Heroes ("raw," unedited version)

This is an unedited version of an essay I wrote a few months back after a visit to Seodaemun Prison (Seodaemun Hyeongmuso 서대문형무소). I'll correct it when I get a chance.

Heroes

We walked through the prison cells where freedom fighters were held, tortured, even raped and killed. If ever there was a place where true commitment to an ideal was tested, this was one. Those grounds, though they bore witness to some of the greatest evils of modern man, were made holy by the blood of heroes who bravely suffered the ultimate test. It was a place where patriots chose death over surrender.

There is a solemn silence and an icy breeze pervading the atmosphere, unbroken even by the foolish banter of first-year college students pretending to be prisoners. Outside some of the cells were photos and writings of their former occupants. Some students were locking their friends in the cells—some of the very same cells which held their heroic countrymen.

The walls once scratched and stained with words professing resistance to oppression and undying love for country have now been sullied by pens and markers with words like "Japanese sons-of-bitches," and other words expressing anger at Japan's past aggression. It is anger rightly felt—a people should be outraged at the atrocities they were forced to suffer—but is it misdirected?

I cannot help but snicker at the students expressing disgust at the Japanese and their actions. Were they not the same students who, on a tour of one of their country's historical sites only an hour before, could not wait to leave and get to the bus? Were they not the same students who had to be reprimanded by the guide? The same who, when asked by the frustrated guide to leave if they had no interest, left?

I am overwhelmed by a sense of sadness as I walk through these heroes' prison grounds. The very culture and history they fought to preserve, which was suppressed under Japanese rule—is that not what modern students choose to ignore? So that these students could have the freedom to speak their own language and cherish their own history, many fought and died, yet when school trips are planned and the opportunity to experience the richness of their culture is chosen over a trip to the amusement park, the students pout, whine and complain. Heroes fought and died, but students opt to rush through a museum or historical tour and prefer to sit in the parking lot thumbing messages on their phones and eating ice cream.

We admire heroes from afar—how they stood stalwart and unyielding even when locked in dark cages in which they could barely move. We admire the fervor which never escaped them even as the lash came down upon them or as their bodies were beaten and violated. We remember that they fought and died. We remember that they were oppressed. We certainly remember their oppressors. But do we remember what they were fighting for—why they endured torture and unimaginable suffering?

They fought to preserve the freedom and culture of a land suffocated and robbed of its identity by a cruel hand. That is what they fought for, and that, the very thing which many young people ignore. Heroes bled so that their people could celebrate their culture and call it their own, but when given the chance to do so, some students decide it is simply not worth the energy, blame the heat of the day or the chill of the wind, and decide their time would be better spent chasing each other in the parking lot and munching on snacks.

It is time to realize that the true enemy of cultural identity, the instrument of any culture's destruction comes from within—it comes when we decide that ignorance is acceptable and a more refreshing option than education. It is easy to blame the past oppressor for the loss of cultural identity. It is easy to embrace hate and mistrust and to angrily point fingers, but it is exceedingly difficult to point those same fingers inward.

It is not wrong to be outraged at the atrocities of the past. It is not wrong to recognize injustice and to reject oppression, but oppression from without has long passed. We must turn the outward-pointing fingers of blame to the introspective embracement of our collective and individual responsibilities. It matters little what untruths and inaccuracies other countries write into their textbooks if the content of our own textbooks goes ignored and unappreciated in our own country.

Some say it is wrong to be outraged. No, outrage is rightly felt, but when outrage takes on the visage of misguided hate, it has lost its positive power. Outrage at a negative situation is wrong when it fails to transform itself into a positive direction for change. It is no longer an outside oppressor that oppresses us; it is rather hate, ignorance, and indifference that hold us down, along with the failure to realize that their power is more oppressive than any whip's blow, any kind of torture or humiliation, even more powerful than any army.

It is time to remember—no, to honor our heroes, and even more to take up the banner and become heroes ourselves. The war we fight today to preserve our history and culture is not one waged against a violent oppressor. It is a silent one, but it is one potentially more destructive. It is when we choose to relinquish our culture, our history, our very identity, either through ignorance or indifference, that we lose a war they we did not even know was being waged, and we surrender treasures we did not even know we had.