A committee responsible for compiling an encyclopedia of colonial era collaborators (chinil inmyeong sajeon pyeonchan wiwonhoe) has released a list of 3,090 persons it intends to include in the final product. The committee got started in 2001 but the Institute for Research of Collaborationist Activities began working on the project in 1999, so the list is the fruit of seven years of effort.
It was the government and the National Assembly that should have been doing this project. Finding collaborators and clarifying the basis for defining them as such is the beginning and the end of straightening out our distorted history. There is no way individuals included in the encyclopedia could ever wash away their dishonor. Therefore the responsibility for the project is too big to be left to a non-governmental entity. It is a negligence of duty on the part of the government and the National Assembly for leaving the encyclopedia to private researchers.
Two things have kept Korea confined since Liberation. One is the Division, and the other is the failure to settle the issue of collaboration. Our society was once unable to move forward because it was trapped, and that also made the growth of democracy impossible. The Division turned the Korean peninsula into an ideological battlefield. Collaborators used that as leverage and in collusion with the American Military Government (AMC) emerged as the ruling group in South Korea. When the Republic of Korea government began they suppressed elements that had fought against the Japanese and did so in the name of anti-communism, which they also invoked when they did away with their political enemies.
You can see that in the fact that a president, two prime ministers, three Supreme Court chief justices, and as many as twenty cabinet ministers had been collaborators, people who under Japanese rule had been high-level bureaucrats in the colonial government, police, Japanese army officers, and prosecutors or judges. They maintained and strengthened their hold as the establishment, opening the way to military dictatorship for Park Chung Hee and those behind his coup, and by backing up Chun Doo Hwan and the "New Military."
The reason the work of clarifying collaboration activities never got anywhere even after those who had led the way in the democracy movement came to power was because in the 60 years since liberation the collaborators have established roots that run deep and wide. That includes the founders of the Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, and Donga Ilbo, all known as the "massive media."
The current government was active in seeking to clarify the truth about collaborationist activities, but the bill calling for an inquiry into pro-Japanese activities it submitted to the National Assembly was sabotaged by elements in the ruling and main opposition parties. By the time it passed it was in tethers. Immediately before it took effect last July the ruling Uri Party submitted a bill that would have revised it to make it better but that proposed legislation is still sleeping in the Assembly.
There is something we all must affirm now that the preliminary list of historical figures to be studied has been released. The project must not be about judging any specific group in our society. You cannot overcome the past with hate and judgement alone. The biggest goal of restoring the truth is to make sure our unfortunate history is never repeated. It is also essential for healing the conflict and discord caused by the distortions of the truth. Let us make it clear that the restoration of history that we seek is for the sake of placating anger and a better future.
Grand National Party (GNP) chairwoman Park Geun Hye reportedly responded by saying that it is "history and the people will judge" her father, former president Park Chung Hee. We would like to see Park and other politicians support the activities of the committee that is doing their work for them, because that is what the people want.
The Hankyoreh, 30 August 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Restore the Truth to Overcome an Unhappy History |
