[Editorial] History museum must not be a PR center for dictatorship

Posted on : 2012-10-23 15:43 KST Modified on : 2012-10-23 15:43 KST

As had been the concern, the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History has revealed its true face as a monument to the distortion of this country’s history. Now it appears poised to play a major role in bringing these distortions to bear on December’s presidential election, its opening date having been moved up to Nov. 22- right when the campaign will be kicking into high gear. The museum had originally been scheduled to open in Feb. 2013, but the government brought the date forward, before the presidential election.

The Lee Myung-bak administration’s record of complacency, lack of communication, and policy failures is being put to work twisting the facts of history and manipulating the perceptions of the public.

From the outset, the museum has fit with the administration’s position of denying the legitimacy of the Provisional Government in Shanghai as codified in the preamble to our Constitution. It was a perspective given concrete form in a 2009 proposal to turn the Independence Day holiday into a Republic of Korea Foundation Day. That flap may have ended with a whimper after the idea was soundly rejected by the Korea Liberation Association, academics, and civil society, but the administration’s stance itself remains firmly entrenched.

Most of the 24 founding members are New Right figures who routinely whitewash Korea’s annexation by Japan, the dictatorial rules of Rhee Syngman and Park Chung-hee, and the coup that brought the latter to power. To top it off, not one of them is a specialist in modern and contemporary history. The exhibition content and themes were decided by people united under a combination of nationalism and toadyism.

It has already been decided what kind of museum it will be. Indeed, a number of members apparently stormed out during the process to decide on the nature of the exhibitions. The fact that a onetime member of the President’s policy advisory committee was recently nominated to be the museum’s director should tell us all we need to know.

The details about the museum that surfaced during the latest parliamentary audit show the results of that. The whole enterprise is organized around the theme of a national success story: from its beginnings to its groundwork for growth, its development, its advancement, and finally its “great strides out into the world.” This all but requires it to extol the virtues of the Rhee and Park dictatorships. And, indeed, the basic exhibition explanatory materials contain 28 references to the former and 24 to the latter, compared to just 19 for all other presidents combined. The 1961 military coup that put Park in power is described as resulting from the Chang Myon administration’s incompetence. Nothing anywhere in the exhibition mentions the judicially sanctioned murder of members of the People’s Revolution Party, one of the darkest days in world judicial history.

The administration has said it plans to substantially reduce accounts of modern history in textbooks because of their potential for dispute. This isn’t the proper approach, but if it is a standard, then it should also be applied to the content at the history museum.

Germany’s museum of contemporary history was opened 12 years after chancellor Helmut Kohl announced his intention to build it. Even then, it went through two major changes afterwards based on the response from the public. A museum is a place where past and present engage in dialogue, not one that imposes a particular slant and reading. To do so is an act of violence on the part of the state.

The fate of the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History is clear: once open, it will be little more than a Park Chung-hee PR center serving his daughter Park Geun-hye’s presidential campaign. It symbolizes regression, not advancement, as it was intended to. The administration needs to postpone its opening. And an independent organization should be put in place, either by the administration or the parliament, to decide the philosophy, approach, and content of the exhibitions based on what academics and civil society have to say.

 

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