The Seoul Shinmun recoils in horror as some Korean netizens target (in Korean) independence activist Yun Bong-gil, calling him a “terrorist”:
Malicious comments by netizens have gone past the danger level and are reaching an extreme. The arrow of malicious comments, recently fired at popular entertainers, have now reached such a serious state that they’re targeting independence activist and patriotic martyr “Maheon” Yun Bong-gil (1908-1932). Countermeasures are urgent.
Sometimes, I can do nothing but shake my head. When news broke in Korea that those evil Jews were accusing cartoonist Rhie Won-bok of anti-Semitism broke, the comment section of Naver.com—Korea’s largest portal site and the nation’s third-most influential media site behind KBS and the Chosun Ilbo—quickly filled up with truly malicious comments that would have made the folks at Stormfront blush. About this, the Seoul Shinmun hardly batted an eye. But insult the honor of a guy who’s been dead for 70 years, and it’s time to hold an emergency meeting of Cheong Wa Dae staff to solve the problem.
Anyway, all this started when a photo—which first appeared in the May 1, 1932 edition of the Asahi Shimbun—widely believed to have been Yun being arrested by the Japanese soon after he’d chucked a bomb at Japanese military leaders in Shanghai was removed from a Korean history textbook due to questions over its authenticity. When news of the textbook change hit the portal sites on Feb. 25, many netizens took the opportunity to post comments debasing the activist.
Said the Seoul Shinmun:
The malicious comments, aimed at a man who delivered the nation while sacrificing his life, are shameful to even say. On bulletin boards, there were many comments like, ‘If you do that now, you’re nothing more than a terrorist like Bin Laden, so patriot? What patriot?’, ‘At the time, only in China was he extolled as a martyr. Everywhere else in the world, he was considered nothing but a terrorist,’ and ‘Patriot? What kind of patriot is a man who swore loyalty to the feudal Joseon royal family?’
But fear not! The paper claims that even among netizens, there are many calling for netiziens who engage in making such malicious comments to be strongly punished and prevented from stepping foot into cyberspace. Toward the end of the piece, an official from the Korean National Police’s Cyber Terrorism Center said, “In the case of malicious comments about the deceased, we can investigate defamation when legal proxies like the family press charges… It’s a shame that the controversy about malicious comments continues yet again as we’ve been working hard to clean up malicious comments about deceased figures like Kim Hyeong-eun, Yunee and Jeong Da-bin.”
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
He was a terrorist. Good that these folks can (for a brief second) get over their nationalism and admit that.
And this guy did nothing to “deliver the nation.” Sorry. You might have been thinking about MACARTHUR.
Whether or not Yun was a terrorist is not really the point. My interest is with what the Seoul Shinmun considers to be malicious netizen behavior. Especially since the comments to the MBC story on Rhie Won-bok was one well-placed translation away from becoming a national disgrace and the Seoul Shinmun didn’t seem to care.
He would be a terrorist if he had killed and injured civilians, which he didn’t. They were all agents of Empirial Japan.
Robert, obviously they are being selective in their criticism. It’s pretty obvious why they would do so.
Ouch, Imperial Japan. Sorry.
It’s just some squirelly kids trying to piss off their elders, and succeeding, not really worth punishment.
Daniel Pearl (and several others) have their heads sawed off. Meh
Kim Sun-il suffers the same and OH MY GOD the humanity!!!
Hub of Asia!
‘Please understand our situation.’
‘Please understand our situation.’
Hahaha, I hope people understand that. It would be such a shame for that piece of comedy gold to go unappreciated.
I thought those “our situations” always had to be unique ones.
Well… at least this isn’t quite the KT coming out and accusing the netijens in question of murder. One has to wonder how much of this is genuine concern, and how much is just backlash from more traditional news sources (i.e. Seoul Sinmun) against media that could be seen to be usurping their traditional position as the gatekeepers of knowledge? Freedom of the press is good, but only for those who have their dues paid-up at the Press Club?
As to whether or not the guy was really a terrorist, a patriot, or (more likely) a bit of both… Sure, it’s debatable, but it’s sort of disturbing that the Seoul Sinmun wants to shut down this particular debate even before it begins.
‘hahaha’…shakuhachi.
That’s what motivates him to get up, so I’ll skip passing my judgement on him.
Depends on the viewpoint. I guess the Korean Vietnam Vet and I were ahead of the times. We were talking about this in 2001.
Was Ahn Joong Geun a terrorist? Was Yoon Bong Gil a terrorist?
Rebellion vs Revolution.
Patriot vs Terrorist.
Depends on the viewpoint, but I don’t think Ahn or Yoon’s targets were civilians.
that was basically our conclusion in putting a difference between them and most of what you can see now.
minor point, but these men weren’t promised 70 or so virgins to fuck.
Sarge Yoon was a casualty from one of these patriot/terrorists. My private opinion is, Ahn or Yoon would not have pulled the trigger at a guardpost, nowhere near the target. The Afghan/Iraq fighters will. And that’s good enough for them. Moot point to discuss, because Ahn and Yoon got close enough to their real targets to succeed and get executed.
I wonder how many Koreans in those days just plain pulled terror bombs on Japanese and Koreans alike, in a crowded market or theater, for example.
Is a government spy, such as the fictional 007 who assasinates a government enemy, a terrorist or a patriot?
My private opinion is that Ahn, Yoon, 007 are one of the same kind. They don’t kill anybody. They go for somebody. Ahn, I’m not sure of. Yoon was Kim Ku government’s designated hit-man. Not a terrorist.
Naver’s attitude on what is an offensive and what is not an offensive comment is ridiculous, indeed.
However, not even this one is getting 1000x recons like a certain Sonagi misinterpreted.
I’ve seen 300x or so, but only if it concerned North Korea or Roh Moo Hyun.
don’t start with 007 is not real.
You pretty damn well people like him were/are/will be running around in this world.
“…I wonder how many Koreans in those days just plain pulled terror ombs on Japanese and Koreans alike, in a crowded market or theater, for example…”
One possible yardstick for you to use, wjk, in making these judgements is to measure what we know about the motivations of the “terrorists/ assasins/ patriotic resistance” — or what we can learn about their motivations, in retrospect.
This helps in differentiating between a “terrorist” vs a “patriot resistor”. Some genuine examples of “patriotic resistance” from history are the 7 Czechs who assassinated this fellow, in 1942:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich
The Germans caught up with them later while they were hiding in a cathedral basement in Prague; the partisans shot it out with the Germans and then killed themselves rather than be captured. Entire story is told dramatically in a postwar book entitled “Seven Men at Daybreak”.
Here is a famous and controversial example from US history, not well-remembered though today:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_Riot
The late 19th century “anarchist” theory was to create mayhem by deliberate terrorism against innocent targets in order to provoke an overreaction by the “state”; thus (in theory) causing the radicalization of the population and helping to further the cause of ultimate revolution. Anarchism didn’t really go anywhere, but they bequeathed their tactical legacy to Lenin and the Bolsheviks, with results that “live” on to this day.
In fact I think the anarchists’ direct heritage can be seen every time the North Koreans display a public portrait of Lenin. His portrait does still get an occasional viewing up north, no? I think I’ve seen him show up once in a while in North Korean public venues, though admittedly he gets distinctly secondary billing as compared to the Great Leader and the Dear Leader.
i’d like to add that most of those bombers you see today are cowards. They can’t bear any prospect of deserved torture, so they take the easy way out, by killing themselves on the crime scene. Plus, 70 virgins are waiting for them on the other side. Take your own life. Doesn’t matter if you killed women, children, elderly people, people who have nothing to do with anything in the process. It was their fault they were there while your bomb went off, your ticket to a roomful of erotic virgins.
Yoon and Ahn were executed months later after being captured alive and beaten to shreds on the spot. Most definately tortured to get the admission that
Kim Ku ordered it.
They were never promised any virgins. Actually, they had to worry about what the Japanese would do to their kids and wife and relatives.
Life was so good under coloniasm in Korea, that one would wonder what drove people to shout out Korean Independence in about 15 years since Japanese occupation on this day, March 1st. Life was so much more advanced, one would wonder why some people will try to assasinate the Japanese Emperor, Japanese generals, Japanese politicians. Don’t believe the Australian guy. His parents and grandparent’s generations wiped out the Australian Aboriginal people.
Paul H. Info point: Lenin still has his statues and stamps in Vietnam, along with Marx and Engels. Spanish anarchism survived well into the Civil War there, and I once had an American professor who had served with them. (One of my heroes was Cipriano Mera, who commanded a division, yet ended his days as a bricklayer.)
Whether a man is a terrorist or a freedom fighter/resistor depends, I think, pretty much on the oppositional environment and their tactics. If the regime they are up against is one of absolute terror, I lean to the freedom fighter/resistance definition. If they are targeting the occupiers/regime, or those clearly associated with the occupiers/regime, then they remain patriots even if unarmed civilians (clearly associated with the occupiers/regime) are killed. If the government they are up against is one which is based upon the consent of the governed, then they are terrorists. If it is not based upon the consent of the governed, but is clearly maintaining a regime based upon law, then those who attack the unarmed are terrorists, though they may likewise be patriots. As you can see, this quickly becomes convoluted.
There’s been many a flawed patriot in this world, some of whom have employed terror to drive an insurmountable wedge between those who are loyal to the government/regime, and those who can be terrorized into giving the terrorists/insurgents their support. Perhaps we can characterize them as “nationalists” rather than “patriots”, but the dichotomy seems purely arbitrary. Ho Chi Minh was a patriot and an architect of terrorism, but only superficially a nationalist. Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Menachem Begin, and Pedro Albizu Campos (on a very minor scale) among others were patriots and terrorists, and nationalists in the sense that their political visions ended at the borders of their chosen countries.
It all boils down to the old saw: One man’s patriot is another man’s terrorist.
The Seoul Shinmun apparently is uncomfortable with freedom of speech and is unwilling to ask questions that beg to be asked. Considering the heinous actions taken by assassins and bombers nowadays, it is only natural that one should question the motives of anyone that freely tosses bombs and the justification for their actions. Asking honest questions is a healthy thing for any society.
I guess Koreans that toss verbal bombs at whole groups of people and threaten the reputation of Korea (Rhie Won-bok) do not warrant any discussion from the Seoul Shinmun either.
Absolutely right. The transformation of Bin Laden from a an anti-Soviet freedom fighter to anti-American terrorist is a case in point.
I don’t think there’s been any “transformation” of Bin Laden.
Those to whom Bin Laden was a “hero” when he was a rather minor, relatively unknown figure in the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan (as compared to the prominent, native Afghan figures such as Masood)– still find him a “hero” today.
Except that now he’s much more so. And Bin Laden hasn’t changed his original outlook — he has consistently maintained his goal of the restoration of the Arab caliphate.
bin laden’s different. Kills anyone in the vicinity. Mass murder of people who have nothing to do with anything. He’s the reason why the world will no longer tolerate his kind. Fuck that guy.
I hope SOMEONE’S not stupid enough to think or imply that Patriot Ahn’s rightful killing of that b*stard, Hirobumi Ito, was in any way similar to the actions of the terrorist, Osama bin Laden.
“I hope SOMEONE’S not stupid enough to think or imply that Patriot Ahn’s rightful killing of that b*stard, Hirobumi Ito, was in any way similar to the actions of the terrorist, Osama bin Laden.”
As pointed out here by several, the distinction between hero and terrorist is often a matter of perspective; however, I would be inclined to think that Ito was as fair a target as any, considering Korea’s annexation/occupation by the Japanese. Bin Laden is a mass murderer, but it is difficult to say the same of Yun or Ahn.
Having said that, these topics should still be open for debate, right?
Of course not… Bin Laden is, after all, a much more effective terrorist than Ahn could ever have hoped to have been.
At any rate, you really seem desperate for someone to bite on this one and call the guy a terrorist, but I doubt enough people really care enough about labeling a long-dead assassin one way or another (and at this point, if anyone did, it would just be to have the pleasure of pissing you off.) After all, what would really be the point?
At best, he was an amoral person who used questionable methods against what he perceived as the country oppressing a group of people he self-identified with (his ‘minjok’ if you will) – a man in a similar vein with Lolita Lebron, Yassir Arafat, or Gavrilo Princip. At worst, the man was a terrorist – a man in a similar vein with Lolita Lebron, Yassir Arafat, or Gavrilo Princip. After all, what the man was basically depends on your perspective, which is pretty much what most people here are saying.
Zonath, you bring up one good point. Lolita Lebron and her two companions bought one way tickets to Washington, and made no plans to escape. They fully expected to die in the act. Patriot Ahn’s choice of venue suggests the same. These were patriots, however bad the cause in Ms. Lebron’s case (an independent Puerto Rico governed by an autocratic dictator who admired Trujillo and the Spanish monarchy. See Luis Ferrao’s “Pedro Albuzi Campos y el nacionalismo puertorriqueno”.) Bin Laden didn’t bother to go himself, and watched the whole thing on CNN. (Much like Albizu’s reticence to join his troops in Jayuya during the Oct. 50 nationalist revolt.)
dogbertt,
That goes both ways, you know. Daniel Pearl was a big story in the US for a long time. Not much about the Korean guy. I didn’t hear much at least. I don’t think there would have been as much hoopla over the Korean guy even if he died before Pearl. It’s just because one is US citizen and the other is Korean citizen.
I think you are wrong, anyway, because Kim Sun-il’s beheading did get sympathetic U.S. coverage, just as Yoon’s death in Afghanistan is getting now.
But the crucial difference was not in the degree of reportage, it was that the Korean government did nothing to block websites showing beheadings of “foreigners” — it was only when a Korean man was beheaded that the Korean government decided that was something too awful to be seen.
Koreans need to recognize the fellow humanity of other people they share the planet with.
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