Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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 Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2005 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| seungwun wrote: |
| Hanson wrote: |
It seems to me that many Europeen countries' populations have forgiven Germany for things that happened 60-65 years ago. Just like our new pope, most German soldiers were forced to go Hitler's way. People in Europe (and dare I say around the world) have forgiven Germany and realize that today's German population have nothing to do with Hitler's regime.
Why can't Koreans do the same? |
There's a fundemental difference between what Germany did to Europe and what Japan did to Korea. What made the Germans so horrible was the fact that they tried to kill off all the Jews. What they did to the Jews in the concentration camps was not what they did to the rest of Europe. Have the Jewish community forgiven Hitler and the Nazi? I THINK NOT. |
Half of those who died in the camps weren't Jews. The Nazis were less cruel to those who weren't members of targeted groups, but they were kind to nobody save themselves.
And I can tell you with certainty that Jews today (with extremely few exceptions) feel no bitterness towards Germany and modern Germans. Hitler, the camp guards, etc., are obviously beyond forgiveness. But no Jew has feelings about modern Germans even approaching what Koreans feel about modern Japanese.
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| In the same way, Japan attacked and oppressed the Koreans for decades, raping our mothers, sisters, and daughters, forcing us to forsake our heritage, language, and culture, and killing everyone as they pleased, conducting unthinkable tortures and experiments. Have you ever heard of the "Rape of Nanjing"? Think of that, which took place in six weeks, and apply it for decades. Could YOU forgive? |
I think this is an area in which Korean history books are not truthful. There is no way to justify the Japanese occupation but it was not an unbroken orgy of violence like Nanjing (which was in China, as were the biological warfare experiments). Repression could be brutal and it got worse over time, but the measures Koreans are the most upset about took place only towards the very end. I can't tell Koreans how to feel about it but I do think they should be honest about it.
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| And lastly, until very recently, unlike Germany, Japan had never made any FORMAL apologies for their actions. I know that the Japanese Prime Minister recently apologized, so give Korea some time for the apology to sink in. Of course, many Koreans believed the apology was strictly to get voted into the Security Council of the UN. But who knows, give it time. The deeper the wound, the longer it'll take to heal. And Korea only recently were given a band-aide to place over the wound. |
I think this is the key point. The Germans invested an incredible amount of effort and money into making amends--supporting and giving money to Israel; building museums; ritual apologies every year; refusing to whitewash their own history. Japan has mostly not done any of this, and the result is that young Japanese don't know why Koreans are mad at them.
But Korea isn't making things any better. Marching in the streets over Dokdo, making video games about killing Koizumi, using the schools to teach kids to hate Japanese--where does any of this get them? When a 12-year old tells me she hates 12-year old Japanese because their grandparents hurt her grandparents, that is insanity. |
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