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Suwoner10
Joined: 10 Dec 2007
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 Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:04 am Post subject: Not 1945...2008! Korea Seizing Privately-Owned Land |
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If you think teachers are being treated unfairly in general, get a load of this New York Times article:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/settling-very-old-scores-in-south-korea/?hp
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To what extent should people be made to pay today for what their parents or grandparents did more than 60 years ago?
South Korea is pursuing a pretty tough answer to that question. A special commission set up by the government is seizing property from the families of Koreans who collaborated with the country�s rulers between 1910 and 1945, a time of painful memory when Korea was a Japanese colony.
Reports in JoonAng Daily and The Korea Times say the commission decided on Thursday to seize $43 million worth of property, effective immediately, from descendants of seven men found to have become wealthy because they cooperated with the Japanese overlords, generally by serving as officials in the colonial government. The idea is to redistribute those assets to the families of people who suffered during the same period because they actively resisted Japanese rule.
The seven collaborators are among 450-odd people the commission has been investigating, with most cases to be wrapped up in the next few months. By The Lede�s lights, it�s an extraordinary undertaking, one that seems to have attracted little attention in the Western press, though it has been going on since 2006. Historic parallels are not easy to find.
�Land reforms� meant to break up and redistribute the concentrated holdings of a propertied elite have often followed wars or revolutions (or sometimes even elections) that overthrew that elite. The rationale has usually been economic � scrapping a sclerotic feudal system to give the masses a chance to prosper � and in most recent cases there has been at least some compensation paid for the seized land.
Not in South Korea, though, where the stated aim and the choice of targets are straightforwardly punitive. But the punishment comes an extraordinarily long time after the offense.
The Lede is reminded a bit of the American Revolution and its aftermath: many Loyalists� property in the Colonies was seized when they fought on the British side or when they fled to Britain or Canada, knowing they were unwelcome. Others stayed put and successfully kept their royally granted lands, though � in some cases, to this day � and either way, the matter was settled within a few years and was ancient history by the 1840s, six decades after that war ended.
A better analogy might be Central Europe in the 1990s, when former landowning families who had been dispossessed by communism returned after communism�s fall 40-odd years later, seeking to recover their old properties � or perhaps, the recent efforts to restore to Holocaust victims or their heirs the art and valuables that were looted by the Nazis. Countries in the region have, with various degrees of reluctance, set up commissions and courts to sort out these claims, some of which are still being argued.
But their aim is the return of appropriated assets to a rightful owner. The Korean program is not concerned with that, but rather with stripping wealth away from those who, because of their ancestors� actions, have been deemed undeserving of it.
It should be noted that Japanese colonial rule of Korea was, by most historians� accounts, oppressive. Though much was done to modernize the country, many Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese names, language and religion and to feed and serve the Imperial war machine, while Japanese colonists were brought in and given Korean land. An independence movement was brutally crushed, and atrocities were committed during World War II.
It is easy to see how collaboration with such a regime would still be a very sore point with many Koreans, especially since the conservative political forces that dominated South Korea after the war resisted demands to act against the collaborators right away.
Still, this idea of the sins of the fathers being visited on the children (and grandchildren) is one that is fairly alien to Western conceptions of justice � which may be why there is so much controversy surrounding proposals for the United States to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves, nearly 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
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Lots of things about Korea have surprised me in the time I've been here. But this. Incredibly onerous and creepy. |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:13 am Post subject: |
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Yes, remarkable. Everybody fancies themselves a freedom fighter these days, in another case of historical amnesia. Imagining a vibrant, 35-year-long resistance movement. But I'm not too sure there were many people who wouldn't be considered collaborators.
This is very sinister and obviously politically motivated. Remember two years ago that one of the Truth and Reconcilliation commissions in Korea cleared a bunch of people from responsibility during the war and occupation, saying they had no choice but to work for the Japanese government during that time. Among those cleared were 80-plus Korean convicted war criminals.
Hatred for Japan knows no limits in Korea, though any reasonable person should realize that this is just too much. Of course, how many reasonable Koreans do you know in public office?
It's time to just let it go. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:18 am Post subject: |
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unreal. I didn't realise Mugabe's "land reforms' would be copied worldwide.
This society is turning itself inside out with hatred and prejudice.
Who will they hate when all the foreigners have left? eachother. |
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exit86
Joined: 17 May 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:27 am Post subject: |
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Yes, every Korean was a freedom fighter back then.
50% of the police force that dragged away the comfort women
(the actual age at "recruitment" was early teens actually), and
that tortured the other Korean freedom fighters at places like the Seodaemun prison complex (even up until the 1980's) weren't
really Koreans, but freedom fighters in disguise.
Think of all those freedom fighters who went to school in Japan then
came back to Korea for government jobs under the Japanese.
How about the 365,000 freedom fighters who were in the Japanese army during WWII and the 725,000 freedom fighters who worked in Japanese munitions factories and other factories directly dedicated to the war effort against the Allied troops who would later bring all Koreans freedom?
Yup EVERY Korean was a freedom fighter back then. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:35 am Post subject: |
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| exit86 wrote: |
Yup EVERY Korean was a freedom fighter back then. |
France is likewise full of millions of people who were in the resistance. 
Western nations have not had such a past to deal with. By and large we are from countries that weren't invaded or colonised. Its hard to judge i suppose.
But It really does look bad to be ripping property away from people for the actions of their distant forebears. I assume it also erodes investor confidence when a country starts adopting such measures. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 3:41 am Post subject: |
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remember that Namdaemun was burnt down by a man angry at the government for land he wasn't compensated enough for and for the deaf ears of the authorities on the matter
Koreans know the country has a long history of injustice towards its people by its rulers, and this recent move just perpetuates that while attempting to address it
that's irony |
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Khenan
Joined: 25 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| Sounds like they're taking property from rich people and giving it to poor people. I'd vote for that. |
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Ryst Helmut
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
Location: In search of the elusive signature...
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 4:43 am Post subject: |
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I thought the reason for the seizure was that the land that the individuals got rich off of was never really theirs. I was informed that because the 'guilty' Korean individuals collaborated/aided the Japanese, and the Japanese in turn gave them land.
The logic went: Korean land taken by Japan -> Japan gave illegally obtained land to spies/what have you ->the land and what-not never really was theirs -> and so they are not entitled to it.
Sure took awhile for them to enact this...
!shoosh,
Ryst |
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PGF
Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:32 am Post subject: |
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yeah sounds ok.
Their country wasn't occupied for a very long time (historically speaking). So land acquired by jap collaborators and passed on to their offspring should be returned to the koeran people and said offspring should go to japan and work if they can not make it in korea. |
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Suwoner10
Joined: 10 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Khenan wrote: |
Sounds like they're taking property
from rich people and giving it to poor people. I'd vote for that. |
Countries where they take from the rich and give to the poor don't have the option of voting. |
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RJjr
Joined: 17 Aug 2006
Location: Turning on a Lamp
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Khenan wrote: |
| Sounds like they're taking property from rich people and giving it to poor people. I'd vote for that. |
It says they're giving the land to people whose ancestors suffered. They may not be poor now. That the law is being passed so many years after the occupation makes it sound like the "people whose ancestors suffered" are likely powerful politicians now. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:44 pm Post subject: |
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I don't see how you can punish someone for what was done 70 years ago.
It doesn't make sense at all. It seems very petty considering so many Koreans served with the Japanese. This is absolutely pointless. The Korean hero, Park Jung-Hee, collaborated with the Japanese as far as I understand, yet he lionized by Koreans. |
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GoldMember
Joined: 24 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Korea's greatest President Park Chung Hee (The father of the Miracle on the Han), was a huge Japanese collaborator. He adopted the Japanese name Okamoto, and was a Leuitenant in the Japanese Imperial Army (he volunteered).
Wonder if they'll be going after any of his daughter's property (a very prominent polititian).
Nah, I doubt it. |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 4:07 am Post subject: |
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I think with Lee Myungbag becoming president, this trend is going to end quickly, and the people who want to punish the descendents of traitors will be the ones being published.
And it would be cool if Park Junghee's daughter was punished. I mean, she's not responsible for her dad being a traitor, but she's always going on about what a great "president" he was. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:00 am Post subject: |
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| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
I think with Lee Myungbag becoming president, this trend is going to end quickly, and the people who want to punish the descendents of traitors will be the ones being published.
And it would be cool if Park Junghee's daughter was punished. I mean, she's not responsible for her dad being a traitor, but she's always going on about what a great "president" he was. |
I really hope the conservative leader of Korea makes some positive changes in Korea. Korea is still too stuck in the past. This focusing on punishing people who helped the Japanese is basically the misuse of nationalism and doesn't do anything to help Korea modernize, become more efficient, increase productivity etc.... How many Korean heros who helped build this country hadn't supported the Japanese? I bet many of the kids who say they hate Japanese people had grandparents who shook their hands... |
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