뉴스레터

First step towards the end of the tunnel, 'weight of facts’

I wrote a book in 2017 and described the relationship between Korea and Japan at the time as 'the middle of the tunnel'. The title of my book is 'To the end of the tunnel' because I think we should get out of the tunnel. Compared to that time, it seems to have entered the deeper part of the tunnel. Both countries have not made any effort to get out to the end of the tunnel. Why? Because the people of both countries do not want to know the weight of the fact that colonial invasion. The historian Kang Deok-sang, who died a while ago, preached that knowing the weight of facts is the starting point for solving problems. That was fifteen years ago. But that is still an unfinished task for the people of both countries. What is needed now is that Korean society feels the weight of facts first and wakes up the conscience of Japanese society with its power. That is why I wrote 『Jingyong, which was experienced by the Korean people』.

To get to the bottom of it is to ask for responsibility

The trigger that led the Korea-Japan relationship into longest and deepest tunnel was the ruling of the lawsuit on forced labor in 2019. In the background, there is the view of history of seal-oblivion-beautification-distortion. Japan, the perpetrator, has maintained it since the defeat. And it is also because the victim, Korea, has long neglected to 'ask for responsibility'. In 2016, director Lee Jun-ik said in an interview, "The Dongju is not a movie about anger against the other country, but about conscience." And he said, “Without the perpetrator’s conscience, the truth is not revealed. But we have not taken severe punitive action against the perpetrator for 70 years. We were trapped in the colonial frame of pro-Japanese, anti-Japanese and resistance to Japan. We did not hold the perpetrator accountable.”

To hold the perpetrator accountable, that is to get to the bottom of it. It is the task and minimum duty of the victim country to reveal the truth. Moreover, the aggressor does not do it on its own. Germany is considered exemplary among the perpetrators, but it did not do it on its own. But that was possible because Israel has consistently identified the truth through Yad Vashem. The identification of truth is also a way to share victimhood. This is because the third stage of identifying the truth, empathy for the victim, and prevention of recurrence is the way to share victimhood.

You might think it’s hard to join the identification of truth, but it might not be as hard as you think. The best way to participate is to question the fact and try to know various and objective contents. It is no better if you think that about 8,000 remains on the Korean peninsula related to the Pacific War are not the scene of dark history but priming water that considers and practices the future without war. In this regard, the books published by NAHF to make citizens understand the history of Japanese invasion help them join in revealing the truth.

What was the conscription experienced by the people of Joseon?

Does Korean society know about the history of conscription? I think about the questions that people might have. “Is it a conscription that Japan forced people to mobilize with state power after the Asia-Pacific War?”, “Is recruitment, official recommendation, or conscription different?”. In the movie 'Jisle' about Jeju uprising, they did not distinguish between conscription and draft. In the first scene of the movie, a person laughs at the young man who brought the rifle and asks, “Do you know how to shoot a gun?” The young man then replies to him, “Do you think I don’t know how to shoot? I’ve been drafted.” Does the line of the young man in the movie match the facts of the time?

There will be another question. "Should we consider 'conscription to the land of Joseon' as conscription?", “Can we call it conscription to go to coal mines or mines?”, “Was the little boy or the old man excluded from the conscription or who would have taken them?”, “Politicians in Japan say that Koreans were Japanese citizens at the time, and that they were legal because they made and enforced the law. Is it true?”

The Conscription We Know

So can we find the answer to these questions? It is a question that can not be answered by the weight of the fact that Korean society feels. To do this, we have to increase the weight of facts. So, I tried to narrow the gap between the conscription that Korean society now knows and the conscription experienced by the people of Joseon at that time. I divided the mobility of labor, which Korean society called 'conscript' at the time, by region and occupation. In particular, I presented the actual conditions of the work sites in Asia and the Pacific, including the Korean peninsula. So I have expanded the historical horizon of Korean society, which has recognized the mobilization of Korean labor as limited to the Japanese region.

I also empirically presented the damage of women and children overlooked by Korean society and academia. And I refuted the denial of the forced mobilization that the Japanese government and right wings claim in the view of international organizations such as the ILO and the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. So, I tried to clarify how different Japan's forced labor in the war is from the standards stipulated by the international order. I think this is an attempt that Korean and Japanese academia have never tried.

Through this, I wanted to inform the fact that the damage of the Asia-Pacific War was not the pain of Joseon but the pain of Asia and the Pacific. And I wanted to say that Japan's forced labor is a joint task in the Asia-Pacific. In addition, I wanted to share that the damage of 7.5 million people was an experience and asset necessary to respect and practice the universal value of mankind. I hope that this book will help us recognize that tapping the perpetrator's conscience is our task.