Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
History should not be repeated
By Kim Rahn
By Kim Rahn
In Korea the boycott of Japanese products and services, as well as trips to the country, has continued for over a month in protest against the Shinzo Abe administration's trade restrictions.
Protests against the Japanese government and boycotts of Japanese companies have happened in the past when there were disputes over history, but this time it seems the movement is stronger than ever and is unlikely to die down soon.
Uniqlo, which has become one of the major targets of the boycott campaign, has seen its sales drop by 70 percent. Japanese beers such as Asahi and Sapporo have been cleared from the shelves at supermarkets. With decreasing demand, Korean carriers have suspended operations or reduced capacity to Japanese cities on 63 flights.
The Korean government is also keeping a firm stance, setting a long-term plan to nurture materials technologies so Korean companies can reduce their reliance on Japanese ones.
As a journalist who has to keep up with latest news and monitor other reports in the media, I watch the evening news on TV almost every day. Spending time with me in the living room, my 10-year-old daughter also watches some of the news programs ― or rather, she is forced to watch them; she wants to watch cartoons. When something catches her attention, she asks me about the topic and I try to explain it as easily as possible.
With every other news item being related to the boycott movement, she asked me why people are doing it. I said: “Japan did bad things to Koreans when it colonized the country (she learned from school that Japan occupied Korea). So Korea wants Japan to apologize and compensate the victims, but Japan refuses and instead restricted exports to Korea. So Koreans are angry and trying not to buy Japanese products.”
I don't think she can understand all the decades-long disputes over history, and the economic impact the boycott is bringing to the affected Japanese firms and the country's tourism industry.
But what this situation implies to her is: Japan is a bad country that did something bad to Koreans, so we should not travel to Japan or buy Japanese goods.
I really don't want her to grow up hating Japan. I hope the hatred and conflicts over history will not continue into the next generation.
My grandparents' and parents' generations directly suffered from the colonial rule. My generation has witnessed the conflicts between the two countries be temporarily resolved before re-emerging repeatedly, and is well aware that some victims' wounds have not been healed because we were told about the suffering directly by the former generations.
If conflicts are not solved completely and are repeated, children who grow up experiencing this kind of situation will gradually and naturally believe that Japan is not a good neighbor. And it will also mean Japan will still refuse to recognize its past wrongdoing and apologize.
It won't do any good for such hatred, wounds and grudges to be transmitted to the next generation. Hatred and conflicts need to stop and end with my generation. And the only way of resolving it permanently might be Japan's change of attitude. I hope I can tell my daughter and other young children: “Japan did bad things to Koreans in the past, but it later apologized and Koreans accepted the apology, and now they are good friends.”