Kwangju Redux

I know–that’s me, Mister Sensitivity. Spare me. If Korea expects to be treated like a mature nation, it will eventually have to accept some responsibility for the triggers pulled by its own hands rather than perpetually fighting over which group of foreigners should have restrained them. Is today’s fratricide equally destined to be tomorrow’s tortured projection of blame? When a far larger number of preventable deaths is not even on Korea’s moral radar screen, why should anyone accept Korea’s protestations of moral outrage over Kwangju at face value–even when such outrage would be completely justified if delivered with sincerity?

So what’s the lesson?

I can’t say I have the answer, but one lesson might well be how illegitimate messengers have a way of hijacking legitimate grievances. What’s lost is the cause for which the victims gave their lives. That’s particularly so when Korea’s bloody shirt crowd has so much overlap with those who are doing their damnedest to deny North Koreans the same rights the victims of Kwangju died for.