Ending the Cold War? Human Rights, Cold War Democratization, and the Problem of Post-Cold War Memory

Theodore Adorno We will not have come to terms with the past until the causes of what happened then are no longer active. Only because these causes live on does the spell of the past remain, to this very day, unbroken."

Today s Themes and Arguments Human Rights and the Cold War. Cold War Authoritarianism, Development, and Democracy. Post-Cold War Memory/Transitional Justice. Changes? Continuities? (What does it mean to be in a post-cold War period?).

Human Rights and the Cold War The Last Utopia?

Early Efforts Towards Human Rights 1945, United Nations established. 1948, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Rene Cassin

Raphael Lemkin

Charles Malik

Elenore Roosevelt

UN Declaration on Human Rights Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people, Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law

Early Efforts at Human Rights Christian influence. Conservative European anticommunists. Anti colonial movements concerned with racism and sovereignty. Cold War powers occupied with Cold War. Leftist intellectuals and violence.

Jean Paul Sartre

Frantz Fanon

Eqbal Ahmad

Why Human Rights? 1961, Amnesty International Established. Counter cold war left. Rise of NGO culture.

Crisis of Government Legitimacy

Why Human Rights? 1961, Amnesty International Established. Counter cold war left. Rise of NGO culture. Dissident intellectuals in Soviet Union. Rightist counter-revolution in Latin America in 1970s. 1975 Helsinki Final Act. 1976: Election of Jimmy Carter and human rights diplomacy.

Legacies of Human Rights Post-Cold War canonization into law. NGO culture (178 organizations). Question of imperialism? Decline in economic justice on the left. Transitional Justice

The Cold War and Democratization THE SOUTH KOREAN EXAMPLE

Authoritarianism and Democracy in South Korea 1948-1960: First Republic. 1960-1961: Second Republic. 1961-1987: Authoritarian Years. 1987-Present: Process of democracy/neoliberalism.

Constitutional Government. National Assembly. 1948 National Security Law. Increased authoritarianism. The First Republic 1948-1960

The Second Republic 1960-1961. April 1960, Student Revolution. Shaky Parliamentary Democracy. Rise of Civil Society. May 1961, military coup.

April Revolution

The Second Republic 1960-1961. April 1960, Student Revolution. Shaky Parliamentary Democracy. Rise of Civil Society. May 1961, military coup.

Authoritarianism and Park Chung-hee 1962-1972: Democratic façade. Regionalism. Opposition? Economic development.

Seoul, 1950s

1950s Dongdaemun

Modern Dongdaemun

Korea s Miracle on the Han. Government of Syngman Rhee (1948-1960), deeply corrupt, dependent on US aid. 1965, Normalization Treaty with Japan.

Park s Authoritarian Capitalism (1965-1979) Manchurian model of government ( Capitalist paradise ). Workers 2.5x more productive, 1/10 wages. Steel equals national power. Strong State, social engineering. State gives favourable loans (Chaebol). Financial manipulation. Vietnam War boom. Export oriented economy. 3 decades of 8% growth. Verdict: neo-fascist? mercantilist?, Korean democratization?.

The Yushin System (1972-1979). Rising power of political rivals. Early 1970s shifts in East Asia. 1971, Self-coup implements Yushin System. Growing resistance.

Kim Dae Jung

The Yushin System (1972-1979). Rising power of political rivals. Early 1970s shifts in East Asia. 1971, Self-coup implements Yushin System. Growing resistance.

1979

The Yushin System (1972-1979). Rising power of political rivals. Early 1970s shifts in East Asia. 1971, Self-coup implements Yushin System. Growing resistance.

1979, Park assassinated. The Rise of Chun Doo Hwan 1979-1980, Chun consolidates power. May 1980, Kwangju Uprising / Kwangju Democratic Movement/Kwangju Massacre. US role?

Chun s Rule (1980-1987) Legitimacy problem. Constant protests. Ideological weakening of Cold War. 1987, free elections. Opposition split so military remains in power. 1987-Present?

Part Two TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND POST-COLD WAR MEMORY

Transitional Justice? As societies transition or liberalize, there is a reckoning and rejection of a dark past. Contested shift in moral and epistemic norms about the past. History and law intertwined. Present, past, future contested. Victor s justice? Power? Who gets to speak and why?

Redress? Remedy or compensation for specific grievance. Alternative models? What is restitution? What constitutes forgiveness or redress? (we don t know). Lack of resolution as a necessarily condition.

Time? Memories shift over time. What is said or remembered about the past is reflection of socio/political conditions in the present. Redress shapes historical memory.

Transitional Justice in South Korea ATROCITIES, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND ANTICOMMUNISM

South Korea s politicide 1948-1952: minimum of 200,000 leftists killed. Politicide: the promotion, execution, and/or implied consent of sustained policies by governing elites or their agents or, in the case of civil war, either of the contending authorities that are intended to destroy, in whole or part, a communal, political, or politicized ethnic group.

State authorized mass killings. South Korea s politicide Consolidation of the state, and ideological identity. Negative Integration. Jeju Massacre, National Guidance League Incident, Geochang Incident.

Jeju Massacre

National Guidance League Killings

1951 Geochang Incident February 1951, Sinwŏn. Four day killing spree, 716 unarmed civilians. Politicized killing. Desecration of corpses.

Immediate Aftermath of Geochang Made public, internationalized. Initial investigations launched, stymied. 187 communists officially registered, illegal execution. Victims omitted from trial and media. 3 convictions, all pardoned by President Rhee.

Crises over mourning Initial prohibitions. 1954, right to perform mortuary services. Collective grave. Bereaved Family identity. 1960, Rhee government collapses. Revenge killing? Yujokhoe form. Attempts at solidarity, but divisions exist. Mass repression in 1961.

Democratization and Transitional justice 1961-1987: Dark history. 1989: Geochang Bereaved Family Association forms. Explicitly anticommunist. Special acts to investigated Kwangju, Geochang, Jeju. 2005, TRCK established, publishes report in 2010.

Truth and Reconciliation? Structurally hampered. Global ideology of transitional justice. Fragmentation of victims groups. Human rights ideology, depoliticized. Perpetrator/victim binary. Clarification as closure? Alternative pasts?

Monumental Conflicts in South Korea

South Korea s Peace Parks Local context: part of transitional justice, honour restoration. Global network of dark tourism.

Jeju 4.3 Peace Park Layout

Politics of Reclamation: Geoch ang

Politics of Reclamation: Jeju

Critiquing the State: Geoch ang

Soldier Valourization

Critiquing State Hegemony: Jeju

Silences and their Meaning Little Reference to each other in Sites Struggles over Memory Portrayed in Isolation National Guidance League Incident and other Examples of Systematic Nation-wide Slaughter Absent

Silences and their Meaning

National Guidance League Incident

Silences and their Meaning

Politics of Reclamation: Jeju

Conclusions Honour restored and view of state as guardian subverted. Parks preserve binaries of anticommunist discourse. Victims absorbed into national narrative. Embedded silences in local/victims narratives. Violence portrayed as episodic, not systematic. Violent origins of anticommunist state creation remain obscured. Ideology of Cold War no longer explicit, but still textures collective memory.