ABSTRACT
This chapter compares two sites of state violence in Asia, Japan’s Hiroshima and Korea’s Kwangju, in order to analyse commemoration of state-initiated civilian sufferings. Despite common symptoms of traumatic experiences at the individual level, commemorative practices exhibit striking differences at the societal level. Hiroshima is still in mourning over its own victimhood, while remaining relatively ambivalent about Japan’s role as the perpetrator of crimes in other countries. The controversies surrounding the renovation project of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum from 1985 until 1994 show the city’s willingness to promote its moral authority as the anti-nuclear pacifist leader, whereas the municipal leadership conceded to make political compromises. Kwangju, the place of a civilian massacre in May 1980, on the other hand, has undergone dramatic transformation from the site of anti-government protests to the mecca of Korea’s democratisation movement. The trajectory of the May 18 Democracy Cemetery shows Kwangju’s ideational transformation from a victim to the hero of Korean democracy. A cross-cultural comparison of the two commemorative sites of state violence shows the ways in which Japanese cultural modes of ambivalence and situational logic permit ambivalence, whereas Korean cultural modes of self-victimisation and resistance negate a post hoc aggrandisement of the tragic past.
