Special Report

 

What does Jeju 4·3 mean to us?

Bishop Peter Kang U-il

Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Cheju Diocese

 

A deep, rugged valley of trauma left in a victim’s soul

A few weeks ago, I visited an elderly lady who turned 93 this year. She is the mother of one of my close friends. Although I have known her for 20 years, it was the first time we sat together for a long conversation because before, I had simply greeted and asked after her when having a chance to see her. After retirement, I finally had time to relax and decided to visit her. It was a good opportunity to see how she had been doing. I had previously thought that she lived an ordinary life just like other stay-at-home mothers. During the talk, however, she told me for the first time about her direct experiences of Jeju 4·3 and the Korean War in her younger years.

When Jeju 4·3 broke out, she had been teaching at an elementary school. Soon, the police called in school teachers one after another for investigation. Male teachers were the first to be interrogated and forced to confess their connections with rioters. They were subjected to terrifying torture, with three of them shot to death in the end. Without exception, female teachers also underwent interrogation to extract coercive confessions. The elderly lady I recently visited was intimidated to confess to having connections to rioters. Having had no encounter or communication with anyone involved in the riot acts, she made a futile counterargument that she had nothing to confess. In the end, she lost consciousness after an unspeakable beating. Despite her simple description of “losing consciousness,” I could at least vaguely imagine how dreadfully she had been insulted, assaulted, and tortured. Even after all the ruthless beating, no evidence of suspicion was brought against her, and she managed to be released later thanks to her relatives who made desperate petitions to save her life. The feeble, young woman, outrageously beaten with a club, had no place left intact on her body. When greeting the daughter who had been thought dead but returned home alive, her mother applied medicine, sobbing, all over the body of her daughter who had been beaten black and blue.

What’s more striking, however, is that until very recently, the victim had never spoken of her painful experience of overcoming the near-death crisis, not even to her children. The shock and torment she suffered back then was so severe that she didn’t even want to think of it, letting alone share her memory with others. For decades, she had had no choice but to live with her mouth closed. After getting married and raising several children, she could not dare say a word about what she had experienced, for she feared whatever misfortune her children would suffer. Now that some 70 years have passed, the elderly woman finally began speaking after seeing people talk freely about Jeju 4·3, as well as being acquitted through retrials, and receiving compensation and reparation. The greater the agony and wounds one has experienced, the deeper and more rugged the valley of trauma in his or her soul. They can only just barely peer into it, and only after a long time has passed and memories have faded. The elderly lady told me, “You would never know how many more others lived in silence, embittered and wounded all their lives.”

 

Memory: An asset that links the past, the present, and the future

The tragedy and misery of Jeju 4·3 are important knots in contemporary Korean history that should not be tarnished and oxidized in the years of silence and oblivion. From antiquity to the present, we have slowly learned about the freedom, equality, and dignity of human beings through a range of conflicts and disputes, oppression and sacrifice, discrimination and resistance, and dictatorship and revolution. Experiencing so many hardships in different chapters of the long history, we have slowly recognized and assured that everyone is a dignified being with noble characteristics that no others can invade or damage, regardless of ethnicity, family, status, class, occupation, culture, and skin color. This mental evolution of humankind has been possible through “remembering” the past, correcting the misconduct, and opting for a better path. Therefore, remembering the past is a very basic but most important move towards the development and growth of human history and culture. People who cannot remember the past properly are unable to move forward and doomed to go extinct. Memory is a link that connects the past and the present and an asset that creates a new future. Farmers continue to farm their land, relying on the memories passed on from their elders about when to water rice paddies, when to transplant rice, and when to harvest. Fishermen build their work experience and knowledge, relying on the memories they learned by listening to their elders about which fish are caught at what time and at what depth, which bait they should throw, and where they should cast their net. However, although human society knew how to pass on these external, physical, and mathematical memories and technologies well, internal, mental, and ethical heritage often failed to be passed down intact across generations, easily disappearing due to deterioration and dilution.

Around the beginning of the 20th century, Japan, based on imperialism and nationalism, forcibly invaded and broadly colonized many of its Asian neighbors, turning them into battlefields and sacrificing countless lives of its own people and of those of others. Through the desperate defeat in World War II, Japanese people learned that the myths of imperialism and nationalism they had firmly believed in and relied on were a complete fiction, error, and reason for defeat. However, this enlightenment and knowledge is gradually fading and disappearing into the realm of oblivion as the 21st-century postwar generation, who did not directly experience World War II, occupies the majority of Japanese society. After World War II, Japan added a pacifist clause to its constitution that prohibits Japan from maintaining armed forces and permanently renounces its potential to wage war and the right of belligerency of the state. In recent years, however, the Japanese government has begun the move to turn the memory of peace gained at the expense of countless people’s lives back to nothing and reverse time and history. It has implemented phased plans to transform itself into a country capable of waging war by neutralizing the pacifist constitutional clause and heralding a huge arms buildup to secure capabilities to attack enemy installations. Meanwhile, the Chinese government views Taiwan as a part of its country and avows not to rule out the possibility of using force for its complete reunification. In response, the U.S. government professes that they will willingly send U.S. troops to Taiwan in any case wherein it is invaded by force. In the event of collision between the two countries, Japan and South Korea, where U.S. military forces are stationed, will have no choice but to intervene. If this continues, not only Northeast Asia but the whole world will face an unaffordable disaster.

 

Protect the nation’s self-reliance and democracy earned with blood and sweat

Korean society is on the verge of entering the ranks of advanced countries through innovative democratization and industrialization, which the world compliments. We owe this achievement to our ancestors and previous generations who suffered ineffable torment and sacrifice. Korean history has seen the exploitation and hardships during the Joseon Dynasty and the ensuing Japanese occupation, followed by the April 19 Revolution against the injustice and oppression of the Syngman Rhee regime after liberation as well as the sacrifices and resistance of countless righteous people against the 30-year-long military dictatorship. It is thanks to this history that authoritarian and oppressive state power has been relatively weakened and considerable consensus has been achieved that individual citizens should recognize and protect their inalienable freedom and dignified human rights. Recently, however, significant changes in national consciousness have been detected in younger generations without direct experiences of past hardships and sacrifices making up a large part of society. A growing number of generations have little or no knowledge of the suffering and adversity that our ancestors and forebearers endured and what hardships and burdens they carried until guaranteeing freedom and human rights as they are today. If historical transmission, which properly reflects on the memories of our past and conveys them to future generations, is not properly carried out, the fruits of noble democratization that were achieved with blood and sweat might be wasted in vain.

 

How to pass down the memory of Jeju 4·3

As Korea kept silent on Jeju 4·3 for more than half a century, many Koreans still lack knowledge of its truth. Even Jeju residents know little about Jeju 4·3 due to the silence of their parents’ generation and the neglect of educational authorities. A large number of residents have never heard of or learned about Jeju 4·3. We need to discern, identify, study, and remember what happened during Jeju 4·3, as well as against what backdrop it occurred, who should be held accountable, how many people suffered and to what extent, what aftereffects are continuing to this day, and what side effects it will bring to our future. And we have to recount and convey this memory to future generations repeatedly so that it will be revisited and remain unforgotten. For the transmission of these memories, all Jeju residents should become independent storytellers. In private education institutes, at home, and in society, the memories of Jeju 4·3 should be recalled, reflected on, and matured using various opportunities and methods. Poets with poetry, writers with literary works, and performing artists with music, plays, and films should embody and make current Jeju 4·3 and teach future generations about it. Jeju 4·3 should be established and utilized as a field for stronger and more solidified human freedom, dignity, and human rights. This would be our task and mission today so as to reward and live up to the suffering, sacrifice, and dedication of those noble, innocent people who lost their lives often not knowing what was happening or why it was happening during Jeju 4·3.

 

Bishop Kang U-il

  • 1963 – Graduated from Gyeonggi High School • 1969 – Bachelor of Philosophy, Sophia University (Japan) • 1970 – Master of Philosophy, Sophia University (Japan) • 1973 – Master of Theology, Pontifical Urban University (Italy) • 1999 – Honorary Doctor of Philosophy (Sogang University) • 1974 – Ordained a Catholic priest • 1975 – Parochial Vicar, Yakhyeon Catholic Church • 1976 – Parochial Vicar, Myeongdong Cathedral • 1977 – Secretary to Bishop of Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul • 1978-1985 – Director of Education and Public Relations, Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul • 1980 – Ecliastical Chapter member, Seoul Archdiocese • 1985 – Parochial Priest, Nangok-dong Catholic Church • 1986 – Ordained a Catholic bishop • 1986-2002 – Auxiliary Bishop, Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul • 1995-1999 – Inaugural President, Catholic University of Korea • 2001-2002 – Vicar General, Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul • 2002-2020 – Bishop, Catholic Diocese of Cheju • 2005-2008 – Vice President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea • 2008-2014 – President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea • 2008 – President, Catholic Terminology Committee of Korea • 2013-2018 – Member of Office of Human Development, Federation of Asian Bishops Conference • 2014 to present – Chairperson, Jeju 4·3 Peace Awards Committee • 2016 to present – President, Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation • 2017 to present – President, Integrated Pastoral Center of Korea • Bishop, Catholic Diocese of Cheju (retired)

Publication – “A walk around the world with Bishop Kang U-il” (2012) / “Remember and build solidarity” (2014) / “A walk along the path of hope with Bishop Kang U-il” (2017) / “Thoughts from a forest path” (2022)

Translation – “In a crowd of people” by René Böheim (1982)