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| War Memorial of Korea (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Patrick Thomsen
In the name of security, the people of South Korea are losing a crucial element of their national identity.
There is a storm raging over Seoul’s decision to “unify” history textbooks. This mandate allows only government-sanctioned content, effectively erasing any digression in the interpretation of historical events in South Korea’s development miracle.
The textbook controversy does not surprise many who have condemned the South Korean state’s record on human rights violations in the past. The ushering in of democracy in 1987 promised much for the Korean people, but this promise has failed to extend to many social and political human rights – mostly due to the use of the security threat discourse.
Korea’s perpetual security dilemma has inscribed particular elements to its national DNA. The result is a political system in which politicians seek regime legitimacy and social order at all costs – including at the expense of human rights.
One of the most notorious proponents of this strategy was Park Chung-hee, (the current president’s father) who seized power in 1961 in a military coup. Park was the central architect of “The Miracle on the Han,” in which South Korea achieved the same level of industrialization in 25 years that Japan did in 90.
But this came at a massive social cost. Korea expert Seungsook Moon has described this period of compressed industrialization as a time of “militarized modernity.” During this time, human rights were scarcely acknowledged. Workers were forced to accept dire working conditions, valued only as cheap labor. They were made to fuel an export-driven economy that was planned with military-like precision. Strict regulations were often violently executed in a similarly military-like manner. It was a place where dissenters were simply made to disappear.
Read the full story at The Diplomat