Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia: The Korean Experience

by Shin; Gi-Wook

• ISBN13: 9780415770934
• ISBN10: 0415770939
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-06
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The Northeast Asian region has witnessed phenomenal economic growth and the spread of democratization in recent decades, yet wounds from past wrongs - committed in times of colonialism, war, and dictatorship -still remain. Of all the countries in the northeast region coping with historical injustice, the Republic of Korea has the rare distinction of confronting internal and external historical injustices simultaneously, both as a victim and as a perpetrator. Korea's experience highlights the major forces shaping the reckoning and reconciliation process such as democratization, globalization, regional integration, and nationalism, in addition to providing valuable insight into the themes of historical injustice and reconciliation within the region. The book aims to move beyond a nation-state oriented analysis of Korea as the victim/aggressor, seeking instead to understand reconciliation as a mutual, interactive concept. Although there is no universal formula for reconciliation, the contributors examinethe reaction of society from the perspective of citizens' groups, NGOs, and victim-activist groups towards such issues as enforced labor, comfort women and internal injustices committed during the wars to foster a better understanding of the past and thus aid in future reconciliation between other Northeast Asian countries.Rethinking Historical Injustice andReconcilation in Northeast Asiarepresents the first book written in English to address these significant issues and as such will be of huge interest to those studying East Asian politics, history and society.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. xi
List of tables	p. xii
List of contributors	p. xiii
Acknowledgments	p. xvi
Introduction	p. 1
Coming to terms with the darker past in Korea	p. 15
The Korean "comfort women" tragedy as structural violence	p. 17
The resignification of the "comfort women" through NGO trials	p. 36
The politics of remembrance: the case of Korean forced laborers in the Second World War	p. 55
The war against the "enemy within": hidden massacres in the early stages of the Korean War	p. 75
Justice incomplete: the remedies for the victims of the Jeju April Third Incidents	p. 94
From Seoul to Saigon: Gook meets Charlie	p. 114
Toward a Northeast Asian approach to historical injustice?	p. 131
The aesthetic construction of ethnic nationalism: war memorial museums in Korea and Japan	p. 133
Difficult neighbors: Japan and North Korea	p. 154
Dynamics of denial: responses to past atrocities in Germany, Turkey, and Japan	p. 173
Pop culture, public memory, and Korean-Japanese relations	p. 192
A strong state, weak civil society, and Cold War geopolitics: why Japan lags behind Europe in confronting a negative past	p. 216
Economic integration and reconciliation in Northeast Asia: possibilities and limitations	p. 235
Epilogue: lessons and future agenda for reconciliation in Northeast Asia	p. 254
Index	p. 261
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