“The Consequences of Anti-nationalistic Acts”
by Richardson ~ August 14th, 2007. Filed under: Korean Culture, Korean Politics, WTF?.It’s been awhile since my criminology courses, but I recall that a basic tenet is that for it to be an effective deterrent, the punishment must be appropriate and timely, a point evidently lost on South Korean officials (h/t Marmot) who are behaving more like their North Korean counterparts:
South Korea will confiscate $27 million worth of land from the descendants of 10 people who allegedly collaborated with Japan during its 1910-45 colonial rule, a presidential commission said.
[. . .]
The plan has “historic significance as it gives a lesson to future generations about the consequences of anti-nationalistic acts” said Jang Wan-ick, a member of the presidential commission on pro-Japanese collaborators’ property.
[. . .]
Jang also said the commission will continue to investigate property belonging to the descendants of about 430 alleged collaborators as part of South Korea’s efforts to revisit its past history.
Aside from being over six decades in the past, and the fact that none of the people being punished did anything, it’s worth noting that their ancestors were those who, “allegedly collaborated” with the Japanese during the colonial period, 1910-1945; despite not having been convicted of anything, their property is being confiscated!
The owners will be allowed to appleal the decision to confiscate their land (the onus is on them to prove their innocence), but given South Korea’s backward legal system they’ll likely have no luck.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Well, I wonder how many of the 430 remaining prospective confiscatees are now entertaining offers on their property…and from whom?
August 14th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Yes, it seems that the savvy descendent of alleged collaborators would have sold their properties and invested outside of the country!
Seems to me this should have been settled in 1965 with the ROK-Japan agreement/reparations.
But the biggest wow factor is the complete lack of due process, and the apparent lack of acknowledgement of this in Korea.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I guess the thing I don’t understand is this: does this represent some kind of inter-generational concept of responsibility, or is it just plain old corruption, or perhaps a toxic brew of both? As you alluded to, the North Koreans have some kind of idea that the punishment of deviance should go through the third generation or some such. Does that concept have a history in Korea? The opportunities for rent-seeking in this situation seem clear (as it was in my native Canada when the Japanese were dispossessed of their property in WWII, and some people lined up for the spoils…)
August 14th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
I’ve not heard of a general Korean notion of punishing families to the third-generation, outside the Kim regime, and have not heard of that as a Confucian element (but could be wrong).
August 15th, 2007 at 8:48 am
I don’t know for a fact, but I’ve long suspected that Confucianism plays a role here. Since descendants must revere and ritually pay tribute to their ancestors, then their strong loyalty to ‘disloyal’ ancestors means disloyalty to the Korean nation. Hence, they must be punished.
I think that this logic would work in both North and South Korea.
But I’ve never actually seen this argument stated explicitly anywhere, so I may be wrong.
Jeffery Hodges
August 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Greetings to Richardson and this community. It is credible to follow this as part of the Confucian ethos of familial responsibility which resonates still throughout the length and breadth of the peninsula. However, it may also be worthwhile to see this as an effort to harp on ancient wrongs by way of diverting attention from the individual and mass atrocities taking place in northern Korea at the present moment. If the minions of the Kim family regime do so as a matter of policy in the north, why not also their confederates in the south?
August 15th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
it may have been well over five decades ago, what you have to factor in is, this new korea that’s emerging, is relatively in its’ enfant stages..
all part of growing pains. i think…
August 17th, 2007 at 7:29 am
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