Published on November 1, 2019.
Based on an essay by South Korean attorney Kim Ki-soo, published in the special feature “Correcting South Korea’s False History” in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, this article discusses the South Korean Supreme Court ruling on former wartime Korean workers, the Japan-South Korea Claims Agreement, the issue of statues of former workers, and the false “collective memory” spreading through South Korean society.
It points to the totalitarian nature of a society in which memory is imposed by the state and society, and warns of the danger that political monuments can falsify people’s historical consciousness.

November 1, 2019.
I am now engaged in a movement opposing the installation of statues of former workers, and I have filed a criminal complaint against the mayor of Daejeon and related public officials for violation of the Urban Parks Act.
The following is from the special feature, “Correcting South Korea’s ‘False History,’” in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, released today.
As readers know, since I appeared in this way, I have repeatedly stated that South Korea is a totalitarian state that has continued, for seventy-four years after the war, Nazism under the name of anti-Japanese education.
The essay published by South Korean attorney Kim Ki-soo under the title “A Nation of False ‘Collective Memory’” proves that my point was entirely correct.
It is an essay that not only Japanese citizens but people throughout the world must read, and it contains facts they must know.
The South Korean Supreme Court ruling on the issue of wartime Korean workers, handed down on October 30 of last year, ordered the payment of 100 million won, about 10 million yen, to each plaintiff.
In this ruling, it was held that compensation for former workers was not included within the scope of application of the 1965 Japan-South Korea Claims Agreement.
Because of this ruling, it is inevitable that the international recognition will spread that South Korea is not a country in which legal stability and property rights are absolutely guaranteed, and it can be said that this ruling has brought an enormous disaster upon South Korea.
The basis of international law is that promises between states must be kept, and this Supreme Court ruling can be said to contain an extremely large number of problems.
Why was such a ruling issued?
In my view, it is because South Korean society as a whole is trapped by a false “collective memory.”
The statue of former wartime workers was first erected in front of Yongsan Station, which is heavily used even in the capital, Seoul.
This year, an attempt was also made to erect one in front of the Japanese Consulate General in Busan, but the city of Busan blocked it, saying that “there is a legal problem.”
To begin with, the installation of a controversial object in front of a foreign mission is prohibited by the Vienna Convention, to which South Korea is also a party.
After that, a statue was erected in a park in Daejeon, in central South Korea, without going through legal procedures.
Furthermore, I was shocked that the mayor of Daejeon attended its unveiling ceremony.
I am now engaged in a movement opposing the installation of statues of former workers, and I have filed a criminal complaint against the mayor of Daejeon and related public officials for violation of the Urban Parks Act.
The reason I oppose the installation of worker statues is that the statue does not symbolize actual “requisitioned workers,” but symbolizes a memory that differs from reality.
When one looks at the worker statue in front of Yongsan Station, it evokes hunger, forced mobilization, slave-like labor, and concentration camps.
I believe that such depictions differ from historical fact, and that such statues, which have not even gone through legal procedures, are nothing more than political objects.
However, it can be said that Koreans who pass in front of the statue are being forced, day after day, to accept false memories.
I want to protect Koreans’ “right not to be forced to remember.”
That is because, if this is left alone, mistaken memories will be injected through the statues, and it will also create a power that is worshiped by crowds whose memories have been falsified.
I believe that a society in which citizens cannot create their own memories for themselves, and in which memories are forced upon them by the state and society, is a totalitarian society.
A society in which every town is filled with political objects is precisely a dictatorship and a totalitarian state.
That is why, now, many people in South Korea are opposing the installation of these statues.
This article continues.