Published on November 26, 2019.
This article examines the campaign in South Korea to erect so-called “forced conscription laborer statues,” arguing that their model appears to resemble a Japanese forced-labor victim shown in a 1926 photograph from the Asahikawa Shimbun.
It also discusses commemorative photographs of Korean workers in Japanese coal mines and mines during the war, showing sturdy and dignified young men rather than the image of “slaves” promoted by distorted historical narratives.

November 26, 2019
They show Korean young men who are uniformly sturdy and dignified.
Hundreds of photographs are all like that.
Nowhere in them can one find the appearance of “slaves.”
The following is the continuation of the previous chapter.
What is the “forced conscription laborer statue”?
From 2016, social organizations also began to embark on a distortion campaign.
It was a movement to erect bronze statues called the so-called “forced conscription laborer statue.”
This is being carried out by the “Committee for Promoting the Installation of Statues of Forced Conscription Laborers under Imperial Japan,” led by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (note 18), abbreviated as the “Korean Council,” and others.
After this bronze statue was first erected in front of Yongsan Station in Seoul in 2016 (Photograph 5-2), it was also erected in the same year at Bupyeong Station in Incheon, and in Jeju and Changwon.
In 2018, they also tried to install it in front of the Japanese Consulate General in Busan, but it was pushed by the police to a place more than one hundred meters away.
The promotion committee announced a plan to install workers’ bronze statues simultaneously in Seoul and Pyongyang in solidarity with North Korea.
They say the installation site in Seoul is right next to the comfort woman statue in front of the Japanese Embassy.
The model for this bronze statue also closely resembles that Japanese person in the 1926 Asahikawa Shimbun.
It appears to be precisely the person mentioned earlier, the second man from the right in the photograph, whose ribs in particular are protruding.
In the end, the promotion committee is erecting statues that appear to be Japanese people all over the country and claiming that they are abused Koreans.
In other words, they are building another totem for Koreans to worship.
What do we gain from that?
There is nothing except the incitement of anti-Japanese tribalism, not only among students but among the entire people.
It is truly an absurd delusion.
The Roh Moo-hyun administration established an organization under the Prime Minister’s Office called the “Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization under Japanese Imperialism,” and paid compensation to Koreans who had been mobilized to Japan.
To receive compensation, one had to submit evidence, and among the evidence used most often were photographs.
Photograph 5-3 is a commemorative photograph taken by Mr. Jeong Seong-deuk, who worked at the Shakubetsu Coal Mine in Hokkaido in 1941, together with his colleagues.
The people standing with their arms folded in the second row, and the people in the front row sitting cross-legged or seated on chairs, give an impression of composure.
There are many group photographs of coal miners and miners who came to Japan during the war years of 1939 to 1945, and most of them are more or less similar to this.
Most Koreans lived together with people from the same hometown in free dormitories provided by the company, and these are commemorative photographs of them.
Other photographs that can easily be found are those in which they went to a photo studio together with friends, borrowed clothes, and had their pictures taken.
What we can see from those many photographs is the appearance of Korean young men who are uniformly sturdy and dignified.
Hundreds of photographs are all like that.
Nowhere in them can one find the appearance of “slaves.”