Yet Another Textbook Textbook Controversy

History belongs to those who write it, and in utterly politically divided South Korea, each side accuse the other one to push its own propaganda.

PARK Geun-hye recently announced her project of a single 'correct', State-issued textbook to replace today's choice between eight private publishers. Needless to say, Korean History Research Association scholars boycotted it.

PGH's project is clearly troubling: the last South Korean leader to do so was her dictator of a father PARK Chung-hee in 1974, and even Textbook Revisionist in Chief Shinzo ABE hasn't succeeded - so far - in restoring State-issued history textbooks in Japan, where they were banned at the end of WWII. Japanese activists actually fear Korea's project could serve ABE's agenda*.

If this reform is supposed to be implemented just months before the next presidential elections in 2017, PGH's presidency is now compared to the worst moments of her predecessor LEE Myung-bak, whose government terminated the much needed Truth and Reconciliation Commission (see links below), stopped history teaching at school, created a controversial museum of contemporary history (see "The Sejongno Insult"), and even issued a creationist textbook**.

Now this is not the only controversy surrounding these book: the project is motivated by the fact that, even if some mechanisms give the government its say in the editorial line, all history textbooks are deeply biased. Not just left-leaning, but at times into pro-North Korea propaganda territories.

No wonder this debate brings back such 1970s name calling darlings as 'dictator!' or 'commies!'

IMHO something definetly had to be done regarding these textbooks, but the government chose the worst possible solution by negating the historical debate. This should have been the opportunity to tackle the issue at its core, to restart the Truth and Reconciliation process. And when there is a debate on the interpretation of events, it should be reflected in the textbooks, with diverging opinions mentioned as such.

*

About the termination of the TRCK:

• "Truth and Reconciliation - Justice at last" (May 2012)
• TRCK: families of victims demand essential follow-up (September 2010)
• "TRCK lost in translation or lost in transition?" (January 2010)
• "Truth and Reconciliation : which model for Korea ?" (October 2009)
• "A common History" (October 2009 - also published in JoongAng Ilbo as "Japan may face its history")
• President Lee, please keep digging (September 2009)

Seoul Village 2015
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* "Japanese civic groups protesting S. Korea’s turn to state-issued textbooks" (Hankyoreh)
** see "State-condoned creationism in Korea? A cold-blooded murder against King Sejong"

The Sejongno Insult

 This is just wrong:

PARK Chung-hee parading on Sejongno in 2013

PARK Chung-hee parading on Sejongno in 2013, at the feet of the Government building and facing - among others - the highly controversial National Museum of Korean Contemporary History? That's simply shocking.

Of course, the artistic alibi doesn't stand one second: the former dictator didn't land here by chance anymore than Shinzo Abe landed on jet fighter #731 by chance last spring*.

This is not the kind of messages Korea needs to send these days, particularly as the nation asks Shinzo Abe's Japan to stop revising history.

Yesterday, PARK Chung-hee's daughter paid a silent tribute to Uncle Ho at the Ho Chi Minh Memorial, but missed a golden opportunity to issue formal apologies for Korea's wrongdoings during the Vietnam War. Yes, "in 1992, when Korea and Vietnam established diplomatic ties, Vietnam agreed not to ask Korea for an apology for fighting on the American side in the war"**, but we're talking about apologies for crimes that didn't belong in a war.

Again, PARK Geun-hye has the legitimacy to become a game changer in East Asian politics, and she could even deserve a Nobel Peace Prize if she had the courage to make the first move. We can't go like this any longer, all nations have to face correctly their own dark moments, regardless of the relative importance to what their neighbors did. Korea must apologize for the crimes committed by its troops during the Vietnam War, and as the President of the Republic of Korea, PARK Geun-hye must make sure that Korean history is correctly taught at home, recognize that her father was a dictator, state firmly that it is wrong to present only the positive sides of his reign, and restore the Truth and Reconciliation process.

Only then can she expose Shinzo Abe and his fellow revisionists without any reserve.

Until now, she's only half-distanced herself from her father's heritage. Typically, she said that the future Park Chung-hee museum shouldn't be funded with public money, but that's not enough: the State should make this museum illegal unless it exposes both sides of the coin, and involves victims of the regime in the process.

There's no better moment than right now, following the embarrassing exposure of other enemies of democracy, at the other side of the policial spectrum (see "LEE Seok-ki's Arirang Spring"): this is not a witch-hunt, we want Korea's democracy to be stronger, and see, we're cleaning our own mess.

To be consistent, PARK Geun-hye must also give her full support to investigations on the "NIS-gate", the scandal that cast a shadow on her own election. And she should even be ready to call for new elections, if that's what the outcome demands.

That's what a great leader would do to reunite at least this side of the DMZ, and at long last, propel Korea into the new millenium.


Seoul Village 2013
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* See "Can't top that? Shinzo Abe posing as Shiro Ishii, the Josef Mengele of Imperial Japan". I'm not comparing PARK's dictatorship to Imperial Japan, but precisely: Korea must realize that such tasteless provocations are undermining the nation as a whole.
** "Park vows $70B in Vietnam trade" (Korea JoongAng Daily - 20130910)

A National Museum of Korean Contemporary History ???

You probably already know that the US Embassy is supposed to move down to Yongsan around 2013, when the Yongsan Army Base mutates into a central park. But at the same date, its neighbor on Sejongno*, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, will also have changed its purpose and become the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History.

Whatever that means.

We're quite familiar with musea of "Contemporary Art", but a museum for "Contemporary History"...?

Theoretically, it should cover, if not History as it happens or as it is being written, a period that a significant portion of the population has experienced : in Asia, the term generally covers everything that followed WWII.

But if this Museum will focus on Independance, the boom years, or the fight for democracy, it is also supposed to reach into the late Joseon period and the Japanese Occupation, and into the future. The last few early XXst century survivors won't be around much longer, so curators will soon have to either drop the "Contemporary" part in the title, or whole chunks of their collections. I'm afraid I'd have to wait way too long after my death to see them discard the Hallyu wave section they're planning...

There's also the issue of "cannibalization" with the National Museum...

So I'd rather suggest "National Museum of Modern History", which really echoes the shift from old to new Korea, and encompasses both the past and future. It also puts some distance between the immediate present and its analysis - an analysis always subject to heated controversies, most particularly nowadays**.

As Zhou Enlai answered, when asked about the 1789 French Revolution : "it's too early to tell".

And it's too early to tell if Bae Yong-joon deserves a statue on Sejongno*.

Seoul Village 2010

* sorry, "Sejongdaero"
** mimicking his counterpart at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Korea , the new president of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Hyun Byung-chul, has recently been accused of torpedoing his own institution (one third of all commissioners resigned).