1
Divided Nation, Unification
and Transitional Justice:
Why do we need a
Communicative Approach?
Han Sang-Jin11
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Among the many countries in the world, Korea and Germany share the most
complicated issues in relation to the divided nation and transitional justice.
Germany started World War II and was split into West and East Germany after
its defeat. Then, the transitional justice processes were implemented in both
sides. The military forces of the U.S., Britain, and France, which occupied West
Germany, opened the Nuremberg Trials to investigate and punish the Nazis for
their severe war crimes including the Holocaust. As a result, West Germany
offered a lukewarm apology to the invaded nations, paid reparations to the victims and vividly described their war crimes in their history textbooks in order to
tell new generation the truth. At the same time, the transitional justice process
was actively implemented in East Germany as well. However, while East Germany became a Stalinist-style socialist country, West Germany incorporated
democracy and a market economy that helped their economy to prosper and
enhance their quality of life; also, West Germany pioneered in building a vibrant
civil society that incorporated freedom. In addition, West Germany, with its firm
commitment to the transitional justice process, not only reconciled with its
neighboring nations but also developed itself as a trusted and responsible nation
among other European countries.
In 1970, the former chancellor of West Ger-many, Willy Brandt, proposed a
new goal of the post Cold-war called “Ostpolitik (East Policy)”, which promoted
the reconciliation and coexistence between divided nations. The fundamental
doctrine of this policy was supported by the conservatives who had political
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Han Sang-Jin
powers. Consequently, there had been increased number of comings and goings
of citizens in both West and East Germany and their access to information was
facilitated; moreover, the positive effects of West Germany’s economic assistance to East Germany were amplified due to its excellent coordination with
changes in international politics. Finally, in 1989, the Berlin Wall was removed
and Germany was reunified, making a turning point in European history.
With this event, attention was drawn again to the transitional justice. West
Germany, after reunifying Germany by absorbing East Germany, investigated
East Germany’s systematic violation of human rights including the crimes
committed by the secret police (the Gestapo) and their strict monitoring of residents. Then, West Germany punished and removed former East German figures
who were involved in human rights violations from their offices. Accordingly,
Germany became a nation that experienced two separate transitional justices, in
which the victor’s justice was served.
In contrast, Korea’s experience is quite different. Korea has a long history
as a unified nation and is similar to Germany in the way that both nations were
divided into two parts after World War II. However, Korea had never committed
war crimes like Germany; Korea was rather a victim of Japanese imperialism.
Despite the fact that Koreans had fought for their independence, they eventually
faced the tragedy of being split into a divided nation after the defeat of imperialist Japan. Though the primary reason for the division was due to the agreement
between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the temporary occupation of Korea as
a trusteeship with the zone of control demarcated along the 38th parallel, the
fundamental reason stems from the Japanese imperialism. In other words, without the Japanese invasion and colonization of Korea, there would not have been
a divided nation. For this reason, the relationship between the divided nation and
transitional justice found in Korea is much more complicated than that of Germany. One may speculate that overcoming the past in the name of transitional
justice will be completed only when the Korean peninsula reunifies.
To begin with, Japan’s attitude toward transitional justice has been different
from that of Germany. In history, Japan was the sole nation that declared war against
the U.S.. After Japan’s capitulation, the U.S. opened the Tokyo military tribunal to
punish Japanese war criminals. However, the U.S. was neither interested in investigating nor blaming Japan for their inhumane war crimes committed on Korea, China
and Southeast Asian nations; the U.S. was only interested in punishing Japan for
their war crimes solely committed on the U.S.. Other nations had no rights to speak
in the transitional justice process on Japan. In the meanwhile, many Japanese were
emotionally dissatisfied with the transitional justice process con-ducted. They believed it was not for restoring universal values of human rights but for showing the
authority of the victor. Besides, with the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the
U.S. brought Japan, one of the newly rising powers in the international cold war
system, as their allies. Consequently, the transitional justice, which lacked completeness on Japan, collapsed. Japanese war criminals returned to politics and there was a
tendency for the Japanese to praise their crimes. Also, there was a public sentiment
that Japan itself was the victim of the war since the atomic bombs dropped on Hiro-
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shima and Nagasaki had destroyed millions of Japanese lives; this contrasts with its
neighboring nations, which believe Japan to be the offender. Though this Japanese
war memory on atomic bombs has contributed to advocating peace, Japan’s long
reigning Liberal Democratic Party’s transitional justice efforts on the investigation
of war crimes, its apologies, and its compensation to neighboring nations have become highly passive. In fact, every August 15th, Japanese politicians’ continued
visits to the Tokyo Yaskuni Shirine, a place that honors top war criminals and their
accomplishments, have caused many neighboring nations to express strong dissatisfactions.
Koreans suffered the most from the invasion of imperialist Japan yet they
were the most powerful resistance to its rule; thus, Koreans have utmost interest
in Japan’s transitional justice process. In 1965, both South Korea and Japan
signed a treaty that normalized the basic relationship between two nations. The
treaty promoted the cooperation between South Korea and Japan despite their
troubled past. Japan provided South Korea with an Economic Aid Package but it
was not considered as a war reparation but more as mere economic assistance. In
other words, this treaty lacked any sort of apology from Japan and remorse toward war crimes. In Korea, this treaty was considered as a humiliation, arousing
anger among Koreans. Furthermore, when the issues of comfort women, forced
laborers and distorted history textbooks were raised, the Japanese government
and its politicians avoided discussing its truth and taking responsibilities. Thus,
since Japan’s approach is different from that of Germany, the way Koreans view
transitional justice is different. In other words, the transitional justice on Japan is
incomplete, distorted and erroneous.
The transitional justice process conducted in Korea after its liberation in 1945
was full of distortion as well. In the case of Germany, the offenders were Nazis or
Germans, not foreigners; their punishments and establishment of justice were dictated by the allied force. However, in the case of Korea, the offenders were foreigners or Japanese. For this particular case, it is remarkable to observe the cases of
France, Poland and Finland, the nations that conducted transitional justice once they
gained their sovereignties after the war. As Offe (2005: 13) notes, the new regime
“cannot possibly refrain from sanctioning perpetrators, because that would mean to
insult victims and to risk the appearance that the new regime is involved in a conspiracy with the elites of the predecessor regime.” Thus, these nations identified and
punished incredible number of traitors by confiscating their assets and disenabling
them from holding public offices. Nevertheless, this process was never found in
Korea. It is due to the fact that the Koreans who had supported Japan became the
strong political faction in fighting against the communists from North Korea in the
midst of the divided nation, the international cold war system, and the presence of
the U.S. in South Korea.
To be more precise, a special commission was formed in 1949 to investigate
national traitors but soon collapsed as the Korean War broke out. Since then the
South Korean government was able to form a presidential committee to identify
rather than punish those collaborators only in 2005, 60 years after its liberation
from Japan. The debate was triggered off by the discovery of a historical fact
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that some of the leading Korean intellectuals with good reputation as symbols of
the ‘national soul’ wrote columns in local newspapers in support of the colonial
war in the middle of the 1940s. The fact was undisputable but the interpretation
remained in question. The hard-liner tended to identify them as collaborators,
whereas a strong reaction emerged arguing that attention ought to be drawn to
the historical context of these writings to get more balanced and comprehensive
understanding. The process of conducting transitional justice thus became highly
controversial and political.
In addition, the relationship between transitional justice and divided nation is an
issue that calls for careful observation. The German reunification owed much to the
East German citizens who wanted the West German government to solve their problem, not the East German government. West Germany abandoned nationalism and
took its oath toward the integration of Europe, gaining trust from neighboring nations; the sympathetic understanding of the Soviet Union had also contributed to the
reunification of Germany. However, the case of North Korea is completely different.
As West Germany did, South Korea has adopted democracy and market economy,
and consequently, developed far more successfully than North Korea. Despite this
fact, it is questionable whether the similar pattern of reunification that occurred in
Germany would occur on the Korean peninsula. The poverty and vulnerabilities of
North Korean citizens to diseases that stem from the inadequate economic policies
are prevalent. Yet its isolation from the rest of world makes the external leverage of
influence on North Korea very low. Insofar as China supports North Korea, it is
difficult to find a feasible way of changing the North Korean regime. The observation of the fall of East Germany and other socialist nations has sensitized the attention of the ruling group of North Korea to set regime security as the top priority goal
of their policies.
Based on the analysis of these tendencies and contemplation, the former
president of South Korea, Kim Dae-jung, came to believe that it would be impossible to bring changes in North Korea with confrontation politics. Instead, he
developed an ambitious vision of ‘global democracy’ (Han, 2010a) and, as the
first step, adopted the “Sunshine Policy” designed to promote reconciliation and
cooperation between South and North Korea, as did Willy Brandt’s “Ostpolitik.”
Here again, we find a significant difference between Korea and Germany. In the
latter, the “Ostpolitik” was initiated by Social Democratic Party but was maintained by the conservatives, whereas in the former, the conservatives who took
power tried to abolish the “Sunshine Policy.” Though the Cold War ended after
the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it is still present on the Korean peninsula.
This chapter raises two basic questions in this context. First, given the ambiguities and complexities of the issue of transitional justice as we find in Japan
today, how can we best handle the problem with an optimal degree of theoretical
consistency, thereby attempting to form a genuine basis of East Asian community? Second, how can we best pursue unification and transitional justice from the
perspective of the communicative approach in order to go beyond national division towards a new (reunified) political community?
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PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED
When we try to come to terms with history and deal with a systematic transgression in the past, whether its origin is domestic or international, problem can be
reasonably solved if the perpetrators accept the crime they committed and beg
for pardon. Even if this condition is satisfied, of course, there may still be legal
and political issues to be adequately addressed, but the idea of justice is easier to
formulate and implement than in the cases in which offenders do not admit their
wrong-doings. Even worse, when they attempt to justify their actions by recourse to some kinds of ideology (nationalism) or threats (national security), we
are likely to be blocked from moving further. It may be frustrating to find that
we can neither forgive nor punish the perpetrators.
In this situation one can argue that practical considerations are needed to
explore a new approach. According to Charlmer Johnson, the brutality of the
war crimes by the Japanese army was comparable to or even more severe than
that of the Nazi regime. The war criminals of both countries had to go through
the process of International Military Tribunal, in Nuremberg and Tokyo respectively, ruled by the victors to establish transitional justice. Since 1960’s, however, the pathway taken by Japan differed from that of Germany. One big difference lies in the political leadership. Since 1970 when Willy Brandt, Germany’s
prime minister at the time, got down on his knees at the site of the Warsaw
Ghetto in Poland and apologized for the savagery of the Nazis, the German
leaders have been consistent in humbly admitting to the atrocities their past regime commit-ted, offering a sincere apology to the victims and asking for forgiveness. In this way, Germany has produced an exemplar model of overcoming
its shaming past. As a consequence, the German political leadership has been
accepted and recognized as a leading partner of the European Union. However,
in Japan, the behaviors of political leaders have created confusion, disillusionment, and anger from neighboring countries. Since August 15, 1984 when Former Prime Minister Nakasone made an official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine,
most of the succeeding Prime Ministers have continued to pay homage to convicted war criminals by repeating this ritual. This has given rise to popular distrust over Japan from the neighboring countries.
The difference between Germany and Japan is so stark that it is almost
shocking. Whereas Germany has been fully accepted as a reliable partner of the
European Community, Japan has pretty much failed to get reconciled with
neighboring countries. For this reason, former President of Germany, R. von
Weizsäcker, has repeatedly advised Japan to pay due attention to the course
Germany has taken, with the hope that it may help Japan regain historical consciousness, particularly for its young generations who will shape the future of
Japan. Until September 2009 when Yukio Hatoyama became the new Prime
Minister of Japan and alluded to a new approach to the problem of history, and
admitted that Japan had failed to reconcile with Asian countries, the political
leadership of Japan seemed to have been united with the view that “Japan is
different from Germany.”
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If so, what can be done? In the past, a model of retributive justice was imposed from outside by the victor of the war. Characterized by a sharp contrast
between the winner and the loser, between war criminals and judges, and between good and evil, this model made it easy to implement a strong concept of
retributive justice against perpetrators. Today, no one can impose this model.
Nevertheless, one can still recommend Japan with good reasons to follow Germany should she want to overcome its ugly past. It may be hoped by concerted
efforts to mobilize international pressure against Japan while sensitizing attention to the costs Japan may have to pay if it refuses to do so. At the same time, it
may also be worthwhile to explore whether there is another way of dealing with
the past based on reciprocal dialogue rather than a strong model of victor’s justice. This model, if conceivable at all, may be meaningful when the boundary
between perpetrator and victim becomes flexible to the effect that perpetrator is
also invited to express their view while the victim pays attention so that reciprocal dialogue can give rise to a common ground of understanding, that is, socially constructed justice.
EXPLORATION OF THEORETICAL MODELS
Transitional justice tends to emerge as a sensitive issue when a country is transformed from some variant of an authoritarian regime to a democratic system.
Given the varieties of transitional contexts, we may classify all the relevant cases into two groups; one is the group in which transition was carried out by the
Occupation Force which had defeated the criminal regimes in an international
war. The other is the group in which transition was negotiated by political forces
in the process of democratization. Good examples of the former are Germany
and Japan after the Second World War and those of the latter refer to ‘new democracies’ in many countries where democratization started to unfold beginning
in the mid-1970s. A simple comparison makes it clear that justice was administered more decisively, more thoroughly, and more consequentially in the former
than in the latter, owing much to the strong push by the Occupation Force as an
external power. One may say, therefore, that among all the factors under consideration, the international factor shaped the basic course of transitional justice
most decisively.
This argument seems to be self-evident since the Occupation Force enjoyed
an exceptional privilege with little, if any, resistance from the old power groups
entangled in the past authoritarian regime. Thus, in both Germany and Japan,
trials of war criminals were held with no opposition, while new institutions were
installed from the above, and the core organizational arrangements of the past
regimes were forcibly eliminated. Here we find a strong legal model of justice
which is univocal, clear-cut and top-down in operation. From the perspective of
legal justice, wrong-doers are to be punished and eliminated to keep the community safe and responsible. No political consideration is needed. Reconcilia-
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tion is possible only when retributive justice is strictly enforced. We may call
this a justice-centered hard-line approach to reconciliation.
Since the hard-line approach yields consequential impact, the justicecentered model is most attractive and preferable to the victim. As Offe (chapter
2 in this book) suggests, perpetrators are to be sanctioned “in ways that are
eventually accepted even by them and their political allies, as well as by the vast
majority of those who are neither victims nor perpetrators, as a fair and adequate
punishment.” Reconciliation is regarded as a consequence of a fair punishment
of the perpetrator and appropriate compensation to the victim. Seen in this way,
any attempt at reconciliation is ill-founded when truth remains not fully revealed
and offenders are not fairly punished. Likewise, we can forgive the perpetrator
only when retributive justice is well realized.
Another model may be described as a pragmatic model of avoidance which
insists that sometimes it is better to forget about the past for the future. Whenever justice is administered, new political conflict tends to arise intensifying the
fear of further polarization and division of the society. Thus, this model advocates the virtue of forgetting or maintaining silence rather than justice. Though
transitional justice is aimed at integrating the nation anew, a hasty way of dealing with the ghost of the past may lead the country to be even more divisive than
healing the wounds of victims. It is often argued against the justice-centered
model that there are more important objectives for the future than struggling
with the past, such as focusing on the national economic development.
Besides these two opposing camps, there may be a third model which takes
an interactive and communicative approach to the past while seeking a social
construction of justice. Crucial for this approach is not a fixed standard of justice
which is to be applied to everywhere at once but reciprocal accounts of the participants in discourse through which truth and reconciliation emerges as a practical accomplishment. In this model, reconciliation is seen not as a consequence
of justice but as a dynamic reciprocal performance. In the legal discourse of the
hard-line approach, it is not of any methodological significance to hear the voices of the perpetrators. However, in the interactive model, their voices are invited
to take part in the process of deliberation.
There is no reason, however, to regard the interactive approach as being always intrinsically better than the justice-centered model. If the latter is viable, it
can be a good model to pursue. In the case in which legal punishment cannot be
an end by itself but a means of restoring political community anew, the value of
the interactive approach can hardly be overstated. In particular, when it turns out
to be extremely difficult to pursue the justice-centered model, the interactive
model is an option to be considered seriously.
THREE PATHWAYS TO FORGIVENESS
Justice is undoubtedly an important condition for forgiveness and reconciliation.
But can we forgive offenders only when they are legally punished adequately?
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This question is also an important part of transitional justice. Applied to the divided nation, how can we reconstruct a new political community after reunification while going through the process of transitional justice? Stretching a bit further, when and how can we forgive Japan’s war crimes and cooperate with each
other to form a genuine basis of East Asian community? Is there an optimal solution that we can think of and agree?
The model of forgiveness based on retributive justice requires the full disclosure of suppressed truth, appropriate legal processes of punishment, public
apology by wrongdoers, fair compensation to victims, and adequate historical
education in school and civil society, among others. Based on a clear-cut hierarchical distinction between perpetrators and victims, this model requires the former to surrender to the latter by expressing remorse and by asking for forgiveness. Forgiveness requires not only verbal apology but consistent practices. It
can last only when perpetrators prove the authenticity of their apology through
politically significant actions. When they fail to prove it, they may face distrust
and anger from victims.
In reality, however, perpetuators often refuse to admit their wrong-doings
and victims remain dissatisfied with the compensations offered. It is not clear
how to implement the idea of justice if no binding law and institution is working,
as in many cases of international disputes. In this unfortunate situation, this
model, though strong and attractive, falls short of providing any option if perpetrators simply refuse to take responsibility.
On the other hand, we can ask whether it is good enough to treat forgiveness as subject to retributive justice. The act of forgiving can play a dynamic
role which is more profound than a consequence of justice. As Schaap (2003:
81) notes, “as long as an actor remains bound to the consequences of an original
act, her capacity to act anew is reduced.” Forgiveness in this sense is an action
aiming at opening up a new political community by giving offenders the chance
to begin anew. In order to create a new political space, sometimes unconditional
forgiveness is better than asking for responsibility. “Trust may be ventured for
the sake of establishing a new relation based on mutual recognition of each other
as co-builders of a common world” (Schaap, 2003: 82).
Nevertheless, to forgive offenders with no condition can hardly be justifiable if this serves to legitimate the offender’s wrongdoings or alleviate public
alert to invite the recurrence of the same mistake. For this reason alone, it is impossible to apply this model to Japan since this actually amounts to conceding
too much too soon. To defend unconditional forgiveness, therefore, it is important to check carefully whether it has the potential of misuse. In other words, we
should ask whether a firm consensus about the offender’s wrongdoings exists in
civil society and political circles as well. As Kaposy (2005: 217) observes, “the
community may recognize the wrongness of an act even though the offender is
unrepentant.” If such a consensus is strong enough, it may provide moral support to the victim’s forgiving since it will help create a new political community
without causing negative side effects.
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An interesting case in point is the forgiveness in 1997 by Kim Dae-jung,
former President of the Republic of Korea, of the military generals who were
deeply involved in the Kwangju massacre in May, 1980 and later became presidents of Korea after that. It is well known that Chun Doo-Whan and Rho TaeWoo threatened his life cruelly. As a leader of democratic movement, Kim Daejung had advocated a standard model of reconciliation requiring the offender’s
repentance first and then the victim’s forgiveness to follow. But he decisively
moved in the direction of unilateral forgiveness in 1997: “To be able to reconcile is the most desirable option. However, even if the offenders do not apologize, the victim can still forgive” (Han, 2010b: xxxx). One interpretation is that
this act was based on the assumption that a firm consensus had already been
established in civil society and political circles as well as over the crimes of
these dictators.
To be more precise, ‘unconditional forgiveness’ (Derrida, 2001) may be sociologically meaningful when two conditions have been well tested. The first is
to examine the negative consequences which forgiveness may bring about. As
stated above, to forgive the offenders unconditionally can hardly be justifiable if
this serves to legitimate their crimes. There may be good reason that retribution
should be applied before forgiving offenders. Because unconditional forgiveness
runs counter to this legal argument, it is important to investigate whether such
negative consequences can be avoided. In other words, we can ask whether everybody recognizes the wrongdoings by the past authoritarian regimes. Such consensus may deter the same wrongdoings. As Kaposy (2005: 217) observes, “the
community may recognize the wrongness of an act even though the offender is
unrepentant, and thus provide enough support to forgive the victim.” Even
though the process of coming to terms with history may still be incomplete with
respect to truth and justice, under these circumstances, one may forgive the offenders in order to create a new space of political community.
The second move is to focus on the positive consequences that forgiveness
may initiate. The key question here is how one can construct a new political
community in which all potential members, including the wrongdoers, are invited to join rather than be eliminated. The political reasoning in line with
Arendt leads us to see the other as “more encompassing than her singular relation to us as our transgressor” (Schaap, 2003: 79). To forgive is to release the
other from the consequences of the original wrongdoing. This idea of forgiveness is predicated upon the possibility that even offenders have potential to begin anew. Insofar as we can expect such positive consequences of forgiving,
there are good reasons to support unconditional forgiveness.
We cannot be sure, however, whether and when these retrospective and
prospective aspects of unconditional forgiveness can be realized in this world.
This question can be answered not by theory but by concrete politics. Kim Daejung’s act of unconditional forgiveness presupposed a strong consensus among
the Korean people over the genocide committed by Chun Doo-Whan and Roh
Tae-Woo. An interpretation is that whether they apologize or not, society recognizes the crimes against humanity in which they were involved, and the deter-
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rent force is strong enough not to tolerate the recurrence of such crimes. Needless to say, this idea of unconditional forgiveness can hardly be extended to most
of the international dispute over transitional justice.
The third model of forgiveness is essentially interactive and, hence, reflexive. It is characterized by the synergy effect of reciprocal communication and
learning. Crucial for this is not a fixed standard of justice but a process-oriented
reflexive account of the concerned participants in discourse. Forgiveness is understood as an emerging property of interactive processes among victims, offenders, and the public mass.
South Africa offers an excellent example in this regard. The country had
long been long deeply torn apart by Apartheid, with the blacks totally excluded
from the mainstream. They were denied decent human life, so to speak. Fortunately, along the process of political transition under the leadership of Mandela,
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed and worked effectively to
reunite the nation by way of reciprocal processes of disclosing the facts, sincere
remorse and forgiving. This success owed much to “ubuntu” as a living tradition
emphasizing symbiotic interconnectedness of all in the community (Venter,
2004). This tradition enabled the citizens to see the ruler and the offender who
wronged them not simply as an enemy to be eliminated, but fundamentally as
potential members of the new community to be created. This way of thinking
allowed victims to express their willingness to forgive the offenders who
wronged them but volunteered to disclose truth. As Schaap (2003: 84) notes, “it
was not the acknowledgment of wrongdoing by perpetrators, which opened the
way to forgiveness. Rather, it was the disposition to forgive, a willingness on the
part of those wronged to defer the right to just retribution, that cleared the way
for perpetrators to publicly disclose the wrongdoing they were involved in.”
Characteristic of the reciprocal approach to truth and reconciliation is a collective process of deliberation out of which justice is socially constructed rather
than legally stipulated. The interactive approach has no intrinsic conflict with
the model of retributive justice since the former also represents a specific mode
of realizing justice. In contrast to the legal process of prosecution and punishment, which may be unavoidable under certain circumstances, perpetrators are
also encouraged in the interactive model to express their views concerning why
they acted in the way they did, how they saw the situation at the time, where and
how they got information they had as the source of their interpretation, and how
they see the meaning of their action as of today, and so on. Along this discursive
process of deliberation, victims and perpetrators become capable of understanding each other better. Perpetrators can reflexively see what wrongs were involved in the context in which they acted and why they were led to interpret and
act in the way they did. Justice begins to be socially constructed in this process
and mutual understanding and trust begins to be formed as a basis of political
community to be constructed anew.
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TOWARDS A COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO
RECONCILIATION
In certain cases of transition with heavy use of violence, the pursuit of distorted
justice can yield frustration and anger, triggering the emotions of revenge and
retaliation. Transitional justice then becomes highly confused and controversial.
The vicious circle of violence may repeat itself. To prevent this situation it is of
absolute necessity to establish the rule of law as a basic framework of justice.
The legal criteria of justice, however, despite many undisputable advantages,
fall short of recognizing the methodological significance of reciprocal communication for social construction of justice. Thus justice becomes hierarchical and
law-centric, requiring punishment over wrongdoers. The interactive model of
reconciliation is attractive in this context since it calls for the concomitant efforts by victims and perpetrators to establish a common framework of understanding. Indispensable for this is taking into consideration both the victim’s and
the offender’s accounts. The principle of reciprocity is important since it makes
it possible for the offender to speak something that victims may find worthy to
listen. In this way, a common framework can be created in which truth and reconciliation can be pursued in a balanced way. This model can go beyond the
model of justice imposed by law or extrapolated from the outside. Nothing is
imposed from outside under all circumstances. Rather, an internal approach is
taken to bring out various accounts without coercion.
An excellent example of this approach is the biographical story which fosters a reciprocal understanding between perpetrators and victims.
Such a story is not intended to show the other as one worthy of forgiveness by
separating the sin from the sinner. Rather, it situates the wrongs done against us
in the biographical context within which the other makes sense of her own actions. This leads to a kind of understanding that confirms our perception of the
past and the injury perpetrated against us. However, it does not demand that the
one who wronged us be different from what she is. We find grounds for overcoming resentment by making our transgressors’ actions intelligible ‘by forgivingly understanding how they have made sense of their lives’ (Calhoun, 1992,
96). Importantly, in the context of a reconciliatory politics, this means engaging
with the collective meanings and narratives by which our former enemy might
have made sense of his life as, for instance, a freedom fighter rather than a terrorist” (Schaap, 2003, 80).
The biographical approach presupposes that both victims and perpetrators
can be equally well-engaged in self-reflection. This can also be fruitfully employed when and where, despite the perpetrator’s wrongdoings, a strong sense of
community which binds victims and perpetrators is still working. The process
may turn out to be frustrating, if perpetrators continue to justify their actions.
Yet the successful story will show that our life is often more complex, more
fluid, more ambiguous, or even more paradoxical than depicted by binary opposition in the model of justice. As interactive communication goes on, offenders
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may come to realize how terrible their actions were although they were not
aware of it at that time.
The interactive model of transitional justice also entails the emotional aspect of human being in terms of truth telling and healing effect. As has been
demonstrated by the South African experience of TRC, the interactive process
provided a ‘cathartic space’ in which the victims’ pain of the past can be purged
and transformed. Truth-telling by perpetrators played a crucial role in victim
healing by providing concealed information and relieving victims from distress
caused by previous official denials. It became clear through this reciprocal
process that the power and legitimacy of the Apartheid system was ‘founded on
the state’s capacity for terror, whereas the power and legitimacy of a new order
was grounded in the public performance of the opposite—its power to restore, to
heal, and to reconcile” (Moon, 2009: 83).
An important point is that reconciliation presupposes reciprocity. The prime
reason why we cannot be wholly satisfied with the justice-centered model is
partly because it falls short of viability in some cases, but primarily because of
the necessity of reconstituting a new political community open to perpetrators as
well. From a legal perspective, justice may be an absolute value to be implemented. Politically, however, justice is a step towards reconciliation. Reconciliation is a higher value to be achieved through justice. Seen in this way, justice is
a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for reconciliation since the latter presupposes reciprocal recognition of differences. Reconciliation is possible only
when we understand the situation reciprocally, not only from our perspective,
but also from that of the counterpart. Reciprocal understanding is possible only
when the voices of victims as well as offenders can be well heard.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
When we take the communicative approach to reconciliation, we are expected to
see Japan not simply as a perpetrator who did wrongs on us by waging war and
military attack but also to draw attention to the Japanese way of thinking from
their perspective. This may lead us to an enlightening experience of reciprocal
understanding. For instance, we can pay sympathetic attention to the Japanese
collective memory of war, asking why they see themselves as victims rather
than offenders. We may then come up with the traumatic and catastrophic experience of massive suffering caused by the two atomic bombs dropped in Japan.
What does this fact mean for transitional justice and reconciliation? Should
we exclude it from the agenda of our discussion? Or would it be better to include it for a more comprehensive discussion? By the same token, we may draw
attention to those politicians who have revealed historical conscience and responsibility when they issued official statements concerning the issues of transitional justice, representing the authority of the Japanese government. No Japanese leading politician has officially denied the validity of these statements. Instead of taking an external perspective imposing Germany as a model to follow,
Divided Nations and Transitional Justice
Divided Nation, Unification and Transitional Justice
13
we may take up an intrinsic approach to find out a model to follow within Japan.
In addition, this communicative approach is not only confined to examining the
bilateral relations but also the multilateral relations. For example, it can bring
the U.S., Japan and Korea to the table together, capturing the new and diversified perspectives on the process of transitional justice.
Likewise, when we take the communicative approach to reconciliation with
North Korea, we need to see North Korea not simply and narrowly from the
perspective of systematic wrongdoings by the communist regime but understand
why and how its citizens have seen their situation in the way they have done. In
this way, we can draw attention to the possible interaction between North and
South Korea in the process of unification and transitional justice. The key issue
is not about the legal, economic, administrative or military incorporation by one
party or another but about the interactive process through which the citizens of
both sides come to share the common identity as well as the emotional and symbolic basis for a new political community to be constructed. Obviously, reunification means that they decide to become equally respectable members of this
community. This communicative process is aimed at fostering mutual understanding and solidarity going beyond self-destructive consequences of national
division.
When the opportunity of reunification comes in, however, the German experience indicates that a decisive intervention may be needed to facilitate the
legal, economic, and administrative processes of system integration. Here it is
important to see different modalities of system and social integration. Social
integration can be advanced through the process of communication because,
after all, reunification presupposes “a normatively willed act of citizens of [divided nation], who in political self-awareness decided on a common civil union”
(Habermas, 1994: 44). Political communication is of utmost significance for
social integration since only when it works well a new political community can
it anchor itself “in the consciousness of its citizens as something shared, and not
experienced just as the byproduct of the forced construction of an expanded currency zone” (Habermas, 1994: 52). Likewise, transitional justice after reunification needs to be grounded on a reciprocal process of truth-telling, reconciliation,
and social construction of justice toward coexistence.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This book as a whole is an attempt to understand the complex chain of issues
related to the divided nation, unification and transitional justice from the perspective of reciprocal communication rather than any privileged conception anchored in binary opposition. This intention may not be evenly worked out in each
chapter but is the underlying motive throughout the book.
Part I of the book examines some salient issues of the divided nation and
the process of reconciliation from the vantage point of view of reciprocal communication. It has 7 writings of late former President of South Korea Kim Dae-
Divided Nations and Transitional Justice
14
Han Sang-Jin
jung and 2 writings of former President of Germany Richard Von Weizsäcker.
Though the historical circumstances of Germany and Korea differed considerably, the two presidents, when dealing with the issues of divided nation, have
converged in advocating the principle of dialogue and cooperation instead of
confrontation that was rampant during the Cold War. President Von Weizsäcker
(2009) who closely observed the processes and the consequences of the German
unification highly praised President Kim’s Sunshine Policy for his courage of
pursuing this goal consistently in the political environment far starker than in
Germany. In Part I, we can take a closer look at the words of Kim Dae-jung to
realize how he had prepared and implemented Sunshine Policy before, during
and after the historical summit meeting between South and North Korea in 2000.
Part II shows 3 chapters of Kim Dae-jung and 3 chapters of Richard von
Weizsäcker, all addressing keen attention to Japan’s problem of the past from
the perspective of reciprocal dialogue. Assuming the long-standing friendly relationship between Japan and Germany in the background, Richard von
Weizsäcker has taken care to appreciate how much Japan differs from Germany.
Yet he advises Japan to be more trustful and sincere in coming to terms with the
past taking the oath of Germany as a reference. His texts are exemplars of reflexive deliberation revealing profoundly when and how Japan can become a
trusted and responsible leadership in East Asia and the world. On the other hand,
the road taken by Kim Dae-jung is reciprocal agreement with Japan concerning
the way of realizing transitional justice. He asked for Japan’s active approach to
this unresolved issue when he made an official visit to Japan met Japanese
Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo in 1998; He succeeded in obtaining mutual
agreement and opened up a new era of relation with Japan. Unfortunately, however, this climate could not last long due to Obuchi’s passing away.
Part III has five chapters that focus and compare Germany and Japan in their efforts in overcoming the past in historical perspective. Martin Salm examines Germany’s efforts in overcoming the past by compensating forced laborers. Yuji Ishida
compares the efforts of Japan and Germany in overcoming the past and discusses the
limits of Japan introspectively. Ito Narihiko examines Japan’s modern history to
show how the pursuit of modernization has led Japan to militarism. Gavan McComack points out the legacy of Japanese colonialism as a hidden issue behind the
current tensions between Japan and North Korea. In chapter 23 the author has attempted to exemplify a communicative approach to transitional justice by examining
some of the normatively binding official discourses. It shows where we need to start
to open a new threshold to reciprocal dialogue.
Part IV presents straightforward voices of a new generation on issues of
how Japan has dealt with transitional justice and what needs to be done further.
The key concepts for Part IV are diversity and globalism. The issue of Japan’s
past has been conventionally treated in bilateral relations: Japan / Korea or Japan
/ China. However, in part IV, the perspective has been extended to a global level.
Thus, we can better understand the diversities in war memory and better appreciate how such nations as Japan, China, Korea, Southeast Asian nations or the
Philippines have approached to the issues of transitional justice. In addition, we
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Divided Nation, Unification and Transitional Justice
15
can take a new perspective on the U.S., which administered the Tokyo International Military Tribunal as a victorious party in the war; we can expect to see
how the U.S. would contribute in the reconciliation process of East Asia
throughout the 21st century.
The major objective throughout this book is to invite Japan to jointly explore a constructive way for Japan to become a trusted and responsible nation in
East Asia and the world. Overcoming the past is not limited to Japan. On the
contrary, it is a common task among nations, including South Korea and China
that have gone through a rush-to modernization and, while catching up to the
West in such a short period of time, fell into the same kinds of fatal mistakes as
the West, such as military war, authoritarian rule, suppression of human rights,
and systemic risks threatening human safety and security. In this situation, a new
impetus in overcoming Japan’s unfortunate past may ignite further reflexive
process in other Asian countries. The international cooperation may be needed
to facilitate the multilateral processes of reconciliation in which the U.S. can
also be invited to join.
NOTE
1 Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea and Distinguished
Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
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