뉴스레터

From August 17 to 22, for six days and five nights, the NAHF and the International NGO History Forum co-hosted the 4^th International NGOs Conference on History and Peace at Yonsei University. The theme of this year's conference was "Rewriting the Next Hundred Years of East Asian History."

The International NGO Conference on History is an international event in which history NGO activists, experts, and teachers around the world participate. This year's event marks its fourth occasion, and NGO activists, teachers and experts from 12 countries including Japan, China, Cambodia, Kosovo, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, the US, and Canada participated in various programs offered at the conference such as pre-conference programs, opening symposium, plenary programs, and NGO programs.

Korean-Chinese-Japanese Youth Common History Class was offered as a pre-conference program, where 30 high school students in total, 10 from each of the three countries, participated along with history teachers, peace educators and global citizenship educators. The students experienced model history classes in which they were taught with educational material jointly developed by Korean, Chinese and Japanese scholars. In addition, they together composed the Korea-China-Japan Youth Declaration of Peace and Future and held a Mandara Korea-China-Japan Peace Festival, learning hands-on how history education comes with peace education.

Teaching Youths the Importance of History Reconciliation Education

At the Opening Symposium, 12 model classes were offered and 20 to 30 middle and high school students participated in the classes, where teachers from abroad gave a talk about examples of how historical conflicts were resolved in foreign countries. The model history classes, which were open classes, were one of the most important programs that this 4th International NGOs Conference on History and Peace. The program aimed at teaching youths the importance of history and peace education.

The Opening Symposium gave us vivid experiences of teachers and activists working in the educational field of East Asia and Europe, and helped us see what are the obstacles and what are the stepping stones to achieve historical reconciliation. Mr. Park Wounchul, President of the International NGO History Forum for Peace in East Asia, started the opening ceremony with an opening address, followed by Dr. Kim Youngso, Secretary General of the NAHF's welcoming address and Ms. Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, Executive Director of EUROCLIO's congratulatory statement. The first of the three sessions of the Opening Symposium was on the theme of "New Approach for Historical Reconciliation," and Mr. Axel Schmidt-Gödelitz, Chairman of the East-West Forum in Germany, and Prof. Aiko Utsumi from Japan gave keynote speeches entitled "Learning from Germany's Experiences of the Reconciliation of East and West Germany" and "Historical Reconciliation Model through Face-to-Face Interactions between Korea and Japan," respectively. The second session arranged a 100-minute in-depth discussion on "Communicating with the Future Generation: How Are We Going to Do It?" The discussion panel consisted of Kim Seongbo (Professor at Yonsei University), Lee Daehoon (Professor at Sungkonghoe University), Yang Biao (Professor at East China Normal University), Masamichi Kikuyama (Professor at Hiroshima Prefectural Miyajima Technical High School), and Falk Pingel (Research Fellow at Georg Eckert for International Textbook Research), and it was moderated by Chu Chinoh (Professor at Sangmyung University). At the third session, the Korean, Chinese and Japanese high school students who had participated in the Common History Classes presented the Declaration of Peace and Future through cultural expressions such as music, art, and pantomime performances with the theme of "History Project of Hope that Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Youths are Building Together."

Learning Reconciliation and Cooperation through Grassroots Activities

The Plenary Program, entitled "Learning Reconciliation and Cooperation through Grassroots Activities," aimed at sharing grassroots experiences within and out of East Asia and finding solutions for reconciliation by benchmarking each other. The program had two sessions. At the first session, Heide Rieck-Wotke (Writer and Member of German Writers Union) gave a talk on Nazi Germany's coal mining cases, Youk Chhang (Executive Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia) on Cambodia's experiences, Margaret Wells (Board Member of Toronto ALPHA) on Toronto ALPHA experiences, and Choi Hyegyeong (Executive Secretary of Okedongmu Children in Korea) on experiences of international youth education. The second session was divided into 5 different parallel units with 5 different topics. Unit 1 gathered to discuss "Support for War Victims" and through presentations and discussions on their experiences and ideas, they attempted to find an appropriate civil society model to support war victims. Unit 2 had presentations and discussion on the topic of "Truth and Reconciliation," and Unit 3 on "Division and Unification." The topic of Unit 4 was "Historical Memory" and unit members shared their experiences of non-governmental historical dialogues between Koreans and Japanese and among Koreans, Japanese and Chinese, through which they tried to find ways to better their cooperation. Finally, Unit 5 members discussed on the topic of "Interregional Exchange for Youth: Building Peace in East Asia through Youth Exchange," and shared their experiences of grassroots youth exchange activities in East Asia.

The NGO Programs were moderated by participating NGOs themselves such as Korea Globe, Citizens' Coalition for Movement of Korean Original Culture and History, Korea Chongshindae's Institute, Donghak National Unification Conference, and the Civilian Network on East Asian History. They offered various programs to build a common historical understanding in East Asia.

On August 22, the last day of the conference, we had a roundtable of specialists on the topic of "Universal Principles and Values to Build a Peaceful East Asian Community: European Experiences and Lessons." Learning from European experiences, the meeting aimed at finding ways to achieve historical reconciliation in East Asia and furthermore to develop common principles and values to build a peaceful East Asian community.

The conference was concluded with an overall discussion meeting and a closing ceremony. At the discussion meeting, reports were made on the outcomes of various programs offered at the conference. The 'Ariari' company, a group of teenage performers, performed Korean dances at the closing ceremony that showed Korea's traditional splendor, grace and delight.

The 4^th International NGOs Conference on History and Peace in 2011 stood out in its particular efforts to communicate with the audience: it adopted various new types of programs such as 100-minute in-depth discussion, model classes, and Korea-China-Japan common history classes. These programs were prepared with setting our sight on the big aim of overcoming the intensifying historical conflicts of the region triggered by territorial disputes and ultimately bringing historical reconciliation in East Asia. The conference's approach to historical reconciliation was also very practical as it offered a historical reconciliation education that could be understood by teens. Still, more efforts should be made to improve some programs with more enriched content and to promote the conference to appeal to a larger group of people.