The More They Stay the Same

Quote from James Scarth Gale written in the late 1920s , a Protestant Scholar-missionary as recorded in Korea's Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings.



We weep over old Korea, a victim, not so much of political agencies, as of the social and intellectual revolution that has come from the west.

We have unwittingly brought about the destruction of East Asia, in which Korea is involved. To her the west evidently does as it pleases, why should she not? The west has no barriers between the sexes, why should she have? In everything that she has seen of the west, religion counts as nothing: why should she bother about it? Labor-unionism, communism, socialism, Bolshevism, and anarchism express the real mind of the western nations; why should she not take them up and be the same? Why should she sing in falsetto when the west sings with the whole throat wide open... . Why not go whirling off for joy-rides, boys and girls? Why not be divorced at pleasure? why not be up-to-date as the west is up to date? This wild dream... well expresses the mind of the advanced youth of the city of Seoul in these days of confusion.

Let us glance once more at the Korea that is gone, " the land of the superior man," as China long ago called her; land of the scholar, land of the book and writing-brush, land of the beautiful vase and polished mirror; land of rarest, choicest fabrics; land of poems and painted pictures; land of the filial son, the devoted wife, the loyal courier; land of the hermit, the deeply religious seer whose final goal was God.



Cumings at the end adds: It is a statement in 3 parts: an old up right gentleman lamenting a lost past; a testament of his love of Korea, where he lived for forty years; and a sign that he had his finger on the pulse of Seoul.

MORE THAN WITNESSES

More Than Witnesses is a book edited by Jim Stentzel

How a Small Group of Missionaries aided Korea's Democratic Revolution



On April 9, 1975, eight innocent persons, condemned in the case of the "People's Revolutionary Party Incident," were executed under the iron-fisted rule of the then-president Park Chung-hee. A belated retrial for the PRP Incident was held and the wrong was righted. During these difficult times a group who called themselves the Monday Night Group had a great deal to do with the help that was given to the families and the individuals hurting during this difficult
period in recent Korean History. This group was also instrumental in getting news of the repression in Korea out to the other countries. The book tells the story of many of those in this Monday Night Group. Two of the members George E Ogle and James Sinnott were deported.
(Taken from the forward and introduction to the book)



Below is a poem written by Fr. Jim Sinnott, on a visit by the families of those executed, to Fr. Sinnott on his recent 80th birthday.

Summer Solstice, June 2009

Write it down
Before it goes away:
Eleven people sitting round a table
Out on a lawn under a tree
Here where I live now,
Remembering the things we did,
Attempts against some things
Happening here in South Korea
More than thirty years ago:
Men falsely accused, jailed unfairly –
One of them, eight years imprisoned,
Sitting next to me and
The widow of another
Sitting at my other side.

We are gathered here today
Because I’ve just turned eighty,
A thing impossible to dream of
In one’s early years,
As impossible as the events
That happened here in South Korea
More than thirty years ago,
Events that knit us into one,
An inseparable fabric
Labeled by security police
The “In hyek dang”
The Peoples’ Revolutionary Party,
That phony dictator’s concoction,
That lie that changed our lives
And made widows of these women
As well as years-long prisoners
Of twenty other men.
Eight men were hanged
One early morning, an evil solstice
More than thirty years ago, nine April,
When for us the sun stood still,
A day declared “Black day
In the history of jurisprudence”
By the lawyers of the world;

A day etched in the memory of my guests today,
Gathered round this table
On the lawn outside my house
For an eightieth birthday celebration,
An occasion no young person
Of my generation gives much thought to,
Anymore than one would plan
To be involved with
Murderous judicial decisions,
Torture of the chosen victims
Who were innocent of any crime,
As an apologetic nation
Finally admitted -
Thirty years too late.

And so we gather at this table
And reminisce
About the ways we tried to fight
Those terrible decisions
And we sing again the songs we sang
As we paraded on the streets,
Breaking the “peaceful order” laws
Of those dark times of martial law;
Eleven men and women sitting at a table,
On this day, this summer solstice,
Remembering, together,
Before we also go away.

James Sinnott, MM