On the descendants of independence activists, or on colonial-era collaborators
Honestly, the fact that I am alive today means
my ancestors, while probably not collaborators for imperial Japan, also would not have been independence activists who dedicated their very lives without reserve to the country. They would have been ordinary citizens doing their best to protect themselves and their family.
The independence activists who dedicated both themselves and their entire families would have all died back then. Given the circumstances, it was a fight that could not be won. Countless unnamed people and their property were surely killed and stripped away through relentless pursuit and oppression. Those lives that lost everything and barely survived would have struggled just to sustain themselves under the harsh Japanese oppression. We aren't ignorant of the history of how ordinary people of that time blamed and badmouthed the families of independence activists. It's entirely predictable. Even today, people hold protests when public rental apartments are built next to their own — some even tear down and obstruct youth rental housing.. Past or present, the fact that one's own interests come first is an unavoidable fact of being human.
I wouldn't be able to. I too am an ordinary person, and I'd struggle just with being that.
I could willingly attend cultural gatherings like the candlelight protest,
but if I went back to the era of Japanese colonial swords and guns, I wouldn't be able to join the independence movement. I'm not righteous enough to offer my life in the name of justice. Out of fear, I might lock my door and keep my family quiet too.
Of course, even if the Gwangju Democratization Movement were reenacted in the present, it would be the same. I wouldn't offer my life for democracy and freedom. I wouldn't even go near any place that smelled of tear gas. I seem to be the type who'd rather roll in a dung field than go to the afterlife.
I run my mouth plenty, and I can hammer away at the keyboard like this because no one's watching — but if a gun barrel were swinging back and forth in front of me, I'd hesitate not a second to confess everything I know.
So that's what I'm saying.
I wouldn't be able to. No matter how I think about it, I'm not that kind of great person. Most citizens would be the same. It can't change. Who would calmly put their own life, and the lives of their family, on the line to realize justice — especially when the odds of that justice being realized are minimal?
That's why I cannot condemn the collaborators of the imperial era. A handful of a few took the lead in selling out the country, but I think the ordinary people who avoided or disparaged the independence activists around them are not much different.
That is why I am writing this post.
However, I believe the nation and its citizens must protect or support the circumstances of the families and direct descendants of independence activists. They should be given the level of prosperity they had before Japanese colonization, or better. That way, in some potentially similar circumstance someday, ordinary people like me — and their families — can somehow survive.
Could you do it? Could you put your own life, your parents' lives, your children's and spouse's lives on the line to join the independence movement?
Frankly, I don't have the confidence.
So even if it's closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, we must lend strength to the meritorious.
Related link - Park Won-soon's decision: no-bid contracts for Han River kiosks to families of independence meritorious
