Teaching Geography - Dokdo Inside

A Yonhap article* almost made me believe for a moment that the CNRS (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique), my country's most prestigious research center, had validated the facts that Japan distorts history and that Dokdo is Korean, but after reading the report the truth is more subtle.


1) About the document and its authors:

The article "Géographies scolaires à l’épreuve du Monde, éléments d’approche comparée des cas sud-coréen et français" ("School geography confronted to the World, elements of comparative approach to the South Korean and French cases") was published in december 2012 in ESO #34, the publication of ESO. Espaces et SOciétés - UMR 6590 is a Unite Mixte de Recherche (a research unit pooling university and CNRS ressources) that focuses on the spatial dimension of societies (coupling architecture, geography and urbanism with sociology, environmental psychology...) - typically seoulvillage-friendly subjects!

The article is signed by Saangkyun YI and Jean-Francois THEMINES for the ESO-Caen, the ESO branch at the Universite de Caen Basse-Normandie, where YI, a research Fellow at the Northeast Asian History Foundation, wrote the thesis that provides the elements for the South Korean case in the article: "Une discipline entre nation et empires : histoire de la géographie scolaire en Corée, 1876-2012" ("An academic discipline between nation and empires: history of school geography in Korea, 1876-2012"). Professor Jean-Francois THEMINES works at the Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines (MRSH - Universite de Caen Basse-Normandie - CNRS), where he contributes to two programs: ESO-Caen and CERSE (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche en Sciences de l'Education).

Interesting topic, interesting article, and interesting insights (eg the reasons behind the adoption of the US "social studies" system in Korea, or the parallel showing how the Prussian and Japanese models impacted teaching systems following the Franco-Prussian war / Treaty of Ganghwa humiliations of the 1870s). It also confirms how school geography and its iconography can echo evolutions in geopolitics, supranational / global entities or aspirations, the concept of nation...

Now about that Dokdo thing.


2) The truth about Dokdo:

First of all, the Northeast Asian History Foundation - Dokdo connection didn't come as a surprise: this organization aiming at peace in the region by "resolving historical conflicts" has from the start focused on this issue, and even organized essay contests about it. Each time you visit their website (historyfoundation.or.kr), you get this pop-up "10 truths about Dokdo - not known in Japan":

Saangkyun YI doesn't seem to hide his sympathy for the Dokdo cause in his own posts, and I respect that transparency**. I also think that mentioning Dokdo and the way it is treated in Korean geography textbooks is relevant for this article. The question is: is the article fair about the issue?

The answer seems to be positive.

If the words "Takeshima" or even "Liancourt" don't appear anywhere, the Dokdo islets seem properly presented ("considered as hers by South Korea" (...) "but Japan claims their sovereignty"). Note that they are "situated off the Eastern coast of the Korean peninsula", which conveniently skips the "East Sea - Sea of Japan" part of the equation, even if it doesn't leave a clue about the relative position of Japan.

Two sets of iconography are used for the South Korean case: a reproduction of a full page about Dokdo (the titles hammering the usual message "Dokdo is a Korean territory", subtitles are translated in red over the page)...

... and a less verbiose extract about Pyongyang (only images with descriptive titles - translations appear in the caption below):

Furthermore, Pyongyang is only mentioned once in the text compared to half a dozen times for Dokdo. Does it mean that the city is only used as an alibi for an article meant to push the Dokdo agenda? No: this is not an article about Dokdo, but Dokdo illustrates perfectly "a logic of state school iconography" (consistent with the not very "post-national" instructions from the Ministry of Education also quoted here***), compared to the more classic and positive presentation of Pyongyang.

Again, we don't have a full picture of the Pyongyang presentation to compare completely. And if  the South Korean state agenda is exposed, its content is somehow published and translated (along with non-state players, since VANK is also mentioned). We are explained that the discipline was prevented from emerging in Korea under Imperial Japan rule, but we don't see the actual propaganda except for this cover of a Japanese textbook imposed to Koreans in 1944...

schoolbook for 6 to 8th graders - vintage wartime Imperial Japan

But let's not start a hair-splitting contest by decrypting potentially asymetric iconographies in a study of the history of selective iconographies. I was simply showing how difficult it is to manipulate such sensitive topics, and here, the editorial line respects a scientific approach: this article certainly cannot be seen as a promotion of Korean interests, and it doesn't solve the Dokdo conflict either, because that's not the subject.

Where's the problem then?

That Korea was led to beef up its nationalist rethoric, that's a problem.

Revisionist textbooks in Japan, armies of pseudo historians and geographers in China rewriting history and redrawing maps, that's a bigger problem.

Terminating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Korea, turning school history into a simple option, and allowing creationism in school****, that's not a small problem either.

Time to build a future based on a mutual respect and understanding of the past. Time for a Global Truth and Reconciliation Network*****.


Seoul Village 2013
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* "佛학술지에 독도논문.."일제가 지리 왜곡" (Yonhap News 20130320)
** you already know my position (see for instance "Claiming Dokdo as Takeshima equals claiming Seoul as Gyeongseong")
*** note that the case of Dokdo is not the only one: the Ministry also highlights the Kando region in today's China
**** see "State-condoned creationism in Korea? A cold-blooded murder against King Sejong"
***** see "We reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism - for a Global Truth and Reconciliation Network"

We reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism - for a Global Truth and Reconciliation Network

Interesting roundtable about 'Comfort Women' yesterday at the ASAN Institute*. Q and As were not allowed, but anyway I mostly came to listen, and to see how each player perceived the situation and their own roles. I got the confirmations I expected, but was also glad to hear loud and clear all the major concerns I had regarding the way Korea and Japan are coping with the issue.

From left to right: BAEK Buhm-suk, PARK Gitae, Annabel PARK, YOON Mee-hy James ROTUNDO, Jason KIM*

So where are we standing right now?

For The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, the Japanese government has to perform 7 actions to fully restore the victim's dignity and resolve the crime:
- "acknowledge the war crime
- reveal the truth in its entirety about the crimes of military sexual slavery
- make an official apology
- make legal reparations
- punish those responsible for the war crime
- accurately record the crime in history textbooks
- erect a memorial for the victims of military sexual slavery, and establish a historical museum"

The USA stand for the US House Resolution 121 passed in 2007 with the help of Annabel PARK. Financial reparations may come later, but this is not about money, and money certainly shouldn't be a motive to delay the resolution. It states that "it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan:
(1) should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces' coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as 'comfort women', during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II;
(2) would help to resolve recurring questions about the sincerity and status of prior statements if the Prime Minister of Japan were to make such an apology as a public statement in his official capacity;
(3) should clearly and publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the 'comfort women' for the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces never occurred; and
(4) should educate current and future generations about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the 'comfort women'."

Apparently, nothing has changed since the mass protest of last december (see "One Thousand Wednesdays"):
- the "halmoni" keep demonstrating every wednesday, and they're not getting any younger,
- the Japanese government keeps refusing to apologize and to distance itself from the country's darkest moments,
- the Korean government keeps adding "diplomatic" pressure on their Japanese counterparts... without of course restoring the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at home
- Korean ultranationalists keep undermining the cause by making a "bibim" with all issues between Korea and Japan, and by attacking everything Japanese

But the Japanese government seems to be significantly losing ground:
- Recent attempts to attack or remove 'Comfort Women' memorials have spectacularly backfired: worldwide media have slammed the radical activist who vandalized the statue in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, and the delegation who tried to have the Palisades Park memorial removed** only managed to raise local, national, and international awareness for the cause they wanted to cover up
- The USA are not only maintaining US House Resolution 121, but also renewing requests: last July, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that when it came to qualify those war crimes, 'Enforced Sex Slaves' was more relevant an expression than the mild 'Comfort Women' generally used
- The cause is gaining momentum everywhere, reaching for victims of similar institutionalized sexual slavery systems, even in Africa. You simply can't fight against such an universal cause: when Mayor James RETUNDO tells how he reached the conclusion that a memorial had to be erected in his borough to stand for universal values, he's never raising his voice, only following his heart and his brain. Now Palisades Park can be proud of showing the way for the rest of the world
- More than ever, voices are being heard across the globe, and more than ever from Japanese people who strongly disagree with their own government's behavior. Hundreds of Japanese women have demonstrated in protest earlier this year, and a couple of days ago Yohei Kono, the former Chief Cabinet Secretary who first issued an embryo of apology in 1993, said that persisting in denial was very counterproductive for the nation***.

To me, it's not a matter of if but of when official apologies will be issued, and the more Japan waits, the worst it will get for its image, not to mention of course for the victims. I also know for sure that change cannot come from the corrupt bureaucracy that still today controls the Japanese political system (see "Japan politics? No to Comfort women, yes to Political whoring").

If YOON Mee-hyang regrets that little can be expected from lawmakers who sometimes have familial ties with people who planned or condoned war crimes, she sees hope in Japanese NGOs that disagree with that suicidal position. Annabel PARK met many Japanese people who refuse to see their country associated with unresolved war crimes any longer, and think the time has come to set the record straight, to embrace real democracy, and to reform a political system too often tainted by corruption and incompetence, a sentiment growing considerably after Fukushima. Of course, the hate game between nationalists from both countries perpetuates the gridlock.

Again, war crimes were committed, and again, justice needs to be carried out for the victims as well as for perpetrators, but ultimately, this is between Japan and itself: the Japanese people and the Japanese government must face their country's past if they want to build a better future, and for that they must finally condemn the Imperialist regime, and everything that tried to protect and glorify it afterwards (honoring war criminals, honoring the imperial flag, promoting revisionism, denying war crimes...). Germany did just that and now, everybody makes the difference between the country and Nazism, another regime that committed atrocious crimes and cast a dark shadow over the whole nation. 

Which brings us to the Godwin point I mentioned recently****: the sometimes confusing and abusive parallels with the Holocaust. I'm glad Deputy Major Jason KIM insisted wisely on the necessary distinction between "Japan" the country and "Imperialist Japan" the criminal regime from the past. It's a necessity to depollute a nationalism-contaminated issue, and to help the Japanese people achieve the duty to remember. But in Korea, where too many wounds are still open, many people have a problem grasping this kind of distinctions.

The first time I heard about the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), I was happy to see younger generations get involved in the fight against historical distorsions. But the first time I met their volunteers, I started worrying about how counterproductive it could become. As you well know I strongly denounce the claims on Dokdo by Japan's extreme right, but some of these youngsters were proselytizing as blindly as members of some nationalist cult. Now that I've seen and heard the founder, I understand: Mr PARK Gitae is a very energetic person motivated with the best intentions, but self-restraint and diplomacy are obviously not his forte, and he seems more interested in propaganda techniques than in moral issues. Typically, where everybody else talked about how to ensure peace in the future, Mr Park frantically insisted on copying everything that had been done to "promote" the memory of the Holocaust, mentioning Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" as if it were some kind of PR operation. Maybe because VANK's website is prkorea.org... I guess the time has come to tune up wisdom in the mix for this otherwise formidable tool.

Of course, it's not about Korea vs Japan, and all other members of the roundtable were very clear about that. And the gridlock between the Korean and the Japanese governments will not last long precisely because of the constructive involvement of the international community and international media around them, and because of the grassroot, peaceful involvement of moderate people from all nations who reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism.

A Global Truth and Reconciliation Network?

Seoul Village 2012
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* "The 'Comfort Women' issue: what is the solution?"(2012/10/10)
An ASAN Institute Roundtable moderated by BAEK Buhm-suk, Research Fellow, The ASAN Institute, with:
PARK Gitae, Founder, VANK (Voluntary Agency Network of Korea)
Annabel PARK, Filmmaker and activist (helped pass the US House Resolution 121 in 2007)
James ROTUNDO, Mayor, and Jason KIM, Deputy Mayor, Palisades Park, NJ (erected the first memorial to the victims outside of Korea)
YOON Mee-hyang, Co-representative, The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (WomenandWar.net)
NB: opening remarks by Hahm Chaibong, President, The ASAN Institute, followed by a chronology by YUN Yelim, Program Officer, The ASAN Institute.

**  "In New Jersey, Memorial for ‘Comfort Women’ Deepens Old Animosity" (NY Times - 20120519)

*** "Japan Must Stop Dodging Sex Slave Guilt, Kono Warns" (Chosun Ilbo - 20121009)

****   "Dokdo, Senkaku, Ieodo, Kuril,... Hashima?"

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20121014 UPDATE: extract from Resolution 121 (HRES 121 EH)
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20121015 UPDATE: a second memorial in New Jersey has been announced this week-end by Bergen County:
http://www.ny1.com/content/your_nj_news_now/170690/bergen-county-to-host-memorial-for-world-war-ii--comfort-women-
Change is coming!!!
PS: I had the pleasure to meet with one of the 'halmoni' yesterday. She radiated so much positive energy and hope, an inspiration for all generations.