Chancellor Schmidt scolds Japan

By Kim Ji-myung

In May, 1995, former President Roh Tae-woo attended the Inter-Action Council Meeting in Tokyo. His 5-year term ended in February, 1993, and he was ready to play a visible role, as the first former Korean president, in this international arena of retired political leaders ― former presidents and prime ministers.

I tried to find documentation of the proceedings of that meeting, but to my disappointment they have never been published, not even the usual final communique of the plenary session. I suspect that this exceptional omission was intentional on the part of the host country, which is regrettable.
It is ironic that former Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo of Japan had conceived of the Inter Action Council as a body that would "make contributions to threatening problems," and later sat very uneasily in the culprit's seat while co-founder former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt straightforwardly reprimanded him.

In May 1995, I was sitting in the simultaneous interpreter's booth, interpreting the plenary session into Korean for my only audience, ex-president Roh.

I was surprised when he requested the floor, and expressed his hope and firm determination to play a very significant role in that organization. As we later learned, he had enough funds to donate to the group that would secure him a leading position and voice there. I am sorry that those plentiful secret funds quickly became a scandal that ruined his dream of becoming a global statesman.

Of the several hundred international gatherings of top political leaders that I worked as an interpreter, including the APEC Leaders Meetings and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), this 1995 Interaction Council meeting remains in my memory as the most impressive scene.

The session was presided over by Schmidt. It is a pity that I cannot now quote Mr. Schmidt's exact statements, although I vividly remember his words and the scene _ especially because I am a Korean, directly related with the topic.

Fukuda was an exhausted old gentleman of feeble structure, and passed away two months later. He was the brainchild of this unique body of retired political leaders, to have them contribute to the peace and prosperity of the world by sharing their insights and advising on pending issues.

The council sessions usually started with a keynote presentation on ''the present state of the world" and then dealt with a few of the most important issues we were facing.

I don't remember what exact topic made Schmidt compare the different attitudes toward history between Germany and Japan. In a very calm but stern voice, he declared ''Look at Germany! Why can't the Japanese admit their past mistakes and wrongdoings? You should apologize to your neighbors; without doing that, there will be no true friendship among countries in this region."

As far as I remember, Fukuda did not respond to this embarrassing advice, but just remained seated in silence at the center of the long head-table. I don't know how much softening euphemism the Japanese interpreters employed in their translation for this old politician, a thing that happens in such occasions.

His silence made the audience feel that he understood the points Schmidt made, but as we have seen in recent years, Japan's leadership actually did not or would not learn any such lesson from Schmidt.

Quoting Max Weber, Schmidt argues in his writings that politicians should be accountable not only for results in general, but also for the unintended or tolerated side-effects of their actions or policies; the ways and means of their actions must be ethically justified just as much as their aims are.

Japan's political leaders have also turned a deaf ear to Schmidt when he stated that "reason and conscience" are the two elements of political decision and that ethics and morality is required of a politician, and that this applies equally to domestic and foreign policies.

My concern is about the future generations of Japan and her neighboring countries. Without an objective understanding of the historical ''facts", how will they be able to communicate and cooperate in the future?

The French writer Guy Sorman, who frequents both Korea and Japan, has expressed deep concerns many times that Japan is not teaching the actual facts of history to its youngsters, and so they don't even know what Japan did to its Asian neighbors in the 20th century.

To some degree Korean youngsters also don't like to listen to the story of their modern history, it must be said, despite our efforts to teach it to them.

If we don't agree to recognize legacies of the past and basic values such as human rights, freedom, democracy and respect of sovereignty and cultural differences, we cannot talk and deal with each other, although interpretations of the same facts may often differ.

Many individuals who were victimized during Japanese colonial rule are still alive in Korea. Do the Japanese politicians really believe that, in this era of ubiquitous and everlasting digital records including photographs on the web, they can erase all evidence of their imperialistic warfare for good?

The writer is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage). Her email address is Heritagekorea21@gmail.com.

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