Waiting for Apologies
By Edward Kim
Tens of thousands of South Koreans recently protested at U.S. embassies in S. Korea for the “lenient” rulings against two American soldiers who accidentally ran over and killed two S. Korean teenagers. (Incidentally that same week, dozens of Americans protested at the Chinese embassy at Washington, D.C. for the Chinese crackdown on N. Korean refugees.)
What explains South Korea’s recent fury against the country that donated 50,000 of its citizens’ lives to purchase their freedom from a cult-regime that today starves its people for weapons? Yes, the American soldiers received sentences commensurate to what they would receive in the United States but less than what they would have received in South Korea. And yes, an argument can be made that under special circumstances like death, the U.S. should cede authority over suspect soldiers to their South Korean counterparts.
But can this sufficiently explain the rage expressed by so many South Koreans? No, I think the current animosity toward the United States is rooted primarily in one overlooked fact.
The Republic of Korea is a country of waiting for first apologies. So it was only a matter of time before South Koreans would release their pent-up frustrations given the right outlet. For South Korea, the United States has become a preferable target to China or Japan or North Korea because Americans they know will not respond as harshly, whether economically or militarily.
What do I mean by the ROK being a country of waiting for first apologies?
As S. Koreans vociferously demand for a second apology from President Bush for the accidental deaths caused by negligent U.S. soldiers, silence surrounds the hundreds still alive who wait for a first apology from Japan for its systematic raping of them and several thousand other S. Korean girls during WWII. Will S. Koreans have it in them to protest as loudly against Japan as they have against the U.S. should PM Koizumi make another visit to the Tokyo shrine that holds war criminals?
South Korea is still waiting for a first apology from North Korea for starting the Korean war, for kidnapping South Korean citizens, for blowing up two Korean airlines. More recently, South Korea is still waiting for an apology for North Korea’s unprovoked and premeditated attack on S. Korean naval ships resulting in several casualties last summer. Even after Kim Jong Il apologized to PM Koizumi for kidnapping Japanese citizens, South Korea is still waiting for an apology regarding the scores of S. Korean citizens kidnapped and presumably still being held in slave labor camps.
South Korea is still waiting for a first apology from China for acting in complicity with North Koreans to assassinate South Korean missionaries, turning a blind eye to the sex trafficking of North Korean refugee women seeking asylum to Seoul, and shoving S. Korean diplomats on their own embassy grounds.
A country can only wait so long for some kind of an apology in the face of so many injustices before losing its sense of dignity entirely. So South Korea has preferred getting a relatively quick, guaranteed one from an ally rather than pinning their hopes on signs of penitence and respect from Japan, China, or North Korea.
The United States today is not merely experiencing the indignation of a country whose sovereignty has been undermined through the “unpunished” deaths of two S. Korean teenagers. It is getting a taste of the bitter history of a frustrated nation that is still waiting for first apologies for other far more atrocious acts.
