On November 24, 2024, Japan held a memorial service at its UNESCO web site, the Sado Gold Mines, in Niigata to commemorate labourers who labored in it. South Korean officers who have been invited boycotted the occasion. As an alternative, on the next day, they held their very own ceremony remembering Koreans who labored the mines as pressured labourers underneath Japanese colonial rule.
The Sado Gold Mines, which have been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Website on July 27, have grow to be yet one more battleground over the historical past of Japanese colonial exploitation of Koreans and efforts to whitewash it. Japan has lengthy resisted recognising the wartime discrimination and compelled labour endured by Koreans and different international staff, together with at industrial websites listed as World Heritage in 2015 underneath the title “Websites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution”.
In each cases, Japan has argued that wartime historical past is irrelevant to the heritage worth of those websites. Although it promised UNESCO to inform the “full historical past”, the model Japan presents is distorted by colonial apologetics, refusing to recognise Koreans staff mobilised through the conflict as victims of international pressured labour.
What’s significantly troubling is the tolerance of this revisionism by each UNESCO and the present South Korean authorities, which appear prepared to miss the erasure of Korean victims for the sake of fostering higher diplomatic relations.
When Japan’s Meiji industrial websites have been inscribed in 2015, the nation initially agreed to current the historical past of “a lot of Koreans and others” who have been “introduced towards their will and compelled to work underneath harsh circumstances”.
However shortly after, then-International Minister Fumio Kishida downplayed the concession, stating that “pressured to work” didn’t imply “pressured labour”. The argument hinged on the authorized fiction that Koreans, as topics of the Japanese Empire, might be legally conscripted for wartime labour underneath sure circumstances.
Because the opening of an data centre in Tokyo in 2020, meant to coach the general public on this historical past, Japan has as an alternative promoted a whitewashed narrative. It claims that Korean and Japanese labourers labored collectively in concord, however pointedly avoids the time period “Koreans”, whereas systematically referring to Koreans as “staff from the Korean Peninsula”.
This delicate erasure denies Korean nationality and echoes the colonial time period “hantoujin” (peninsula individuals), which was used to strip Koreans of their identification throughout colonial rule. At the moment, Koreans as colonial topics didn’t have the total rights of Japanese residents – one other truth that’s glossed over.
The centre additionally omits crucial paperwork, similar to testimonies from Korean labourers and Japanese supervisors, which doc how Koreans have been subjected to discrimination, bodily punishment, pressured contract extensions, and harmful work circumstances.
Japan’s method to the Sado Gold Mines, the place no less than 1,519 Koreans labored as pressured labourers underneath inhumane circumstances throughout World Warfare II, follows the same path. In its supplementary data to UNESCO, Japan constantly refers to “staff from the Korean Peninsula” with out acknowledging the pressured nature of their labour. It even suggests the work surroundings was “non-discriminatory”, blatantly ignoring historic proof.
In the course of the World Heritage inscription ceremony, a Japanese consultant introduced that an exhibition encompassing Korean labourers had been put in place and that annual memorials for “all staff” on the mines can be carried out. South Korea’s consultant optimistically claimed this might assist alleviate issues about Japan’s failure to deal with Korean experiences on the industrial websites inscribed in 2015.
Nevertheless, the exhibition – entitled “The Lifetime of Mine Staff Together with These from the Korean Peninsula” – fails to acknowledge the pressured and inhumane circumstances Korean labourers confronted. By grouping their experiences with Japanese staff, Japan successfully denies the circumstances of international pressured labour and the documented experiences of victims. Equally, the memorial held on November 24 didn’t acknowledge Korean pressured labour.
Fairly than providing a second of recognition, the memorial service dangers additional entrenching a revisionist narrative that implies all staff on the mines confronted related hardships in help of Japan’s conflict effort. This sort of misrepresentation is extra dangerous than neglecting to carry a memorial in any respect. It denies the voices of victims and undermines the continuing wrestle for historic recognition.
Japan’s persistent denial of wartime pressured labour has lengthy been a barrier to enhancing relations with South Korea. But, the present South Korean authorities has demonstrated that prioritising diplomatic relations takes priority over addressing historic wrongs and colonial trauma. In a bid to promote the Sado inscription as a diplomatic win, South Korea’s Ministry of International Affairs even altered the phrases “all staff” to “Korean staff” in a abstract of the official Japanese assertion at UNESCO launched to the Korean public.
This short-sighted method dangers additional undermining South Korea-Japan relations in the long term. Public help for the present South Korean authorities is terribly low and the subsequent authorities could need to undo a lot of this work to regain public belief.
As world discussions more and more concentrate on decolonisation and inclusive narratives, it’s alarming to see UNESCO tolerate Japan’s neglect of Korean victims’ voices. Whereas it issued a press release in 2021 urging Japan to honour its dedication to recognise the historical past of Korean and different pressured labour on the Meiji industrial websites, it has but to point any intention of revoking the websites’ World Heritage standing for non-compliance.
Regardless of this unresolved problem, UNESCO inscribed the Sado Gold Mines, thus undermining its personal credibility and reinforcing historic revisionism. It ought to have withheld the Sado Gold Mines’ inscription till Japan corrected the historic erasure at beforehand designated websites.
All of those developments spotlight the significance of understanding East Asia’s trendy historical past on the world stage. If we’re severe about decolonisation, we should method these histories with a broader, transregional perspective, recognising patterns of colonial legacies past the Euro-American context.
By elevating consciousness of various types of imperialism and their enduring impact, we are able to empower individuals worldwide to raised recognise and problem the colonial crimes and exploitation which are unfolding in entrance of us in different elements of the world at the moment.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
