[KS] History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE syndrome
Afostercarter at aol.com
Afostercarter at aol.com
Mon Sep 9 06:10:09 EDT 2002
Dear friends and foes (equally dear), 9 September 2002
I'm sorry to have stirred such a hornet's nest, and from people whom I like
and respect. Some of the responses take me back to the knockabout tone of the
old open List, which (if I recall) was closed down for brawling, among other
reasons. For my part, although I was avowedly polemical, I didn't write ad
hominem, or not intendedly. So it's a little galling to be kicked quite so
hard. But as ever, I take comfort from Kim Su-jang: komumyon huida hago, etc.
Yet I must take the blame for generating only heat instead of light, perhaps
by one or two ill-chosen words. So I apologize for offending anyone. (But no
Koreans, it seems, interestingly.) At the same time, I stand by my main
substantive points - which were (1) the virtues of comparativism, and (2) the
harmful effect of kwago ch'ongsan on present politics and future-oriented
policy-making - which went largely ignored. So let me have another try, if I
may.
1. It should go without saying, but evidently doesn't, that I claim no
authority for my views. This is just my opinion, based on 20 years experience
of what I conceive as a hermeneutic encounter with a great nation and its
wonderful people; from which I have learnt more than I can ever repay. For
that matter, I see this list - and others like it - as the nearest we can get
on this earth to a Habermasian ideal speech situation: a democratic dialogue,
in which all may take part. Going round impugning each others' motives
doesn't seem to me helpful, or fair.
2. Perhaps "grown-up" was a red rag. But what is "colonial" about the
comparative method? My point is that one possible way forward for kwago
ch'ongsan might be for Koreans to look more at other nations' histories and
historiographies. When you do that, you find that, for whatever reason, in
some countries this whole area is more emotionally freighted; to the point
where objective academic enquiry is impeded. (Perhaps Carter Eckert might
bear me out?)
Ireland is a comparable case, which I cited simply because I happen to know
it: identity as such is not the point. Yet Ireland now has a backlash against
its own long dominant versions of kwago ch'ongsan, as in the satirical phrase
MOPE. In my view that is healthy, because at the end of the day, when every
last suppressed voice has (of course) been heard - the strictly academic
debates will and should of course continue forever - then the politics of a
certain kind of endlessly emphasizing victimhood arguably has negative
effects. Or so many Irish now argue, and I agree with them. Is it colonial to
suggest Korea might learn from this?
Whereas elsewhere, the past, even the recent past, simply is not seen as
sensitive in this way. This, in my view, is beneficial both academically and
for policy-making. You may disagree with this point, but why on earth should
I be called a colonialist for making it? Or for noting that Tanzania, which
on almost all indices of development is way behing South Korea, might in this
one criterion at least - a relaxed attitude to history - perhaps have
something to teach?
3. On confusion: perhaps I am a victim of Oxford philosophy, and its view
that at least some problems can be solved by clarifying the meaning of words.
To me "cleansing history" makes as much sense as "romancing toothbrush". That
verb and that noun simply do not go together. History is not a thing that can
be cleansed; cleansing is not a thing you can do to history. This is a
category mistake. Ergo, if people set about a project which is intrinsically
impossible, it is not surprising if they find no resolution, because the task
is ultimately incoherent.
This is NOT to say - do I really have to add? it appears I do - either that
people who do this are stupid, or that the Korean history of the past century
is not full of injustice and pain. The point is, rather, what are the
appropriate procedures for righting wrongs and coming to terms with the past.
Revising (not cleansing) history can be part of this, but it mainly needs
political, juridical, social or psychological means. Above all, what is the
aim? The one true account of contentious events, which there will never be?
Or rather a political closure, whereby a nation agrees to close this chapter
and move on? In my humble view, it is better to seek the latter.
4. On compression: I was trying to be brief; and I mainly write journalism
these days, so I may have some bad habits. But for shame, Frank, to call me
not only a colonialist, but a Japanese colonialist to boot, for the hideous
crime of identifying conflict as a problem in Korean politics, and favouring
reconciliation. Not only is this (factionalism, brinkmanship, han) a staple
of the political science literature, but I know literally not one Korean who
is not dismayed with the current state of politics in Seoul. Far from
presumimg to sit in judgment as an outsider, on this I am simply echoing
everything I hear from and read by Koreans.
5. To Mike: Sure, anyone is free to do what they like, so some can and will
continue to write "mononarratives". But others are entitled to query this,
hopefully without being accused of "cant" for so doing. Absolutely, we must
add the previously repressed voices to the ledger. Perhaps I am too hasty in
assuming that in all three of the main battle zones - the colonial era,
civil war, democratization - this has now been done; with a vengeance,
sometimes.
But that's my point. What is the aim and spirit of kwago ch'ongsan? To
supplement the old version as another viewpoint? Or to discard it as false?
Maybe to defeat it, even punish it? To me these are absolutely crucial
questions, both in general and for Korea now. Why is it cant, or
self-righteous, to argue for pluralism and tolerance on epistemological and
political grounds alike? Mononarratives are dangerous, not least when there
is only one official school textbook. What do we want young Koreans to learn
in the C21 about C20 Korea, and the big 3 cruxes in particular? Surely: all
the facts, all the perspectives, and a spirit of understanding to those who
sided with Park or Chun or Kims YS or DJ; who chose the ROK or the DPRK; yes,
even those who "collaborated" as well as those who resisted. What's wrong
with that?
6. I am sorry to have so annoyed Prof Sasse. Also baffled, since I agree with
all his points on method, and I wonder why he assumed I didn't. Of course
history is constantly rewritten. But whether this is healthy depends on how
it is done. Leonid Petrov makes the distinction very well. Reconsider, of
course - but not liquidate. Nor manipulate, nor seek political victory.
On historiography - big fun, yes - I was brought up on the German
Methodenstreit debates. In their terms, might one suggest that kwago ch'ong
san is too idiographic: too preoccupied with Korea's particularities; and
that a way forward may be nomothetic, ie to take Korea as one case among many
and compare it to other colonialisms, other civil wars, other struggles for
democracy? For suggesting this, do I really cause a shiver and merit instant
deletion?
7. Finally, perhaps my problem - apart from some expressions - is that I am
coming from the future rather than the past, and mainly from outside the
academy. My starting point is the tasks facing Korea and Koreans going
forward. As it happens, each of the three big cruxes of kwago ch'ongsan
corresponds to an ongoing and quite urgent political challenge:
· how to reconcile different factions and forces in South Korean politics;
· how to reconcile North and South Korea;
· how to forge better ties between both Koreas and Japan
My case is that each and all of these vital tasks will be served better by an
approach to the past which mainly involves letting go of it, distancing it,
and desensitizing it, than one which reploughs endlessly over now well-tilled
but forever contentious ground, thereby perpetuating controversy and
conflict. I may be quite wrong or ill-informed on all this. But it does not
seem a self-evidently stupid view, still less anti-Korean to suggest that
conciliation is a better goal than correction. In my doubtless too terse and
pointed way, I was only seeking to help.
Aidan
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 mobile: +44(0) 7970 741307
fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 Email: afostercarter at aol.com
_______
Subj: Re: [KS] History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE
syndrome
Date: 9/8/02 07:50:34 GMT Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:hoffmann at fas.harvard.edu">hoffmann at fas.harvard.edu</A>
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Highly interesting posting, in a way ...
>My sense is that some Koreans essentialize History (capital H)
>through a mindset which, by confusing many things, guarantees that
>none of them ever get resolved.
You tell "some Koreans" that they are "confusing many things" and
therefore are unable to get things resolved (read: to write their own
history). Hmm...
>For instance: coming to Korea from Africa, it puzzled me how hard it
>is to have a grown-up discussion about colonialism here.
You are seriously telling Koreans not to be "grown up" and Africans
to be "grown up"? You are in a position to tell both? How did you get
there? Is your judgment based on the hundreds of years of British
colonialism or on the hundreds of years having been colonized? Why
and how are you bringing your own identity into this discussion --
what does it for the credibility or your argument? The British but
not so British scholar, presenting something that sounds to my ears
like an amazingly intact colonial approach while claiming your
"colonized" status at the same time .... does that help to make your
"argument" valid?
>Endlessly refighting yesterday's battles means wounds never heal.
>Why not close the book?
>In all of the above periods, some Koreans did things for which other
>Koreans cannot forgive them. (Another question: Why does Asia's
>second most Christian nation find forgiveness so difficult?)
Wow! Very condensed writing. Koreans are bad Christians as well ...
okay, sure. And Koreans are not united, as they cannot forgive each
other ... the old colonial Japanese argument, sure, I eat that too.
And they don't seem to know what they are doing anyway (useless
"refighting yesterday's battles"), so you (we -- the Korea
specialist?) need to tell them.
Regards,
Frank
--
______________________________________________________
Frank Hoffmann
http://KoreaWeb.ws * Fax: (415) 727-4792
______________
Subj: Re: [KS] History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE
syndrome
Date: 9/9/02 01:23:10 GMT Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:mrobinso at indiana.edu">mrobinso at indiana.edu</A>
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear List:
If I may chime in on Historical accounts again. It might be inconvenient for
historians of Korea to deal with or respond to those who see history with the
capital H as in the final truth.....but it is simply an occupational hazard.
If we self righteously claim that we see history as multiple voices then why
the cant against some Korean historians that might want to distill their
version into a single mononarrative.....against all reason. Let them.
AFterall isn't it just another of the many voices and narratives that history
produces. In my reading of kwago chongsan there is a reasonable meaning of
balancing accounts.....whereby previously repressed voices are recorded on
the leger.
Mike R.
___________
Subj: Re: [KS] History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE
syndrome
Date: 9/9/02 03:05:07 GMT Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:werner_sasse at hotmail.com">werner_sasse at hotmail.com</A>
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Well done, Frank, short as your remarks are: there are many other points in
the posting that made me shiver, but I am sure most on the list had the same
feeling, so I do not want to go into detail. I am glad to have a "delete"
button on the keyboard.Just another short reminder to the use of the word
"h/H-istory". When we talk about "history" , the word is really meaning
"historiography", and to rewrite the view of the past is both a normal
everyday process and a healthy one. Add another one: For us non-Koreans it is
certainly not the question what is "right or wrong" in the way this Korean
debate is going on. The question should be "why", and it should be added "why
is my view different". A good way to learn something about the Korean
situation, and maybe more importantly to learn something about
ourselves....Anyway, histeriography is always big fun, Werner Sasse
__________
Subj: [KS] Gwageo cheongsan (Kwageon ch'eongsan)
Date: 9/9/02 04:42:35 GMT Daylight Time
From: petrov at coombs.anu.edu.au
Reply-to: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
To: Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Dear list members,
As Professor Choe correctly mentioned, the term "ch'Ongsan" alone certainly
stands for "cleansing". But in combination with "kwagO" it probably should
be considered differently. I would suggest translating the term "kwagO
ch'Ongsan" as "coming to terms with the past (and starting the life again)",
which is probably very close to what Aidan Foster-Carter is arguing for.
But "kwagO ch'Ongsan" can also be translated as "critical reconsideration of
the past" which has been a long-standing issue for Korean nationalist
historiography. For example, Paek Nam-un opened his "Socio-economic History
of Korea" (1933) with a brief allusion to the "age of critical
reconsideration of Korean history research" [ChsOnsa-ui yOn'gu pip'anjOgin
ch'Onsangi].
Indeed, in the 1920s and 1930s, Korean historians were reconsidering the
past, NOT "cleansing" or "liquidating" it. However, in the 1950s and 1960s,
many of them (particularly those who moved to the North) busied themselves
"rectifying the past" and "righting past wrongs." This time, they were quite
literally doctoring history in accordance with Party concerns and Leader's
recommendations...
LEONID A. PETROV
__________
Subj: [KS] History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE
syndrome
Date: 9/8/02 06:31:20 GMT Daylight Time
From: <A HREF="mailto:Afostercarter at aol.com">Afostercarter at aol.com</A>
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
To: <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
CC: <A HREF="mailto:choeyh at hawaii.edu">choeyh at hawaii.edu</A>
File: kshisttwist8sep02.doc (23040 bytes) DL Time (32000 bps): < 1 minute
Sent from the Internet (Details)
For Korean Studies List completed 8 September, 2002
History's twists: thoughts on kwago ch'ongsan and the MOPE syndrome
If - as I hoped it might - this discussion has now burst the bounds of the
purely linguistic, I should like to strongly support Prof Yong-ho Choe's
critique of kwago ch'ongsan as such.
My sense is that some Koreans essentialize History (capital H) through a
mindset which, by confusing many things, guarantees that none of them ever
get resolved. Philosophically, the notion of "cleansing the past" is just a
category error. History can be interpreted and debated endlessly, but it
can't be changed. Shaking a fist at history is pointless. By all means
uncover new facts or offer fresh interpretations, but these will always be
multiple There is no single right account, factually or morally, nor ever
could be. So why go on a wild goose chase?
For instance: coming to Korea from Africa, it puzzled me how hard it is to
have a grown-up discussion about colonialism here. In this at least, Africa
is well ahead of Korea. Teaching in Tanzania barely a decade after British
rule had ended, despite a highly politicized atmosphere of anti-imperialism,
there was neither personal nor academic animus involved in researching the
colonial past. (It helps, of course, if you call it colonialism rather than
occupation, not least in avoiding divisive and fruitless arguments about
so-called "collaborators".)
One lesson here is the merits of comparativism. Koreans should get more
interested in other peoples' colonial histories. This helps to put your own
fate in context, and avoid the solipsism which some wag, in another nation
rather given to self-pity (my motherland), has named the MOPE syndrome: Most
Oppressed People Ever. As an Irishman, my 800 years of oppression trump your
mere 40 any day. But why would anyone want to play this game in the first
place?
The academy aside, what really worries me is how kwago ch'ongsan holds
present and future policy choices hostage to the past. This is downright
dangerous. For example, many Koreans give China the benefit of the doubt, but
never Japan. (I call this "penultimate oppressor love"; just so do some
Latvians forgive the Germans everything, the Russians nothing.) Yet on any
objective criteria of shared interests, today's South Korea and Japan should
be close allies, whereas China's future is a question mark. Past hurts are no
basis for taking such decisions.
On contentious matters within living memory - the colonial era, the civil
war, the struggle for democracy - then those who demand a reckoning should
think very hard what it is exactly they want, and why. If crimes are yet
unpunished, then the proper court is the law as such, not history. As for the
inevitable political dimension, what is the goal: reconciliation, or revenge?
How can kwago ch'ongsan help those in South Korea who supported or opposed
dictatorship to kiss and make up - much less those who took sides between
capitalism and communism? Endlessly refighting yesterday's battles means
wounds never heal. Why not close the book?
In all of the above periods, some Koreans did things for which other Koreans
cannot forgive them. (Another question: Why does Asia's second most Christian
nation find forgiveness so difficult?) But peoples, like individuals, need to
heal and move on. In all three of these eras, honourable men and women, as
well as knaves, faced difficult, sometimes life-threatening choices. Some
went one way, some another. It is time now for understanding, not reproach.
I look forward to the special issue of Korea Journal. Besides elucidating
specific debates and issues, I hope Prof Choe's challenge will be addressed.
In that spirit, let me end polemically. As regards kwago ch'ongsan's effects,
the best 'translation' has to be "Twisting history". Its development was
misguided; its significance lies under social pathology; and if either Korean
historiography or politics are to move forward, the urgent future task is to
smash this murky prism and adopt a more pluralistic, inclusive, and tolerant
approach to both past and present.
AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University
17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK
tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 mobile: +44(0) 7970 741307
fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 Email: afostercarter at aol.com
In a message dated 9/7/02 11:08:10 GMT Daylight Time, choeyh at hawaii.edu
writes:
> Subj:Re: [KS] Gwageo cheongsan (Kwageon ch'eongsan)
> Date:9/7/02 11:08:10 GMT Daylight Time
> From:<A HREF="mailto:choeyh at hawaii.edu">choeyh at hawaii.edu</A>
> Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
> To:<A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>, <A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws</A>
> Sent from the Internet
I challenge the basic notion of "kwago ch'ongsan" or cleansing the
past. How can one cleanse the past? One can only study and learn lessons
from the past so that we do not repeat same mistakes. There is no way one
can undo the past. The current trend of "kwago ch'ongsan" in S. Korea is
inclined to finger-pointing, rather than making soul-searching examinations
of the past mistakes. If one needs a "kwago ch'ongsan," it should be left
to historians to examine comprehensively---free of prejudgment---complex
factors and circumstances within which one may have acted in certain ways
in the past. I raise this question because I am alarmed by the recent
attempt of "kwago ch'ongsan" dealing with the issue of the collaboration
under the Japanese colonial rule.
At 04:49 PM 9/5/2002 -0500, Michael Robinson wrote:
>Dear Korea Journal:
>
>An interesting question to be sure. my first thought for translation was
>"settling accounts from the past". I then read to the bottom of your
>message at see that in the Korean context there is more than a neutral
>balancing of accounts....but more a desire to insert the idea of
>correcting previously poorly kept and inaccurate accounts. I would
>suggest the neutral idea of balance.
>
>And for the wider audience of the list, I find it interesting that the
>Journal's question arrives on the same day that our friend in Hungary is
>asking about the politics of memory. In response to his query....you
>might consider that the era post-1945 is both a time of actively
>"forgetting" as well as a struggle to selectively remember. My sense is
>that if we are to discuss some "Korean tradition" with regard to
>memorialization, we must consider the long history and active present of
>hagiography both official and private in Korean society. Statues, parks,
>grandiose buildings, etc. are new....the idea of spinning the memory of
>one's relatives or working to resurrect the name of same....has been an
>active Korean pastime for a very long time. The Korea Journal question
>falls as a project somewhere between official memory...that cultivated and
>enshrined by the state...and the private cultivation of memory in
>foundations, collected writings, genealogies, etc.
>
>Mike Robinson
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:kj at unesco.or.kr>Korea Journal
>To: <mailto:Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws
>Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 4:09 AM
>Subject: [KS] Gwageo cheongsan (Kwageon ch'eongsan)
>
>Dear list members,
>
>
>
>The KOREA JOURNAL will deal with the special issue titled
>"Gwageo cheongsan (MR: Kwago ch'ongsan) in Korean Modern History" in its
>2002 autumn issue. Articles in this issue will analyze the development,
>significance and future tasks concerning gwageo cheongsan. Articles to be
>published in this special issue are as follows.
>
>
>
>1. "Gwageo cheongsan" in Modern Korean History
>2. Refracted Modernity and the Issue of Pro-Japanese Collaborators in Korea
>3. How To Reveal the Iceberg under the Sea?: The Problems in Historical
>Clarification of the Korean War
>4. The Significance of "gwageo cheongsan" of the December 12 Coup and
>the May 18 Gwangju Uprising
>5. Attempted "gwageo choengsan" in April Popular Struggle
>6. Finding the Truth on the Suspicious Deaths Under South Koreas Military
>Dictatorship
>7. State Violence and Sacrifices under Military Authoritarianism
>and Dynamics of "gwageo cheongsan" during Democratic Transition
>
>
>
>However, we have had difficulty in translating "gwageo cheongsan" into an
>appropriate English term. Some alternatives have been suggested such as
>"dealing with the wrong past," "liquidating the past," "rectifying the
>past," and "righting past wrongs," but none of these is satisfactory. We
>ask anyone who is struck with a good idea regarding this matter to let us
know.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>
>Korea Journal
Yong-ho Choe
Department of History
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822
Tel: 808 956-6762
Fax: 808 956-9600
E-mail: choeyh at hawaii.edu
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