has proven willing to agressively address the wrongs of its past while Japan seems hell-bent to sterilize the presentation of its past. In Europe, particularly in France, colaborators were publicly punished while in Korea, the collaborators have by and large only benefited from their disgraceful activities. I would argue that as a result of France dealing with its colaborators, the nation was able to bring some closure to the experience but I do not see that as being possible in Korea, in part because too much time has elapsed and in part because many of the colaborators or their families still have too much power making it a personal attack on an innocent citizen just becuase they are rich/powerful. The people that should be publicly discraced and their ill gotten gains are for the most part not long for this world.
Don’t forget also that occupation by Japan was much, much longer than France’s occupation by Germany. Probably much farther reaching, too.
The Russians and the Baltics might be a better example. I don’t think even the Russians and the non-USSR states of Eastern Europe would come close to Japan and Korea.
The Russians and the Baltics might be a better example. I don??t think even the Russians and the non-USSR states of Eastern Europe would come close to Japan and Korea.
It’s nice that you bring this up. I’ve been thinking for some time now that this is the best comparison if there needs to be one. But about that, Koreans don’t know and perhaps wouldn’t want to know either, because the comparison to France and (in some circles) the often-mentioned purges of Nazi collaborators are more suitable.
There are many similarities, like the appearance of legality of the annexion (”the Baltic states wanted to join the Soviet Union” etc) and the in some cases clear Russification policy. In Estonia there was even an equivalent to the ??iby?ng (rigghteous armies) fighting against the occupation, Forest Brothers (Tartu City Museum; Wikipedia)
This question would require much more consideration than I have time for at the moment…
Then again, almost all (if not all) of the Japanese living in Korea were expelled from the peninsula in 1945. In contrast, many Russians living in the Baltic nations stayed put following those nations’ independence and many agitate for their civil rights there.