<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2719.2200" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><SPAN class=900304214-09092002>I'm rather sympathetic to two of Aidan's
points: comparisons and a concern with the future. As a footnote to Prof.
Tikhonov's wise and informative post, I might add that the Korean Historical
Association recently collaborated (no pun intended) with the World History
Association to hold a joint conference at SNU. The KHA was celebrating its
50th anniversary and the WHA was holding its 11th annual conference. I
don't know, but I would doubt that the event was a "shotgun wedding" dreamed up
in recent months by government image makers to fit the World Cup agenda, since
negotiations over bringing the WHA to Korea had been going on for about
three years. I neglected to ask when and how the KHA became involved,
but it may have been only in the past year. Many panels were bi-lingual
(Korean and English); there was simultaneous interpretation for all plenary
sessions; and a number of papers, panels, plenary addresses, and
round-tables discussed the content and direction of teaching on "world
history." At nearly all such sessions, Korean teachers reported on the
local scene</SPAN><SPAN class=900304214-09092002>. (I might add that they
were greatly distressed by the recent watering down of world history in the
national curriculum.) Naturally, there was not as much discussion as one
would have liked regarding Korean history in comparison with other histories,
but it may be part of the responsibility of historians living and working
outside of Korea to introduce comparisons, since we do have an advantage in that
regard. Alas, I saw few foreign Korean historians there. In general,
</SPAN><SPAN class=900304214-09092002>there were occasional awkward moments
when national historians sat down with global systems theorists
and comparative historians, and this last was in evidence in the
title of the conference: "Korea and the World in History". Nevertheless, I
was extremely pleased to see such an influential historical body in Korea
embracing an organisation whose first premise is anti-nationalist.</SPAN><SPAN
class=900304214-09092002> This can only bode well for the
future.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=900304214-09092002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=900304214-09092002>The program can be seen at: <A
href="http://www.history2002.or.kr">http://www.history2002.or.kr</A></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=900304214-09092002><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=900304214-09092002>Jay Lewis</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
class=900304214-09092002>_________________________ </SPAN></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid">
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
Koreanstudies-admin@koreaweb.ws [mailto:Koreanstudies-admin@koreaweb.ws]<B>On
Behalf Of </B>Vladimir Tikhonov<BR><B>Sent:</B> 09 September 2002
13:08<BR><B>To:</B> Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws<BR><B>Subject:</B> RE: [KS]
History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE
syndrome<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>Judging from my experience of contacts with the
people from the "headquarters" of "yOksa ch'Ongsan", The Minjok munje
yOn'guso, there is no "unified" narrative of "clean" past there. Those who
invoke the motif of "settling the scores with the past", seem to represent, at
least several very different political/cultural agendas. There are
"traditional" nationalists who seek to further "glorify" the exiles'
"independence struggle" (Kim WOnung, the MP who leads the "ch'Ongsan" campaign
in parliament, seemingly belongs to this category - he has grown up in the
clan with strong "hangil minjok undong" credentials). But there are also the
moderate academic progressives: the people who are academically interested in
tracing down the links between the Late Choson, colonial and South Korean
post-colonial elites, but certainly are not going to "pugwan ch'amsi" the
"collaborators". Serious scholars, like Ha WOnho, and popular history writers,
like Yi DOgil, seem to be closer to this direction of work. Then, there are
certainly some left radicals, who seek to undermine South Korea's ruling
elite's national(ist) credentials through playing up the question of the
colonial roots of "their" wealth and power (in some cases, like that of Yi
Hwech'ang, the colonial roots are only too obvious...). But this last group's
influence seems to be rapidly diminishing recently, given the general trend of
questioning leftist nationalist meta-narrative in S.K. academia (look, for
example, how An ByOngjik, former "minjung" theoretic, changed his views
recently). All in all, the use of one and the same semi-Confucian slogan of
"YOksa ch'Ongsan" should not obscure the diversity and huge internal
contradictions inside the movement. The worst mistake foreign "Korean experts"
usually make is to lump "all them" together on ethnic (and, I feel, in many
cases unconsciously even on racial) grounds...<BR><BR>V.Tikhonov
<BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>