Monday, January 27, 2003
THE VAGARIES OF HISTORY: For the first time, Kim Il-sung's resistance to the Japanese is being acknowledged in South Korean history textbooks
What the new textbooks illustrate most clearly, South Korean intellectuals say, is how the strategy of engagement with North Korea, the so-called sunshine policy begun by departing President Kim Dae Jung, has transformed South Korea — even more than its target, North Korea — in important and often unexpected ways.
For decades, it was illegal here to say anything positive about Kim Il Sung, just as it was forbidden to display a North Korean flag. The revised history textbooks, which will be introduced next month, reflect a broad overturning of taboos here recently that has seen everything from South Korean tourists traveling to North Korea, to the president-elect, Roh Moo Hyun, openly questioning the nature of the longstanding alliance with the United States.
