http://derstandard.at/1381372398137/Gegenwaertige-Vergangenheit
Anna Kim16 present past . November 2013, 17:00
photo: Sven Paustian / suhrkamp "I had the sense of foreboding that I would be exposed in Korea a continuing confusion " Anna Kim .
"History is the battle for memory," said my uncle at Thanksgiving sigh - how true! A report from a trip to my supposed homeland South Korea. Anna Kimes a journey into Certain should be, and yet it was a journey into the unknown - in my supposed homeland South Korea. And I was hardly a day in the city of labyrinths and crooked curbs , as I approached a skyscraper that was in Korean letters , the German word "home" , on the top floor between the windows.
MORE TO airplane theme : wanderlust ? Book now on austrian.comWerbung
How cheeky, I want to dictate my feelings , I thought as I walked across the street at a red and a wooden cart, pushed by a not even half as big man dodged . Even when I had approached me in the Helsinki Terminal , the sense of foreboding had crept up that I would be exposed to a continuing confusion , because Korea is an abstract place for me , full of absurdities.
The first I met on the plane from Helsinki to Incheon . On the front page of Korea Times , an English-language daily newspaper, which was founded in November 1950 , four months after the start of the Korean War , standing over a large photo Lee Seok -ki , a Member of the United Progressive Party in the newspaper as "far described left ", that he should be arrested.
The accusation against him was treason. He had concocted as one of the ten plan to overthrow the current government with a North Korean attack by wanted to hunt an important part of the infrastructure in South Korea (especially the whole Internet ) into the air. On 12 May this year had warned Lee Organization during a meeting of his Revolutionary secret that there will be a war .
This article made me suspicious , just months earlier, I had worked my way through the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2009 , in which the verified violations of human rights or , more generally, human violations (torture ) and kills the past decades since the Japanese colonial period are listed. As I read the reports , it became increasingly clear that both Korea used the other half as a scapegoat , and to get rid of political opponents , the most convenient excuse in the world.
Park Jung - hee , the autocrats of the Rhee Syng -man followed by the military coup d'état using to power, used the excuse of the Communist threat , to keep himself in power, just as his predecessor and his successor, Chun Doo Rhee - hwan , just like he was a dictator.
Park said twice during his eighteen- year dictatorship , there was a People's Revolutionary Party, the Seek to overthrow the government . The first time was to come up with the tale of his regime in 1965, the second time in 1974 , both times supported by the Korean intelligence , who compiled the names of the innocent , undertook their arrest and their torture. The first time nor stirred resistance among the public, and the judge refused to condemn the prisoners : The burden of proof is too low. The second time , almost ten years later , the situation had changed, the dictatorship had screwed up their repression degrees , and the eight men who were portrayed as heads of the Risen People's Revolutionary Party , were executed , as twenty hours after the passing of the death sentence.
I'm interested in this very case , and to learn more about him, I 'm in the district Junggok the road, about a half - hour subway from the center . The first thing that strikes me is how korean everything is compared to the city center where all the signs are at least two languages , Korean and English, and the subway announcements in four languages: Korean, Japanese, Chinese and English. There does not seem to be necessary to impress strangers , there is no sparkling , twinkling lights , and also the cafes without English names are not widely espresso stands, but input ranges from mini - markets. The sidewalks are narrow and bumpy , narrower , and humpbacked than in the center , the houses small , most two-storied, only on the eight-lane road are the eight-story building . The suit people missing, and also lose the shoes , proportional to the height of the houses paragraph: Here you wear flat. While I was a little surprised actuates the bell , I practice the set, I 'm Anna Kim, I have an appointment with Father Sinnott , an attempt to wean me the alleged North Korean accent.
No one answers. Then I see the surveillance camera above the front door , I found myself already in sight , it buzzes , I enter . A small , very young woman comes from the Secretariat. She looks like the typical Korean student , loose t -shirt, hot pants , ruffled socks. I say I have an appointment with jin sinbunim , Father James Sinnott . She does not look up, just mumbles , wait here , pointing to a room , which I think is the living room. Armchairs standing here , a large black coffee table and bookshelves with various Bible editions .
James Sinnott is originally from New York. Today, 83 years old, he came as a 31- year-old in 1960 in a country where there was nothing and nothing happened in the to make a something out of nothing , he says, there was only one factory that was frightfully high unemployment large parts of the population starved to death , and many refugees from the north had settled in barracks in the south , particularly in Incheon, for which he was responsible . Together with the people , he began to create and to cultivate rice fields , and they also built a hospital . Only in the late 1960s , the situation in the country began to improve , so much so that we should call this the miracle on the Han River . The word miracle is misleading ; economic recovery came about through the exploitation of the workers, who , some only 14 years old, eight to ten in the morning clock clock at night and in small rooms without windows or ventilation, with only a three Klopausen had lunch to work seven days a week . The miracle came about also because Korean workers were sent abroad , such as miners and nurses to Germany. As a child I heard of them, especially of the miners of those who had been students in Korea , musicologist , German studies , I heard wild stories about fake documents whose legality was guaranteed with a carved from a potato stamp . I was not surprised then that these students had been unemployed so that they went abroad , and today it makes me suspicious , since there was no surplus academics at that time. Perhaps they were former political activists who were once caught, banned from all public service jobs . That most large companies had to rely on them that the government was well disposed would have never hired a government opponents - mountain work was in this situation may be the only solution .
This people - export ( as soldiers to Vietnam ) reduced the unemployment rate and guaranteed foreign exchange. However, with the first oil crisis in 1973 and the reduction of U.S. aid came to a halt the miracle , and the constitutional amendment that Park Jung - hee should guarantee absolute power, was for the majority of the population too much . The atmosphere was unbearable, says Sinnott , as Koreans had to be very careful who you told what , every , even the smallest criticism of Park 's regime ended in an arrest, the agents were everywhere. Only they , the foreigners have been protected from non- spying before , no, their phones were tapped, if it had geknackst quietly in the line , they would have known by now you listen to , but the Park regime dared not to take them into custody and torture , the Koreans , who were active in the resistance movement and organized demonstrations , as Americans they were untouchable , the South Korean government actually financially dependent on the U.S. .
Its own population , however , said James Sinnott , had been exposed to merciless persecution constantly monitored. You can not imagine how bad it was then, he says, and it has become worse with each passing year , the park remained in office, the situation has deteriorated , freedom of speech , free elections , freedom of assembly , all these foreign words . You have to talk in whispers , and even that only partially , because too much Gewispere was suspicious. In April 1974 more than satisfied with the situation , students organized demonstrations across the country . Then park called the law of war , by declaring North Korea threatens the South : North Korean agents had infiltrated the ranks and students organized the demonstrations . Thousands were arrested , 23 identified as the instigator and executed a year later, eight of the 23 , a few hours after the verdict .
The wives of these eight men (including a Japanese teacher, a brewer and a beekeeper ) no one came to help, the journalists would have nothing to do with them, even the lawyers did not help. Communist women and children were Communists - a disgrace in South Korea seventies , says Jim Sinnott , and today , I ask, is it different today ? Sinnott responds with a vague smile. The Commission was established under the presidency of former human rights lawyer Roh Moo -hyun to life. At that time, efforts have been made to correct such miscarriages of justice and to rehabilitate the defendant , that grant them the status they deserve : that of the victim. When the Conservative Lee Myung -bak took over the presidency in 2008 , the Commission's budget was cut so that these could not finish their work . The excavated graves were covered with tarpaulins, the bodies are still unidentified.
Change of location , I am now in the city center , amidst the skyscrapers and their mirror windows , ahistorical they seem and compared with the story , which owns the place actually , they are : They are made of steel, cement and glass, most of them not older than twenty years. Is that the phase of the history of South Korea , which is thus regarded as respectable as presentable ? The central Seoul is a place that has been worked on consciously in the design of memory. All traces of the Japanese colonial rule have disappeared, the trams , the Japanese administration building. In Seoul, one does not seem to make do with the fact that history took place , you also know very well that this is ultimately the memory manipulation : what matters is the history. Is the War Memorial Museum to be understood as such an attempt ? It makes autocrats and dictators meritorious president.
Another absurdity : Chun Doo - hwan , who was responsible during his dictatorial tenure for the massacre in Gwangju, is my neighbor , every day I see his black limousine parked in front of his house and think , apparently he is at home. He was originally sentenced to death , but was pardoned and released after only three years in prison in a villa , house arrest. Coincidence? The daughter of his mentor Park Jung - hee , Park Geun - hye , is the current president . I feel surrounded by dictators , I say Kim Sung -soo , he laughs and says little comforting : Yes , it is . We are on the tenth floor , and through the window falls the light of late afternoon , it is still hazy, but I 'm tempted to call it golden.
I asked Kim Sung -soo as a former Commissioner for an interview because I had stumbled during my research about the message , the English version of the Commission's report was taken off the net and was prohibited their publication in book form . Reasons cited by the Commission's new director ( appointed by the then newly elected President Lee ) the poor quality of the translation given. I had already read the report and not bother me about the quality of the translation. I was not surprised , however , because the Commission contradicted the version of Korean history , which had been attributed to North Korean troops during the Korean War, the massacre. Even as a child I heard about the atrocities of the bbalgaengi , the Rotlinge how the Communists are called colloquially . That this has now been attributed to the good, the public was just upset , especially since many perpetrators in the years that followed, in the purges of the Park and Chun regimes were repeat offenders - even if it was not the same people , so there was but it in the family.
Kim Sung -soo says that the public has no interest whatsoever to the report. But the report refutes but everything has been thought of , I disagree . My namesake shakes his head , the public had not interested in the results of the Commission. Whether or not this explain how the daughter of Park Jung -hee was able to come to power , I ask. Park was regarded as the father of modern South Korea, he was very popular, and his daughter has benefited greatly from its popularity, says Kim . Although she apologized at the beginning of her presidency with the families of the eight "revolutionary " , he says, the mandate of the Commission had, as its predecessor and party comrade Lee not renewed.
The Cold War is not over yet here , accused of being a communist and being marginalized even today have consequences. If you demand improvements , social support for single mothers about , you run the risk of falling into disrepute as a communist . The allegations against Mr Lee , I ask, this could also be fabrications of the National Intelligence Service ? NIS would go so far ? It's possible , says Sung -soo Kim , shrugging , some people think that parking Geun - hye in this way trying to get rid of a political opponent . Others thought that NIS trying to avert his reformation and the impending end of the monitor so that the civilian population with suspicion of Communism . He had the information about Lee right now because the reduction was imminent , used the anti -communist agenda is not to give up .
The NIS was before the election Park Geun - hye aside by with negative messages he flooded the social media platform Twitter about their counterparties and positive about it , and a program einrichtete that this weitertweetete automatically . The Director of the NIS is usually selected by the President. Park has so far not commented on the investigation of the prosecution , which started recently in this matter , as she remained silent , as the new history textbooks and their repressive actions of the dictatorial regime of the 60s , 70s and 80s years (which are not , and certainly not called dictatorial regime ) trivializing chapters were published . At the protest candles were lit throughout South Korea against the books, they responded with the appointment of a historian in the State Historical Commission , the Rhee Syng -man compares with Moses - maybe he was the one who wrote the declaration signs in the War Memorial Museum? There is only the "president " Rhee and Park 's speech , about the constitutional changes , both first names in order to stay in power, remain completely unmentioned. History is the battle for memory , sighing my uncle said the Korean Thanksgiving and moved the black and white photos of my grandparents and rightly so - how true . (Anna Kim, THE STANDARD, 16.11.2013 )
Anna Kim, born in 1977 in Daejeon , South Korea, is an Austrian writer . Since 1983 she lives , with interruptions , in Vienna. Recently published by her " The frozen time" ( Literaturverlag Droschl , 2008) , " invasions of privacy " ( Droschl , 2011) and " Anatomy of a Night " ( Suhrkamp , 2012).