Exacerbated Politics: The Legacy of Political Trauma in South Korea

Baker, Don

doi:10.1057/9780230277427_9

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The rising global awareness of human rights helps to highlight the accountability of the individual, once largely overshadowed by groups, political leaders, and nation‐states. The reparation demands by the Chinese and Korean people against their own governments as well as Japanese corporations indicate an emergence of new international and domestic moral regimes (see Baker, ; Xu & Spillman, ). Memories are no longer confined within national borders.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in Korea‐Japan Relations

Kim

2014

Asian Politics and Policy

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Current paradigms of human rights and reconciliation call for democratization of memories, with former victims interjecting their interpretations of the past, challenging the versions recollected by the powerful. The trajectory of comfort women issues has implications not only for the Japanese democracy, but also for Korea. The shifts in memory are about respect for human rights and the beginning of a reconciliatory journey between former adversaries. Reconciliation involves multiple stages of self-reflexivity, acknowledgement, redistributive justice, corrective mechanisms, and a final movement of forgiving. In order to transcend the counterproductive blame games, memory, human rights, and reconciliation need to be interwoven. The rising global awareness of human rights helps to highlight the accountability of the individual, once largely overshadowed by groups, with political leaders, and nation-states. Memories are no longer confined within national borders. As the comfort women monuments in Korea and the United States suggest, they become increasingly transnational and even global.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in Korea‐Japan Relations

Kim

2014

Asian Politics and Policy

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“…The Korean textbook controversy was taking place in a state that transitioned to a democracy and implemented various mechanisms to address past crimes, including truth commissions. Hence, this was different than previous moments in Korean history when the government wielded its command over textbooks, “shaped the nation’s dominant memory,” and even “fact-finding committees” were wielded as “weapons in memory wars over traumatic events” (Baker, 2010: 207).…”

Section: Memory Textbook and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…According to scholars, there is no predominant discourse of Korean memory from the 1970s. General Park’s government (1961–1979) is remembered in a mixed way, with acknowledgements of both economic developments and human rights violations occurring during that period (Baker, 2010). Others note that although South Korea’s “economic performance rose under Park’s leadership, it came at a steep price” with workers’ rights exploitation and the suppression of civil liberties and human rights (Heo and Roehrig, 2010: 24).…”

Section: Portrayal Of General Park’s Periodmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The original narrative from the government in the immediate aftermath of Kwangju was that it had been “taken over by rioters and the government had no choice but to use force to restore order” (Baker, 2010: 205). However, as historians note, the massacre involved government paratroopers who were “so out of control that they even stabbed to death the director of information of the police station when he tried to stop them from brutalizing people,” and who were engaged in killing populations not involved in the protests, including taxi and bus drivers (Katsiaficas, 2012: 167).…”

Section: The Narrative On Kwangju’s Democratization Movementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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South Korea’s collective memory of past human rights abuses

2018

Memory Studies

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Embedded in transitional justice processes is an implicit reference to the production of collective memory and history. This article aims to study how memory initiatives become a crucial component of truth-seeking and reparations processes. The article examines South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the creation of collective memory through symbolic reparations of history revision in education. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended a set of symbolic reparations to the state, including history rectification reflective of the truth on human rights violations. Using political discourse analysis, this study compares the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report to the 2016 national history textbook. The article finds that the language of human rights in state sponsored history revisions contests the findings of the truth commission. And in doing so, this analysis argues for the need to reevaluate the government-initiated memory politics even in a democratic state that instituted numerous truth commissions and prosecuted former heads of state.

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“…The majority of the people cooperated with these regimes. However, it seemed that the elites had appropriated all the resources available to them to take advantage of the grassroots, which has caused much friction within the nation-state, rather than making an effort to create a harmonious society in which there are mutual respect, free-flow communication, and co-prosperity (cf., Baker 2010).…”

Section: References To the Media Reportagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calculated Nationalism in Contemporary South Korea

Han¹

2023

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Nationalism in a nation-state reflects its emergent structural, cultural, and personal properties at a given time. In the politico-historical context of South Korea and the globe, the fruits of the 1968 Revolution in France could not reach Korean society under its military regime and exploitative economic structure. This continued to frustrate the grassroots and especially social actors in South Korea, which eventually brought about the June Struggle in 1987 and the 2016–2017 Candlelight Revolution. Calculated Nationalism in Contemporary South Korea sketches Korean grassroots’ perception of their nation-state, national identities, and what they desire regarding the future direction of their nation-state. The grassroots have openly spoken out about their frustrations through political rallies and media. This book attempts to reflect the minds of Korean progressives regarding, in particular, the forcibly recruited Japanese military “comfort women,” Abe’s trade provocation against South Korea in 2019, reunification, the 2016–2017 Candlelight Revolution, National Flag-carriers’ struggles, and bullying at work.

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Exacerbated Politics: The Legacy of Political Trauma in South Korea

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in Korea‐Japan Relations

Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in Korea‐Japan Relations

South Korea’s collective memory of past human rights abuses

Calculated Nationalism in Contemporary South Korea

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