The past that still has not passed

Lee Jae-seung

The author is a professor of international studies at Korea University and head of the Ilmin International Relations Institute.

An "unpassed past" is not simply an old wound that refuses to heal. It refers to a past whose facts remain only partly established and whose responsibilities have never been fully acknowledged. Such a past repeatedly returns through silence, mythmaking and political mobilization. The problem lies less in the past itself than in how the present chooses to confront it.

The French city of Vichy illustrates this paradox. Known as a spa resort and for its architecture from the reign of Napoleon III, Vichy also symbolizes one of the darkest chapters in modern French history. After France's defeat in 1940, Marshal Philippe Pétain established a government there that collaborated with Nazi Germany by enacting antisemitic laws and participating in the arrest and deportation of Jews.

After liberation, Gen. Charles de Gaulle excluded the Vichy regime from the legitimate history of the French Republic and instead made the Free French movement and the Resistance the foundation of national reconstruction. The strategy helped reunify the nation, but responsibility for collaboration remained largely unaddressed. In "The Vichy Syndrome" (1987), historian Henry Rousso argued that a suppressed past inevitably returns. He revisited the subject in "Vichy: An Unfinished Past" (1994).

Historical research, trials and survivors' testimony gradually reshaped public understanding. In 1995, President Jacques Chirac acknowledged the French state's responsibility for the roundup and deportation of Jews, a position later reaffirmed by his successors. France did not erase the memory of Vichy. Instead, it accepted both resistance and collaboration as parts of its own history.

Korea also has an unpassed past. The memories of colonial collaboration and the independence movement, liberation and state-building, war and anticommunism, industrialization and democratization still compete in politics. Around Liberation Day each year, the question returns: When did the Republic of Korea begin? One side emphasizes the Provisional Government of 1919, while the other stresses the establishment of the Republic in 1948.

Yet 1919 and 1948 are not competing origins. The March 1, 1919 Independence Movement and the Provisional Government laid the foundations of independence and popular sovereignty. The year 1948 marked the birth of the Republic of Korea as a functioning state with a constitution, government and international recognition. The spirit of independence and the institutional founding of the state complement rather than replace each other.

The same is true of Kim Gu and Syngman Rhee. Kim symbolizes the independence movement and national legitimacy, while Rhee represents state-building and national survival. Their conflict reflected the difficult choices surrounding liberation and division. Understanding both is essential to explaining how the ideals of independence evolved into the modern Korean state.

The First Republic also deserves a more balanced assessment. The authoritarian rule and state violence of the Rhee government should be judged clearly, but viewing the entire period only through the lens of its collapse in 1960 obscures other aspects of state formation. The establishment of the government, international recognition, survival during the Korean War and diplomacy aimed at securing long-term U.S. security commitments all merit objective evaluation within their historical context.

The same principle applies to debates over collaboration with Japan. The violence of colonial rule and responsibility for collaboration must be established without ambiguity. But reducing "pro-Japanese" to a political label, or treating historical issues merely as obstacles to diplomacy, oversimplifies history. Cooperation with Japan in pursuit of national interests and acknowledgment of historical responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

Memory and history are not the same. Memory shapes a community's identity, while history restores the facts and context that memory often simplifies or omits. History without memory loses social meaning, while memory without historical verification easily becomes myth. Independence and statehood, Kim Gu and Syngman Rhee, industrialization and democratization belong to no single political camp. Accepting the past as shared history means establishing facts, distinguishing responsibility and preserving the record of suffering.

If the past is endlessly summoned as a political weapon, society becomes a prisoner of memory. Allowing an unpassed past to pass does not mean forgetting or burying it. It means moving competing memories beyond rival myths and into a shared history grounded in fact and responsibility. Only by bearing that complex legacy together can the past cease to fuel present conflicts and instead become a common experience that prepares society for the future.