Showdown at Jayu Park
The controversy over the MacArthur statue located in Jayu Park in Inchon first raised it’s ugly head last December.
This Kim Su-nam character appeared last week promoting last weekends protest at Jayu Park:
The group’s chairman Kim Su-nam said rectifying “the vestiges of colonialism and our distorted history must begin with removing the MacArthur statue, which is a symbol of imperialism.” He said the group would form a coalition with other groups from Inchon to bring down the statue.
So originally he says that removing the statue is an effort to correct distorted history. I don’t know what is so distorted about MacArthur saving the Korean nation twice, once from the Japanese and once from the North Koreans. Heck you could even say he helped save them from the Chinese too. Anyway this guy had a different story to say during last weekend’s protest:
“The statue is part of our humiliating history,” said Kim Su-Nam, a 65-year-old activist wearing a yellow jacket inscribed with anti-US slogans.
“By dismantling the statue, we want to stoke an anti-US movement aimed at expelling US troops from the peninsula,” Kim said.
Using a loudspeaker, he rebuked the pro-US demonstrators as “followers of the US colonial master”.
Well at least Kim is now showing his true motives. He could care less about whatever history MacArthur has in regards to Korea. His real motive is to create images on American TV screens of the MacArthur statue being toppled ala Saddam Hussein, to create a strong anti-Korean backlash in the United States. He is absolutely right. If that statue gets torn down and that is broadcast across America, the US-ROK alliance is over and South Korea might as well put up this statue in MacArthur’s place:
The pro-US protesters that Mr. Kim spoke of actually greatly outnumbered his small 50 person protest group:
“We will never forget what he did for us. He is a hero who stopped the communization of the Korean peninsula,” said Lee Jin-Ho, a 74-year-old veteran who fought alongside US soldiers during the war.
But forget is exactly what some South Koreans want to do.
After laying a wreath at the memorial, Lee joined hundreds of other pro-US demonstrators, including war veterans in their 60s and 70s, who gathered in the park on Sunday to block about 50 anti-US activists intent on pulling down the statue.
Here is the money quote of the protest here:
“Instead of quibbling, they should pay attention to North Korea’s human rights situation and the dictatorship of its Kim Jong-Il regime,” Lee Phil-Han, a 56-year-old businessman in Incheon, said.
“We owe a lot to the United States which played a key role in our economic development. My notion is being supported by a silent majority of South Koreans.”
I cannot imagine the people of Inchon tearing down that statue. I have spent a lot of time in Inchon which is evident by my Focus on Inchon series of articles, and feel pretty confident when I say that Inchon is not a center of anti-US sentiment in Korea. If anything the city has always felt pro-US to me maybe due to the city’s connection with the Inchon landing and it’s long history of trade with the US and this feeling is supported by the strong counter-protest against Kim Su-Nam and his other pro-North Korean lackeys at Jayu Park last weekend. I would like to thank the people who showed up at the park and supported keeping the MacArthur statue.
Now my next question is, where is the Korean media on this? I’m getting the majority of the information on this event from Yahoo. We get wall to wall coverage of an idiot jumping on a taxi cab but very little coverage of this protest. In fact the only analysis I have seen of this protest was in the Korea Times of all places, which supported keeping the statue. Maybe the media just couldn’t bring themselves to run images like these I pulled off the Katolic Shinja site:
These pictures run counter to the anti-USFK tone the media likes to trump into the collective Korean consciousness here. Feel free to comment with links to any other Korean news analyis of this event I may have missed because I would like to read it.
Anyway, I tend to agree with the Katolic Shinja on this final quote here:
The best quote from the article above comes from former South Korean U.N. Ambassador Park Keun: “Not even dogs forget their benefactors.”
"Not even dogs forget their benefactors." Man I can not believe that former South Korean U.N. Ambassador Park Keun made that statment. Its a shame the 50 fools who are so wrong in this case, want to reshape history. You know Silly Sally will say something about this and how its the USA falt as always. Good coment about the news, still wating to see if they caught the rapist but all I'm hearing is the stoooopid taxi incident. If your are ever in Daejeon plmk, would love to meet you.
http://www.miami.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/1…
The Mercury News
"Arguments for removing the statue surfaced in 2002 when two schoolgirls died in an accident involving a U.S. Army vehicle. Their deaths spurred a tide of anti-U.S. sentiment, and police have guarded MacArthur's statue around the clock ever since."
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/84558.php
Arizona Daily Star
"MacArthur is a war criminal who massacred numerous civilians at the time of the Korean War," anti-U.S. groups said in a plea sent to South Korea's National Human Rights Commission last month.
"To induce or force children to respect such a person by erecting a statue of him and teaching them that he is a great figure is a national disgrace and greatly injures the dignity of our people," they said.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200507/kt…
I know you mentioned the Korea Times; they did run a good opinion/article. I like the title:
Disputes Over MacArthur's Statue
How Can One Bite the Hand That Feeds Him?
It's just 50 some odd wackos and their few supporters raising ruckus which they have a right to do in a democracy. The statue will never move.
As you demonstrated, the US media is providing more analysis of this then the country it happened in. I have continued to check all the Korean English news sites and Yonhap had a small blurb on it and only the Korea Times offered any analysis of it which surprised me really because of the anti-American tone the Korea Times usually has.
Glad to hear that the police are guarding it 24/7, I hope they keep it up.
It's almost forgotten, due to all the intervening, more serious events, but in a Dublin traffic square, in the late 60's or early 70's, the IRA blew up a memorial statue of Lord Nelson as a political statement, before the killings had started again up north (the statue was a leftover from the period of British rule of Ireland).
It made a big story at the time; this was when the IRA was just beginning to get a second life, after the the "troubles" were beginning again (1969) in N. Ireland, after the long hiatus from the insurrection against the British and then the Irish civil war of the early 1920's.
The analogy of the Saddam statue is also a good one. One small explosive charge in the dead of night, taking off ol' Mac's head while unguarded, would guarantee a splash of interest on TV and in the world headlines IMO. Goodness, it might even get the US public focused more intently on the state of US- ROK relations, to include the state of public opinion about the US in the ROK.
MacArthur has always been a compellingly interesting figure, especially since the excellent William Manchester biography of him (came out around 1980, a recommended great read). Especially for someone like me who is just old enough to remember when he was alive (he died in 1964). His flaws were as great at his strengths, but he was an incredibly popular figure during WWII with the American public. The story of his relief from command by Truman in April 1951 is very interesting for anyone who is concerned about the topic of civilian-military relations; it's worthy of detailed study, because the details are fairly obscure and because there was "right" on both sides of the dispute.
I find it interesting to see occasional hidden glimpses of his once-great popularity here in the US. Recently I saw a old souvenir china plate, featuring a bust of him in gold leaf, in a large display of such plates in a second-hand store. Another time, in the 80's, I saw an old WWII propaganda poster hung on the wall in an upscale restaurant, showing his profile alongside the silhouettes of US fighting ships and tanks. Such things are a heritage of when he was a hero to many Americans ( as well as reminder of his overwhelming ego which was his undoing on more than one occasion).
Nowadays, of course the vast majority of Americans would just say "who?" in response to a mention of his name.
I suspect he'd be pleased that he is still a center of interest in the ROK, and especially pleased that his supporters there still outnumber his detractors (at least in Inchon anyway).
Christ, is that protest garbage still going on in Korea? I lived there from 1997-2001 and found a real schizophrenia in the Korean people towards the U.S. The old love it, the young hate it. Mind you, most young protesters are university students who really have no fucking idea what their protesting about. They just do it because its a trendy rite of passage for their age group like getting shit faced on soju or sneaking into a yogwan (love hotel). I say have some more ramyon and shut the fuck up!
Appearances may be deceiving. Most of the anti and Pro American posturing is inter-generational hatred — young Koreans filled with hatred for the elder Koreans. The dogs referred to is code — for impudent youngsters who refuse to support their elderly parents. Koreans seek props such as draping the American flag over themselves — to act out their hostility.
Distorted history? That's the only thing the Koreans ever had done with their own history. Once a king (technically, a lord suppported by Chinese emperors) stepped out (or most likely killed by his own relatives), all he had done before his stepping out would have been instantly changed to bad acts, in order to embrace the new lord.
That's what really happened through out their so-called "five thousounds long years".
Don't you know how many young Koreans believe that the US first started the Korean war by provoking the North Korea?
That's the *true* history for Koreans, all fabricated in their damaged brains. Once this kind of story is circulated among Koreans, it becomes the *true* history. Objections? No, you have no right to do so, unless you have Koreans' DNA.
Once the US Army leaves the peninsula, I assure you, they will claim compensations against the US, saying "Koreans never have asked the US to drop a war between the same race. The war was all set by the US." or something like this.
No, you cannnot trust the Korean news web sites. Most of them provide translated versions of articles, translated to English, Japanese, Chinese from Korean.
However, not all of the articles are translated to the other languages from Korean. Some of them are badly translated, or others are not translated. In fact, a few of news articles which they decided to translate for some reasons are the ones you can check out on those web sites.
Typically, those news are i) they'd like to proud something, ii) they need to defend something, or iii) they'd like to disgrace other countries (the most favorit victim is Japan).
Interesting stuff, GI Korea. Imagine if all this misplaced hothead energy Koreans have was channeled to better use. They wouldn't need nuclear power here–just hook up a few "it hurts our pride" ajossis to the power grid!
Right. Nobody wants to admit there are no solutions to the nuclear problem given the nature of the situation. They want to pretend a solution is always possible. So, they refuse to think about other alternatives like a more strict containment effort.
At least China and South Korea are wanting to paint a happy face on a pig for solid reasons — to strengthen North Korea to move away from a potential collapse.
Those in the US are following along because they are a bunch of jackasses. Our (American) society sure has developed a trend of praising the mediocre and avoiding the negative as much as possible.
Making a sham agreement will make us feel better.
And that is all….