Tragedy of Extreme Anti-Japanese Education in S.Korea
" A 95 year-old man was beaten to death for saying, "Japan's rule was good for Korea", raising cries of, "The old man deserved to die" and "It was a blow for justice". "
When a 95 year-old man in South.Korea expressed his opinion that Japan's rule was good for Korea, another man who happened to be there got angry with him and beat him to death. The accused killer said in a deposition that he did it because of his sense of patriotism. S.Korean net users raised their voices strongly in his defence. Shock spread among the Japanese people who witnessed the awful incident. In the comments section of an article delivered on a portal website, a Korean net user says "The victim deserved to be killed " and the articles that defend the alleged killer rated very highly.
According to "Sekai Nippo", it happened on May ,2013, in the Citizen park of Chongmyo Shrine. The park is known as a sightseeing spot or a place where old folks who live near by can relax. They always enjoy a small talk or a game of go under the sun. The victim Mr. Parks(95) is one of these members. There, Wong, the defendant of the case, came, he drunk a lot and completely intoxicated. As the drunken man talked with Mr. Parks, and then his casual words," I thought experience of Japanese rule was acceptable." incurred Wong's wrath.
We don't know which part of Japanese colonial policy Mr. Parks evaluated, but his words could have carried a lot of weight because he was 95 years old, and was already 27 at the end of the war. So he must have seen the real conditions of Japanese rule over Korea, and the subsequent modern Korean history, with his own eyes. The defendant Wong, on the other hand, is 37 years old, a member of the generation that did not even store the Park Chung Hee regime in their memories.
"What did you say?!" said the patriot Wong with heat. He gave a kick at Park, wrested his stick, and beet his head in an outburst of rage. Mr. Park got a serious injury to his skull bone and brain and was dead despite of medical treatment.
The arrested Wong pleaded that he was in a diminished capacity state due to intoxication, but he was sentenced to 5 years in prison on September 10, 2013.
Surprisingly, many South Koreans have expressed support for Wong. From the first, the above-mentioned article of Sekai Nippo reported the case in a rather sympathetic tone to the defendant, saying, "His patriotism went too far due to alcohol"
Besides, on the web in S. Korea some people praise Park as a patriot. There are many comments made about this article, such as,
"In the first place, once the old cocker admired the Japanese imperialism, he should be considered a criminal and deserved to be murdered",
"Was the killer sentenced? no, actually rather worthy of a medal",
"He worked for justice",
"It is the judge who is a traitor"
As a matter of course, some Korean say " Is that a member of a constitutional state's behavior? Since when did Korea come to be such a country that allowed to kill people who held a different views of history from the consensus view?" But this kind of opinion is losing ground on the ｗeb in S. Korea where users who hold radical opinions are gathering momentum.
As regards to evaluation of the period of Japanese rule in S.Korea, in recent years, there has been a tendency to approve of it, partly because some researchers consider Japan's promotion of Korean modernization to be important. However, as soon as the S.Korean authorities gave official permission to the textbook that reflects such opinions on August 30, 2013, the public criticism grew, which triggered a huge argument involving the political world.
This seems to be still a deep-seated taboo.
*The image above is a shot of an anti-Japanese demonstration in S.Korea. They killed the Japanese national birds on the road brutally.
J-cast ニュース
original article of 'Sekai Nippo'
