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By Michael Gilbert
'A new era, wakes before our eyes, the old world of force is gone, and the new world of righteousness and truth is here.'
Woodrow Wilson's far sighted vision for World Peace was seminal for 1919, but one
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It is also worth speculating that if members of the Hague Conference had accepted the envoys from King Gojong in 1907, Ahn would have had time and opportunity to complete a work that prefigured the first continental unions.
As it is Ahn, a nationalist above all else, was forced to focus his energy on action that the world would listen to; action that would culminate in the violent death of Japan's premier statesman, Hirobumi Ito, on a Russian controlled railway platform on Oct. 26, 1909.
Since this act, partly due to lack of research, Ahn has taken on the fractional place in history of terrorist and humanitarian, nationalist and internationalist, Confucian and Christian, assassin and hero of Asian history.
It is my belief that Ahn's place in East Asia's history always held ambiguity because he was striving to reshape a part of the world that was struggling with disintegration and reformation.
However, as the centennial of the assassination that defined him approaches, perhaps we should be looking to reappraise and afford him a position that supersedes the ideological conflicts of his time with relevance to the modern world.
When Ahn pulled the trigger five paces from Ito's chest he hoped his action would set in motion a liberating series of events for Korea.
Ironically enough, Tokyo in anger hastened annexation of the peninsula; however, Ahn is still credited with bringing freedom to the Korean people. His dramatic assassination activated a resistance that a decade later had grown into Korea's Declaration of Independence where over two million Koreans protested at risk against their country's occupation.
For Korea, this occasion has origins in Ahn's benign sacrifice that sent a message of power and unity to a country that had been weak, divided and struggling to come to terms with the aggression of the modern world.
It must be realized that Ahn's act holds success, not in directly freeing Korea, but in the inspirational repercussions and consequences that spread like ripples across East Asia. It is, however, a simple interpretation of history to see Ahn purely as a martyr. A more refined idea of his achievements must also take into account his effect on Korea-Japan Reconciliation, role as a peace activist, and vision of Peace in Asia.
Initially, Japanese response to the death of the first Prime Minister of Asia's first parliamentary government, mirrored the anger and backlash that engulfed major Japanese cities after the Russo-Japanese War. However, the following quote by David Keene illustrates why in more recent times an increasing number of Japanese scholars are reinterpreting Ahn. This fresh outlook negates the broad anti-Japanese sentiment defined by Zhou Enlai, and supports instead a more humanitarian Pan Asian approach that prefigures and relates Ahn's efforts to the modern significations of ASEAN, the East Asian Peace from 1967, and 'the common destiny of East Asia', that is built on 'common understanding'.
Ahn was not anti-Japanese. The man he most admired was undoubtedly Emperor Meiji, and one of his most vehement accusations against Ito Hirobumi was that he had intentionally deceived the Emperor who desired not the subjugation of Korea but peace in East Asia.
Keene's quote draws upon a prevailing interpretation that, in killing Ito Hirobumi, Ahn was not embarking on a separatist purpose but seeking to unite three conflicting nations. Ahn saw himself as a 'lieutenant general' of a righteous army deposing of a 'hindrance to Asia's peace'. Not understanding why Japan was 'severing ties with a country of the same race', at a time of the 'West's increasing attacks on the East', Ahn blamed Ito Hirobumi for superseding the Emperor of Japan's idea for Pan Asian integration. With his ideas of economic, fiscal and military unification Ahn completely foregrounds the UN, ASEAN, and the last forty years of peace in East Asia. His essay on peace makes him a pioneer in a way that his assassination never would.
Some of the first to recognize Ahn's unique condition were his captors and prosecutors.
Ahn's pious nature, good behavior, generosity of spirit, gifted calligraphy, and active efforts to finish both his autobiography and Treatise On Peace In East Asia was the beginning of a growing endearment in the hearts and minds of the Japanese people.
Chiba the prison guard in charge of Ahn's wellbeing actually resigned his position after Ahn's death, and held as his lifelong 'gassyo' that 'if there had not been calligraphy left for us there would not be such reconciliation between Korean and Japanese people.'
Ahn's calligraphy and essay became a conceptual struggle against the militancy of Imperialism toward East Asian Peace and is taking primacy over traditional interpretations. With this perspective I feel the referential caption in the Korea Times to this essay should be universalized in recognition of Ahn's Asian and global relevance.
The assassination of Ito should now take the background as we appreciate a man who wanted to realize the full and peaceful potential of Woodrow Wilson's 'new era' even though it was still decades to come.
The most significant celebration of his assassination should be that without it this idealist, with his modern value system, may not be remembered today.
The writer is a British national working in Busan.
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