Gaya to nowhere

By Jason Lim

Recently, President Moon expressed his explicit wish that the fresh articulation of Gayan history across the whole swath of Korea’s southern coast would facilitate the easing of the current regional animosity between South Korea’s southeastern and southwestern regions. Moon basically wants to use the history of this ancient Korean kingdom to create an alternate, common cultural identity that could overcome the seemingly intractable emotional and political separation between the two regions.

Understandably, the President directing the research into the history of a specific subject matter for current political purposes was received with concern by academic circles in Korea. Moon’s directive echoes the fierce debate that raged through academia when former President Park Geun-hye tried to force the rewrite of school history textbooks in a drive to emphasize her father’s role in modern Korean history while altering the description of key events to mask his accountability for having served with the Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria.

While Moon’s intent is much more benign, it nevertheless injects politics into the academic study of history. Further, Moon’s choice of former National Assemblyman Do Jong-hwan as the Minister of Culture and Sports further enflames the controversy since Do was allegedly involved in defunding the Northeast Asian History Foundation at the Harvard Korea Institute while he was a National Assemblyman.

According to the Harvard Korea Institute’s website, “The Northeast Asian History Foundation was founded with the goal of establishing a basis for peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia by confronting distortions of history that have caused considerable anguish in this region and the world at large, and developing a correct understanding of history through comprehensive long-term research and systematic and strategic policy development.”

Ironically enough, the Korean government cut off funding for this project when it became known that the foundation’s map of ancient Korea was supposedly closely aligned with China and Japan’s demarcation of traditional Korean borders. In other words, Korean political leadership was expecting a much more grandiose version of Ancient Korea’s map, showing Korean kingdoms ruling over a wide swath of land in Manchuria and even China proper. Especially, the placement of the four Commanderies of the Han Dynasty after the fall of Wiman Joseon within today’s Korean peninsula rankled Korea’s political leadership because this finding did not support their argument that both Japan and China have purposefully reduced Korea’s historical footprint to culturally brainwash Koreans to accept a lesser, servile role in the region.

They expected the foundation’s work to push forward their nationalistic agenda to stake a bigger historical claim to Northeast Asian history. They cut it off when the interim results proved the opposite. An academic research foundation to “confront distortions of history” lost its funding when it confronted an attempted distortion of history.

Academics rightfully bemoan how politics has tainted a pure study of history and that today’s political and geographical identities should have no bearing on a past that existed long before such identities were formed.

However, shaping the historical narrative for today’s political purposes is not Korea’s problem alone. Japan under Prime Minister Abe has tried to recast its unfavorable past to reduce Japan’s accountability for its World War II abuses. China’s Northeast History Project infamously claimed Goguryeo as a part of China’s own regional history. In a region sliding more and more into respective nationalism, actively reshaping the historical narrative is necessarily a political act.

At the same time, Korean’s longing for a history that paints a grandiose version of itself throughout the ages seems extraordinarily strong. How can you reasonably become upset at the placement of the Han Dynasty’s military outposts 2,000 years ago? So what if Japan had some command post in southern Korea over 1,500 years ago? China, Japan, and Korea didn’t even exist then as identifiable states.

On the other side, let’s grant that Korea descended directly from the Hongshan Culture and once enjoyed kingdoms that were far superior technologically and militarily than their counterparts. Let’s agree that the Red Devil is the symbol of the 14th Emperor of the Baedal Nation, the first Korean state, and that he defeated the Yellow Emperor at the Battle of Takrok. Lets’ agree to all this and other unproven claims of Korean kingdoms actually translocated in today’s China proper.

So what? What does it all matter? It doesn’t change today’s boundaries one bit or gives Korea legitimate claims to some political or geographical advantages. Dokdo is still Korean, Tsushima is still Japanese, and Jiandao is still Chinese.

Nevertheless, it does matter to Koreans. A lot. The question then becomes, “why?”

Or, a more interesting question could be whether a grandiose past would still matter so much to today’s Koreans if Korea were unified? Is it that the Koreans still don’t feel fully liberated from the humiliating vestiges of Japanese colonialism because it ended with a divided nation? Is the division a collective cultural trauma that won’t allow Koreans to feel justifiably proud of what they have accomplished in the past 60 years and force them to constantly look over their shoulder for a potential repeat of the past?

Not sure. But I can’t help wonder whether a unified Korea with the political, economic and military weight of a United Kingdom might not care so much about its ancient past.

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. Reach him at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook. com/jasonlimkoreatimes or @jasonlim2012.