A foreign professor teaching modern Korean history for a summer program at Korea University has sparked controversy by calling Kim Ku, Yun Bong-gil and Lee Bong-chang “terrorists.”
According to the Joongang Ilbo, the professor — whose name I won’t print at this point even though it’s in the JoongAng piece — apparently made the offending remarks 20 minutes into a 1 hour, 30 minute lecture. In materials distributed by Internet prior to the lecture, he reportedly included a picture of Kim Gu under the title of “Terrorist Groups.”
Some of the students protested the description. One Boston College student attending the program said he protested that while the 9.11 terrorists killed innocent civilians, Kim Gu fought for independence, but the professor refused to take back his description.
An official with the program told the offended students that the professor was a man with much interest in Korea (in fact, I believe he’s a Korean Studies lecturer at SOAS) and fully qualified to lecture on Korean history.
The JoongAng Ilbo said the problem was that the students attending the lecture were Koreans studying overseas and gyopo who did not sufficiently understand modern Korean history. One Canadian gyopo student who attended the lecture even said there wasn’t a problem with the lecture, and wondered whether prohibiting the lecturer from calling the afore mentioned independence fighters “terrorists” wasn’t extreme nationalism.
About the controversy, a modern Korean history professor at Ehwa University, Jeong Byeong-jun, said calling Kim Gu, Yun Bong-gil and other independence fighters “terrorists” was nothing more than the view of Westerners, and that one must clearly differentiate terrorism, which targets innocent people, and the Korean independence movement.
Meanwhile, the foreign professor said he used the term “terrorist” because there was no appropriate term to express the armed independence movement. He said he recognized that he used a term that could provoke emotions and would be careful in the future.
Marmot’s Note: This is evidence of why it may be better to study Korean Studies outside of Korea than within — there’s still quite a few “no-go” areas (both on the left and right) that sometimes hinder honest discourse.
56 Comments
Doesn’t Cumings basically call Kim “The Assassin” Gu a terrorist in Korea’s Place in the Sun?
Did like the Korean profs response that it was just the foreigner’s point of view. I do get the impression that some of the biggest FROGS in Korea are the domestick Koreanists. It’s nice for once that their foreign stoolies aren’t toadying.
kim ku’s targets were the Japanese emperor, and Japanese generals.
You have trouble seeing parallel between the US delta force sent to kill Pablo Escobar and Kim Ku sending Ahn Jung Geun to kill Ito Hirobumi?
I must be blinded by Han.
it’s different. Sending assasins has been practiced universally in the East Asian world for centuries. Toyotomi Hideyoshi himself was subject to assassins. Chosun Queen was finished off by Japanese assassins. Many Chinese emperors and warlords faced assassins. Europe has a history of political assasins as well. None of the above had men taking out as many civilians as possible to make a point.
That is what the douchebags in the middle east are doing.
I’d certainly disagree with the professor. Terrorists use fear as a tool to gain advantage. I don’t see where these Korean Independence fighters were trying to create an environment of fear. They seemed to be carrying out measures to gain political power or set their adversaries into disadvantageous positions. I could be wrong. I just don’t see fear or terror as part of their agenda.
In his book, “Korea’s Place in the Sun,” Cumings wrote the following:
Kim Ku was a thug and a terrorist.
Look at the picture of Kim Ku from the Marmots link and imagine him showing up at your door saying I’ve come to kill you. I’d die laughing.
Don’t sound much like TERRORists to me; unless you consider terrorizing the Japanese military “Terrorism”. I don’t.
“I don’t see where these Korean Independence fighters were trying to create an environment of fear. ”
Well, it’s all relative, really. The assassination of a government official always causes fear and instability regardless of the assassin’s prime objective or whether he’s one of the good guys or not.
But, based on the little I know of him, I’d say he apparently was not a terrorist (I would think that army officers and government officials are fair game in time of war or when they impose dictatorial rule onto a foreign country…I would have done the same if I had been in his position). One thing for sure, the professor missed the boat by saying there wasn’t a better defined term. What about resistance movement and resistance fighters?
G Bevers, Thanks for the quote - I can’t find my copy.
Maddlew, That was hilarious - I kind of had the vision of him saying “… or I’ll chew your house down.”
“Look at the picture of Kim Ku from the Marmots link and imagine him showing up at your door saying I’ve come to kill you. I’d die laughing.”
I’d say the same about Kim Jong-il, at least if I didn’t know who he really was. (By the way, I saw the Dear Leader’s doppleganger yesterday squatting in the middle of Namdaemun Marketon changing money! No luck with any Kim Gu lookalikes, though a few years ago my dog used to enjoy doing his business outside “The Assassin’s” resting place near Hyochang Park.)
I don’t think it is that easy to differentiate between a terrorist and a freedom fighter. I had a friend who really enjoys Mel Gibson’s movie “The Patriot”, in particular the guerilla warfare tactics adopted by Mel and his friends in fighting the “evil” English. (Doesn’t matter whether it’s “Galipoli”, “Braveheart” or “The Patriot”, that guy may have a bigger problem with England than with Jews!) Strangely enough, when it comes to Iraqi insurgents - or the VC in Vietnam - using similar tactics in the face of asymetrical American military power, he isn’t quite as gung ho. (Goes as far as to claim that the enemy is “cheating”!)
I reckon that Kim Gu’s actions against Japanese military targets were legit. To what extent did he deal it out to fellow Koreans? (Not just to collaborators, but to those who didn’t happen to do things his way.)
Anyway, I wonder how much of a grasp this professor really has on Korea for him to refer to Kim as a terrorist. It may - or may not - be true, but as is the case with Dokdo, you must not get out too much if you don’t anticipate stirring up some shit. (Was that maybe his intention?)
I was watching an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 this week and I was surprised to hear Major Kira say something like “You’ve got to think like a terrorist” when speaking of her involvement in the resistance movement… Obviously, pre-9/11, and seemingly a lot less charged with meaning…
When the weak want to beat the strong, terror is often the best method. Assassination of important figures is a form of terrorism. Whether that key figure is a military or political leader or a building or innocent civilans…
WTC 9/11, The decimation of Dresden, suicide bombers, Hiroshima-Nagasaki… all of these are acts designed to strike a fatal blow in the minds of the enemy… terrorism.
I think I understand why they called him “The Assassin.”
One look at that picture and I almost died from laughing.
If Kim Ku restricted his violence to government leaders and rivals, then I wouldn’t call him a terrorist. JFK tried to have Castro assassinated, didn’t he? Given Korea’s unstable situation after WWII, I don’t think civilians would have felt terrorized by political assassinations the way people in Iraq are feeling terrorized by bloody market bombings and rampant kidnappings/tortures/murders of ordinary people. One may quarrel with Kim Ku’s methods of gaining power, methods practiced by his rivals, also, but he doesn’t fit the label of “terrorist.”
Definitely some weird confusion by this Professor, he doesn’t seem to have thought about this in advance — a “terrorist” seeks to cause fear and instability by threatening and killing CIVILIANS (as in the NYC 9/11 attack). Targeting opposing military personnel and political leaders who are conducting a war or occupation are certainly legitimate tactics of any military force or “underground” resistance movement.
By all standard definitions, these Koreans in question were legitimate “resistance fighters”, as they did not target Japanese civilians.
This mindless confusion by an American Professor probably results from the Bush Administration’s deliberate misuse of “terrorism” designations (for some really weird reason Bush just calls it just “terror” and the compliant media has followed along) — defining a terrorist as “anybody we don’t like and we think wishes us ill”.
oooops, maybe he isn’t “American”… OK, change that last to “a Western professor”…
“This mindless confusion by an American Professor probably results from the Bush Administration’s deliberate misuse of “terrorism” designations”
Yes, because we all know that Western academics look to GWB for intellectual guidance on sensitive political issues.
It’s not only Westerners who think this. I earned an MA in Korean Studies at Yonsei’s GSIS a few years ago and distinctly remember one of my professors, who was as Korean as Korean could be, telling us that “Kim Gu was a terrorist.”
gbevers, regarding #5,
Didn’t we already confirm SEVERAL TIMES now that Bruce Cumings, the same guy who once said the Korean War was started because the US-supported South Korean gov’t invaded North Korea? Cumings is NOT a reliable source.
And Kim Gu is no terrorist.
Calling Kim Gu a terrorist is like saying General Robert E. Lee was a worse enemy of the US than Osama bin Laden, and one could almost see this argument considering that General Lee was responsible for the killing of more Americans than bin Laden. Oh Lee didn’t kill civilians? Okay, let’s talk General Sherman of the North….serving the US gov’t. Look at all the terrible violence he did to Americans in the South in the name of the US govt. In the South (as in the southern states of the US) his name is synonymous with evil and terrorism and worse than bin Laden’s. In the North he’s a hero to many Americans as he is viewed as someone who helped save the American republic.
Let me see…..Kim Ku helped fight the Japanese colonizers when few other Koreans did so…..and the anti-Korean folks like gbevers call him a terrorist for his efforts. What SHOULD people have Kim Ku have done….sit on their asses and done nothing? At least they FOUGHT the Japanese. So what did they do to deserve being called terrorists, gbevers?
#7: WELL SAID!
#18,
Well, to be fair, he was right when he said that the US used an awful lot of napalm in North Korea, often killing civilians in the process. It’s also a well-known fact that Americans bombed North Korean hydro-electric dams, flooding fields and destroying the crops (creating starvation) in fields that were irrigated by the water flowing at that bottom of the dams. It also turns out that documents and eyewitness accounts have come to the surface that corroborate what he wrote about the massacre of 2000 prisoners in Taejon in July 1950.
http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/nogun2.htm
http://www.kimsoft.com/2001/abook12.htm
http://www.channel4.com/histor.....rtat4.html
Well, Koreans were fighting for their independence, but the Palestinians (or more specifically, the PLO) were/are just making bombs for fun, I guess.
Without even getting into who’s right or wrong about Palestine/Israel, no one can deny that these are people fighting for their country’s right to exist…hmmm…but that’s TOTALLY different from Korea, right?
In the end, if the Japanese colonial period had continued and a different country were writing history books here, Ahn Chung Geun would be a “terrorist.” But to a liberated Korea, he’s a national hero.
It’s not as much about definitions as who’s writing history and for what reason. And although “terrorist” is a strong and loaded word, to have students getting all up in arms about this is just ig’nant.
‘Cause Koreans were assasinatin’ mofos throughout the early colonial period; but now that everything’s clean and nice, we like to erase the radicalism of their actions. We see tawny PLO members blowing up buses, and that’s “killing innocent people.” Sure, maybe it is. But so is assassinating Americans in San Francisco who supported the Japanese occupation of Korea.
Bin Laden, I think, is crazy, but “terrorism” is a cheap and effective means to an end, even in its radical form. He wanted the US out of Saudi Arabia. We stayed. He kept pushing. And he succeeded in one of the most dastardly and dazzling displays of terrorism in history. He’s a fucker, but look at what he accomplished – serious social, financial, and political harm to the US, which we partially allowed to happen, hook, line, and sinker. 2 wars, shredding of civil liberties, social panic, billions of dollars of effect on the US economy for the price of flying lessons and box cutters.
The Palestinians have also engaged in violence to achieve their political goals, but I think their goals not too different than what Koreans wanted in 1909, when Ahn Chung Geun popped a cap in Ito Hirobumi in Manchuria.
So to draw these arbitrary lines in the sandbox is just silly – depending on what you mean and how you define things, especially in a relative context. I’m not saying Kim Gu was or wasn’t a terrorist, but I am sick of this obvious academic bullying that goes on about “right” terms and interpretations in Korean history, especially at a time when things were so complex. To make black-and-white proclamations about that time is a sign of 1) just how little one understands of the history of that period, and 2) what a vulgar, short-sighted nationalist you are. I can stomach nationalism if it’s politically useful, but don’t turn up your nose at arguments or evidence just because it doesn’t fit into the picture of what you’d like have been/be true about the world you live in.
you’re way off, Metro. I sense bias from your anti-Bush mindset.
History will judge Bush’s 8 years. If all of the above mentioned results in no further attacks on American soil, it was all worth it.
And of course, I have clear bias from my pro-Bush mindset.
Palestine exists just fine. They just want the western neighbors to leave, as in genocide. And, they’re probably 2nd class citizens.
Korea existed under Japanese occupation, too. But as 2nd class citizens to serve the empire.
Metro,
So anyone who fights for his country’s independence is in the same category as a Palestinian who builds a bomb to kill innocent Israeli citizens??? (And not all Palestinians are terrorists, btw, any more than all Israelis are anti-Arab xenophobes with a dream of taking Arab land for a Greater Israel).
Please explain, Metro, exactly how Kim Ku MIGHT have been a terrorist by fighting the Japanese military colonizers that were IN KOREA? And why shouldn’t Korean students be up in arms if one of their heroes is labeled a “terrorist” by a foreign teacher? I’d be offended if some native Korean, or any other foreigner, came to the US and called Abraham Lincoln a backwoods hick and a dictator who trounced on the rights of southern Americans (how dare he take away their right to secede from the Union and own slaves!).
Furthermore, Metro and everyone, wjk and I may sort of be on the same page in terms of our views on Kim Ku….however, I am no fan of George W. Bush. Let me just say that.
you can easily distinguish us by the “W”.
The problem w/ this ‘news’ story isn’t that someone thinks Kim was a terrorist- a topic debated by Korean historians regularly- what is disturbing is that it ever made it into a ‘news’paper- a term used loosely at best in this swamp of nationalistic hatred.
God forbid an academic from overseas be allowed a personal opinion…don’t like his opinion, drop his class- not call in the VANK-like thugs..er, not thugs… noble defenders of the great land of Han (I appologize for the previous indiscretion. I now realize that thinking VANKers are thugs is valid reason for my forced departure from this utopia of free expression).
But so is assassinating Americans in San Francisco who supported the Japanese occupation of Korea.
That was one of the first things that popped into my head too. Hard to find anything on the net about it in English, but there’s info here in Korean. Interesting to see that Durham Stephen’s killers are memorialized as bronze busts at the local Korean hall in San Francisco.
Firstout, read what I wrote in #23:
“I’d be offended if some native Korean, or any other foreigner, came to the US and called Abraham Lincoln a backwoods hick and a dictator who trounced on the rights of southern Americans (how dare he take away their right to secede from the Union and own slaves!).”
Korea doesn’t have the monopoly on iconizing its great historical figures. Got it?
Is Kim Ku a great historical figure? This seems to be the issue of discussion. Lincoln, his good, his bad have been discussed openly around the world.
Whether or not Kim Ku is seem favorably or not, is not really the issue here. It seems to be one of freedom of expression in the classroom. As mentioned, it seems to be permissable if a Korean academic comes to the same conclusions as the foreign academic, its just not acceptable that the foreign academic said something less than flattering about Kim Ku.
kwon,
Have Lincoln’s good points really been discussed….by visiting lecturers from Korea (and other countries) at that? I mean I know Americans in the southern states who have called Lincoln (informally and not in the classroom) a military dictator who trounced on southern rights. But I think it would be a whole different matter if a Korean came to the US as a lecturer on US history and taught that about Lincoln. I personally would want to kick that lecturer back to Korea. Why? Perhaps it’s in part because I don’t want to believe this about America’s greatest President who set the African-Americans slaves free (at least in the Confederate States and not in the slave-holding states that stayed with the Union).
Kim Ku’s exploits clearly do not fit the definition of terrorism (unless I missed something, very possible), but he also went after other Koreans, so “criminal” probably does fit along with “freedom fighter,” but not replacing it. The professor was being sloppy and, being a Korean Studies professor, should have known better.
On Korean Studies; in the U.S. one might disagree with the professor and then there would be discussion or even a debate – the very fact that it’s in the national media in Korea underscores the Canadian Kyopo’s comment about, “extreme nationalism.”
On the definition of terrorism:
That’s just as inaccurate as the professor’s application of “terrorist.” If you want to know how US Code defines it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.....ted_States
The U.S. DoD has, IMO, a better one:
JK, before I could respond to your analogy, Richardson spelled out what I was trying to get across. I might not like someone disparaging Lincoln, but I wouldn’t get the newspaper involved! Academia is great because it allows for different viewpoints, and provides a venue for debate on their validity. Not liking someone’s viewpoint is only basis for repatriation in the minds of ultra-nationalist bigots.
I have to agree with #30. An academic should be presenting balanced, informed analysis, and from the article in the JoongAng Ilbo, I assume he hasn’t. If the newspaper has given us an accurate account and the professor just lugged out the term ‘terrorist’ with scant regard to unpacking the term in relation to today’s contextual/contemporary usage, then he has been unprofessional. If I went to the US and gave a talk at some university in Texas about the “terrorist” Bush and the “terrorism” he has inflicted on innocent people in Afghanistan - justified perhaps on account of the hundreds of citizens murdered by US troops - not too mention the thousands killed in Iraq as a result of the US-led invasion - without an adequate debate on the definitions of those terms, then I would should not only expect an emotional backlash, but I should also expect some criticism for poor work.
One of the academic’s jobs is to present appropriate terms to help in the understanding of complex isues, and if, as we are told, he couldn’t think of one to describe Kim Ku and others, then he gave a poor lecture.
First out, and your comment at #26.
Of course this is news. Kim Gu is a major figure in Korean history and terrorism is a major contemporary issue. That combined makes a sotry. You have clearly never worked in the media.
As the definitions of terrorism posted by Richardson make clear, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Terrorism is simply the use of extreme measures to advance a political goal by a weaker party. But “good guys” are never called terrorists, and noone refers to themselves as terrorists.
Had the Japanese won WW2 and continued to rule Korea, Kim Gu would probably be known today as a terrorist.
If this was a lecture on terrorism, and what defines terrorism, by labeling Kim Gu a terrorist the Prof may simply have sought to challenge the students to think more deeply about the meaning of terrrorism. Or, perhaps he wanted them to understand that in 1940, Kim Gu would have been viewed by the authorities as a terrorist. It’s hard to judge without knowing the context of the lecture.
#19 JK: “…Calling Kim Gu a terrorist is like saying General Robert E. Lee was a worse enemy of the US than Osama bin Laden, and one could almost see this argument considering that General Lee was responsible for the killing of more Americans than bin Laden…”
A doubtful analogy as I don’t think that 100 years from now Osama will be held in the same regard by Americans of the time, as was Gen Lee 100 years after the end of the US Civil War.
If you are going to seek out analogies, I recommend you stick to the context of the times. (To be fair, you’ve got plenty of company in inappropriate political analogies; the memory of Bill Clinton apologizing for the medieval Crusades still makes me groan while holding my head like Quasimodo).
At the time of the Civil War loyal pro-Union Americans reserved most of their opprobrium for the President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis (he was the only leading Confederate who was never eventually pardoned by the US government, at least during his lifetime).
The label “terrorist” wasn’t around back then, at least in its modern context (dating I suppose from the worldwide anarchist movement of the late 19th century). Ironically, one American who many Americans of the Civil War era (both Confederate and Union) would have agreed deserved the label “terrorist” was John Brown (for his deeds in Kansas and his attack on the Harper’s Ferry arsenal, which reads just like a modern-day Al Queda attack to my mind).
Ironically, Robert E Lee was in the US Army at the time (October 1859) and he was dispatched to Harper’s Ferry to command the US troops that assaulted and captured the engine roundhouse where John Brown and the remnants of his raiding party had holed up. Brown was hanged later that year and Robert E. Lee would be most distressed at your equating of him with a “terrorist” like John Brown.
In the US soldiers don’t originate political policy, they follow it. Place the political blame for the deaths of the Civil War on John Brown, Jefferson Davis, Lincoln, or whoever else in politics you like — but not on the officers of the pre-Civil War US Army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)
“It’s hard to judge without knowing the context of the lecture.”
Very true, but anybody with any experience in Korean classrooms - or knowledge of Korea in general - should have been able to anticipate a potential shit storm like this one. Not all problems that one might encounter in the classroom are avoidable, but a teacher can try to A) anticipate possible problems, and B) how to deal with a problem should one arise. Simple common sense - hardly unique to teaching.
Sensitive issues shouldn’t be avoided at all costs, but they need to be handled with care, especially if one assumes the audience might include the odd fervent nationalist (possibly hearing this version of history - from a foreigner no less - for the first time) and/or non-native speakers of English.
But, you’re right- without knowing exactly what - and how - went down there, we have an incomplete story on which to base our judgements.
Let’s not be too hard on the Koreans here.
How many Americans would even go to a lecture on American history if a Korean was giving it?
“Meanwhile, the foreign professor said he used the term “terrorist” because there was no appropriate term to express the armed independence movement.”
Double-standards. I mean it’s now “politically incorrect” to call Islamic terror groups in the ME (like Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban) as “terrorists” but it’s okay to call the Korean Independance Army and people like Kim Gu as terrorists? WTF?
Obviously he wasn’t following the Reuters style book, or else he’d have called the guy a “militant.”
“Double-standards. I mean it’s now “politically incorrect” to call Islamic terror groups in the ME (like Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban) as “terrorists” but it’s okay to call the Korean Independance Army and people like Kim Gu as terrorists? WTF?”
I don’t think it’s politically incorrect to call the terrorist groups you mentioned, “terrorists”. In the US, Canada, and Britain (to name just three countries) Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban are officially regarded as terrorist organizations. There isn’t a lot of ambiguity. (In fact, all three of the aforementioned countries are fighting a war against the Taliban.) Some media might refer to them as “militants”, but it wouldn’t exactly be unheard of for them to be called “terrorists” too. There are elements that are sympathetic to the causes of these groups who might not agree with the term “terrorist”, but they would probably fall in the minority.
I think that a different term would have been more appropriate for Kim Gu. The article seems to suggest that referring to Kim Gu a terrorist isn’t politically correct in Korea in 2007.
@WJK, Amen to #2 and #3. Kim Koo was no terrorist.
@Paul H. Robert E Lee et all may not have been terrorists, but they were traitors. And they did something that John Walker Lindh never did, they bore arms against their country with pre-meditation. Of course, the civil war also gave us the Quantrills and Red Legs of the Missouri border wars, and they definitely met the definition of terrorists (and were therefore subject to execution upon capture). Be assured that within certain Middle Eastern and South Asian societies, Osama Bin Laden will be held in as much reverence as Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
“The JoongAng Ilbo said the problem was that the students attending the lecture were Koreans studying overseas and gyopo who did not sufficiently understand modern Korean history”
..they “did not sufficiently understand” because they escaped before getting brainwashed by the nationalist education?
“..they “did not sufficiently understand” because they escaped before getting brainwashed by the nationalist education?”
No doubt. That and the fact that education here doesn’t focus enough on history (and that one’s understanding of it all comes down to choosing a, b, c, or d on the test). Unfortunately, the US and Canada also generally allow students graduate from high school with a minimal exposure to history. Sad.
Kim Gu NOT a terrorist? Have a lpok at three Korean history texts plucked at random off the shelf:
From three more or less mainstream histories picked of the shelf at random:
Andrew Nahm, Korea: Tradition and Transformation (315) -
“The Korean Independence Party [of Kim Ku) carried out terrorist activities against the Japanese. Yi Pong-ch’ang, one of its members, attempted to assassinate the Japanese emperor at the Sakurada Gate in Tokyo, and another member, Yun Pong-gil, threw bobms at the Japanese attending a celebration of the Japanese emperor’s birthday at Hungk’ou Park in Shanghai on April 29, 1932, wounding many prominanent Japanese such as Shigemitsu Mamoru, General Shirakawa Yoshinori, and Admiral Nomura Kichisaburo. Shirakawa and another Japanese died of wounds.”
Ki-Baik Lee, A New History of Korea (365-66):
Whereas the independence movement in Manchuria was carried on mainly through armed resistance, there were those Korean exiles in China who adopted terrorist tactics in their fight against Japan. The best known organizations of this sort were Kim Won-Bong’s Uiyoltan (Righteous Brotherhood) and Kim Ku’s Aeguktan ( Patriots Corps). The bombing and assassination plots carried out by these groups were almost too numerous to count, but the best known are the terrorist attacks on the offices of the Oriental Development Company and other targets in Seoul in 1926 by Na Sok-chu of the Uiyoltan, the attempt to assassinate the Japanese emperor by hand grenade in 1932 by Yi Pong-ch’ang (1908-1932) of the Aeguktan, and the bomb set off by Yun Pong-gil, also a member of the Aeguktan, in Shanghai’s Hung-kuo Park in 1932, killing or wounding a number of high-ranking Japanese military and civil officials.”
Eckert, Lee, Lew, Robinson & Wagner, Korea Old and New: A History:
(324) “The Korean exile movement in China had remained factionalized through the 1930s. Kim Ku trained military forces and organized assassinations and bombings in China and Korea proper.”
And Japanese weren’t Kim Ku’s only targets. He also arranged the assassination of Song Chin-U, editor of the Tonga Ilbo and leader of the Korea Democratic Party in 1945 (351) and is likely to also have been involved in the elimination of the moderate leftist leader Yo Un-hyong.
#43 Lirelou:
“…@Paul H. Robert E Lee et all may not have been terrorists, but they were traitors…”
Well, as a matter of opinion that’s arguable. Back then the issue of primacy of loyalty to the state vs to the US government was a matter of genuine dispute in the minds of a significant proportion of our population.
But as a matter of legal fact Lee’s not a traitor. He evidently filled out the form applying for the “ironclad” oath, but it was never formally administered. I vaguely remembered some sort of formal pardon for him a few administrations back, but I wasn’t aware of these particular circumstances until I looked them up just now:
////….Lee applied for, but was never granted, the postwar amnesty offered to former Confederates who swore to renew their allegiance to the United States. After he filled out the application form, it was delivered to the desk of Secretary of State William H. Seward, who, assuming that the matter had been dealt with by someone else and that this was just a personal copy, filed it away until it was found decades later in his desk drawer. Lee took the lack of response to mean that the government wished to retain the right to prosecute him in the future.
Lee’s example of applying for amnesty encouraged many other former members of the Confederacy’s armed forces to accept restored U.S. citizenship. In 1975, Lee’s full rights of citizenship were posthumously restored by a joint U.S. Congressional resolution effective June 13, 1975. At the 5 August 1975, signing ceremony of the pardon, President Gerald R. Ford acknowledged the discovery of Lee’s oath of allegiance by Elmer Oris Parker, an employee of the National Archives in 1970.[40]///
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee
I’ve ceased trying to comprehend whatever coherence there may be in the Bush administration’s policy toward “detainees”, but as far as I’m concerned Lindh should have been tried for treason promptly by the long-awaited band and promised military commission and shot.
Failing the national will to administer that particular punishment, I see any jail term as inadequate; he should have instead been formally stripped of his US citizenship (along with the other US citizens, such as what’s his name dirty bomber and the one or two pro-forma US born Saudis) and deported back to the Taliban or Pakistan or wherever, where they could have the opportunity to go back on the battlefield if they desired.
Thus providing us with another shot at them.
The professor strikes back in an interview with OhMyNews.
And the Joongang won’t go down without a fight .
Just reading through the two articles, it seems obvious which one held itself to higher journalistic standards.
Now that Pak Yol looked like a bad-ass. In fact, the picture almost looked post-mortum.
Firstout, regarding #33:
“I might not like someone disparaging Lincoln, but I wouldn’t get the newspaper involved! Academia is great because it allows for different viewpoints, and provides a venue for debate on their validity. Not liking someone’s viewpoint is only basis for repatriation in the minds of ultra-nationalist bigots.”
What’s in the national news is anything that hits a sensitive spot with the nation’s public. I could see it making the news in America if some professor from Korea or Pakistan or wherever, teaching at some top American school, that Osama bin Laden was a freedom fighter or that George Washington was a terrorist…or that Lincoln was a cruel military dictator who crushed the rights of southern Americans. You say academia is great because it allows for different viewpoints….but do you REALLY think it would be acceptable for a foreign professor in America to teach about Osama bin Laden, freedom fighter??? or Lincoln, military dictator??? Get real.
Lirelou, WELL-SAID in #43!!!!
“do you REALLY think it would be acceptable for a foreign professor in America to teach about Osama bin Laden, freedom fighter??? or Lincoln, military dictator??? Get real.”
60 years after Bin Laden’s death, quite possibly yes. On Lincoln, no doubt yes. The comparison doesn’t hold because foreign professors are not at all rare in the US.
This kerfuffle, telling as it is, did not belong in the national press.
“60 years after Bin Laden’s death, quite possibly yes. On Lincoln, no doubt yes.”
I totally disagree. I cannot see a foreign (meaning non-American) professor being able to avoid a storm of controversy if he taught that bid Laden was a freedom fighter (even 60 years from now) or that Lincoln was a military dictator who trounced on the rights of southern Americans.
“The comparison doesn’t hold because foreign professors are not at all rare in the US.”
???? What’s your point? If a professor is accredited and speaks English, among basic qualifications, he can be a professor in the US. Likewise, if a professor is accredited and speaks and writes Korean, among basic qualification, he can be a professor in Korea. But then there is standard of living, salaries, and other benefits among the various factors to consider before a professor from, say Poland, makes a move to Korea versus the US to teach at a university.
What’s in the national news is anything that hits a sensitive spot with the nation’s public. I could see it making the news in America if some professor from Korea or Pakistan or wherever, teaching at some top American school, that Osama bin Laden was a freedom fighter or that George Washington was a terrorist…or that Lincoln was a cruel military dictator who crushed the rights of southern Americans. You say academia is great because it allows for different viewpoints….but do you REALLY think it would be acceptable for a foreign professor in America to teach about Osama bin Laden, freedom fighter??? or Lincoln, military dictator??? Get real.
Whether Kim Ku was a “terrorist” or not, I do not know nor really care. I’m probably one of those overseas gyopo who do not sufficiently understand modern Korean history, as the Joongang Ilbo noted.
But I think what is clear is this academic’s intentions. Creating controversy is certainly one way to generate publicity and make a name for oneself in the academic world. Maybe he fancies himself the foreign maverick who’s out to stir up some shit in the insular Korean academic world and spark debate.
If a Korean academic were to laud Bin Laden as an honorable freedom fighter in an American venue, as suggested by your reverse analogy, I’d think he’d simply be dismissed as a crackpot idiot and someone to be largely ignored or avoided. That’s what the Korean needs to do with these crackpots instead of focusing more attention on it, which is what the crackpot wants.
BTW, in 1st century Judea, there was a group of militants called the Zealots who advocated the overthrow of Imperial Roman rule through the use of violence. They were largely condemned for their blind militarism by the Talmud and was said to have engaged in a “reign of terror” by killing Jewish collaborators to Rome.
That should have read:
They were largely condemned for their blind militarism by the Talmud and according to Josephus, was said to have engaged in a “reign of terror” by killing Jewish collaborators to Rome.
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