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| Grand Massacre : Reconciliation and Healing? |
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Reconciliation and Healing at the Case of the Grand Massacre during the April Third Uprising 1948-1949 Dr. Won Don Kang (Social Ethics/Hanshin University) Our theme "Reconciliation and Healing" is very inclusive and suggestive. Therefore one could develop various ideas on it in different contexts. But I have experienced some difficulties, as I have attempted to estimate the exact possibility of reconciliation and healing at the case of the killed and the injured in a grand massacre. If one speaks of reconciliation and healing in such a context, who needs it? Killed or killers, injured or injurers, survivors, bereaved, or other people? I start from the assumption that the meaning of reconciliation and healing can be differentiated from the standpoint of a person who mentions it. In any case, it is almost impossible to materialize a possibility of reconciliation between the killed and the killers. In this article I would like to inquire into a possibility of reconciliation and healing at the case of the Grand Massacre during the April third Uprising on Jeju Island . First, I will explain the April Third Uprising and the Grand Massacre. Second, I will try to see into the efforts to find truths of the incidents, which have been sentenced to silence and ignorance for a long time under the anticommunist dictatorships. Third, I will analyze shamanistic rituals, in which people have attempted to come to the reconciliation between the killed and killers, and evaluate their significances from a theological viewpoint. Last, I will interpret the following traditional theological themes in search for a possibility of reconciliation and healing in our historical context: Resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment 1. The Grand Massacre during the April Third Uprising 1948-1949 The April Third Uprising was not an incident which took place on one day. It was rather a series of movements of the Jeju islanders for a self-governance on a local scale and a unified country in a national dimension. Some scholars have suggested that the April Third Uprising broke out on April 3, 1948, but it lasted till September 1954, in which the last subjugation against the resistance was carried out. But it was not until 1957 that the last partisan was arrested. In this article I am concentrating on the period of 1948-1949, in which characteristic massacres on a grand scale occurred. After liberation from the Japanese colonialism the Jeju islanders expected that the standard of living would improve, that the provincial government could be constituted autonomously by the common people, and that the legitimate government over the whole country would come into existence soon. But it didn't take a long time till such expectation turned into a deep disappointment. The country was divided between North and South by foreign forces, which had won the war against the Japanese. The southern part of the country was dominated by the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK). The Jeju Island was also controlled by the provincial military government. The USAMGIK reemployed the pro-Japanese police officers, exercised a wrong policy of rice collecting and ignored smuggling and depredation cases. After a short cooperation with some autonomous council of the islanders, which opposed such failures of the military government, the USAMGIK outlawed all representative organizations at the end of the year 1945. In 1947 the islanders organized a demonstration against the USAMGIK. It was the March First Liberation Anniversary Demonstration. More than 30,000 residents crowded in an elementary school. After they left the school and marched on the street, the American military administration opened fire on people who gathered in front of the school to watch the spectacle event. Six people including women and children were killed on the spot. The anger of the islanders against the USAMGIK was spread quickly and widely. Demonstrations for appeal and protest took place successively. But the USAMGIK refused to take responsibility for the March First incident. It used the incident to prosecute following protest actions and to define the Jeju Island as “Red Island? It branded 70% of the Jeju residents as "Reds" or "fiendly to Reds". The April Third Uprising can be correctly explained if one considers the developments on the Jeju Island and especially tensions between the great part of the Jeju residents and the USAMGIK. For the eyes of many people on the Jeju Island the USAMGIK was a symbol of the imperial powers which brought people into extreme misery and oppressed the will of people systematically. As the separatist election for constitution of the first National Assembly was settled on May 10, 1948, many islanders decided to fight against foreign powers and their collaborators. They believed that the people's better lives, the autonomous provincial governance and a unified government over the country should go hand in hand. Moreover, they believed that they must arm themselves, if necessary, against the USAMGIK and its cooperating organizations in order to attain such goals. The uprising broke out on April 3, 1948, in many places simultaneously. At the first phase of the Uprising, which lasted until the end of April, the soft-liners in USAMGIK and the pro-separatist government force chose a strategy to negotiate and come to a peace agreement with the resistance. But the hard-liners initiated an attack on a small village, killed two residents and burned twelve houses. They attributed the incident to the armed resistance. Thereafter the government force, which stood still under strong influences of the US Korean Provisional Military Advisory Group (PMAG), organized punitive expeditions against the so-called red guerrillas, who constructed shelters and hid themselves in the Halla Mountain. From May 1948 to June 1949 military operations were intensively practiced. The punitive force arrested, dispersed, burnt out villages and executed. Such military operations were designed after the model of extermination war or genocide. During the period a series of massacres occurred in 169 villages and it has been estimated that more than 30,000 persons were slaughtered. At the outbreak of the Uprising the USAMGIK and the pro-separatist government force assumed that there were about 1,500 armed people in the mountains. It suggests that a great number of innocent people were massacred, only because they resided in the villages on the foot of the Halla Mountain, where the so-called partisans took shelters. Therefore it is correct to speak of the Grand Massacre in connection with the April Third Uprising. 2. Efforts for Finding Truths about the April Third Uprising and the Grand Massacre In January 2000 the National Assembly enacted the Special Law on Investigating the Facts of the 4.3 Incident and Regarding the Impaired Reputation of Victims (Statute No. 2000, January 12, 2000). Although the Special Law has limits in some points, to which I will come later, the government can support efforts for truth finding about the April Third Uprising and the Grand Massacre. It took more than 50 years that Koreans could access facts and truths of the historical incidents. For a long time it was taboo to speak of the incidents. After the Korean War 1950-1953 anticommunism played a decisive role as state raison. The Korean people have been captured by the red complex syndromes. If one was branded as "red", he and all members of his family fell into the guilt-by-association system against the communists. They were forfeited any chance to develop themselves in the Korean society. The government under dictator Syngman Lee defined the April Third Uprising as the communist revolt, which was instigated by the North communist regime and the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In such a political and ideological geography it was impossible to approach the incidents of 1948-1949. In the period of the second republic, which was founded after the April revolution in 1960, some people began to raise questions about critical issues. But as the second republic collapsed by the military coup d'etat in 1961, the persons, who were courageous enough to reveal their views on the incidents, were imprisoned. The national security law forced the people, who wanted to find historical truths, to shut up their mouths. A total silence and coerced ignorance dominated. Only some novelists and poets dared to write about them in spite of personal sufferings. In 1987 the Korean society began to be liberated from the notorious military dictatorship. The democratization created opportunities in which people could raise forbidden issues and investigate hidden truths. The Jeju islanders began also to find truths about the April Third Uprising and the Grand Massacre. The 4.3 Institute has played a crucial role in collecting witnesses, organizing researches, making networks among relevant initiatives and cooperating with the provincial and the central government Till the enactment of the mentioned Special Law in 2000 there have been various efforts for truth finding on the level of the Jeju provincial government as well as on the level of NGOs. It was not until the presidential election in 1992 and 1997 that the issue was raised on a national scale. The president candidate Dae Jung Kim proclaimed that he would make a special law, which should guarantee to investigate facts and truths of the 4.3 incident, to reestablish the impaired honor of victims and to develop the Jeju Island as a peace island. After his election as the state president in 1997 the political will of Mr. Kim was almost realized through the Special Law. On the ground of the Special Law the committee for truth finding was organized. The committee has undertaken a large scale investigation and presented the official report on March 29, 2003. Some scholars, who have examined it thoroughly, have pointed out that there was no exact identification of injurers in the report. It could be owed to the lack of the Special Law, in which the massacred is defined merely as “victims? The concept of "victims" doesn't suggest in any way who killed them. It implies only that they were sacrificed or victimized in the vortex of chaos. Therefore the Special Law and the official report could release the former government and, furthermore, the USA from the responsibility to apologize for the Incidents and to compensate innocent victims. The Special Law and the official report tried to reduce all aspects of the Grand Massacre to violation of human rights through state violence. Such a reductionist viewpoint cannot open the way to historical facts and truths. 3. Healing of the Injured and Reconciliation between the Killed and Killers through Shamanistic Rituals? In the Jeju Island shamanism is very vivid. In every village there are some shaman shrines. The place, in which the most competent shaman is active, is considered as the main shrine. A shaman makes a close connection with customers. He/she is well acquainted with their personal and family history. They come to him/her with their problems and he/she gives them advices. If necessary, he/she gives them charms against ill lucks and amulets against calamity. Therefore it is not an exaggeration to say that the shamanism penetrates everyday life of many Jeju Islanders. In comparison with the present, shaman rituals have been more frequently practiced in the past, especially after the Grand Massacre during the April Third Uprising and the Korean War. Many scholars think that a certain form of shaman rituals can heal neuropathy or neuropsychosis. After the mentioned incidents many people suffered traumas, the injured as well as the injurers. The traumas were expressed often in nervous diseases. In such contexts shamans were required to practice a healing ritual. In the shaman healing ritual it is crucial to encounter the scene or the situation which caused the trauma. Sometimes, the trauma was experienced in a certain situation, but the experience itself could not be remembered any longer. Maybe it has been expelled from the sphere of memory. In such a case the suffering person cannot be released from the trauma by himself. The shaman can help the patient to restore the expelled memory. For example, a 16 years old schoolboy suffered from nightmares for a long time. He was an orphan and brought up by his grandmother. Two figures, covered with blood all over, haunted and afflicted him. He couldn't guess who they were. The shaman, who was called to a healing ritual, inquired into the family history and noticed that the parents of the schoolboy had been killed by the swords in a village massacre. At that time he was only two years old. In the ritual he/she invoked the spirits of the deceased. He/she was possessed by the spirits in turn. He/she reenacted fear, panic, angry, sorrow and suffering of the deceased and spoke for them. In their own voices he/she conveyed the message they wanted to give the surviving family members. Through the shaman the deceased and the survived could communicate with one another. The survived comforted the deceased and prayed for the heavenly happiness of them. The deceased could be released from their han in mind. They could go to the world beyond to take the eternal rest. And the schoolboy could identify the figures and bring into consciousness what happened to them. By encountering the very situation causing his trauma, he could be liberated. Many scholars see in the shaman healing rituals a possibility of healing as well as reconciliation. According to them a certain form of shaman rituals can throw a bridge to reconciliation between the killed and killers, between the injured and injurers etc. In the mentioned ritual we can distinguish three steps from one another, although the first step appears somewhat different. At the first step the shaman explains why the ritual must be practiced. The tragedy of the survivors is exactly and expressively explained. At the second step the shaman, who is possessed by the soul of the deceased, conveys, weeping and crying, messages of the deceased, who has sorrow, angry, suffering, in a word, han in mind. The deceased is present among the survivors and they communicate. At the third step the shaman paves the way to the heavenly world and guides the soul of the deceased on the way. Some shaman rituals, which have in essence the same structure, are practiced in form of village rituals or commemorating rituals. For example, in a village ritual shamans attempt to invoke the souls of the deceased and bring them into communication with village instants. Among them injurers or participants in slaughter may be included. Shamans pray that they may be released from traumatic experiences. Shamans pray earnestly that the injured and injurers may live in a reconciled and harmonized world. From the beginning of 1990s the Anti-Communism Surviving Family Members Association has brought hanpuri rituals into their annual commemorating ceremony. The same attempt has been observed in the Common Preparing Committee for the 43th April Third Uprising Anniversary Festival. These two organizations have perceived and interpreted the 4.3 Incident and the Grand Massacre differently. While the former has adhered to the definition of the anticommunist governments in the past, the latter has maintained that the April Third Uprising was nothing but a people's uprising. In spite of such political and ideological differences the two organizations have carried out the joint commemorating shaman festival from 1994. The joint shaman festival has been designed to bring all the Jeju Islanders and the massacred into reconciliation with one another. I am somewhat skeptical to such reconciliation through shaman rituals, although I recognize their limited utility in healing psychological diseases. I cannot but say that a distorted or destroyed relation among people cannot be restored, unless the powers or factors ruining it have been radically changed or removed. It is therefore hypocritical to speak of reconciliation between injured and injurers in the Grand Massacre, although the injurers have not been yet identified and they have not yet expressed their readiness to take their own responsibility for their crimes. Therefore we cannot but speak of an opiate function of religion, which pretends that we already live in a reconciled and harmonized world. I start from the Biblical lesson that justice expresses itself in righteous relations. Without righteous relations there can be no peace. Peace is the fullness of life in righteous relations. Therefore we do our best in establishing justice in the world. It is the first step to come to reconciliation with the living neighbors. There is no detour to reconciliation with the deceased, especially with the massacred, who harbor han still in mind. 4. Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment Above I have examined some aspects of healing and reconciliation at the case of the Grand Massacre from the April Third Uprising on the Jeju Island. The efforts for finding truths of the 4.3 Incident are very meaningful in describing the modern history of Korea. They are successful in the sense that the facts and truths, of which to speak was for a long time rigidly forbidden, have been brought under light. But the character of the 4.3 Incident and the responsible authority for the Grand Massacre remain still in darkness. Regarding the character of the Incident there are four types of interpretation. As we have seen, the anticommunist governments in South Korea have defined it as a communist revolt, which was closely connected with intrigues of North Korea and the USSR. North Korea has asserted that it was a revolutionary movement of the people, initiated by indigenous socialists on the Jeju Island in accordance with the strategy of the people's democratic revolution. According to these two interpretive paradigms the people were not subjects of the movement, but merely mobilized object. In the process of democratization some people suggested the third paradigm, which defines the Incident as the protest movement and uprising of the Minjung . Such a progressive interpretation remains a minor opinion in the Korean society. The fourth type of interpretation is that the massacred were victims in the chaotic vortex. In any way, the massacre is an example of serious violation to human rights. As we have seen, such a definition underlies the Special Law 2000 and the official report 2003 on investigating the truths of the 4.3 Incident and the Grand Massacre. I think that all these interpretations are not sufficient to reveal the historical truth of the Incidents. What is worse is that these four interpretations are only difficult to converge. Such a divergence may come from the power constellation in the world influencing interpreters in shaping their perspectives. An interpretation can be dominant in a certain constellation of powers. When the power constellation is changed, the main interpretation must yield to another. If so, can we really come to the historical truth under circumstances of constantly changing power constellation in this world? In my opinion the family members of the massacred can be reconciled with the injurers only if they confess their crimes, apologize for them and declare their readiness for compensation. Such a procedure can be a good starting point to live together in justice. But how is it possible to come to reconciliation with the massacred? Although it is expected that some shaman healing and hanpuri rituals open the way to such reconciliation, it may be correct to say that the survived, the bereaved and injurers can be comforted and encouraged to live in this cruel and hard reality. The massacred dare not to haunt and afflict any more; therefore they must go to the other world. Their world must be divided from our world. Only through such a ritualistic division there can be a harmony between the living and the dead in the shamanistic world. But what happens to han, which the massacred have harbored in mind? Are the theological themes of resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment significant in solving such a question? I pay attention to the context, in which the resurrection of the dead became a theme. It was an earnest desire of their mother that the fallen sons in the Maccabean war against Antiochus IV would resurrect on the spot. Such a motif has been forgotten in interpreting the theological theme of resurrection. According to the Apostle Paul the resurrection of the dead will come to reality after the death, which denies the sovereignty of Christ over the world, has lost its power. Death means the satanic power that will stand contrary to the Will of God to let all things live in just and right relations. Death has various appearance forms: racism, sexism, class society, market absolutism, ecological crisis, abuse of genetic engineering, spread of mass destructive weapons, genocide, massacre etc. The resurrection of the dead is a theological expression of the firm belief that the Will of God for life in justice and peace is the last word to the world, and that all appearing forms of death will be invalid through the liberating Trinity. We are called to participation in the liberating activities of God in the world. The resurrection of the dead is also a theological expression of the hope that the unjustly killed, especially the massacred, who are tied to han, come back to life in God. The Last Judgment suggests that any interpretative perspective is not sufficient enough to approach historical facts and truths. At the end of history, all the living people and all the resurrected will stand in front of the Judge. He will make his judgments over them according to their deeds in the world. I think such a judgment will be totally correct and just. Impaired honors of the massacred will be restored and tears in their eyes will be wiped away. Only then they can have a rest and enjoy their eternal life in God. I know that the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment are nowhere (utopia) in this world, which is still dominated by the satanic powers. But a religion should be oriented to utopia. Only with such a utopian orientation in mind it can criticize and shape the world! |
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