1) agree

by Cheon-Rim
Dept. of Industry & system engineering

I agree to open list of pro-Japan collaborators. I wants to delve into pro-Japanese activities during the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial period and human rights violations by past military and dictatorial governments.

The deceased Kim Sung-Su, one of founders of the prestigious university has also been accused of having been a Japanese collaborator. This can’t be happening! They betrayed their country. I believe that we have to tell our descendents the right history. If the government doesn’t open about history, this country will lose much of the heart and soul of its people. They were the people who told the poor and their children to spare their lives for Japan. Also, they cooperated with the Japanese police who were actively catching the liberation army.

I am sure that they could live happily by doing such things. It is just not right to protect such people who worked for Japan. We should reveal their identities and make them pay for what they did, for those patriots who worked and fought for liberating our country.

In other countries, there is a system for punishing the people who betrayed their own country, as long as they are alive. It is just not right to let them live without noticing and paying for their faults. We need to check the history of our country clearly. Those 35 years we spent under the Japanese colonization were painful ones.2) disagree

by Choi Jin-Tae
Dept. of e-mechanical Manufacturing Engineering

I vote against the bill to release a list of pro-Japan collaborators. It is time for the whole nation to have to combine forces to develop our country in the age of globalization. In this situation, why shoud we investigate past history and for oneself dissociate our consciousness into two? It risks causing political turmoil, a leadership vacuum, national costs and social divisions. The intention of revealing a list of pro-Japan collaborators is good. But it is now a thing of the past. If you see the dark side of a society, it is political intrigue to keep the privileged class in shackles. If we release a list of pro-Japan collaborators, their descendants will receive a heavy blow on the head and fell down. Whether they got some benefits from their pro-Japanese ancestors or not, that is not from their will. Why should descendants suffer an insult because of works of ancestors in the past? Why do they have to get a big shock by reason of pro-Japanese ancestors?

Suppose there is a person who is whiter than white and competent as politician. However, if it is released, the man can not receive a favorable evaluation. We also can not make a fair estimation. Because of the grandfather’ works, if they can not receive a fair evaluation from society, is it right?

I believe that releasing list of pro-Japan collaborators is to punish not the dead but the family of the deceased. It is a guilt-by-association system. The Republic of Korea is a democratic nation. In a free democracy, guilt-by-association system is old. As there is not anything to learn, we don’t need to dwell on our past.

I really want to stress that point. It is the past. If we can punish the pro-Japanese group severely, we have to do. But already they are dead. We do not have to harass innocent people who did not make pro-Japanese actions.

Cheon-Rim, Choi Jin-Tae  -

<저작권자 © The Campus Journal, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>