Thoughts About Korea's History - Part 2

The modern history of Korea is also complex and, in my opinion, very dramatic.

The Japanese colonization of Korea finally came to an end after Japan's defeat in world war II.  But the Japanese colonial period was, unfortunately, almost immediately followed by the Korean war.  When the Korean war ended, the Korean peninsula was divided into two nations, North Korea and South Korea, a situation that continues to this day.

The Korean war, like the colonization of Korea by Japan, continues to have important impacts on Korean society today.

First of all, I was surprised to learn, a few months ago, that the Korean war is technically not over.  In 1953, about three years after the war began, an armistice was signed to end the hostilities, but no peace treaty was ever signed by North and South Korea.  The shelling of Yeonpyeong island, and the recent sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan are two of the latest incidents in this on-going war.

Secondly, it appears to me that many South Koreans remember the Korean war as a painfully destructive event.  Many survivors of the war are still alive today, while many other Koreans were born shortly after, and have probably heard war stories from their parents.  When Yeonpyeong island was attacked last year, many Koreans that I spoke to, though angry that their nation had been attacked, had no desire whatsoever to escalate matters.  Rather, they feared the potential consequences of another full-scale war on the Korean peninsula.

Thirdly, because the United Nations, and the United States in particular, supported them during the Korean war, South Koreans admire the United States very much.  They also respect the institutions of the United Nations, and are grateful for the support they received from UN member states.

The UN cemetary in Busan.

A monument in honour of the UN allies of South Korea, in Busan.

The US and British flags at a UN monument, in Busan.

The Canadian flag at a UN monument, in Busan.

Following the Korean war, South Korea experienced a long period of dictatorship.  Reading about this period of Korean history, it seems to me that a handful of dictators controlled the country from the end of the war to the late 1980's, sometimes seizing power in military coups, then organizing elections when they felt they would win them, and instituting martial law and cracking down on the people when their authority was challenged.

One of Korea's dictators, Park Cheon-Hee (박정희), ruled the country for a particularly long time, from 1961 to 1979.  On one hand, he is credited for having positively influenced the economic development of Korea.  On the other, he implicated Korea in the Viet Nam war, and brutally cracked down on his opponents.  He survived a few assassination attempts, one of which resulted in the death of his wife, before finally being assassinated by the director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

After the assassination of Park Cheon-Hee, another military figure took control of South Korea in a coup d'état.  But immediately, there were popular uprisings in the country to demand the establishment of democracy.  Of note is the GwangJu democratization movement, an uprising centered in the south-eastern city of GwangJu.  The GwangJu uprising was brutally repressed by the military, but eventually came to be seen as an important event in the struggle for democracy in Korea.  When I learned of it, I was surprised that I had not heard of it before.  I remember that the events that occurred in Tiananmen square in the late 1980's received a lot of coverage on the news in Canada.  The events that occurred in GwangJu seem to be as important, but I don't believe that they received as much coverage in the Canadian press.

Finally, it seems to me that the actions of the dictators of Korea, even though many of them used force to secure their power, are not as harshly judged by Koreans as the actions of the Japanese during the colonial period.  I think that this is so because it is generally accepted that Japan's colonization of Korea was a bad thing for all Koreans, while the actions and policies of Korea's dictators, though harmful for some Koreans, probably had positive effects for others.   As a result, the people are divided in their opinion of the dictators.  A similar state of affairs seems to exist in other countries that were long controlled by dictators, like Chile and Spain.