Seoul struggles with history - Kim's By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune Friday, April 22, 2005
SEOUL Kang Man Gil, a renowned historian appointed as head of a prestigious government committee preparing for the 60th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule, was asked a question by a reporter last week and he said what few historians dispute. When his reply was reported, however, many South Koreans called for Kang's dismissal. . Kang said last week that Kim Il Sung, the late North Korean president, had fought against colonial Japan. . "It's a historical fact," Kang said, adding that "Kim's anti-Japanese struggle should be considered part of the nation's independence movement." . It was more than enough to set off South Korea's conservatives. . "It's a senile comment that we can never tolerate, given the sentiment of our people," said a statement from the Free Citizens' Alliance of Korea, a leading conservative group in Seoul. "Kim Il Sung was a war criminal. A senior public official advertising him as an independence fighter - this is something that should never happen." . But Kim Min Chul, a senior fellow at the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities, which studies colonial-era history, chided the conservatives. . "What a vulgar fuss," Kim said. "It's time for us to see a fact as a fact." . The controversy over Kang's comment illustrates how divided South Koreans are, as the government of President Roh Moo Hyun tries to re-examine the nation's modern history. . It also reminds South Koreans that, a decade after his death, the Communist leader's specter is still haunting them. . Japan ruled Korea as a colony until the end of World War II in 1945. Six decades later, the colonial history remains very much alive in both Koreas. . In the North, billboards exhort people in the isolated, impoverished country to "live, produce and study like anti-Japanese resistance warriors." . In South Korea, a prospering economic powerhouse, official recognition that an ancestor was a leader of the independence movement is perhaps the highest accolade a family can imagine. . Today, most historians acknowledge Kim Il Sung's anti-Japanese credentials. But the two Koreas are divided in their assessments of the man. . The personality cult in North Korea surrounding "Great Leader" Kim and his son, the current leader, Kim Jong Il, rests on the senior Kim's mythical role as an anti-Japanese resistance hero. . Monuments, murals, poems and operas celebrate Kim's rebel days, especially his guerrilla unit's daring raid on a Japanese police station in 1937, at the height of colonial repression. . Communist propagandists claim that the nation was liberated by Kim himself. They even credit Kim with miracles reminiscent of Biblical stories: Kim turning pine cones into hand grenades, or Kim taking his troops across a river on a tree leaf that he turned into a boat. . After his death in 1994, North Korea embalmed Kim's body for public display in a mausoleum, gave him the posthumous title of "eternal president" and began marking his birthday as the "Sun's Day." . The nation even invented a new calendar, counting the world's history from Kim's birthday, April 15, 1912. North Korea once called that the 20th century's "most turbulent day," the day when the "Sun of the East" rose and when the British passenger ship Titanic, symbol of "swashbuckling Western imperialism," sank. In the world according to North Korea, this is the year 94. . In South Korea, however, Kim was vilified as a "puppet" of the old Soviet regime; a war criminal who started the Korean War, which left millions dead, maimed, widowed or orphaned; and a dictator who ran prison gulags, kept his people in poverty and bequeathed power to his son in the Communist world's only dynasty. . In the past, schools in South Korea have taught children that Kim Il Sung was not the "real" Kim Il Sung. . "In those days, no scholars could challenge the 'Kim Il Sung is a fake' theory, without being persecuted by the government," said Cheong Seong Chang, a North Korea specialist at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. "Today, no serious scholar would deny that Kim Il Sung fought against Japan." . In 1970 a drunken South Korean man was reportedly arrested for saying to another man: "You are worse than Kim Il Sung!" In the twisted logic at the time, there was nothing worse than the North Korean leader, and South Korean prosecutors indicted the man on charges of violating the nation's anti-Communist National Security Law, which outlawed eulogizing Kim. The man was found not guilty. . Paul Lee, a 29-year-old worker in a Seoul trading company, said: "I remember teachers telling us kids that we were bunnies in South Korea and the North Koreans were wolves that could attack us anytime." . Younger South Koreans who do not remember the Korean War might not understand the history behind those often seen as their poorer Northern cousins. A survey released by the Seoul-based Research & Research, Inc. this week showed that South Koreans considered Japan a bigger threat than North Korea, especially amid rising nationalistic sentiments over Japan's territorial claim to islets claimed by South Korea. . There has been a change in attitude and a rise in nationalist sentiment since the election of Roh in late 2002. Roh's government has since taken up the politically sensitive and emotionally charged task of re-evaluating left-wing Korean nationalists who had once fought for the nation's liberation but later chose Communism over capitalist South Korea. . Critics condemn the move as "revisionist." . "It all comes down to which is the legitimate government on the Korean peninsula," said Cho Nam Hyun, an official at Free Citizens' Alliance of Korea. "Kim Il Sung may have fought against Japanese, but he should not be recognized as an independence fighter because he did nothing for the independence of South Korea, which is the legitimate country on the peninsula." . Kim, the official with the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities, said South Korea should "free itself from the ideological shackles" when dealing with the North, which has suffered from widespread famine. In contrast, South Korea is the world's 12th largest economy. . Cheong, the Sejong Institute scholar, said the controversy shows that wounds from the Korean War still need to be healed. The war was started by an invasion of Kim's Communist troops in 1950 and ended with a truce in 1953. . But Cheong noted that South Korea was becoming less regimented ideologically, and added that, "If Mr. Kang said the same thing 10 years ago, I don't think he could remain in his post." . As rival factions squabbled in South Korea, North Koreans somberly celebrated their dead leader's birthday last Friday, with the state-run television broadcasting previously unreleased footage of Kim Il Sung. . As reverential party officials looked on, an elderly Kim was shown performing an impromptu rendition of a song from his rebel days, in a guttural voice and shaking his fist to the beat: . . When I was leaving home . Mother stood at the gate weeping . Have a safe trip, she said . Her voice still rings in my ears. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? 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