An Analysis of the Autobiographies of the Massacre Victims' Bereaved Families in the Period of the Korean War : A Storytelling of Family as Accusation Poliltics
Journal Title: International Journal of Korean History - Year 2012, Vol 17, Issue 2
Abstract
Some families among the civilian massacre victims' bereaved families have published their autobiographies and life histories where their own personal histories have been organized. The meaning of autobiography and life history in the research of state violence or civilian massacre is different from general oral testimony. The autobiographies and biographies of the victim's bereaved families have strong merits, which can make us understand the problems or relations among personal pains and family, society, and state violence through a victim's personal life, experience, and history. The important characteristics of the victim's bereaved autobiographies are related to the storytelling subject. The main focus of storytelling or narratives are still his/her family or parents. The family was the only space where the bereaved could not only live their own daily lives, but also share and tell their resentment and pain. It could give them consolation and healing through the understanding and sharing of their scars and pains in the context of the state's and society's denial or avoidance of civilian massacres. The meaning of family to the bereaved was a life community against the state or society, which led to the massacre or remained as spectators. The autobiographies and life histories of the victim's bereaved has drawn the personal resistance and silence against state violence and social adaptation. The bereaved who experienced the massacre or state violence suffered from feeling impotent at the time. Their fears of state violence continued to silence. The silence of the bereaved was one type of social adaptation and survival. On the other hand, it meant the internalization of resistance or speechless defiance. Considering the life histories of the victims' bereaved by state violence, they showed over-adaptation to state and society. This was a general phenomenon with exceptional representation, but did not mean that they lost their identities and stopped their resistance against state violence. The massacre victims' bereaved families were conflicted in their inner mind to accept their identities, and this developed to a type of victims' consciousness. Their identities were formed by the social stigma that they were children of the reds. State policy and social prejudice made the bereaved families continuously agonize about themselves and their identities as the children of the victims. The identity of the bereaved was not a simple result of a person's inner reflection, but was formed in relation with the outer world, like state and society. The formation of the identities of the bereaved was revealed with various shapes in chasing the perpetrators and seeking truth, and participating in related group. In conclusion, the autobiographies of the bereaved families are forms of writing or telling of the family as politics of accusation. The testimony or storytelling in their books is a building process for producing their own narratives and subjects and confirming process to their own worlds. The bereaved's autobiography is an accusation story that they confirmed their identities as the family of the victims who was massacred by the state, and revealed the damage to family to society. In the light of this point, the autobiographies of the bereaved families are spaces for accusation politics and even realization of resistance politics. From this point, we can think of the subversive meaning of writing politics or storytelling politics through autobiographies.
Authors and Affiliations
Moo Yong Kim
Keywords
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