[인터뷰] 박성준-움직이는 학교(새길이야기 3호)
움직이는 학교 박성준 선생
김문음(작가)
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김문음: 호칭을 뭐라고 붙이면 좋을까요?
박성준: 그냥 '씨'가 어떨까요?
무슨 위원장님, 회장님, 이사장님, 사무총장님, 박사님, 교수님 등 호칭의 홍수 속에서 가끔은 이렇게 한마디로 규정짓기 어려운 이들을 만난다. 인터뷰가 진행된 양천구 신정동 아파트 거실. 직접 차를 내오는 선생님의 인상이 무척이나 차분하다.
특이한 이력
김: 박성준 선생님 이력을 보면, 서울대 경제학과 졸업, 릿쿄오(立敎)대학 신학박사..., 그런데요, 감옥엔 왜 이렇게 오래 계셨어요?
박: 함석헌의 표현을 빌면, 하나님의 발꿈치에 채여서랄까... 어쩌다가 그렇게 된 것이지요. 한편으론 우리의 역사 속에서, 한반도의 운명이 감옥에 쉽게 갈 수 있는 환경이었다고도 얘기할 수 있겠습니다. 그런데, 이런 얘기까지 쓸 필요가 있을까요? 기사의 분량이 어느 정도 되나요?
그는 한국전쟁 통에 부모를 잃고 두 살 아래인 동생과 함께 고아가 됐다. 그의 나이 열 살 때였다. 책을 살 돈이 없어, 친구들 교과서를 빌려 헌 종이 묶음에 베껴 쓰면서, 그에겐 무슨 책이든 자기 것으로 만드는 능력이 생겨났다.
대학 시절, 그는 성서를 읽기 시작해 기독교 신앙을 받아들였고, 경제학도로서 여러 경제학 책을 섭렵했다. 미국 경제학은 사회의 모순을 설명해내지 못했다. '함께 잘 사는 세상', 복음과 사회과학을 결합시키는 대안을 모색하던 그는, 당시 금서였던 마르크스의 경제학을 읽기 위해 일본어를 공부했고, (어릴 때부터 익힌, '빌린 책을 단숨에 베끼는' 재주를 발휘해) 일어로 된 책들을 번역, 그가 조직한 '경제복지회' 회원들에게 유포했다. 이는 당시, 국가보안법 1조에 해당하는 중죄였다. 그는, 같은 서클 후배였던 한명숙과 결혼한 지 7개월 만에 투옥, 13년 반 동안 옥살이를 했다.
박: 우리 한명숙이가, 나 옥에 있을 때, 한국의 주요 신학교 교과서를 다 보내줬어요. 13년 반 만에 재결합해 태어난 아들이, 이제 고 1입니다.
그 세월의 갈피에 끼인 절절함을 어찌 쉬이 알 수 있겠는가. 현재 부인 한명숙은 여성부 장관이다. 박성준은 출소 후 한국신학대학을 졸업하고 서남동, 안병무 등과 교류하며 한국 신학연구소 학술부장을 역임하고, 나눔과 섬김의 공동체인 '한백교회'를 설립, 8년 동안 목회를 했다.
퀘이커와의 만남
김: 건너뛰어서, 퀘이커 얘기를 해야 할 것 같군요. 저처럼 무지한 사람을 위해서 소개해 주신다면.
박: 퀘이커(The Religious Society of Friends)는 17세기 중엽, 영국에서 일어났지요. 당시, 외적인 종교의식이나 성경의 권위, 공식적인 신조에 중점을 두고 있던 기존 교회에 염증을 느낀 이들은 체험의 종교, 하나님과의 직접적인 교통을 갈구하고 있었는데, 영국에서 이런 이들을 '구하는 자들(seekers)'이라 불렀습니다.
목동 출신으로, 어릴 적부터 유난히 예민한 감성을 지녔던 조지 폭스(Gorge Fox, 1624∼1689)가 '영적인 여행(spiritual journey)' 끝에 펜들 힐(Pendle Hill)이라는 작은 산정에서 진리를 깨닫고 환상(vision)을 보았는데 이것이 퀘이커의 시초입니다.
김: 그가 깨달은 것이 무엇이었나요?
박: 그가 들었던 소리는 "오직 한 분, 그리스도 예수가 계시니, 그는 너의 처지에 맞게 말씀하신다(There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition)."라는 것이었습니다.
그것은 당시의 인습적인 신조들(creeds)과 날카롭게 충돌하는 것이었지요. 퀘이커들은 "각 사람 속에 빛이 있다."고 생각합니다. "사람은 누구나 자기 안에 하나님의 그것을 지니고 있다.(There is that of God in everyone)." 이것이 퀘이커 신앙의 정수(精髓)죠.
김: 놀랍게도 동학의 인내천(人乃天) 사상과 통하는군요.
박: 19세기 말엽 한반도에 출현한 수운 최제우(水雲 崔濟愚)와 해월 최시형(海月 崔時亨)의 '사람은 한울님의 신령한 본성을 모시고 있는 존엄한 존재'라는 동학의 핵심은, 지금까지 저 밖에 있는 신(God without)을 향해 놓았던 제상(祭床)과 위패(位牌)를 나를 향해(向我) 돌려놓도록 하는 새로운 제사법을 창안했습니다. 이는 훗날 강증산의 사상과 실천, 함석헌의 씨알 사상과도 연결되지요(함석헌은 1970년대 초, 미국 필라델피아 근교의 펜들 힐에서 퀘이커 회원이 되었다고 합니다).
민중신학의 창시자격인 서남동과 안병무에게 미친 씨알 사상의 영향을 생각할 때, 퀘이커 신앙과 민중신학의 만남은 일찍이 이뤄지고 있었다는 것을 알 수 있습니다. 그리고 이 흐름은, 지금도 우리에게 호소력이 있습니다. 민중신학이, 민중의 '한(恨)'과 더불어 민중 한 사람 한 사람 속의 '빛' 퀘이커들은 이것을 '영', '그리스도', '씨앗' 등의 이름으로 부르기도 합니다 에 주목할 수 있다면, 그 민중을 21세기의 새로운 세계와 역사 창조의 중심에 세우는 데 기여할 수 있을 것입니다.
김: 박선생님께서도 펜실베니아주 퀘이커 학교 공동체 '펜들 힐'에 가서 직접 생활하셨지요?
박: 94년, 처음으로 여권이 나온 후 3년 간 일본에 가서 공부했습니다. 지금 생각해 보면, 일본에서「크리스천을 찾아서」라는 글을 연재하면서, 구석구석에 숨어 있는 참다운 크리스천을 만나고 다닌 것이 준비 단계였던 것 같습니다. 맑시스트 크리스천으로서, 저를 보완할 수 있는 영적 눈이 필요했지요. 그리고 나서 미국으로 건너가, 뉴욕 유니온신학교에서 공부하던 중, 처음엔 일주일 코스로 펜들 힐 영성 프로그램에 참석하게 되었는데, 후에 결국 2년 동안 거주하며 주로 '평화'를 주제로 공부하였습니다.
예언자적 경청의 힘
김: 펜들 힐에선 무엇을 발견하셨는지요?
박: '경청의 힘'이지요. 우리는 말하는 데 익숙해 있지, 자신이나 남을 잘 듣지 못합니다. 그런데 '예언자적 말하기(prophetic speaking)' 못지 않게 중요한 것이 '예언자적 듣기(prophetic listening)입니다. 말씀에는 한계가 있습니다. 설교하고 가르치는 자신은 바뀌지 않지요.
'경청'은 수동적인 것이 아닙니다. 훨씬 강력한 것이라는 게 제 경험이에요. '각 사람 속에 빛이 있다'는 것이 뿌리가 되어, 각 사람의 말을, 마음을 듣는 것 - 새벽 여명처럼 존재하는 자신과 상대방의 씨앗을 일깨우는 '경청'에는, 세상을 바꿀 수 있는 힘이 있습니다.
김: 그렇다면 선생님께선 기존의 설교 중심의 예배 방식에도 이의를 제기하시겠군요.
박: 그렇습니다. 예배에서 말과 소리를 좀 줄이고, 고요한 시간과 공간을 내어 예배의 주체인 각 사람에게 돌려 주어야 한다고 봅니다. 그러면 그 여백을 타고 하나님의 영이 들어오시리라 생각합니다.
김: 경청에도 훈련이 필요할 것 같은데요.
박: 예컨대 틱 낫한 스님은 '숨쉬기'를 수련하라고 권합니다.
그는 베트남 출신인 틱 냣한 스님의 'mindfulness'란 사상으로부터 '경청'(mindful listening)이라는 중심 개념을 얻었다. 그의 설명에 따르면 'mindfulness'란 보름달처럼 어느 한군데 이지러짐이 없이 따뜻한 마음으로 깨어 있는 상태를 말한다. 경청은 그런 마음의 상태로 귀를 기울여 듣는 것이다.
" '깨어 있는 가득한 마음'을 유지하기 위해서는 숨쉬는 법을 익혀야 합니다. 숨쉬기는 마음이 흩어지는 것을 막아주는 지극히 자연스럽고 효과적인 수단입니다. 숨쉬기는 우리의 몸과 마음을, 그리고 삶과 깨어 있는 의식 사이를 다리 놓아 줍니다. 언제라도 마음이 산만해질 때면, 그대의 숨을 사용해서 마음을 가라앉히십시오. 숨을 다스리는 것은 몸과 마음을 그대 자신의 통제 아래 두는 것입니다."
"어느 때라도 가만히 앉아서 명상하고 싶으면, 즉시 그대의 숨을 먼저 관찰하는 데서부터 시작하십시오. 처음에는 정상적인 숨을 쉬다가 차츰 숨을 길고 느리게 하여 숨결이 곱고 잔잔해지도록 하십시오. 그러면 숨의 길이는 꽤 길어지게 될 것입니다."
이렇게 자기 숨을 의식하고 있는 상태가 'mindfulness(깨어 있는 가득한 마음)'의 상태라 하겠습니다. 펜들 힐에 있는 동안 저도 매일 아침 '고요한 예배'에서 '깨어 있는 가득한 마음'을 터득하게 되었는데, 저는 이것을 '따뜻한 의식'이라고도 부릅니다. 이 체험이 저의 삶에 근본적인 변화를 가져다 주었습니다. 지금도 매일 아침 묵상 가운데, 내 안에 있는 빛을 마음의 눈으로 응시하며 깊고 고른 숨을 길게 내쉬고 들이쉽니다. 그러면서 "나는 지금 숨을 쉬고 있다."라고 생각하지요. 정신이 맑아지고 마음 속 깊은 곳에서 맑은 샘이 솟듯이 기쁨이 솟아오릅니다.
움직이는 학교
김: '따뜻한 의식'은 '사회 문제에 대해 민감해지는 것'과 어떻게 다른가요?
박: 예전엔 운동에서 사회과학을 공부하면서 '의식화'를 위해 많이 노력했죠. '의식화'도 중요하지만, '따뜻한 마음으로' 깨어 있었던 건 아니었던 것 같아요. 지금은 이 두 가지가 하나가 된 '따뜻한 의식'으로 사회적 행동에 나아갈 수 있게 되었습니다.
김: 펜들 힐에서 돌아오실 땐 보람이 있으셨겠어요. 5년 반 만의 귀국이셨다죠?
박: 예. 저는 '선물'을 준비해 갖고 온다는 생각에 무척 기뻤습니다. 81년, 크리스마스날 새벽, 13년 반 만에 감옥에서 돌아오던 때보다 더 큰 기쁨과 희망에 찬 귀향이었습니다. 그것은 '움직이는 학교'라는 제 새로운 꿈(vision) 때문이었습니다.
김: '움직이는' 학교요?
박: 예. 움직이는 학교는 위치가 없습니다. 고정된 건물이나 학생이 있는 것이 아닙니다. 움직이는 학교는 사람과 사람이 상대방에 대한 무한한 존경심을 가지고 마치 처음이듯 새롭게 다시 만나는 방법론이라고 할 수 있습니다. '하드웨어'가 아니고 '소프트웨어'지요.
그의 부연에 의하면, 열 명에서 열다섯 명 이내의 사람들이 빙 둘러앉아 서로의 이야기에 깊이 귀를 기울이며 도란도란 이야기하는 모임을 갖는다. '움직이는 학교'에선 한 사람이 너무 길게 말하거나 이야기를 독점하는 일이 없도록 한다. 둘러앉은 순서대로 돌아가며 누구나 이야기에 참여한다. 남이 이야기할 때 잘 듣지 않고 자기 생각에 잠기거나 상대방의 이야기 속의 허점을 찾으려고 하지 않고, 자기를 온전히 내맡겨서 남의 이야기를 있는 그대로 통째로 듣는 연습을 하는 것이다. 한 바퀴, 또 한 바퀴, 각자 1분 정도씩 말을 한다. 이야기할 준비가 미처 안 됐다고 느끼거나 혹시라도 말을 하고 싶지 않은 사람은 말없는 손짓으로 옆 사람에게 말할 기회를 넘겨 주면 된다.
상대방의 말을 분석 비판하면서 듣고 허점을 발견하여 논박하는 문화에 익숙해진 사람들에게 '통째로 듣기'가 실은 그리 쉬운 일이 아니지만, 연습이 거듭되면서 조금씩 더 잘 들을 수 있게 된다. 이야기가 돌아가며 무르익어 간다.
한 사람의 진솔한 이야기가 다른 사람 속에 잠자던 이야기를 일깨우는 실마리가 되고 상대의 진실이 나의 심금에 부딪쳐 와 내 소리를 울려낸다. 개성과 차이, 다양성을 인정하는 가운데 공감의 깊이가 더해지며, 나와 너의 진실이 맞닿고 문제의 본질에 다가가며 해답이 주어진다.
김: 하나의 운동인 셈이군요.
박: 브랜드라고 해도 좋겠습니다. 이 학교의 정신적 푯대가 되는 원리는 물론 '경청'입니다. 나의 존재의 가장 깊은 곳을 열어놓고 하나님에게, 자연에게, 사람에게, 그리고 자기 자신에게 고요히 귀를 기울이는 것입니다. 이 학교에는 선생과 학생이라는 이분법적 분리가 없습니다. 모두가 선생이고 학생이라고나 할까요. 이 선물을 받게 되는 이에게는 복이 있습니다.
김: 예수님이야말로 움직이는 학교 선생님이었다는 생각이 드네요. 그 동안 개교를 많이 하셨나요?
박: 소리없이 퍼져가고 있지요. 움직이는 학교도 끊임없이 변해가야 합니다. 끝없이 배우고, 끝없이 비우고 가득 차고... 방법론 자체도 변해갈 겁니다.
김: 최근 우리 모두를 걱정시키고 있는 세계의 테러리즘에 대한 대안이 될 수도 있겠습니다.
박: 인류가 안고 있는 모든 문제와 질병들을 해결하기 위해선 문제 자체를 공격하는 방법이 아닌, 평화의 방법이 필요합니다. 미국이 국제 테러리스트의 행동을 통제하려면, 먼저, 또는 적어도 동시에 미국 자신의 행동을 통제할 수 있어야 합니다.
오래 전 간디옹은 이렇게 놀라운 통찰의 말을 했지요. "예전에는 꿈도 못 꿨던 일들이 매일같이 일어나고 있고 불가능했던 일들이 가능해지고 있다. 오늘날 우리는 '폭력'의 영역에서 이뤄지는 새 발견에 끊임없이 놀라고 있다. 그러나 이제 우리는 '비폭력'의 영역에서 이루어질 더 놀라운 발견들, 예전에는 꿈조차 꿀 수 없었고 그런 일이 가능하리라고 믿을 수 없었던 일들이 일어나는 것을 보게 될 것이다."
꿈 꾸라
그는 2001년 봄 학기부터 성공회 대학 NGO대학원에서 평화학을 강의하고 있다.
박: 마음과 정성을 다해 우리가 서로 경청한다면, 우리는 서로의 '지하수'를 뿜어 올릴 수 있는 '마중물' 역할을 할 수 있을 것입니다.
김: '마중물'이요? 처음 들어요. 참 아름다운 단어네요.
박: 개인의 우물 하나 하나는 우리가 다 갖고 있는 기반이죠. 그 뒤에는 더 큰 하나님의 영이 연결되어 있습니다.
김: 말씀 나누다 보니까, 감옥에 계셨든, 외유를 하셨든, 선생님께서는 삶의 정수(精髓)만을 찾아다니는, 진짜 욕심쟁이같군요.
그가 환하게 웃었다. 대책 없어 보이던 첫 모습은, 공생(共生)의 삶을 끝없이 궁리하고 꿈꾸는 사람의 모습으로 바뀌어 보였다. 헤어지기 직전이 되어서야, 오늘 나는 박성준 선생님이 주재하는 '움직이는 학교'의 1人 학생이었다는 생각이 들었다.
저만치... 새로운 문이 열리고, 하얀 빛이 느껴졌다.
Spirituality, Mind-Body, Gender, Ecology, Ageing, Peace, Scrapbook (in English and Korean)
2016/12/11
The Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement in the 1970s and 1980s: From Solidarity to Reflexive Democracy | The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
The Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement in the 1970s and 1980s: From Solidarity to Reflexive Democracy | The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
The Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement in the 1970s and 1980s: From Solidarity to Reflexive Democracy 1970年代、80年代の日韓連帯運動 連帯から自己変革を目指す民主主義へ
Misook Lee
September 21, 2014
Volume 12 | Issue 38 | Number 1
Introduction
The Japan-Korea solidarity movement to support the democratization of South Korea was active throughout the 1970s and 1980s in Japan among Korean residents (Zainichi1) and Japanese intellectuals and activists. Korean activists in the democratization movement have recalled the widespread international support of that era (Chi 2003, 2005; Park 2010; Kim 2010; Oh 2012), and Zainichi and Japanese activists have written about their activities in numerous books and memoirs (Chung 2006; Tomiyama 2009; Shouji 2009; Chung 2012). However, the Japan-Korea solidarity movement has been relatively neglected in both Korean and Japanese scholarship. The few academic articles that mention the movement mainly focus on the activities of Zainichi (Cho 2006) and Christians (Lee 2012). This article extends analysis of the solidarity movement to show how its activities led to a process of self-reflection and self-transformation within Japan.
In order to understand the movement, we need to examine its historical context. Although the mass anti-US-Japan Treaty movement of 1960 (Anpo Tōsō) pivoting on tightly organized ideological sects ultimately failed, it paved the way for a new type of civic activism based on independent, self-organizing, and voluntarily participating individuals.2 This new type activism came to the fore in the subsequent anti-Vietnam War movement, which began to reconsider the relationship between Japan and Asia (particularly Vietnam). While denouncing US imperialism and aggression in Vietnam, many public intellectuals and activists came to question Japan's own past imperialism in Asia and its contemporary role in supporting the war under the US-Japan military alliance. This questioning led to “a shift from a comfortable mythology of national victimhood to a new morality founded on individual responsibility for both the past and the present” (Avenell 2010, 122). In other words, the sense of responsibility for Asia that emerged during the anti-Vietnam War movement extended to Japan’s previous misdeeds as a colonial power.
The first part of this paper examines the international political and economic conditions surrounding South Korea and Japan in the postwar era and societal reactions to these conditions. It then traces the development of the movement through four stages: 1) from a support movement toward a process of self-questioning; 2) from self-questioning to recognition of the need for self-reformation through solidarity; 3) expansion of networks within the solidarity movement, and 4) evolution of the solidarity movement toward reflexive democracy. These phases were identified through analysis of publications and documents published by, and interviews with, key participants. By illuminating the evolution of the Japan-Korea solidarity movement and its role in Japanese society’s turn toward reflexive democracy, I hope to contribute to the understanding of Japanese social movement history, particularly transnational activism studies in Asia.
Background of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement
1) International political-economic structure and the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1965
U.S. occupation, the Cold War and the division of Korea defined the economic and political situation of post-colonial South Korea. Following liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, South Korea experienced U.S. military rule and was heavily dependent on the United States for aid and political direction. As part of the U.S.-led anti-communist bloc in northeast Asia, the governments of South Korea and Japan opened talks in 1951 for establishment of diplomatic relations amidst the Korean War. Given the huge gap in perceptions of the two governments concerning the colonial era, the talks stalled. However, after Park Chung Hee seized power in South Korea in a military coup in May 1961, the talks eventuated in the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965. The treaty adopted the language of “economic cooperation” instead of “apology” and “reparations” for the colonial past, as shown by its name: “Agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea concerning the Settlement of Problems in regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation.” The Japan-Korea Treaty established political-economic ties between the two U.S. allies under the Cold War system, rather than normalizing relations between the former colonizer and the former colonized. In the wake of the Japan-Korea Treaty, the politics and economy of South Korea became more dependent on Japan as well as the United States. In the context of this hierarchically linked three-party political-economic structure, Korean activists struggled, not only for human rights and democracy domestically, but also against U.S. and Japanese support for the military regime in South Korea.
Korean intellectuals and students, in particular, criticized the Japan-Korea Treaty for failing to obtain Japan’s apology and reparations for its colonial past. Korean thinkers and activists denounced the subordinate economic relationship between South Korea and Japan as “neocolonialism,” arguing that the Japan-Korea Treaty and Japanese economic advances in South Korea marked the “re-establishment of a high degree of influence and control by the colonial power whose depredations are so vividly remembered – Japan” (McCormack and Selden 1978, 9). Thus, in order to democratize Korean society and improve human rights and labor rights, Korean activists protested not only against their own government, but also against the Japanese government and Japanese corporations. However, in part because of the military regime’s control of the media, the harsh critiques leveled by Korean activists against Japan’s colonial past were little noted in Japanese society.
2) Information networks amplify the voices of struggling Koreans
Most Japanese activists in the 1960s were scarcely aware of the nationwide movement of 1964-65 opposing the Japan-Korea Treaty movement in South Korea (Takasaki 1996). However, the anti-Vietnam War movement in Japan provided a pool of Japanese activists, many of whom would become interested in the anti-government movement in South Korea. The anti-Vietnam War movement increased interest in Third World liberation movements in Asia. Specifically, it raised questions about the relationship between Japan and Asia, and the nature of the Zainichi, who comprised 88 percent of foreign residents in Japan in 1965.3 In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Zainichi had launched an anti-ethnic-discrimination movement with the cooperation of principled Japanese intellectuals and students. As Japanese became more interested in the voices of Zainichi, the Zainichi movement for the democratization of South Korea also caught the attention of some Japanese activists.4 Increasing awareness of Asia and the Zainichi led to growing interest among some Japanese in learning about the Korean democratization movement.
At the same time, Korean activists sought to raise international awareness of and support for their movement. In late 1972, when the Yushin Constitution5 strengthened Park’s grip on the presidency and blocked domestic opposition, Korean opposition leaders like Kim Dae Jung tried to pressure the military regime by criticizing it from outside, and by building solidarity among overseas Korean compatriots. In addition, in 1973 in Tokyo, Oh Jae Shik, the secretary of the Urban Industrial Mission of the Council of Churches in Asia, established a Documentation Center for Action Groups in Asia to collect and translate information about and for South Korean activists (Lee 2012; Oh 2013). The effort to collect and share the voices of Koreans internationally became more systematic with the cooperation of Japan’s leading progressive opinion magazine, Sekai, and with the close relationship between Japanese and Korean churches.
The monthly magazine Sekai played an important role in introducing the voices and thoughts of Koreans. Sekai published “The Korean Student Movement in the 1970s” by Nakagawa Nobuo, a Zainichi intellectual. Nakagawa introduced the argument of Korean students who held that Japan was an obstacle to the democratization and reunification of Korea, and that students should therefore advance the anti-Japan movement (Nakagawa 1972). In an interview with the editor in chief of Sekai, Yasue Ryōsuke, Kim Dae Jung criticized the Japan Socialist Party and the Japan Communist Party as well as progressive social groups for aligning themselves with North Korea while neglecting movements for social change in South Korea. He called on conscientious Japanese to “correctly recognize” South Korean democracy movements (Kim 1973: 118). Moreover, “Letters from South Korea,” written by T.K Sei, a pseudonym of Chi Myung Kwan, was serialized in Sekai soon after the Kim Dae Jung kidnapping incident in August 1973. This series (1973~1988), made possible by messengers who secretly carried underground information from South Korea to Japan, provided detailed information on the Korean struggles in the face of the Park regime’s repression (Chi 2003, 2005; Lee 2012).
International Christian networks operating between Japan and South Korea played an important role in sharing information. Many Korean Christians had studied at Japanese theological seminaries during the 1950s and the 1960s and had met Japanese Christians in other countries where they had gone for study or for international conferences and workshops. These networks linking Japanese and Korean Christians, especially progressive Christians, were strengthened in the context of the world ecumenical movement. In the early 1970s, the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) and the National Council of Churches in Japan (NCCJ) institutionalized annual meetings; the first was held in Seoul on July 2-5, 1973. The participants discussed (1) Japan’s economic advance, (2) the legal status of Zainichi, (3) Koreans in Sakhalin, (4) Japan’s immigration law, (5) Korean victims of the atomic bombing, (6) the YasukuniShrine, (7) sex tourism, and (8) history textbooks. The meeting produced a resolution calling for further cooperation (NCCK 1987). In short, Christian networks started to discuss and share their mutual criticisms of the Japanese government and mainstream Japanese society, Japan-Korea relations and the Park dictatorship.
These religious, social, and media pathways linking activists created a discursive political space for a transnational “imagined community” (Anderson 1983). Koreans and Japanese intellectuals and activists, who indirectly and directly communicated with each other, started to construct a common understanding and interpretation of Japan-South Korea relations. This was the background of the Japan-Korea Solidarity movement in Japan.
Development of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement
1) “Saving” in the early 1970s: from “helping” to “self-questioning”
In the early 1970s, when information infrastructure was not yet systematized, several groups formed a support movement for Korean prisoners of conscience. These prisoners included Kim Chi Ha, a poet with a strong anti-authoritarian stance, and the Suh brothers (Suh Sung and Suh Joon-sik), Zainichi who had come to South Korea for education and were arrested and sentenced as spies. The groups were formed in the context of growing interest in revolution and activism in Asia and Zainichi issues.
Poet Kim Chi Ha was one of the earliest Korean democratic figures to gain prominence in Japan. The movement to support Kim Chi Ha was formed upon his arrest under the anti-Communist Act6 for his poem “Groundless Rumors” (Piŏ), published in the Catholic magazine Changjo in April 1972. Two advocacy groups formed in Japan: one was founded by artist-activist Tomiyama Taeko, and the other by Oda Makoto, novelist and spokesperson of the Citizen’s League for Peace in Vietnam (Beheiren 1965-1974). The former group7(organized on April 19, 1972) mainly sought to convey Kim Chi Ha’s ideas through paintings and plays8 (figure 1 and 2).
Figure 1. Postcard of AI Japan. Tomiyama’s painting is based on Kim Chi Ha’s poem “Bronze Yi Sun-sin”
The latter group (organized on May 9, 1972 and headed by Oda) organized a “group to visit South Korea” to hand the Korean government a petition demanding the release of Kim Chi Ha (Tsurumi and Kim 1975). With little information on Kim or the Korean democratization movement, meeting him at the prison hospital came as a shock for the group. According to writer Tsurumi Shunsuke, when he presented Kim with the petition “for which we collected signatures from all over the world to demand that you not be given the death sentence,” Kim replied, “Your movement cannot help me, but I will add my voice to help your movement” (Tsurumi et al. 2004, 337). Tsurumi recalled his surprise at Kim’s strong statement, having expected gratitude. However, this response made him reflect on his naivety concerning a distant sufferer like Kim Chi Ha. As an activist opposing the Japan-Korea Treaty during 1964 and 1965, Kim had problematized the emerging collaboration between the Korean military regime and the former Japanese colonial power. Kim’s reaction to Tsurumi and the support movement enabled Japanese activists to that they should support the struggles of Korean activists through their own movement to question Japan’s role in Korea (Wada 1975a).
The arrest of the Suh brothers (Suh Sung and Suh Joon-sik) presented another important issue in the early 1970s. The Army Security Command of South Korea arrested fifty-one people in the “Zainichi students spy incident” on April 20, 1971, just one week before the presidential election in South Korea. Suh Sung was singled out as the leader of the alleged spy group. During interrogation, he underwent torture severe enough to make him attempt suicide, and he was sentenced to death.9In respondse to the arrest and the court proceedings, the Suh brothers’ family, classmates, and friends, as well as Zainichi organizations and various Japanese activists organized a movement supporting the Suh brothers.
The Committee to Save the Suh Brothers (organized on October 23, 1971) was an umbrella organization intended to unify activities in Tokyo and Kyoto. Shoji Tsutomu, a Protestant pastor and representative of the committee, was almost entirely ignorant of the historical relationship between Japan and South Korea and of the conflict resulting from the division of Korea at that time (Shoji 2009, 28). Initially, the call to save the Suh Brothers was based on a humanitarian approach and their “Japanese-ness.” The death sentence appeal, published in the Committee’s first bulletin (October 1971), ended by noting: “these Zainichi Korean brothers were born in Japan and spent their youth in Japan. When they face death in the severe political situation, how can we Japanese remain silent?”10 By emphasizing the “Japanese-ness” of the Suh Brothers, the committee tried to attract sympathetic attention from Japanese citizens.
Figure 2. Leaflet from theatrical performance based on “Bronze Yi Sun-sin”
However, the humanitarian initiative calling for support of the Zainichi brothers, who were born and raised in Japan, soon developed into more reflexive questioning of Japan’s role in their suffering. Shoji reflected that Suh Sung’s final statement in court11provided the movement with a turning point; they started to question Japanese policies that supported the military regime of South Korea and prevented the unification of Korea (Shoji 2009, 62-63). Thus, commitment to the support movement led activists to greater awareness of the Zainichi perspective, and to question Japan's relationship with South Korea.
The movement began with a small number of Japanese intellectuals and activists as a support movement based on helping the distant other, the Japanese-like Zainichi. However, it soon evolved into a questioning of Japan’s role in shaping Japan-Korea relations and the division of Korea. This critical attitude emerged with direct contact and communication with Kim Chi Ha, Suh Sung and others, as well as a growing atmosphere of civic activism that questioned Japan’s role during the global anti-Vietnam War movement.
2) “Self-reformation” through solidarity in the mid-1970s
On August 8, 1973, Kim Dae Jung, South Korea’s opposition leader, was kidnapped in Tokyo by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). This incident made even ordinary Japanese aware of opposition to the military regime in South Korea. Right after the kidnapping incident, Zainichi dissident groups became active to support Kim Dae Jung and made efforts to raise awareness among Zainichi and Japanese citizens about the Korean democratization movement.
The first Japanese group to respond to the kidnapping incident was from the anti-Vietnam War movement (Aochi and Wada eds. 1977, 62-63). Triggered by the kidnapping and the ensuing protests and demonstrations in South Korea,12 anti-Vietnam War and other activists in Japan held a series of meetings to organize an umbrella group to bring together the disparate support groups that had emerged earlier. They called the new group the Council for correcting Japanese policy on South Korea and for solidarity with the democratization movement of South Korea (日本の対韓政策をただし、韓国民主化闘争に連帯する日本連絡会議), for short, the Japan-Korea Solidarity Council (organized on April 18, 1974).
As their formal name suggests, solidarity implied changing Japanese foreign policy, which, by supporting the military regime in South Korea, obstructed democratization and unification. In the November 1975 issue of Sekai, Wada Haruki, general director of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Council, wrote:
The democratization movement of South Korea is teaching us the meaning of pursuing democracy and human rights. Moreover, it teaches us what Japan has done in South Korea. From our current situation, we still need to learn more. This is the meaning of solidarity (Wada 1975a 53-54).
Solidarity was understood as a process of listening to and learning from the voices of the struggling others toward the goal of self-reformation. This attitude was also found among Japanese Christians.
Japanese Christians organized a solidarity group called the Emergency Christian Conference on Korean Problems (ECC, on January 15, 1974). Responding to harsh critiques from Korean Christians and activists, progressive Japanese Christians formed the ECC to address Japan's colonial past as well as ongoing neo-colonialism, both of which structured the relationship between Japan and Korea. In its founding statement, the ECC explained how it was inspired by Korean activists to begin a process of self-reformation:
We were shocked to receive such harsh critiques and demands, born from their fearless faith-based struggles. That is, the Korean political situation in which people are risking their lives is related to Japan’s past colonization and current economic invasion. This problem is what we Japanese have to be responsible for before God.13
At its founding meeting, the ECC decided to investigate Japanese corporate encroachment in South Korea, as well as sex tourism and other issues between Japan and South Korea. In other words, through solidarity activities, the ECC tried to learn not only about the situation of others, i.e. Koreans, but also the cause of their suffering structured by the Japan-South Korea relationship. This learning process was the basis for a new imagined community linking activists beyond borders.
Figure 3a. Cover Photo of Asian Women’s Liberation. From the first to third issues, covers depicted Korean women’s struggle for democracy and labor rights.
3) Enlarging networks among Zainichi, women, and laborers in the mid-1970s to the early 1980s
Cooperation among Zainichi and Japanese activists, including Christians, was remarkable, especially on the issue of Zainichi prisoners of conscience who were held in South Korea on charges of espionage. Zainichi family members organized the family association in May 1975 and fifty-four groups of Japanese activists formed the National Council to support Zainichi Political Prisoners in June 1976. These groups worked together to raise public support, both domestically and internationally, and to promote activities such as visiting and sending letters and cards to–prisoners of conscience in South Korea. In addition, representatives working for Zainichi prisoners of conscience visited the United Nations and Amnesty International in London to appeal for global support for the Zainichi prisoners.14
The growing networks among solidarity groups extended to the women’s movement. The women’s solidarity movement was born out of the issue of sex tourism, called Kiseng15 Kankou. The Japanese and the Korean National Council of Churches met together officially for the first time in July 1973; responding to a special request by the Council of Korean Christian women, the problem of sex tourism was placed on the agenda. Korean Christian women inspired Japanese Christian and non-Christian women to organize the group Women against Kiseng Kankou. At that time, anti-sex tourism movements sprung up not only in Korea but in Taiwan as well. Matsui Yayori, a well-known Asahi Shimbun foreign correspondent, played an active role in the anti-sex-tourism movement in Japan and in forging bonds with women activists throughout Asia.
On March 1, 1977, Matsui, Tomiyama Taeko, and several other women activists, most of whom had participated in the anti-sex tourism movement, organized the Asian Women’s Association. The founding statement declared their opposition to economic invasion and sex-exploitation. Reacting to the voices of Korean and other Asian women and “learning” from them, these Japanese women activists also formed a solidarity movement dealing with such issues as human rights, labor rights, and the colonial past, all of which were pertinent to East and Southeast Asian women.
Korean women’s struggles were the primary focus of the Asian Women’s Association. The cover photo of Asian Women’s Liberation, the bulletin of the Association, showed Korean women fighting against the repressive military regime (figure 3). In later years, the members of the Asian Women’s Association focused more specifically on war crimes committed against women, particularly the wartime “comfort women.”16
Figure 3b. Cover Photo of Asian Women’s Liberation. From the first to third issues, covers depicted Korean women’s struggle for democracy and labor rights.
The solidarity movement further broadened to include organizations devoted to the labor movement, which had long shown great sympathy toward North Korea. In the late 1970s, responding to the increasingly wide-ranging solidarity movement among Japanese activists, Christians, and Zainichi, Japanese labor-movement activists also joined in solidarity activities.17 The involvement of the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (Sōhyō) in the Japan-Korea solidarity movement was triggered by the Kwangju Uprising and the Kim Dae Jung crisis in 1980.18 Responding to the arrest of Kim, Zainichi dissident groups, civic solidarity groups, Christian groups, and even Sōhyō joined the solidarity movement. In order to coordinate their activities, a Meeting of Representatives to Free Kim Dae Jung was held on July 11, 1980 by Sōhyōand other groups; progressive political parties and the Council for Japan-Korea solidarity also joined. At this meeting, the participants organized the Japan Council for Saving Kim Dae Jung and set a goal of collecting ten million signatures.19According to Watanabe Tetsuro, the secretary for political affairs of the Tokyo office of Sōhyō, the campaign to collect ten million signatures on behalf of a foreign national was “the first and might be the last time”20 such an effort was undertaken in Japan. With Sōhyō’s participation, the number of people who attended the rallies and signed petitions dramatically increased21 compared to previous solidarity activities based on mainly civic participation (Figure 4).
The Japan-Korea solidarity movement peaked when Kim Dae Jung was sentenced to death on September 17, 1980. The movement quieted down when his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment, and he and his family left for the United States at the end of 1982. Although the mass movement subsequently declined, it continued to work on specific issues, such as Zainichi prisoners of conscience, while responding to new issues that arose in the 1980s.
4) Reflexive democracy in the 1980s
By the early 1980s, Japan’s initial support movement based on humanitarian ideals developed into a more reflective phase of self-reformation (自己変革) through listening to and learning from the voices of others. Self-reformation involved questioning Japan’s role in Korea and rectifying Japanese foreign policy concerning Korea. After the intensity of the Kwangju Uprising and the life-threatening crisis for Kim Dae Jung, solidarity movement activists broadened their agenda to include such issues as history textbook treatments of Japanese colonialism and war and the movement protesting the fingerprinting system that singled out Zainichi, while continuing to call for solidarity with the South Korean democratization movement.
In 1982, China and South Korea challenged the revision of Japanese history textbooks, which softened the description of Japanese aggression in Asia as mere “advance.”22 The Emergency Christian Conference on Korean Problems (ECC) and the Council for Japan-Korea Solidarity demanded that the Japanese government “correct the wrong descriptions of Korea, … learn from the critiques by Koreans,” and “apologize for past colonial rule and strive to relax tensions on the Korean peninsula” (Leaflet, August 6, 1982). In addition, the Tokyo local of Sōhyō raised the history textbook issue in a document titled “Call for Japan-Korea Solidarity Actions” (October 16, 1982) and sent to their affiliated labor unions. Solidarity movement activists started to speak out about unsettled issues of the colonial past, demanding that the Japanese government accept responsibility for thirty-six years of colonial rule in Korea.23
Figure 3c. Cover Photo of Asian Women’s Liberation. From the first to third issues, covers depicted Korean women’s struggle for democracy and labor rights.
On September 4, 1984, a collective meeting to protest the visit to Japan by South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan brought together the Japan Socialist Party and Sōhyō24 with groups associated with Wada Haruki (general director of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Council), Tomiyama Taeko, and Yoshimatsu Shigeru (general director of the National Council to Support Zainichi Political Prisoners). The meeting issued the following resolution:
The genuine resolution of the colonial past should begin with an apology to all Korean Minjung expressing the will of the people, including a resolution in the Diet. … With today’s meeting opposing the visit of Chun Doo Hwan, we strive to establish true friendship between Japan and Korea and will work to achieve the civil rights of Zainichi, including abolition of the fingerprinting system, and promote the peaceful unification of Korea.
As shown, the Japan-Korea solidarity movement turned to issues that directly addressed Japan’s internal concerns. Thus, while committing to the solidarity movement with Zainichi activists and sharing the cause of struggling Koreans, Japanese conscientious intellectuals and activists reflected on Japan's unsettled colonial past and on discrimination against Zainichi.
During the 1980s, the cooperation between Zainichi and Japanese intellectuals and activists broadened to include the “anti-fingerprinting system”, which resulted in the abolition of the system in 1992. Subsequently, efforts related to unresolved colonial problems came to the fore in both South Korea and Japan after the democratization of South Korea. The Kono Statement (1993) on the recognition of and apology for comfort women and the Murayama Statement (1995), which apologized to Asian victims of Japanese imperial rule for the first time at the level of the Diet, may be seen as accomplishments due in part to the Japan-Korea solidarity movement.
While the Japanese sense of responsibility and attitude of self-questioning began to emerge as early as the 1960s with the anti-Vietnam War movement, concrete proposals and actions toward “self-reformation” did not become central to civic activism until the Japan-Korea solidarity movements of the 1970s and 1980s. The Japan-Korea solidarity movement provided an opportunity to listen to and learn from others’ viewpoints. With direct voices of the others, Japanese society became more sensitive to issues of war crimes and the human rights of Zainichi and other minorities. Thus, solidarity with “others” (Korean activists and Zainichi) simultaneously spurred a movement for reflexive democracy.
Conclusion
Figure 4. Japanese protesters rally under the banner, “Don’t Kill Kim Dae Jung!” on Nov 27, 1980 (photographed by Hashiguchi Jōji, February 1981, Sekai). According to Wada (1982), 7,000 people attended this rally.
The anti-Vietnam War movement touched off public questioning in postwar Japanese society on the nature and history of its relationship with Asia. This self-questioning of Japan’s role evolved into self-reformation with concrete agendas and actions during the Japan-Korea solidarity movement, ranging from rectifying Japanese support for the South Korean military dictatorship to calls to settle the colonial past and cooperate with Zainichi’s anti-ethnic discrimination movement. Ultimately, Japanese citizens pushed for internal change toward a more reflexive democratic system. This evolution toward reflexive democracy through the Japan-Korea solidarity movement should be understood not only in the context of the worldwide anti-Vietnam War movement, but also as a product of the growth of formal and informal networks among Koreans, Zainichi, and Japanese.
Through the Japan-Korea solidarity movement in the 1970s and 80s, progressive Japanese and Korean activists and intellectuals constructed an imagined community by sharing issues and concerns about democracy, peace and social justice in Asia. However, many critics have noted that these networks, which transcend national borders, peoples, and sectors, have faced increasing challenge in public discourse since the mid-1990s. Over the last twenty years, Japanese society has witnessed a counteroffensive to erase and deny Japan’s war crimes, including the sexual exploitation of women. Recently, hate speech vilifying Zainichi has found a new younger audience and mobilizing force through the Internet.
World geopolitics and political economy have changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Communist bloc. The counteroffensive, including hate speech against Zainichi, could be interpreted in part as a Japanese reaction to neoliberal globalization intensified by the collapse of the Japanese bubble in 1990 and subsequent economic crisis. However, just as principled Korean, Zainichi, and Japanese activists countered the Cold War political economic system that structured the relationship between Japan and South Korea in the 1970s and 80s, the question remains whether new forms of transnational solidarity will emerge to give voice to those who have been silenced and to promote peace in Asia today.
Misook Lee is Project Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo.
Recommended citation: Misook Lee, “The Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement in the 1970s and 1980s: From Solidarity to Reflexive Democracy,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 38, No. 1, September 22, 2014.
Notes
1 Zainichi are Korean residents of Japan who trace their roots to Korea at the time of Japanese colonial rule and who remain Korean citizens, including those born in Japan. The Zainichi community was politically divided between Sōren, established in 1945 and affiliated with North Korea, and Mindan, established in 1946 and affiliated with South Korea. However, many Zainichi did not align with either Sōren or Mindan, and some who were originally affiliated with Mindan separated from that group and espoused solidarity with the democratization movement of South Korea.
2 The Anpo Tōsō was “a moment remembered by academics and activists alike as the birth of independent citizen protest in postwar Japan” (Avenell 2010, 13).
3 Data from Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication.
4 The movement was led by several groups: the Korean Student Coalition, the Korean Youth Coalition, and the Mindan Tokyo office, which were critical of Mindan. Basically Mindan is affiliated with South Korea. However, when Park Chung Hee came to power with a military coup in South Korea, several groups within Mindan opposed its decision to support the military regime and separated from Mindan. See Miyata (1977) and Cho (2006).
5 President Park Chung Hee consolidated and systematized his power through the Yushin Constitution, which stipulated that the president would be elected for a six-year period with no limitation on the number of terms. See Dewind and Woodhouse (1979).
6 The act was passed in 1961, just after Park Chung Hee’s military coup. It “provides that persons who belong to, are affiliated with, praise or in any other way encourage or benefit a communist organization may be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for five to seven years” (Dewind and Woodhouse 1979, 15). The act was abolished in 1980, when it was integrated into the National Security Law.
7 In 1973, this group was dissolved and was absorbed by Amnesty International in Japan’s newly formed group “Kakyō” (架橋).
8 Theatrical performance based on Kim Chi Ha’s “Bronze Yi Sun-sin.” The original Korean title is Kuri Yi Sun-shin. Yi Sun-shin was a naval commander in the Chosŏn dynasty, famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin War; he became a national hero. In this play, Kim Chi Ha criticized the Korean power elites who enjoyed wealth and power from collaboration with imperial Japan and exploited the poor and powerless people.
9 For more details, see Suh (1994). Suh Sung spent 19 years in the prison.
10 The Committee to Save the Suh Brothers (1992, 11).
11 See, Suh (1994). In his final statement, Suh Sung articulated that he would keep struggling for the Unification of Korea and pursuing positive nationalism. See, also, The Committee to Save the Suh Brothers (1992, 166).
12 The Seoul National University students’ uprising on October 2, 1973, the one-million-person petition movement in December 1973, and a series of student uprisings in early 1974 had occurred in South Korea.
13 ECC statement, January 15, 1974. See, ECC (1976).
14 See Kim (1986). Representatives working for Zainichi prisoners of conscience visited international organizations eleven times from the beginning until 1985.
15 The term Kiseng was originally made and used in pre-modern Korea, meaning a female entertainer and courtesan. The same term was also used to describe the sex tourism of Japanese businessmen in the 1960s and 1970s.
16 Matsui Yayori established the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center in 1994, organized the Violence against Women in War Network (VAWW-NET) in 1998, and proposed the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, which was held in Tokyo in 2000 with international cooperation. For more about Matsui Yayori, see the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace.
17 Interview with Watanabe Tetsuro (November 9, 2011).
18 On May 18, 1980, in Kwangju, a city in southwestern South Korea, pro-democracy students and citizens demonstrated against martial law in Kim Dae Jung’s political base. The military regime sent in the army to crush the uprising. The result was a massacre. The government accused Kim Dae Jung of leading the Kwangju Uprising in an attempt to overthrow the government.
19 The number of signatures they had been able to collect by April 1981 was 5,258,819 (Wada 1982).
20 Interview with Watanabe (November 9, 2011).
21 The number of people who attended the national rally was approximately 15,000 on August 8, 17,000 on September 17, 6,000 on November 13, 7,000 on November 27, 7,000 on December 5, and 15,000 on December 22 (Wada 1982).
22 On the dispute concerning Japanese textbooks, see Nozaki and Selden (2009),
23 See Wada Haruki, Ishizaki Koichi, and the Sengo Gojunen Kokkai Ketsugi o Motomerukai, eds. (1996).
24 The Japanese government chose to compensate the victims through a private Asian Women’s Fund collected by voluntary Japanese citizens. Because the Japanese government did not accept national responsibility for compensation, many South Korean victims refused to accept monetary compensation from the Asian Women’s Fund. See Kim (2006), Morris-Suzuki (2007).
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The Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement in the 1970s and 1980s: From Solidarity to Reflexive Democracy 1970年代、80年代の日韓連帯運動 連帯から自己変革を目指す民主主義へ
Misook Lee
September 21, 2014
Volume 12 | Issue 38 | Number 1
Introduction
The Japan-Korea solidarity movement to support the democratization of South Korea was active throughout the 1970s and 1980s in Japan among Korean residents (Zainichi1) and Japanese intellectuals and activists. Korean activists in the democratization movement have recalled the widespread international support of that era (Chi 2003, 2005; Park 2010; Kim 2010; Oh 2012), and Zainichi and Japanese activists have written about their activities in numerous books and memoirs (Chung 2006; Tomiyama 2009; Shouji 2009; Chung 2012). However, the Japan-Korea solidarity movement has been relatively neglected in both Korean and Japanese scholarship. The few academic articles that mention the movement mainly focus on the activities of Zainichi (Cho 2006) and Christians (Lee 2012). This article extends analysis of the solidarity movement to show how its activities led to a process of self-reflection and self-transformation within Japan.
In order to understand the movement, we need to examine its historical context. Although the mass anti-US-Japan Treaty movement of 1960 (Anpo Tōsō) pivoting on tightly organized ideological sects ultimately failed, it paved the way for a new type of civic activism based on independent, self-organizing, and voluntarily participating individuals.2 This new type activism came to the fore in the subsequent anti-Vietnam War movement, which began to reconsider the relationship between Japan and Asia (particularly Vietnam). While denouncing US imperialism and aggression in Vietnam, many public intellectuals and activists came to question Japan's own past imperialism in Asia and its contemporary role in supporting the war under the US-Japan military alliance. This questioning led to “a shift from a comfortable mythology of national victimhood to a new morality founded on individual responsibility for both the past and the present” (Avenell 2010, 122). In other words, the sense of responsibility for Asia that emerged during the anti-Vietnam War movement extended to Japan’s previous misdeeds as a colonial power.
The first part of this paper examines the international political and economic conditions surrounding South Korea and Japan in the postwar era and societal reactions to these conditions. It then traces the development of the movement through four stages: 1) from a support movement toward a process of self-questioning; 2) from self-questioning to recognition of the need for self-reformation through solidarity; 3) expansion of networks within the solidarity movement, and 4) evolution of the solidarity movement toward reflexive democracy. These phases were identified through analysis of publications and documents published by, and interviews with, key participants. By illuminating the evolution of the Japan-Korea solidarity movement and its role in Japanese society’s turn toward reflexive democracy, I hope to contribute to the understanding of Japanese social movement history, particularly transnational activism studies in Asia.
Background of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement
1) International political-economic structure and the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1965
U.S. occupation, the Cold War and the division of Korea defined the economic and political situation of post-colonial South Korea. Following liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, South Korea experienced U.S. military rule and was heavily dependent on the United States for aid and political direction. As part of the U.S.-led anti-communist bloc in northeast Asia, the governments of South Korea and Japan opened talks in 1951 for establishment of diplomatic relations amidst the Korean War. Given the huge gap in perceptions of the two governments concerning the colonial era, the talks stalled. However, after Park Chung Hee seized power in South Korea in a military coup in May 1961, the talks eventuated in the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965. The treaty adopted the language of “economic cooperation” instead of “apology” and “reparations” for the colonial past, as shown by its name: “Agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea concerning the Settlement of Problems in regard to Property and Claims and Economic Cooperation.” The Japan-Korea Treaty established political-economic ties between the two U.S. allies under the Cold War system, rather than normalizing relations between the former colonizer and the former colonized. In the wake of the Japan-Korea Treaty, the politics and economy of South Korea became more dependent on Japan as well as the United States. In the context of this hierarchically linked three-party political-economic structure, Korean activists struggled, not only for human rights and democracy domestically, but also against U.S. and Japanese support for the military regime in South Korea.
Korean intellectuals and students, in particular, criticized the Japan-Korea Treaty for failing to obtain Japan’s apology and reparations for its colonial past. Korean thinkers and activists denounced the subordinate economic relationship between South Korea and Japan as “neocolonialism,” arguing that the Japan-Korea Treaty and Japanese economic advances in South Korea marked the “re-establishment of a high degree of influence and control by the colonial power whose depredations are so vividly remembered – Japan” (McCormack and Selden 1978, 9). Thus, in order to democratize Korean society and improve human rights and labor rights, Korean activists protested not only against their own government, but also against the Japanese government and Japanese corporations. However, in part because of the military regime’s control of the media, the harsh critiques leveled by Korean activists against Japan’s colonial past were little noted in Japanese society.
2) Information networks amplify the voices of struggling Koreans
Most Japanese activists in the 1960s were scarcely aware of the nationwide movement of 1964-65 opposing the Japan-Korea Treaty movement in South Korea (Takasaki 1996). However, the anti-Vietnam War movement in Japan provided a pool of Japanese activists, many of whom would become interested in the anti-government movement in South Korea. The anti-Vietnam War movement increased interest in Third World liberation movements in Asia. Specifically, it raised questions about the relationship between Japan and Asia, and the nature of the Zainichi, who comprised 88 percent of foreign residents in Japan in 1965.3 In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Zainichi had launched an anti-ethnic-discrimination movement with the cooperation of principled Japanese intellectuals and students. As Japanese became more interested in the voices of Zainichi, the Zainichi movement for the democratization of South Korea also caught the attention of some Japanese activists.4 Increasing awareness of Asia and the Zainichi led to growing interest among some Japanese in learning about the Korean democratization movement.
At the same time, Korean activists sought to raise international awareness of and support for their movement. In late 1972, when the Yushin Constitution5 strengthened Park’s grip on the presidency and blocked domestic opposition, Korean opposition leaders like Kim Dae Jung tried to pressure the military regime by criticizing it from outside, and by building solidarity among overseas Korean compatriots. In addition, in 1973 in Tokyo, Oh Jae Shik, the secretary of the Urban Industrial Mission of the Council of Churches in Asia, established a Documentation Center for Action Groups in Asia to collect and translate information about and for South Korean activists (Lee 2012; Oh 2013). The effort to collect and share the voices of Koreans internationally became more systematic with the cooperation of Japan’s leading progressive opinion magazine, Sekai, and with the close relationship between Japanese and Korean churches.
The monthly magazine Sekai played an important role in introducing the voices and thoughts of Koreans. Sekai published “The Korean Student Movement in the 1970s” by Nakagawa Nobuo, a Zainichi intellectual. Nakagawa introduced the argument of Korean students who held that Japan was an obstacle to the democratization and reunification of Korea, and that students should therefore advance the anti-Japan movement (Nakagawa 1972). In an interview with the editor in chief of Sekai, Yasue Ryōsuke, Kim Dae Jung criticized the Japan Socialist Party and the Japan Communist Party as well as progressive social groups for aligning themselves with North Korea while neglecting movements for social change in South Korea. He called on conscientious Japanese to “correctly recognize” South Korean democracy movements (Kim 1973: 118). Moreover, “Letters from South Korea,” written by T.K Sei, a pseudonym of Chi Myung Kwan, was serialized in Sekai soon after the Kim Dae Jung kidnapping incident in August 1973. This series (1973~1988), made possible by messengers who secretly carried underground information from South Korea to Japan, provided detailed information on the Korean struggles in the face of the Park regime’s repression (Chi 2003, 2005; Lee 2012).
International Christian networks operating between Japan and South Korea played an important role in sharing information. Many Korean Christians had studied at Japanese theological seminaries during the 1950s and the 1960s and had met Japanese Christians in other countries where they had gone for study or for international conferences and workshops. These networks linking Japanese and Korean Christians, especially progressive Christians, were strengthened in the context of the world ecumenical movement. In the early 1970s, the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) and the National Council of Churches in Japan (NCCJ) institutionalized annual meetings; the first was held in Seoul on July 2-5, 1973. The participants discussed (1) Japan’s economic advance, (2) the legal status of Zainichi, (3) Koreans in Sakhalin, (4) Japan’s immigration law, (5) Korean victims of the atomic bombing, (6) the YasukuniShrine, (7) sex tourism, and (8) history textbooks. The meeting produced a resolution calling for further cooperation (NCCK 1987). In short, Christian networks started to discuss and share their mutual criticisms of the Japanese government and mainstream Japanese society, Japan-Korea relations and the Park dictatorship.
These religious, social, and media pathways linking activists created a discursive political space for a transnational “imagined community” (Anderson 1983). Koreans and Japanese intellectuals and activists, who indirectly and directly communicated with each other, started to construct a common understanding and interpretation of Japan-South Korea relations. This was the background of the Japan-Korea Solidarity movement in Japan.
Development of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement
1) “Saving” in the early 1970s: from “helping” to “self-questioning”
In the early 1970s, when information infrastructure was not yet systematized, several groups formed a support movement for Korean prisoners of conscience. These prisoners included Kim Chi Ha, a poet with a strong anti-authoritarian stance, and the Suh brothers (Suh Sung and Suh Joon-sik), Zainichi who had come to South Korea for education and were arrested and sentenced as spies. The groups were formed in the context of growing interest in revolution and activism in Asia and Zainichi issues.
Poet Kim Chi Ha was one of the earliest Korean democratic figures to gain prominence in Japan. The movement to support Kim Chi Ha was formed upon his arrest under the anti-Communist Act6 for his poem “Groundless Rumors” (Piŏ), published in the Catholic magazine Changjo in April 1972. Two advocacy groups formed in Japan: one was founded by artist-activist Tomiyama Taeko, and the other by Oda Makoto, novelist and spokesperson of the Citizen’s League for Peace in Vietnam (Beheiren 1965-1974). The former group7(organized on April 19, 1972) mainly sought to convey Kim Chi Ha’s ideas through paintings and plays8 (figure 1 and 2).
Figure 1. Postcard of AI Japan. Tomiyama’s painting is based on Kim Chi Ha’s poem “Bronze Yi Sun-sin”
The latter group (organized on May 9, 1972 and headed by Oda) organized a “group to visit South Korea” to hand the Korean government a petition demanding the release of Kim Chi Ha (Tsurumi and Kim 1975). With little information on Kim or the Korean democratization movement, meeting him at the prison hospital came as a shock for the group. According to writer Tsurumi Shunsuke, when he presented Kim with the petition “for which we collected signatures from all over the world to demand that you not be given the death sentence,” Kim replied, “Your movement cannot help me, but I will add my voice to help your movement” (Tsurumi et al. 2004, 337). Tsurumi recalled his surprise at Kim’s strong statement, having expected gratitude. However, this response made him reflect on his naivety concerning a distant sufferer like Kim Chi Ha. As an activist opposing the Japan-Korea Treaty during 1964 and 1965, Kim had problematized the emerging collaboration between the Korean military regime and the former Japanese colonial power. Kim’s reaction to Tsurumi and the support movement enabled Japanese activists to that they should support the struggles of Korean activists through their own movement to question Japan’s role in Korea (Wada 1975a).
The arrest of the Suh brothers (Suh Sung and Suh Joon-sik) presented another important issue in the early 1970s. The Army Security Command of South Korea arrested fifty-one people in the “Zainichi students spy incident” on April 20, 1971, just one week before the presidential election in South Korea. Suh Sung was singled out as the leader of the alleged spy group. During interrogation, he underwent torture severe enough to make him attempt suicide, and he was sentenced to death.9In respondse to the arrest and the court proceedings, the Suh brothers’ family, classmates, and friends, as well as Zainichi organizations and various Japanese activists organized a movement supporting the Suh brothers.
The Committee to Save the Suh Brothers (organized on October 23, 1971) was an umbrella organization intended to unify activities in Tokyo and Kyoto. Shoji Tsutomu, a Protestant pastor and representative of the committee, was almost entirely ignorant of the historical relationship between Japan and South Korea and of the conflict resulting from the division of Korea at that time (Shoji 2009, 28). Initially, the call to save the Suh Brothers was based on a humanitarian approach and their “Japanese-ness.” The death sentence appeal, published in the Committee’s first bulletin (October 1971), ended by noting: “these Zainichi Korean brothers were born in Japan and spent their youth in Japan. When they face death in the severe political situation, how can we Japanese remain silent?”10 By emphasizing the “Japanese-ness” of the Suh Brothers, the committee tried to attract sympathetic attention from Japanese citizens.
Figure 2. Leaflet from theatrical performance based on “Bronze Yi Sun-sin”
However, the humanitarian initiative calling for support of the Zainichi brothers, who were born and raised in Japan, soon developed into more reflexive questioning of Japan’s role in their suffering. Shoji reflected that Suh Sung’s final statement in court11provided the movement with a turning point; they started to question Japanese policies that supported the military regime of South Korea and prevented the unification of Korea (Shoji 2009, 62-63). Thus, commitment to the support movement led activists to greater awareness of the Zainichi perspective, and to question Japan's relationship with South Korea.
The movement began with a small number of Japanese intellectuals and activists as a support movement based on helping the distant other, the Japanese-like Zainichi. However, it soon evolved into a questioning of Japan’s role in shaping Japan-Korea relations and the division of Korea. This critical attitude emerged with direct contact and communication with Kim Chi Ha, Suh Sung and others, as well as a growing atmosphere of civic activism that questioned Japan’s role during the global anti-Vietnam War movement.
2) “Self-reformation” through solidarity in the mid-1970s
On August 8, 1973, Kim Dae Jung, South Korea’s opposition leader, was kidnapped in Tokyo by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). This incident made even ordinary Japanese aware of opposition to the military regime in South Korea. Right after the kidnapping incident, Zainichi dissident groups became active to support Kim Dae Jung and made efforts to raise awareness among Zainichi and Japanese citizens about the Korean democratization movement.
The first Japanese group to respond to the kidnapping incident was from the anti-Vietnam War movement (Aochi and Wada eds. 1977, 62-63). Triggered by the kidnapping and the ensuing protests and demonstrations in South Korea,12 anti-Vietnam War and other activists in Japan held a series of meetings to organize an umbrella group to bring together the disparate support groups that had emerged earlier. They called the new group the Council for correcting Japanese policy on South Korea and for solidarity with the democratization movement of South Korea (日本の対韓政策をただし、韓国民主化闘争に連帯する日本連絡会議), for short, the Japan-Korea Solidarity Council (organized on April 18, 1974).
As their formal name suggests, solidarity implied changing Japanese foreign policy, which, by supporting the military regime in South Korea, obstructed democratization and unification. In the November 1975 issue of Sekai, Wada Haruki, general director of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Council, wrote:
The democratization movement of South Korea is teaching us the meaning of pursuing democracy and human rights. Moreover, it teaches us what Japan has done in South Korea. From our current situation, we still need to learn more. This is the meaning of solidarity (Wada 1975a 53-54).
Solidarity was understood as a process of listening to and learning from the voices of the struggling others toward the goal of self-reformation. This attitude was also found among Japanese Christians.
Japanese Christians organized a solidarity group called the Emergency Christian Conference on Korean Problems (ECC, on January 15, 1974). Responding to harsh critiques from Korean Christians and activists, progressive Japanese Christians formed the ECC to address Japan's colonial past as well as ongoing neo-colonialism, both of which structured the relationship between Japan and Korea. In its founding statement, the ECC explained how it was inspired by Korean activists to begin a process of self-reformation:
We were shocked to receive such harsh critiques and demands, born from their fearless faith-based struggles. That is, the Korean political situation in which people are risking their lives is related to Japan’s past colonization and current economic invasion. This problem is what we Japanese have to be responsible for before God.13
At its founding meeting, the ECC decided to investigate Japanese corporate encroachment in South Korea, as well as sex tourism and other issues between Japan and South Korea. In other words, through solidarity activities, the ECC tried to learn not only about the situation of others, i.e. Koreans, but also the cause of their suffering structured by the Japan-South Korea relationship. This learning process was the basis for a new imagined community linking activists beyond borders.
Figure 3a. Cover Photo of Asian Women’s Liberation. From the first to third issues, covers depicted Korean women’s struggle for democracy and labor rights.
3) Enlarging networks among Zainichi, women, and laborers in the mid-1970s to the early 1980s
Cooperation among Zainichi and Japanese activists, including Christians, was remarkable, especially on the issue of Zainichi prisoners of conscience who were held in South Korea on charges of espionage. Zainichi family members organized the family association in May 1975 and fifty-four groups of Japanese activists formed the National Council to support Zainichi Political Prisoners in June 1976. These groups worked together to raise public support, both domestically and internationally, and to promote activities such as visiting and sending letters and cards to–prisoners of conscience in South Korea. In addition, representatives working for Zainichi prisoners of conscience visited the United Nations and Amnesty International in London to appeal for global support for the Zainichi prisoners.14
The growing networks among solidarity groups extended to the women’s movement. The women’s solidarity movement was born out of the issue of sex tourism, called Kiseng15 Kankou. The Japanese and the Korean National Council of Churches met together officially for the first time in July 1973; responding to a special request by the Council of Korean Christian women, the problem of sex tourism was placed on the agenda. Korean Christian women inspired Japanese Christian and non-Christian women to organize the group Women against Kiseng Kankou. At that time, anti-sex tourism movements sprung up not only in Korea but in Taiwan as well. Matsui Yayori, a well-known Asahi Shimbun foreign correspondent, played an active role in the anti-sex-tourism movement in Japan and in forging bonds with women activists throughout Asia.
On March 1, 1977, Matsui, Tomiyama Taeko, and several other women activists, most of whom had participated in the anti-sex tourism movement, organized the Asian Women’s Association. The founding statement declared their opposition to economic invasion and sex-exploitation. Reacting to the voices of Korean and other Asian women and “learning” from them, these Japanese women activists also formed a solidarity movement dealing with such issues as human rights, labor rights, and the colonial past, all of which were pertinent to East and Southeast Asian women.
Korean women’s struggles were the primary focus of the Asian Women’s Association. The cover photo of Asian Women’s Liberation, the bulletin of the Association, showed Korean women fighting against the repressive military regime (figure 3). In later years, the members of the Asian Women’s Association focused more specifically on war crimes committed against women, particularly the wartime “comfort women.”16
Figure 3b. Cover Photo of Asian Women’s Liberation. From the first to third issues, covers depicted Korean women’s struggle for democracy and labor rights.
The solidarity movement further broadened to include organizations devoted to the labor movement, which had long shown great sympathy toward North Korea. In the late 1970s, responding to the increasingly wide-ranging solidarity movement among Japanese activists, Christians, and Zainichi, Japanese labor-movement activists also joined in solidarity activities.17 The involvement of the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (Sōhyō) in the Japan-Korea solidarity movement was triggered by the Kwangju Uprising and the Kim Dae Jung crisis in 1980.18 Responding to the arrest of Kim, Zainichi dissident groups, civic solidarity groups, Christian groups, and even Sōhyō joined the solidarity movement. In order to coordinate their activities, a Meeting of Representatives to Free Kim Dae Jung was held on July 11, 1980 by Sōhyōand other groups; progressive political parties and the Council for Japan-Korea solidarity also joined. At this meeting, the participants organized the Japan Council for Saving Kim Dae Jung and set a goal of collecting ten million signatures.19According to Watanabe Tetsuro, the secretary for political affairs of the Tokyo office of Sōhyō, the campaign to collect ten million signatures on behalf of a foreign national was “the first and might be the last time”20 such an effort was undertaken in Japan. With Sōhyō’s participation, the number of people who attended the rallies and signed petitions dramatically increased21 compared to previous solidarity activities based on mainly civic participation (Figure 4).
The Japan-Korea solidarity movement peaked when Kim Dae Jung was sentenced to death on September 17, 1980. The movement quieted down when his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment, and he and his family left for the United States at the end of 1982. Although the mass movement subsequently declined, it continued to work on specific issues, such as Zainichi prisoners of conscience, while responding to new issues that arose in the 1980s.
4) Reflexive democracy in the 1980s
By the early 1980s, Japan’s initial support movement based on humanitarian ideals developed into a more reflective phase of self-reformation (自己変革) through listening to and learning from the voices of others. Self-reformation involved questioning Japan’s role in Korea and rectifying Japanese foreign policy concerning Korea. After the intensity of the Kwangju Uprising and the life-threatening crisis for Kim Dae Jung, solidarity movement activists broadened their agenda to include such issues as history textbook treatments of Japanese colonialism and war and the movement protesting the fingerprinting system that singled out Zainichi, while continuing to call for solidarity with the South Korean democratization movement.
In 1982, China and South Korea challenged the revision of Japanese history textbooks, which softened the description of Japanese aggression in Asia as mere “advance.”22 The Emergency Christian Conference on Korean Problems (ECC) and the Council for Japan-Korea Solidarity demanded that the Japanese government “correct the wrong descriptions of Korea, … learn from the critiques by Koreans,” and “apologize for past colonial rule and strive to relax tensions on the Korean peninsula” (Leaflet, August 6, 1982). In addition, the Tokyo local of Sōhyō raised the history textbook issue in a document titled “Call for Japan-Korea Solidarity Actions” (October 16, 1982) and sent to their affiliated labor unions. Solidarity movement activists started to speak out about unsettled issues of the colonial past, demanding that the Japanese government accept responsibility for thirty-six years of colonial rule in Korea.23
Figure 3c. Cover Photo of Asian Women’s Liberation. From the first to third issues, covers depicted Korean women’s struggle for democracy and labor rights.
On September 4, 1984, a collective meeting to protest the visit to Japan by South Korean president Chun Doo Hwan brought together the Japan Socialist Party and Sōhyō24 with groups associated with Wada Haruki (general director of the Japan-Korea Solidarity Council), Tomiyama Taeko, and Yoshimatsu Shigeru (general director of the National Council to Support Zainichi Political Prisoners). The meeting issued the following resolution:
The genuine resolution of the colonial past should begin with an apology to all Korean Minjung expressing the will of the people, including a resolution in the Diet. … With today’s meeting opposing the visit of Chun Doo Hwan, we strive to establish true friendship between Japan and Korea and will work to achieve the civil rights of Zainichi, including abolition of the fingerprinting system, and promote the peaceful unification of Korea.
As shown, the Japan-Korea solidarity movement turned to issues that directly addressed Japan’s internal concerns. Thus, while committing to the solidarity movement with Zainichi activists and sharing the cause of struggling Koreans, Japanese conscientious intellectuals and activists reflected on Japan's unsettled colonial past and on discrimination against Zainichi.
During the 1980s, the cooperation between Zainichi and Japanese intellectuals and activists broadened to include the “anti-fingerprinting system”, which resulted in the abolition of the system in 1992. Subsequently, efforts related to unresolved colonial problems came to the fore in both South Korea and Japan after the democratization of South Korea. The Kono Statement (1993) on the recognition of and apology for comfort women and the Murayama Statement (1995), which apologized to Asian victims of Japanese imperial rule for the first time at the level of the Diet, may be seen as accomplishments due in part to the Japan-Korea solidarity movement.
While the Japanese sense of responsibility and attitude of self-questioning began to emerge as early as the 1960s with the anti-Vietnam War movement, concrete proposals and actions toward “self-reformation” did not become central to civic activism until the Japan-Korea solidarity movements of the 1970s and 1980s. The Japan-Korea solidarity movement provided an opportunity to listen to and learn from others’ viewpoints. With direct voices of the others, Japanese society became more sensitive to issues of war crimes and the human rights of Zainichi and other minorities. Thus, solidarity with “others” (Korean activists and Zainichi) simultaneously spurred a movement for reflexive democracy.
Conclusion
Figure 4. Japanese protesters rally under the banner, “Don’t Kill Kim Dae Jung!” on Nov 27, 1980 (photographed by Hashiguchi Jōji, February 1981, Sekai). According to Wada (1982), 7,000 people attended this rally.
The anti-Vietnam War movement touched off public questioning in postwar Japanese society on the nature and history of its relationship with Asia. This self-questioning of Japan’s role evolved into self-reformation with concrete agendas and actions during the Japan-Korea solidarity movement, ranging from rectifying Japanese support for the South Korean military dictatorship to calls to settle the colonial past and cooperate with Zainichi’s anti-ethnic discrimination movement. Ultimately, Japanese citizens pushed for internal change toward a more reflexive democratic system. This evolution toward reflexive democracy through the Japan-Korea solidarity movement should be understood not only in the context of the worldwide anti-Vietnam War movement, but also as a product of the growth of formal and informal networks among Koreans, Zainichi, and Japanese.
Through the Japan-Korea solidarity movement in the 1970s and 80s, progressive Japanese and Korean activists and intellectuals constructed an imagined community by sharing issues and concerns about democracy, peace and social justice in Asia. However, many critics have noted that these networks, which transcend national borders, peoples, and sectors, have faced increasing challenge in public discourse since the mid-1990s. Over the last twenty years, Japanese society has witnessed a counteroffensive to erase and deny Japan’s war crimes, including the sexual exploitation of women. Recently, hate speech vilifying Zainichi has found a new younger audience and mobilizing force through the Internet.
World geopolitics and political economy have changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Communist bloc. The counteroffensive, including hate speech against Zainichi, could be interpreted in part as a Japanese reaction to neoliberal globalization intensified by the collapse of the Japanese bubble in 1990 and subsequent economic crisis. However, just as principled Korean, Zainichi, and Japanese activists countered the Cold War political economic system that structured the relationship between Japan and South Korea in the 1970s and 80s, the question remains whether new forms of transnational solidarity will emerge to give voice to those who have been silenced and to promote peace in Asia today.
Misook Lee is Project Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo.
Recommended citation: Misook Lee, “The Japan-Korea Solidarity Movement in the 1970s and 1980s: From Solidarity to Reflexive Democracy,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 38, No. 1, September 22, 2014.
Notes
1 Zainichi are Korean residents of Japan who trace their roots to Korea at the time of Japanese colonial rule and who remain Korean citizens, including those born in Japan. The Zainichi community was politically divided between Sōren, established in 1945 and affiliated with North Korea, and Mindan, established in 1946 and affiliated with South Korea. However, many Zainichi did not align with either Sōren or Mindan, and some who were originally affiliated with Mindan separated from that group and espoused solidarity with the democratization movement of South Korea.
2 The Anpo Tōsō was “a moment remembered by academics and activists alike as the birth of independent citizen protest in postwar Japan” (Avenell 2010, 13).
3 Data from Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication.
4 The movement was led by several groups: the Korean Student Coalition, the Korean Youth Coalition, and the Mindan Tokyo office, which were critical of Mindan. Basically Mindan is affiliated with South Korea. However, when Park Chung Hee came to power with a military coup in South Korea, several groups within Mindan opposed its decision to support the military regime and separated from Mindan. See Miyata (1977) and Cho (2006).
5 President Park Chung Hee consolidated and systematized his power through the Yushin Constitution, which stipulated that the president would be elected for a six-year period with no limitation on the number of terms. See Dewind and Woodhouse (1979).
6 The act was passed in 1961, just after Park Chung Hee’s military coup. It “provides that persons who belong to, are affiliated with, praise or in any other way encourage or benefit a communist organization may be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for five to seven years” (Dewind and Woodhouse 1979, 15). The act was abolished in 1980, when it was integrated into the National Security Law.
7 In 1973, this group was dissolved and was absorbed by Amnesty International in Japan’s newly formed group “Kakyō” (架橋).
8 Theatrical performance based on Kim Chi Ha’s “Bronze Yi Sun-sin.” The original Korean title is Kuri Yi Sun-shin. Yi Sun-shin was a naval commander in the Chosŏn dynasty, famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin War; he became a national hero. In this play, Kim Chi Ha criticized the Korean power elites who enjoyed wealth and power from collaboration with imperial Japan and exploited the poor and powerless people.
9 For more details, see Suh (1994). Suh Sung spent 19 years in the prison.
10 The Committee to Save the Suh Brothers (1992, 11).
11 See, Suh (1994). In his final statement, Suh Sung articulated that he would keep struggling for the Unification of Korea and pursuing positive nationalism. See, also, The Committee to Save the Suh Brothers (1992, 166).
12 The Seoul National University students’ uprising on October 2, 1973, the one-million-person petition movement in December 1973, and a series of student uprisings in early 1974 had occurred in South Korea.
13 ECC statement, January 15, 1974. See, ECC (1976).
14 See Kim (1986). Representatives working for Zainichi prisoners of conscience visited international organizations eleven times from the beginning until 1985.
15 The term Kiseng was originally made and used in pre-modern Korea, meaning a female entertainer and courtesan. The same term was also used to describe the sex tourism of Japanese businessmen in the 1960s and 1970s.
16 Matsui Yayori established the Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center in 1994, organized the Violence against Women in War Network (VAWW-NET) in 1998, and proposed the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, which was held in Tokyo in 2000 with international cooperation. For more about Matsui Yayori, see the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace.
17 Interview with Watanabe Tetsuro (November 9, 2011).
18 On May 18, 1980, in Kwangju, a city in southwestern South Korea, pro-democracy students and citizens demonstrated against martial law in Kim Dae Jung’s political base. The military regime sent in the army to crush the uprising. The result was a massacre. The government accused Kim Dae Jung of leading the Kwangju Uprising in an attempt to overthrow the government.
19 The number of signatures they had been able to collect by April 1981 was 5,258,819 (Wada 1982).
20 Interview with Watanabe (November 9, 2011).
21 The number of people who attended the national rally was approximately 15,000 on August 8, 17,000 on September 17, 6,000 on November 13, 7,000 on November 27, 7,000 on December 5, and 15,000 on December 22 (Wada 1982).
22 On the dispute concerning Japanese textbooks, see Nozaki and Selden (2009),
23 See Wada Haruki, Ishizaki Koichi, and the Sengo Gojunen Kokkai Ketsugi o Motomerukai, eds. (1996).
24 The Japanese government chose to compensate the victims through a private Asian Women’s Fund collected by voluntary Japanese citizens. Because the Japanese government did not accept national responsibility for compensation, many South Korean victims refused to accept monetary compensation from the Asian Women’s Fund. See Kim (2006), Morris-Suzuki (2007).
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깨달음이란 무엇인가, 임승택 경북대 철학과, 김나미의 종교 이야기
종교공부방/배움터 , 김나미의 종교 이야기 : 네이버 블로그
깨달음이란 무엇인가  종교공부방/배움터 2012.01.28. 09:43  http://blog.naver.com/kimnami57/120151099262 |
저 개인은 단지 학문적인 입장을 버린 채 여전히 깨달음, 해탈, 열반에 관심이 식지 않습니다. <깨달음이란 무엇인가> 이글은 지난 날 불교평론 열린 논단에서 다룬 논문입니다. 독자들과 나누고 싶어 여기 올립니다.
깨달음이란 무엇인가
임승택
경북대 철학과
* 깨달음에 대한 오해
깨달음이란 무엇인가. 다소 주제넘은 질문으로 여겨질 수 있겠다. 그러나 이것은 당연히 물어야 할 불교의 궁극 목적이다. 우리는 흔히 불교(Buddhism)에 대해 ‘깨달음의 종교’라고 말한다. 그렇다면 바로 그 깨달음이 무엇인지 알아야 할 것이 아닌가. 그러나 일부에서는 이것에 대해 지나치게 조심스러운 태도를 보이는 듯하다. 심지어 언어로는 도저히 표현할 수 없는 지고한 무엇으로 신비화하는 경향마저 보인다. 물론 불교의 최종 목적에 관한 논의에서 신중한 자세는 기본이 되어야 할 것이다. 그러나 그러한 조심성이 깨달음 자체에 대한 바른 이해를 가로막는 요인이 되어서는 곤란하다. 목적지가 분명할 때 비로소 거기에 도달하기 위한 올바른 실천에 전념할 수 있다. 깨달음 역시 마찬가지이다. 이것에 대한 불분명한 입장은 결연한 실천적 의지를 희석시키는 결과를 초래할 것이다.
우리 주변에는 깨달음에 대해 오해를 부추기는 주장들이 존재한다. 혹자는 깨달음을 얻고 나면 그것으로 모든 것이 다 성취되는 듯한 주장을 펼친다. 마치 올림픽 경기에서 우승한 선수가 다만 그것으로 명예와 부귀를 거머쥐는 것처럼 말이다. 다른 혹자는 깨달음을 위한 지난한 과정은 생략한 채 오로지 한꺼번에 성취하는 그것만을 강조한다. 그들에 따르면 깨달음이란 마른하늘에 날벼락이 떨어져 천지를 뒤흔드는 체험이라도 있어야 할 것만 같다. 또 다른 혹자는 깨달음을 현실 삶과 유리시켜 도저히 범접할 수 없는 고립무원의 경지로 여긴다. 참새가 봉황의 뜻을 알 수 없는 것처럼 범부 중생은 백날을 닦아도 깨달음 근처에도 갈 수 없다는 것이다. 이러한 입장들에 따르면 깨달음을 얻는 일은 애초부터 불가능한 것이며 계란으로 바위를 치는 것에 비유할 수 있다.
깨달음이란 말 그대로 ‘모르던 사실을 궁리 끝에 알게 되는 것’이다. 거기에는 기존의 낡은 생각을 깨뜨리는 과정이 수반되며, 그러한 이유에서 예상치 못했던 극적인 요소들이 개입될 수 있다. 즉 무작정 원한다고 해서 깨달음이 이루어지는 것은 아니며 새로운 차원으로의 정신적인 도약이 있어야 한다. 이것은 비단 수행의 문제에서뿐만 아니라 일상적인 삶 속에서도 흔히 겪는 일이다. 예컨대 때가 무르익지 않으면 당연한 사실에 대해서도 모르고 살아가는 경우가 많다. 따라서 앞서 언급한 주장들에도 얼마간의 교훈은 있다고 할 수 있다. 깨달음의 장벽을 넘어서는 일이 결코 쉽지 않은 까닭에 다만 진득하게 열심히 수행하라는 취지로 받아들일 수 있다. 그러나 깨달음에 대한 지나친 이상화는 그것의 성취를 요원한 것으로 만들고 만다. 그것은 결국 깨달음의 종교인 불교의 존재 이유를 망각케 할 위험성이 있다.
* 깨달음의 실현 과정
깨달음에 관한 잘못된 견해들은 그것만 성취하고 나면 만사형통이라는 한탕주의적 사고를 조장한다는 데에 문제가 있다. 유감스럽게도 필자 또한 그러한 ‘깨달음 한탕주의’에 현혹된 경험이 있다. “이번의 집중 수행으로 끝장을 내야지.” “그렇게만 된다면 모든 것이 달라질 거야.” 물론 새롭게 수행에 임하는 와중에 이러한 각오가 필요할 수도 있다. 그러나 수행을 하는 이유는 탐욕․분노․어리석음 따위의 부정적인 정서를 다스려 참된 지혜(慧, paññā)를 개발하는 데에 있다. 이러한 사실을 망각하면 깨달음을 구하는 마음 자체가 일종의 탐욕으로 변질될 가능성이 있다. ‘깨달음 한탕주의’란 다름 아닌 그러한 상태에 빠져 있는 경우라고 하겠다.
그렇다면 이상적인 깨달음의 실현 과정은 어떠해야 하는가. 다음의 경전은 깨달음에 관한 초기불교의 입장을 대변하는 것으로 앞서의 주장들과 극명한 대조를 이룬다. “비구들이여, 나는 완전한 지혜(aññā)의 성취가 단번에 이루어진다고 말하지 않는다. 비구들이여, 그와 반대로 점차적으로 배우고 점차적으로 실천하고 점차적으로 발전하여 완전한 지혜의 성취가 있게 된다(MN. I. 479～480쪽).” 이것으로 우리는 깨달음에 관한 붓다 자신의 입장을 분명히 확인하게 된다. 점차적인 닦음에 의한 점진적인 깨달음이 그것이다. 붓다는 삶 속에서 점차적으로 무르익는 깨달음을 가르쳤다. 이러한 가르침을 통해 우리는 깨달음에 관련한 경직된 태도들로부터 벗어날 필요가 있다. 상상을 초월하는 극단적인 과정을 걸치지 않더라도 깨달음에 접근할 수 있다는 희망을 지녀야 한다.
이제 그렇다면 깨달음의 내용은 무엇일까. 이상에서 언급한 방식으로 과연 무엇을 깨닫는다는 것일까. 초기불교 경전에서는 깨달음의 내용과 관련하여 다양한 이설(異說)을 전한다. 예컨대 중도(中道, majjhima-paṭipadā)를 깨달았다고 하는 경우도 있고, 연기(緣起, paṭiccasamuppāda) 혹은 사성제(四聖諦, cattāri ariyasaccāni)를 깨닫는다고 기술하기도 한다. 그런데 중도란 바른 견해(正見)라든가 바른 의향(正思惟) 따위의 팔정도(八正道)를 가리키며, 다시 팔정도는 사성제의 마지막 항목인 도성제(道聖諦)에 포섭된다. 한편 ‘의존적인 발생과 소멸’을 내용으로 하는 연기 또한 괴로움의 발생과 소멸 과정을 밝히는 것이라는 점에서 고(苦)․집(集)․멸(滅)․도(道)의 사성제와 표리(表裏)의 관계에 있다고 할 수 있다. 결국 상적유경에 기술되듯이 붓다의 깨달음과 가르침은 사성제의 범위를 벗어나지 않는다(MN. I. 184쪽 이하). 요컨대 그는 인간 존재가 괴로움에 노출되어 있다는 사실을 지각하였고, 또한 그것의 원인을 통찰하여 해소함으로써 깨달음을 완성하였던 것이다(임승택, 2008, 49～78쪽).
전법륜경에는 사성제를 12차례에 걸쳐 반복적으로 깨닫는 양상(三轉十二行相)이 묘사된다. 예컨대 고성제(苦聖諦)에 대해서는 이해해야 하고(pariññeyya), 집성제(集聖諦)에 대해서는 끊어야 하며(pahātabba), 멸성제(滅聖諦)에 대해서는 실현해야 하고(sacchikātabba), 도성제(道聖諦)에 대해서는 닦아야 한다(bhāvetabba)는 자각의 과정이 세 차례에 걸쳐 반복해서 등장한다. 더불어 그들 각각에 대해 “눈이 생겨나고 지혜가 생겨나고 통찰이 생겨나고 밝음이 생겨나고 광명이 생겨났다.”라는 문구가 되풀이된다. 이러한 내용은 붓다의 깨달음이 일회적으로 단박에 이루어진 것이 아니었다는 사실을 의미한다. 즉 사성제를 내용으로 하는 붓다의 깨달음은 지난한 수행의 과정을 통해 점차적으로 완성되었다는 것이다. 또한 전법륜경에서는 그러한 과정을 걸쳐 “사성제에 관한 지혜와 견해가 청정해진 연후에 비로소 위없는 바른 깨달음(阿耨多羅三藐三菩提, anuttaraṃ sammāsaṁbodhi)을 선언했다(paccaññāsiṃ).”라는 언급도 나타난다(SN. V. 422～423쪽).
초기경전에서 위없는 바른 깨달음(無上正等正覺, 阿耨多羅三藐三菩提)이라는 표현은 주로 사성제와 관련해서 등장한다. 이러한 사실은 불교의 목표가 다름 아닌 사성제라는 점을 분명히 해준다. 아울러 사성제의 실현 과정은 점진적으로 묘사된다는 점에 대해서도 다시 한 번 유념할 필요가 있다. 또한 이것에 대해서는 다음의 가르침을 주목할 만하다. “네 층의 계단이 있는 전당(殿堂)으로 오르는 것과 같이, 만일 어떤 사람이 ‘첫 계단을 오르지 않고 두 번째, 세 번째, 네 번째 계단을 올라 전당에 올랐다’고 말한다면 그럴 이치가 없느니라. 왜냐하면 반드시 첫 계단을 지난 뒤에야 차례로 두 번째, 세 번째, 네 번째 계단을 따라 전당에 오를 수 있기 때문이니라. 그와 같이 비구들이여, 고성제에 대해 아직 밝게 알지 못하면서, 집성제, 멸성제, 도성제를 밝게 알고자 하면 그리 될 수 없느니라(잡아함경, 권16, 436경; SN. V. 452쪽 이하).”
불교라는 종교에서 ‘위없는 바른 깨달음’을 능가하는 또 다른 목적은 존재하지 않는다. 이미 확인했듯이 그것의 구체적 내용은 사성제이다. 즉 “인간이라는 존재가 괴로움에 노출되어 있다는 것, 그것의 원인은 내면의 집착과 탐욕에 있다는 것, 그러한 괴로움은 극복될 수 있다는 것, 그것을 극복하는 길이 존재한다는 것”이라는 깨달음 이외에 다름이 아니다. 필자는 이점이 분명해질 때 앞서 거론했던 ‘깨달음에 대한 오해’들이 불식될 수 있을 것이라고 생각한다. 깨달음이란 결코 과시의 대상일 수 없으며, 단박에 성취할 수 있는 그 무엇도 아니고, 현실과 유리된 고립무원의 경지도 아니다. 그것은 바로 이 순간부터 실현해 나갈 수 있는 것이며, 또한 집착과 탐욕이 있는 한에서 끊임없이 자각하고 닦아 나가야 할 과제인 것이다.
* 법(法, dhamma)에 대한 관찰
앞선 글에서 살펴보았듯이, 『대념처경』에서는 위빠사나의 통찰 대상을 크게 네 가지로 분류한다(DN. II. 290～315쪽). 몸(身)․느낌(受)․마음(心)․법(法)이 그것이다. 이들 중에서 처음의 세 가지는 관찰 대상으로서의 성격을 지닌다. 즉 몸이라든가 느낌 따위는 지속적으로 지켜보아야 할 내용이 된다. 반면에 마지막의 법은 그러한 관찰 대상인 동시에 위빠사나를 통해 얻게 되는 결과를 종합한다고 할 수 있다. 다시 말해서 법에 대한 관찰(dhammānupassī)은 몸이라든가 느낌 따위를 관찰하면서 체득하는 내용까지를 망라한다. ① 다섯 가지 장애(五蓋), ② 다섯 가지 집착된 경험요소(五取蘊), ③ 여섯 가지 터전(六入處), ④ 일곱 가지 깨달음의 조목(七覺支), ⑤ 네 가지 거룩한 진리 즉 사성제(四聖諦)가 그것이다. 이들 다섯은 법에 대한 관찰의 하위 항목을 구성하는 동시에, 위빠사나를 통해 성취하는 깨달음의 실상을 드러낸다는 점에서 주목할 만하다.
먼저 다섯 가지 장애에 대해서부터 살펴본다. 이것은 쾌락에 대한 욕망(kāmacchanda), 악한 마음(byāpāda), 혼침과 졸음(thīnamiddha), 들뜸과 회한(uddhaccakukkucca), 의심(vivikiccha) 등을 가리킨다. 이들 다섯은 몸․느낌․마음 등을 관찰하는 와중에 발생하는 것으로 일종의 번뇌라고 할 수 있다(MN. I. 347쪽). 또한 지혜를 약하게 만드는 것으로 불건전한 쓰레기에 비유되기도 한다(SN. V. 146쪽). 그런데『대념처경』에서는 바로 이들을 ‘일어나고 사라지는 현상을 지속적으로 관찰하는 방법(samudayavayadhammānupassī)’에 적용시킨다. 그리하여 “내부적으로 쾌락에 대한 욕망이 있을 때 ‘나에게 내부적으로 쾌락에 대한 욕망이 있다’고 알아차리고, 혹은 내부적으로 쾌락에 대한 욕망이 없을 때 ‘나에게 내부적으로 쾌락에 대한 욕망이 없다’고 알아차린다.”라는 방식으로 관찰해 나갈 것을 권한다(DN. II. 301쪽).
일반적으로 쾌락에 대한 욕망은 성적(性的) 욕구를 의미하는데, 그것을 제거하는 방법으로는 ‘신체의 불결한 모습을 떠올리는 명상(不淨觀, asubhānupassī)’이 권장된다. 즉 똥․오줌․고름 따위의 추한 모습을 떠올려 그것을 다스리는 방법이 사용된다. 그러나 있는 그대로(yathabhūtaṁ)에 대한 통찰을 강조하는 위빠사나에서는 쾌락에 대한 욕망 자체가 진리를 깨닫기 위한 매개로 활용된다. 즉 ‘있으면 있는 그대로 알아차리고 없으면 없는 그대로 알아차리는 것’을 통해 일어남과 사라짐의 진리(samudayavayadhamma)를 깨우치도록 유도한다. 이러한 방식으로 우리는 내면의 부정적 정서들을 지속적으로 알아차림으로써 그들에게 변화가 발생한다는 사실을 깨우치게 된다. 그리하여 처음에는 도저히 저항할 수 없을 것만 같았던 감정과 정서들이 차츰 변화하여 어느새 약화되어 있다는 사실을 자각하게 된다. 바로 이것이 다섯 가지 장애에 대한 알아차림의 실제 내용이며, 위빠사나를 통해 성취해 나가는 깨달음의 교훈이라고 할 수 있다.
마찬가지로 우리는 악한 마음, 혼침과 졸음, 들뜸과 회한, 의심 등도 관찰 대상으로 삼을 수 있게 된다. 이들 장애에 대한 통찰과 반성이 없을 때 우리는 옳지 못한 방향으로 이끌리기 십상이다. 경전에서는 이들 장애를 잘 살펴보지 못하는 사람은 자신과 타인 그리고 양자 모두에게 무엇이 이로운가를 깨우치지 못한다고 전한다(AN. III. 230쪽). 그러나 이들에 대해 분명한 인식을 하게 되면 어떠한 방식으로든 대처해 나가게 된다. 예컨대 졸음이 온다고 해서 무작정 졸아야 하는 것이 아니라 그것 역시 관찰 대상으로 삼아 극복할 수 있게 된다. 이와 관련하여 필자는 “졸음과 싸우지 말고 졸린 상태를 지긋이 알아차리면서 졸음에 떨어지는 마지막 순간을 지켜보도록 하라.”라고 하는 지도를 받은 적이 있다. 그리하여 졸음으로부터 얼마간 비켜나는 체험을 한 적이 있다. 이와 같이 우리는 분명한 알아차림을 통해 수행의 장애로부터 벗어나게 된다.
이것은 다섯 가지 집착된 경험요소(五取蘊)에 대해서도 동일하게 적용된다. 우리는 육체(色)․느낌(受)․지각(想)․지음(行)․의식(識)이라는 다섯의 경험요소(蘊)들에 집착하여 그것을 자기 자신과 동일시한다. 그리하여 아름다운 용모(色)와 즐거운 느낌(受) 따위를 추구하는 가운데 갖가지 환상(想)과 욕망(行) 등에 의해 뒤엉키게 된다. 바로 이것이 범속한 우리 존재의 실상이다. 그러나 그들 모두는 우리의 일시적인 바람이나 의지와 상관없이 우리에게 다가오는 삶의 조건들이다. 바로 이것에 대한 통찰은 특정한 느낌이나 생각 따위가 나 자신을 의미하는 것이 아니라 잠시 스쳐가는 것에 불과하다는 깨우침을 얻게 한다. 바로 이것이 법에 대한 관찰의 두 번째 내용으로서 다섯 가지 집착된 경험요소에 대한 알아차림이다. 이렇게 해서 우리는 거짓된 자아로부터 벗어나는 탈동일시(disidentification)의 체험에 이르게 되고 종국에는 무아(無我)를 깨닫게 된다.
이러한 양상은 눈(眼)과 시각대상(色), 귀(耳)와 소리(聲) 등으로 이루어진 여섯 가지 터전(六入處)에 대해서도 마찬가지이다. 위빠사나의 통찰 능력이 증장됨으로 인해 우리는 보거나 듣는 모든 것에 대해 분명한 알아차림을 지니게 된다. 즉 눈(眼)․귀(耳)․코(鼻)․혀(舌)․몸(身)․마음(意)의 영역 모두에 대해 깨어있는 상태로 머물게 된다. 여섯의 터전이 중요한 이유는 바로 거기에서 앞서의 다섯 가지 집착된 경험요소를 비롯한 일체의 현상들이 발생하기 때문이다. 따라서 이들에 대해 알아차림을 지닌다는 것은 현상계의 본래 모습 혹은 터전을 알아차린다는 의미가 된다. 앞서의 다섯 가지 장애(五蓋)라든가 집착된 경험요소(取蘊)에 대한 알아차림에서는 한 발짝 물러나 관찰하는 수동적 태도와 거리두기가 요구된다고 할 수 있다. 그들 현상과 뒤엉키지 않기 위해서이다. 그러나 여섯의 터전에 대한 알아차림에서는 감지되는 모든 것들에 대해 활달하게 깨인 열린 마음이 요구된다. 그래야만 어느 하나에 치우치지 않고서 여섯의 감각 영역 모두를 상대할 수 있게 된다. 이것을 실천해 나가면서 우리는 오로지 현존하는 것들과 무차별적으로 마주하게 되며, 종국에는 온갖 속박이 끊어진(斷, pahāna) 경지에 머무를 수 있게 된다(DN. II. 302쪽).
일곱 가지 깨달음의 조목(七覺支)은 이상의 과정을 통해 얻게 된 심리적 결과로서의 성격을 지닌다. 즉 알아차림의 상태를 한결같게 유지하는 ‘마음지킴에 의한 깨달음의 조목(念覺支)’, 경험하는 현상들을 그때그때 올바르게 분별하는 ‘법에 대한 분석으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목(擇法覺支)’, 노력을 그침 없이 계속하게 되는 ‘노력으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목(精進覺支)’, 그러한 노력과 더불어 충만한 기쁨을 느끼는 ‘기쁨으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목(喜覺支)’, 그러한 기쁨과 더불어 신체의 편안함을 느끼는 ‘평안으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목(輕安覺支)’, 그러한 편안함으로 고요한 선정의 상태에 머무는 ‘삼매로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목(定覺支)’, 그렇게 해서 일체의 현상에 대해 초연해지는 ‘평정으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목(捨覺支)’ 등이 그것이다.
경전에서는 이러한 조목들을 상황에 맞게 잘 적용해야 한다고 가르친다. 예컨대 마음이 위축되어 있을 때에는 법에 대한 분석으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목, 노력으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목, 기쁨으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목으로 대처하라고 이른다. 또한 들떠 있을 때에는 평안으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목, 삼매로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목, 평정으로 이루어진 깨달음의 조목으로 다스릴 것을 권한다. 한편 마음지킴에 의한 깨달음의 조목은 모든 경우에 반드시 필요하다는 내용을 전한다(SN. V. 113쪽 이하). 이러한 깨달음의 조목들은 법에 대한 관찰의 네 번째 순서에 배대되는 동시에, 위빠사나를 통해 체득한 지혜의 활용 양상이라고 할 수 있다.
법에 대한 관찰의 마지막 세부 항목은 사성제(四聖諦)이다. 이미 언급했듯이 사성제는 초기불교의 궁극 목적으로서 깨달음의 실제 내용이 된다. 『대념처경』에서는 이 사성제의 가르침을 다른 내용들에 비해 압도적인 분량과 비중으로 상세히 설명한다(DN. II. 304쪽 이하). 즉 고성제에 관해서는 태어남․늙음․죽음 따위의 괴로움의 양상에 대해 구체적으로 열거한다. 집성제에 관해서는 갈애(taṇhā)를 괴로움의 원인으로 제시하면서 그것의 발생 과정을 자세히 언급한다. 멸성제에 관해서는 그러한 갈애가 소멸하는 양상에 대해 기술한다. 마지막으로 도성제에 관해서는 바른 견해(正見)에서부터 바른 삼매(正定)에 이르는 팔정도를 나열한다. 사실『대념처경』에 등장하는 사성제는 앞서 언급했던 다섯 가지 집착된 경험요소(五取蘊)라든가 여섯 가지 터전(六入處) 등에 대한 알아차림과 일정 부분 중복된다고 할 수 있다. 이점은 『대념처경』 전체에 걸쳐 산발적으로 설해지는 개개의 수행 과정들이 사성제라는 큰 틀 안에서 다시 한 번 종합된다는 것을 의미한다. 따라서 『대념처경』은 사성제의 실현을 위한 지침으로서의 성격을 띤다고 할 수 있다.
나미의 종교 이야기 : 원불교 스탑나우 교무님
종교칼럼 조선일보 , 김나미의 종교 이야기 : 네이버 블로그
[푸른 눈의 성자들] 원불교 레겐스부르크 교당스탑나우 교무  전북 익산시 원광대학교 캠퍼스 정문 왼쪽, 기와로 된 돌기둥을 지나니 원불교 총부가 보인다. 그 앞에 바람에 펄럭이는 “평화를 생산하는 한 해가 되자”라는 플래카드가 눈에 들어온다. 새해인사로 복을 받기보단 복을 짓는 평화가 더욱 간절하다는 뜻일까. 스탑나우 원법우 교무님을 만나러 독일까지 가려고 마음먹었던 참에 운좋게 한국에 계시다는 소식을 듣고 서둘러 내려온 길. 마주앉으니 처음 만나도 처음 같지 않은 사람이다. 모든 걸 비운 듯 느긋한 만면에 미소를 머금어 천진난만하다. 그러나 있어야 할 자리에 당당히 있는 사람처럼 목소리엔 자신감이 넘치고 몸가짐에선 강한 확신이 배어 나온다. 법명이 원법우(圓法雨), 독일 본명은 페터 스탑나우(Peter Stabnau)다. 1957년 도르트문트 근처 멘덴에서 태어났다. 바이에른으로 이사했을 때 한국 유학생을 만나 원불교를 처음 접했다. 이후 한국 땅 밟기를 수십번, 1996년부터 정식으로 익산 총부에서 4년간 교육과정을 마치고 2002년 출가식 후 교무가 되었다. 그 후 고향인 레겐스부르크로 돌아가 자신의 집을 교당 삼아 원불교 포교를 하고 있다. 대화를 시작하자마자 교무님은 어린 시절 이야기를 꺼냈다. 그를 불교로 이끌고, 결국 불교를 전파하게 만든 배경에는 ‘전쟁’이라는 차가운 현실이 있었다. “공군 조종사였던 아버지가 2차 세계대전에 나가 싸우다 큰 부상을 입고 돌아왔어요. 전쟁의 참혹함을 아버지를 통해 배우게 되었지요. 어린 마음에 ‘전쟁은 파괴하고 아프게 하는 것’ 정도로만 생각했는데 11살 위인 형마저 또 군대에 불려 가자 전쟁이 정말 미웠어요. ” 교무님이 불교에 더욱 끌린 것도 불교는 성전(聖戰)을 하지 않았기 때문이라는 설명이 따른다. 히틀러나 조지 부시가 단 5 분간만 명상을 했어도 전쟁은 안 났을지도 모른다며 권력자들에게 인과응보의 이치를 전하고 싶어한다. 힘있는 자들이 이 단순한 진리를 알면 전쟁은 없을 것이라며 씁쓸한 미소로 어린 시절의 아픔을 마감한다. 문득 전생을 기억하느냐 물으니 놀라운 답변이 돌아온다. “독일인으로 태어났지만 난 독일 문화, 음식, 언어에 적응하기가 힘들었어요. 꼭 외계인처럼 살았지요. 나 자신 전생에 한국사람이었다는 사실을 확인하기까지 혼란 속에 성장했어요. 꿈을 꾸면 항상 얼굴에 가면을 쓰거나 알록달록한 옷을 입고 춤추는 사람들만 자주 보였어요. 한국 와서 보니 꿈에서 본 그것들이 바로 굿과 탈춤이었고 된장, 김치, 나물 음식냄새에 내 전생이 완전히 되살아나기 시작했어요. 젓가락으로 밥을 먹는 것도 이미 익숙해 자연스러웠지요. 마치 기억상실증에 걸렸다 기억을 모조리 되찾은 사람 같았어요. ” 이어 전생의 일이 하나 둘 밝혀지기 시작했다. 결정적으로 해인사에 갔을 때 절 입구에 있는 비석을 보고 ‘여기가 내 집이었구나’ 했는데 지금은 없어진 옛 화장실 터까지 기억났고, 해인사에 60년 사신 노스님이 그 사실을 입증해 주었다. 그 이후 자신의 고향을 찾았다는 안도감에 외계인에서 한국인으로 돌아와 드디어 마음이 정착되었다 한다. 교당이 있는 레겐스부르크는 뮌헨에서 동북쪽으로 120km 떨어진 인구 14만의 작은 도시로, 98%가 가톨릭 신자인 고도(古都)다. 이 교당에서 교무님은 매주 한 번 법문을 하고 매일 좌선시간을 열어 정신수양으로 마음공부를 하며 사리연구·작업취사를 한다. 전체 50여명 되는 신도는 불교에 관심도 있지만, 세상에서 채워지지 않는 목마름에 해답을 구하는 사람들이라 한다. 독일 신도들로부터 무슨 질문이 많은지, 원불교를 어떻게 받아들이는지, 또 원불교가 다른 불교와 다른 점을 어떻게 설명하는지 묻자 교무님의 반응은 의외였다. “이 불교, 저 불교 차이를 두고 구별하지 않아요. 개인적으로는 불상을 모시지 않는 것이 좋아 일원상(一圓相·윈불교의 근본이 되는 가르침을 형상화한 것)에서 진리 자체를 마주 대하지요. 단지 부처님이 신격화되어 기도의 대상으로만 보는 점이 안타까워요. 원불교는 부처님 가르침 있는 그대로, 처음의 본질로 들어간 생활 불교라고 할까요. ” 화제는 다시 전쟁으로 돌아갔다. 문득 자신과 같은 사람이 없어야 한다며 슬픈 얼굴을 한다. 무슨 뜻인지 몰라 긴장하는 순간에 교무님이 한 구절로 풀어준다. “나 같은 성직자와 군인이 없는 세상, 거기가 극락일 거예요. ” 군대가 없으면 전쟁이 없고 성직자가 없으면 모든 사람이 다 행복하다는 증거라 한다. “내가 아는 한, 행복을 거머쥐는 데 한 가지 방법이 있어요. 감사하는 마음을 가진 사람은 불평불만이 없어요. 일원상 법신불로 쉽게 풀면 사은(四恩)이 있지요. 천지의 은혜, 부모의 은혜, 동포의 은혜, 법률의 은혜를 생각하면 조건 없이 사람에게 주어진 것이 네 가지나 있으니 감사해야지요. ” 지금 교무님은 원불교 경전을 독일어로 번역하는 작업을 하고 있다. 교전만큼 자신의 삶에 큰 영향을 준 것도 없기에 현재 진행 중인 번역을 빨리 마치려 한다. 덧붙여 나오는 교당의 기타활동에는 한국문화를 알리는 전도사 역할도 있다. 중·고등학교 종교시간에 불교를 대표해 나가 강의도 하고 한국요리 강습도 한다. 매년 원광대학에서 한의사를 초청해 한의진료를 하고 그 보답으로 원광대 ‘동그라미 재활원’을 위해 전 독일 규모의 자선 음악회를 열어 후원도 한다. 교무님에겐 두 가지 소망이 있다. 장차 독일 청소년을 위한 원불교 교육기관을 세우는 것과 남북한이 독일처럼 통일되는 것이다. “대종사님이 ‘물질이 개벽되니 정신을 개벽하자’ 했어요. 사람들이 물질의 노예가 되어 살지만 이젠 정신을 개벽할 때입니다. 변하고 사라지는 물질은 절대로 행복을 주지 못해요. 가지면 또 가져야 하니까요. 욕심은 그 정도로 끝내세요.난 또 한 사람의 스승을 만났다. 원불교는 1916년 소태산 박중빈(1891~1943) 대종사가 개교해 한국에서 뿌리 내린 민족종교이다. 생활불교, 대중불교의 기치를 내걸고 교화·교육·자선을 핵심 사업으로 불법을 펴고 있다. 국내 15개 교구, 550여개 교당과 180여개 기관, 국외에 5개 교구, 14개국 51개 교당, 9개 기관이 있다. 서울, 부산, 익산에 라디오 원음 방송국을 개국했고, 현재 한방 위성 방송을 설립 중이며, 평양 빵 공장 설립, 캄보디아 무료 구제 병원 개원, 6개의 대안 중·고등학교 운영, 미주 선학대학원 설립, 21개 국어로 교전번역 작업을 진행 중이다. 원불교 독일 레겐스부르크 교당 Eigenheimweg 23 93051 Regensburg, Germany 전화: 094195372 팩스: 0941947718 [출처] 푸른 눈의 성자들(꼰솔라따 수도원)|작성자 youraisemeup |
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