Jeju protest

I am interrupting our regularly scheduled programming with a non-chronological post in order to make mention of a march I was witness to this afternoon.  Since I can’t speak Korean and though I can read it, I can’t understand it, I was lucky that I happened to be with my director at the moment the protestors walked by the city hall area.  He was able to explain in brief terms what the issues at hand were all about, and it is actually quite appalling. 

 While I can understand the shame that a face-saving culture may feel when crimes against humanity are commited by their own people against their own people, it is appalling that in a highly developed, democratically run country, the re-writing of history can still actually be an issue.  I am well aware that what we learn about the world through the News is always percieved through someone elses eyes and  is always angled to accomodate share holders and viewership (just look at the portrayal of Barak Obama on America’s most highly viewed news netowrks as he has returned from the G-2o meetings in England, apparently what was most newsworthy was whether he adhered to proper etiquette upon introduction to the Queen), however a blatant re-writing of history is something I believed existed in only the most repressive societies with autocratic or totalitarian regimes.

Mr. Byun told me that his own father was among the people marching in protest of the current Conservative governments attempt to cover up the attrocities commited by the Conservative capitalist ideologues against the Communist minority in Jeju in the late 1940′s. Hundreds of Southern Communists were killed for their alignment with the North’s Socialist liberators and thousands more unafilliated civilians were murdered in the process.  Myoung Bak’s current government is attempting a “burning of the books” for the modern era, renegging on the previous governments commitment to understanding and admitting the aweful truths of the last half century in Jeju… if humanity is not given the opportunity to admit to and learn from its mistakes, history will continue to repeat itself and the ancestors of those lost, Mr. Byun and his father included, will never have the opportunity reconcile with what was stolen from them.

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