In the Eyes of the
Believer Column of the Catholic Times a director of a Theological
Institute gives the readers some thoughts on the truth and mercy
connection that society has to deal with not infrequently.
A second-generation Korean director active in Japan, was selected as the winner of a Peace Prize this year. The
director has been making documentary videos for 40 years together with
the history academia and civic groups to teach the truth about the
massacre of Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan. The date was September 1, 1923, at the time considered the worst natural disaster ever to
strike quake-prone Japan.
Before
and after the awards ceremony, several Catholic groups joined together
to watch documentary films made and listen to lectures related to the
earthquake under the supervision of Pax Christi Korea.
It was a 7.9-magnitude earthquake similar to the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria a while ago. It left devastating damage. However,
in the chaos of this disaster, rumors that “Koreans poisoned wells”
and “Koreans are setting fires and killing Japanese” spread and
emergency martial law was declared, and vigilante groups organized by
the military, police, and civilians started indiscriminately killing Koreans. About 6,600 Koreans were massacred during the Great Kanto Earthquake.
One documentary begins with a scene to excavate remains in a riverbed. This is the place where Koreans were slaughtered and buried during the earthquake. A
Japanese civic group trying to find out the truth was allowed a limited
period of three days to dig, but no remains were found. However,,
a survivor shows the scars left on his body and vividly testifies to
the memories of that time, and Japanese residents also share their
eyewitness accounts, recalling memories of the time, including diaries
they wrote as children. The
film restores the memories of the Kanto Massacre buried underground for
60 years, showing various historical materials and interviews with
Japanese eyewitnesses intermittently showing the truth of the
testimonies.
At
the end of the film, a Korea witness is talking with a Japanese witness
of the event, standing side by side the Japanese citizen is weeping and hopes that his
grandchildren will not forget the truth of what happened. Perhaps
the words we want to hear the most about the past history of the
Japanese colonial era, the true reconciliation between Korea and Japan,
is such a scene.
On
March 1st, the President read a commemorative speech to cooperate with
Japan instead of mentioning the past, and a few days later, the
government announced that the Korean companies should pay compensation to victims of forced labor. The
government explains that we should stop demanding an apology from the
Japanese government for past history, and focus on building a
future-oriented Korea-Japan relationship that cooperates for security
and economy. At
first glance, the words to move toward the future rather than the past
seem hopeful, but the writer is concerned that the perpetrators are
given an excuse to hide or distort the truth of history.
In 1973, conscientious citizens of Japan took the lead in erecting a memorial to Korean victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake. They
held a memorial service for the Korean victims on September 1 every
year, and successive Tokyo governors have also sent polite eulogies to
express their condolences. However,
since 2017, the provincial governor has refused to send a eulogy, and
provincial council members are pushing for the removal of memorial
stones, and far-right citizens have disrupted the memorial service and
continued anti-Korean protests, saying that the massacre of Koreans was a
false accusation.
It
is not only yesterday that anti-Korean rumors similar to the Great
Kanto Earthquake spread whenever disasters occur and many Japanese actually
believe them. As
the saying goes, history that is not remembered will repeat itself, so
the path to true reconciliation will not be oblivion of the past.
