[Editorial] Duty of victims

The National Assembly passed a resolution denouncing Japan’s recent moves turning a blind eye to its pre-1945 wartime atrocities in its plenary session Monday. But its members should be ashamed of the belated passage, which showed again their negligent attitude.

The parliamentary foreign affairs committee adopted the resolution Friday and submitted it to the plenary session, which was to approve it later in the day. But the resolution failed to be put to a vote as only about 70 lawmakers attended the afternoon session. A majority of the 300 parliamentary members are needed to form the quorum.

The resolution came in response to a recent string of moves by Japanese Cabinet members and lawmakers to glorify its militaristic past and deny historical truths. Three Japanese Cabinet ministers’ visits to a controversial war shrine led South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se to cancel his planned trip to Tokyo last week. Seoul’s diplomatic protest did not stop a group of 168 Japanese lawmakers from paying tribute to the Yasukuni shrine, where convicted war criminals are enshrined alongside more than 2 million others killed in Japan’s modern wars. In what was seen as a denial of his country’s wartime history, including its colonization of the Korean Peninsula, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe argued that the definition of invasion has yet to be fixed in academia or in the international community. He said in parliament last Tuesday that what happened between nations would look different depending on from which side one views them.

The resolution adopted by the Assembly denounced Abe’s remarks and other Japanese moves in recent days as “absurd acts and words based on distorted historical perceptions,” which would have grave negative effects on building future-oriented bilateral ties and establishing peace in Northeast Asia. It urged Tokyo to reflect deeply on its past and make a sincere apology, asking the Seoul government to handle the matter in a firm manner by using all diplomatic means. The resolution also asked the international community to recognize the seriousness of the issue regarding Tokyo’s attitude toward its wartime atrocities and take corresponding measures.

If lawmakers themselves felt serious about the need to act against Japan’s anachronistic moves denying historical facts, they should have passed the resolution earlier. It was deplorable that most of the Assembly seats remained unoccupied when a vote was to be held to give a message of protest and warning to Tokyo. There was little reason to justify legislators’ absence from last Friday’s plenary session.

Lawmakers’ negligent attitude was also shown during Thursday’s interpellation session. Only 59 legislators were seated through the afternoon when questions and answers were made with top government officials on key foreign policy and security matters, including historical disputes with Tokyo.

The parliamentary members’ laxity might be a reminder that South Korea has not been so serious and thorough as it should in its efforts to prevent Japan from repeating acts denying a past that cannot be denied.

Abe appeared to have somewhat eased his stance later last week by saying he does not want the matter regarding historical perceptions to spill over into diplomatic and political spheres.

It seemed that his vague remarks, still far from withdrawing his earlier controversial comments, came mainly in response to U.S. concerns and domestic criticism rather than protests from South Korea and other Asian countries that suffered from Japan’s aggression and occupation in the first half of the 20th century. It is certain that Abe and his right-wing colleagues are taking their country in the wrong direction of deepening its isolation in the international community. Still, this situation means South Korea is facing a hard task of handling Japan as it continues to try to justify its wartime history.

South Koreans now need to recognize and carry out what can be called victims’ duties of unearthing and publicizing perpetrators’ heinous acts in a more thorough and persistent way. It may have to be recalled that Germany’s sincere repentance for the Holocaust has been driven by not only its more conscientious postwar leaders but also the Jewish people’s ceaseless efforts to reveal atrocities committed by the Nazis during World War II. Japan’s repeated attempts at justifying its past wrongdoings might reflect South Korea’s negligence in shedding light to them to lay the true foundation for building forward-looking relationships between the two countries. Regretful to say, but it may be that our lawmakers’ loose attitude just mirrors the dereliction of duties by Korean society as a whole to make historical truths prevail over Tokyo’s anachronistic ― and eventually self-defeating ― moves.