The South Korean media was up in arms this year’s Liberation Day as President Park Geun-Hye misidentified colonial period martyr Ahn Joong Geun’s resting place as Harbin in her Liberation Day speech. This misstep, exacerbated by the fact that Seolhyun, a K-Pop celebrity, had failed to recognize Ahn Joong Geun’s photograph just a few months earlier, caused an unprecedented uproar among Koreans.

 

While it was shocking to learn of Seolhyun and the President’s ignorance, the people’s irascibility was just as astonishing to behold. Netizens demanded that Seolhyun be ostracized from the entertainment industry, and President Park was pelted with insults to both her person and political career. All this outrage was directed at what ultimately came across as an innocuous mistake, which begs the question, “Is it necessary to go to such extremes to ensure historical awareness?”

 

The fact of the matter is that many netizens, including those who criticized the supposed malefactors, are not as historically acute as they make themselves out to be. A considerable number of comments in the internet articles that reported on the offenses quietly confessed to have gleaned new information from the article and, in the President’s case, even defended the veracity of her statement. Strangely enough, netizens that took the celebrities’ missteps as an inexcusable affront responded to the comments in a rather amicable manner, with some even commending the commenters for taking part in a constructive learning process.

 

The sudden emergence of a double standard against persons of influence is a head-scratcher; why should their positions as eminent individuals mean that they should be more learned in history than the ordinary person? One could make the argument that President Park, being the leader of a nation, is obligated to be at least slightly aware of the nation’s history. Yet there is no reason why President Park and Seolhyun’s unintentional mistake should be met with an inordinate amount of ridicule while the same mistakes, when committed by “Joe Schmoes”, are perceived as harmless blunders.

 

More fundamentally, coercing people into becoming historically aware is antithetical to the principles of South Korean democracy. Democracy is founded on the belief that people have a right to freedom of thought. Constituents of a democracy should, as such, be able to become historically aware of their own volition, especially when the historical awareness in question focuses on details instead of overarching themes. If having this kind of historical knowledge, the kind that transcends the bounds of what would normally be considered basic, were an inexorable requirement, South Korea would be more akin to a totalitarian state than a democratic one.

 

The current global climate also lends credence to the argument that the unconditional enforcement of historical awareness is more pernicious than beneficial. Recent nationalist and isolationist tendencies emerging in the United States (U.S.) and Europe are threatening globalization. A zealous emphasis on historical awareness could give the impression that the nation comes before all else, strengthening South Korean nationalism and the concomitant bigotry.

 

As mentioned in the beginning, it goes without saying that even the most basic awareness of history is necessary if South Korean citizens are to retain their cultural identity. It is just as imperative to remember that they should be allowed to arrive at such a realization on their own.