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The Korean Independence Movement A Movement Unfulfilled A IV Dan Thesis by Jonathan Kirk Lusty

A Pattern in the Taekwon-Do Patterns

“At the age of twelve1, [Choi Hong Hi] was expelled from school for agitating against the Japanese authorities who were in control of . This was the beginning of what would be a long association with the Kwang Ju Students’ Independence Movement . . .

With the outbreak of World War II, [he] was forced to enlist with the Japanese army through no volition of his own. While at his post in Pyongyang, North Korea, [he] was implicated as the planner of the Korean Independence Movement known as the Pyongyang Student Soldiers’ Movement, and interned at a Japanese prison . . .”2

These two quotes, though brief, demonstrate the powerful which motivated General and Grandmaster Choi Hong Hi even through his youth—a dedication to work for his nation’s independence. Despite the threat of state-sanctioned torture, hard labor, and even death, he was a steadfast partisan of the larger Korean Independence Movement. Little wonder then that, of the twenty-five patterns which the Yom-Chi Taekwon-Do Association practices (consisting of the twenty-four traditional Chang-Hon style patterns, in addition to the “revered” pattern Ko-Dang originally taught by General and Grandmaster Choi Hong Hi), four make explicit reference to the Korean Independence Movement in their pattern , and three make implicit reference to it.

The third Chang-Hon pattern, Do-San, is the first pattern to make this explicit reference. In the Yom-Chi Taekwon-Do Association Gup Handbook (page 29), the is given thusly: “Do-San is the pseudonym of the patriot Ahn Chang-Ho (1876-1938). The 24 movements represent his entire life, which he devoted to furthering the of Korea and its independence movement.”3 The significance of this chronology should be further underlined; the first pattern (Chon-Ji) symbolizes the creation of the world, the second (Dan-Gun) alludes to the legendary founding of Korea, and then the third pattern which a student of Taekwon-Do learns commemorates a patriot of Korea’s struggle for independence from . This suggests that, in the mind of the General, only the creation of the world and the birth of the Korean people precede the Independence Movement in terms of importance to the .

1 This would be in the year 1930. 2 Park Sung Hwa so informs us in his brief biography of General and Grandmaster Choi Hong Hi on page 747 of the latter’s encyclopedia: Taekwon-Do (The Korean Art of Self-Defense). 3 This also serves to underscore the importance of education to the General, implying by the order of the words that the independence of Korea follows after its education.

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Similarly, in the Yom-Chi Taekwon-Do Association Black Belt Handbook (page 19), pattern Ui-Am’s history is given thusly: “Ui-Am is the pseudonym of Son Byong-Hi, leader of the Korean Independence Movement on March 1, 1919 . . .”. This is, incidentally, corroborated by the English translation of “The Proclamation of Korean Independence” which F.A. McKenzie includes in his contemporaneous account of events, Korea’s Fight for Freedom (Against Japan) Part 3, which he published in 1920; the very first of the 33 “representatives of the people” to sign the document is listed as “Son Pyung-hi”, an alternate Anglicized rendering of Son Byong-Hi.

The Pattern Ko-Dang is similarly commemorative. The Black Belt Handbook (page 30) declares that “Ko-Dang is the pseudonym of the patriot Cho Man-Sik, who dedicated his life to the Independence Movement and the education of his people . . .”

Finally, the history of Sam-Il makes the most explicit of these historical references. On page 38, one reads that “Sam-Il denotes the historical date of the Independence Movement of Korea, which began throughout the country on March 1, 1919. The 33 movements in this pattern represent the 33 patriots who planned the movement.” Its name, therefore, literally signifies the date (“third [month] first [day]”) on which “The Proclamation of Korean Independence” was signed and circulated among the people. The Fourth of July presents an easy cultural equivalent for Americans, as the very words “Fourth of July” have come to signify much the same concept in the as do the words “Sam-Il” in Korea: freedom and national independence.

Regarding the implicit references to the Korean Independence Movement, “The pattern Jung-Gun,” (according to the Gup Handbook, page 54) , “is named after the patriot Ahn Jung- Gun, who assassinated Hiro-Bumi Ito, the first Japanese Governor-General of Korea. Ito was known as the man who played the leading part in the Korea-Japanese merger . . .” The historical importance of “Hiro-Bumi Ito” (also rendered as “Ito Hirobumi”) will be discussed in greater detail later in this paper, but, in brief, his administration (1906-1909) as “Governor-General” (or “Residency General” as it is sometimes rendered) served to cement Japanese political and control of the Korean by 1907. According to Professor Kyung Moon Hwang in A History of Korea (page 154) “for all intents and purposes, the 1910 annexation treaty merely formalized the Japanese political control over Korea that had been completed [by Ito Hirobumi] in 1907.” For this reason, though the 1909 assassination of Ito may have preceded the inaugural “Sam-Il” date by a decade, it was a symbolic strike against Japanese — a strike for the developing movement for Korean independence.

Pattern Juch’e, in the Black Belt Handbook on page 27, represents “a philosophical idea” defined by the General as meaning “that man is the master of everything and decides everything. In other words, it is the idea that man is the master of the world and his own destiny. It is said that this idea was rooted in Baekdu Mountain, which symbolizes the spirit of the Korean people.” As this “philosophical idea” of self-determination is “rooted” in a mountain which symbolizes “the spirit of the Korean people”, it can be inferred that the General views this self-determination as inherent to the spirit of the Korean people. How can such be actualized, however, if the

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Korean people are not free from—are not independent of—a foreign power such as Japan (or any other foreign power)? The very idea necessitates national , and therefore alludes to the Korean Independence Movement which sought to actualize that very self-determination on a national scale.

The last pattern to make an implicit reference to the Korean Independence Movement is Tong-Il, the final pattern authored by the General. On page 56 of the Black Belt Handbook, one reads that “Tong-Il denotes the resolution of the unification of Korea, which has been divided since 1945. The diagram for this pattern symbolizes the homogenous race.” One might well wonder how a pattern which specifically mentions the year that Japanese colonial rule ended could refer to its independence movement, for is that not the realization of independence? The tone of the pattern history—a resolution to unify a country divided—suggests otherwise, however. One must remember that 1945 also marks the beginning of “Soviet occupation in the north and American occupation in the south” of Korea (A History of Korea, page 194), and that “freedom from Japan did not mean freedom from foreign rule” (page 196). Though the American occupation has since ended, leaving the Republic of Korea (or “”) a prosperous and finally independent nation founded on democratic-republican principles, the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) is figuratively still subject to the oppressive communistic principles of Soviet rule. A fascist, militarized system of government perpetuates the autocratic rule of dictator Kim Jung-Un to this day (in 2014), meaning that half the Korean peninsula remains to be liberated. Doubtless, the General was resolved that his Taekwon-Do movement serve to unify the people of North and South Korea (both equally Korean—both equally members of “the homogenous race”) together in a single, liberated, and finally independent nation. In essence, therefore, Tong-Il’s existence implicitly asserts that the Korean Independence Movement remains unfulfilled.

To summarize, fully seven out of twenty-five patterns (or more than one in four) concern the Korean Independence Movement; the General clearly considers it of the utmost importance. Yet relatively little has been written about it in a Taekwon-Do context. Though the subject could (and perhaps should) fill multiple academic volumes, this brief composition will attempt to outline the events which defined it, and to summarize their ramifications.

From Kingdom, to Empire, to Japanese

Prior to the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910, the Korean peninsula played a key geopolitical role between two larger and militarily more powerful nations: and Japan. McKenzie summarizes this role (in the section “Opening the Oyster” of Korea’s Fight for Freedom (against Japan) Part 1) by saying “Unhappily, it was placed as a buffer zone between two states: China, ready to absorb it, and Japan, keen to conquer its people as a preliminary triumph over China.” After an attempted invasion in 1582, Korea “appealed to China for aid, and

Page 3 after terrible fighting, the Japanese were driven back.” From this point forward, for over three centuries, a tenuous protectorate status existed between China and Korea—a protection for the smaller kingdom (sometimes called the Dynasty, ruled over by the House of Yi) against further Japanese incursions. However, it also served to largely sever trade and contact with the outside world. Western nations, such as the United States and Great Britain, would not be allowed in Korean ports until the late 19th century, for example. Interestingly enough, even Japan (an Eastern nation and close neighbor, geographically speaking) was not allowed in Korean ports until roughly the same time.

By 1876, however, after an international incident wherein a Japanese ship was destroyed off the Korean coast, Japanese leaders (Ito Hirobumi among them) diplomatically compelled Korea to conclude a treaty “opening several ports to Japanese trade and giving Japan the right to send a minister to Seoul . . .” The first article of this treaty, as McKenzie further records, recognized Korea as “an independent state”, yet in so doing “Korea was virtually made to disown the slight Chinese protectorate which had been exercised for centuries”. From this point forward, the Japanese secured a political foothold on the peninsula—one which the Chinese complacently allowed, not deeming Japan a threat to their supremacy over the Far East.

However, Seoul was rife with political intrigue both foreign and especially domestic (the House of Yi and the House of Min, which were the primary rivals for domestic political power, struggled constantly to manipulate the less-than-strong Kojong, then King and later Emperor), and the succeeding decades gradually provided the Japanese with occasion to augment their political presence there.

With this augmentation of political presence came an increase in military presence until, in 1894, under pretense of protecting their security interests in Seoul against the local Tonghak rebellion and the Chinese presence called upon to quell it, they “stormed the royal palace” and occupied it (A History of Korea, page 129). In so doing, they obliged the King to sign a new treaty that severed Korea’s previous ties with China completely (thus requiring the Chinese to remove their troops from the Korea peninsula even as it required the to facilitate and supply the Japanese troops now occupying it). This lead, as many (McKenzie included) have asserted was the Japanese strategy all along, to the outbreak of the Chinese-Japanese War (also called the First Sino-Japanese War). Japan’s victory was swift and decisive. McKenzie describes it in terms that are equally swift and decisive4: “The war began on July 25, 1894; the Treaty of Peace, which made Japan the supreme power in the Extreme East, was signed at Shimonoseki on April 17, 1985.”5

4 This is in the section entitled “The Murder of the Queen” of Part 1. 5 McKenzie goes on to recount in great detail how, to better secure their control over the King, the Japanese assassinated Queen Myungsung (who had long been an influential political enemy to Japanese interests) in September of the same year.

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Even after the conclusion of the war, the Japanese contingency in Seoul maintained military control of the Royal Palace. Korean guards were allowed to station themselves thereat, but without ammunition for their weapons, for example. However, in 1896, the King was able to escape his gilded prison and seek refuge in the consulate of “[the] new imperial power . . . in northeast Asia”: . With Russian backing, Korea was able to force Japan to temporarily relinquish their strangle hold on the Royal Palace and the peninsula. Then, in 1897, having secured a brief respite from foreign domination, the King attempted a bold move “to escape [any] subordinate relationship altogether”—to cease to be a protectorate of China, Japan, or even Russia—by declaring the end of the Joseon Dynasty and the beginning of the “Great Korean Empire”6.

“On the surface, this seemed delusional . . .” given the small sphere of influence which Korea exercised at this period, and its limited military power to enforce such a claim. Yet “Korean officials felt compelled to take such a step, believing it would bestow equal standing [with the Chines, Russian, and Japanese empires] in the global order.” This step was, naturally, accompanied by “a range of changes, both symbolic and organizational” to the structure of the Korean government, all made with an eye towards “the of the Korean monarchy’s new status and legitimacy.” These changes did include various steps to modernize the nation, such as the construction of new roads, railroads, and sanitation systems, as well as educational reform; however, little actually changed inside or outside of Korea. The new empire’s institution “reinforced the ties to the [Joseon] dynasty and declared monarchical absolutism . . .”7 (the absolutism of Kojong, a monarch who had been deftly manipulated by domestic and foreign factions—the Japanese especially—up to this point), and Korea’s neighbors—the Japanese especially—were as ambitious for imperial expansion as they had been before.

Little wonder, then, that Russia and Japan soon came to blows over (a region just north of Korea), and in February of 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began. Not wishing to alienate its more important trade partner, Korea almost immediately assented to the stationing of Japanese troops on the peninsula. With that agreement, history repeated itself: having their soldiers present in large numbers on the peninsula (and in Seoul once again), coercive force was added to the petitions of the Japanese officials. By August of 1904, under pretext of facilitating the Japanese war effort against Russia (according to Hwang on page 153), “another treaty stipulated a strong role for Japanese advisors in the financial, military, and diplomatic sectors of the Korean government. This served as a prelude to the Protectorate Treaty” in 1905, when the “strong role” of Japanese advisors would become de facto rule by Japanese advisors. Even though in these treaties, according to McKenzie8, “Japan pledged herself ‘in a spirit of firm friendship, to secure the safety and repose’ of the Imperial Korean House, and definitely

6 The quotations in this paragraph were taken from A History of Korea (page 139 to 140). 7 The quotations in this paragraph were taken from A History of Korea (page 139 to 141). 8 This is in the section “The New Era” of Part 1.

Page 5 guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of the country”, the Japanese colonial occupation had already begun in all but name only9.

It was the Protectorate Treaty which established the authority of the Residency General (or Governor-General), and Ito, a “venerable ‘senior official’ at the center of Meji Japan’s modern transformation since the 1860s” according to Hwang on page 153, was the man first selected for this difficult post. McKenzie asserts10 that “there could have been no better choice, and no choice more pleasing to the Korean people. He was regarded with a friendliness such as few other Japanese inspired . . . Everyone who came in came contact with him felt that, whatever the nature of the measures he was driven to adopt in the supposed interests of his Emperor, he yet sincerely meant well by the Korean people.” The unstinting praise which McKenzie reserves for Ito personally throughout his work was, in fact, shared by many; Hwang even declares on page 154 that “Ito appears not to have envisioned a complete takeover of Korea, but rather a civilizing mission that would curb Korea’s potentially dangerous decay . . .”

Sadly, it would not last, for “this outlook took a dramatic turn in the summer of 1907 . . . with of the secret mission to the Hague” where Kojong secretly dispatched three delegates to plead the illegitimacy of Japan’s occupation at the international Hague Conference11. Upon learning of this, steps were taken to force Kojong to abdicate in favor of his son, a weaker leader than even his father, and Kojong was effectively imprisoned in a different section of the palace. Furthermore, another treaty was foisted upon the new puppet figurehead (who to this day is not considered as having been a monarch over Korea), granting Japan further administrative power and disbanding the Korean military altogether. Before stepping down from his post in 1909, Ito would expand already existent policies which encouraged Japanese immigration to the peninsula and facilitated their and official land acquisition (often at obscenely deflated prices through practices which were not fraudulent only because the government declared them legal12) and maintained a monopoly on the transport and communicational of the country (of the roads, railroads, and telegraphs especially).

9 It bears reiteration that both treaties were signed by Korean officials under the coercion of military occupation; all sources agree on this. McKenzie even includes, towards the end of the section titled “The New Era”, a telegram which Emperor Kojong dispatched to his special envoy to President Theodore Roosevelt (Mr. Hulbert, sent to plead for support from the Americans). It reads, “I declare that the so-called treaty of protectorate recently concluded between Korea and Japan was extorted at the point of a sword and under duress and therefore is null and void. I never consented to it and never will. Transmit to American Government.” 10 This is in the section “The Rule of Prince Ito” in Part 2. 11 The Hague Conference refused to hear their case, as none of the nations in attendance wished to alienate Japan, the obvious economic and military power in the Far East. Not even the sensational suicide of one of the three delegates (Yi Chun) over this affair, nor the sympathetic media coverage it garnered for Korea, could win their cause a hearing. 12 McKenzie details this extensively, especially throughout the section “The New Era” in Part 1.

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It was in retaliation for this that Ahn Jung-Gun assassinated Ito in October of 1909. Ironically, according to Hwang (page 154), killing the former Residency General “appears to have accelerated the move towards outright annexation . . .” and failed to rally the people at large to the cause of the resistance force of nationalist guerilla fighters known as the Eui-Pyung (or the “”) of which Ahn Jung-Gun had been a leader. McKenzie concurs13, stating that Ito’s successor “Terauchi came to Seoul in 1910 to reverse the policy of his predecessors. He was going to stamp the last traces of [Korean] nationality out of existence. Where Ito had been soft, he would be hard as chilled steel.” By August of 1910, Terauchi had not only set in motion the most brutal measures of the military campaign to suppress the Righteous Army and redoubled the aforementioned policies to facilitate Japanese colonization, but he had concluded the Annexation Treaty. McKenzie writes, “After four thousand years, there was to be no more a throne of Korea . . . The name of the nation was to be wiped out—henceforth, it was to be [Joseon], a province of Japan.”

Many Movements but a Single Struggle

The Eui-Pyung, as an armed resistance force, did undertake military campaigns against the Japanese from their inception in 1894 (according to Hwang on page 154), and especially after the signing of the Protectorate Treaty in 1905. They became especially active in 1907, however, “as thousands of disaffected former [Korean] soldiers entered the ranks . . .” and would remain so through the 1910s until they were all but suppressed. This suppression, tragically, seems to have been inevitable. McKenzie gives a firsthand account of his own private expedition to encounter them in the sections “A Journey to the ‘Righteous Army’” and “With the Rebels” of Part 2, noting the mostly antique weaponry they carried14 (especially compared to the modern munitions of the Japanese soldiery), their lack of medical personnel and equipment, reluctant support (at best) from the countryside villagers who feared Japanese reprisal (with good cause15), and lack of cohesive organization. He writes, “It was evident they had practically no organization at all. There were a number of separate bands held together by the loosest ties. A rich man in each place found the money. This he secretly gave to one or two open rebels, and they gathered adherents around them.” Though bands would continue to form throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and through WWII (usually joining in with better organized and equipped forces supported or even directed by foreign —most notably the in 1940, which operated under the National Military Council of China), they were never able to mount a national counteroffensive against the occupiers; they simply were no match for the superior ,

13 This is in the section “The Last Days of the Korean Empire” of Part 2. 14 “One proudly carried an old Korean sporting gun [used to hunt tigers] of the oldest type of muzzle-loaders known to man ... This sporting gun was, I afterwards found, a common weapon.” 15 McKenzie, in these same sections, speaks much of the and villages he saw which were razed from the map simply on the suspicion of supporting the Eui-Pyung.

Page 7 numbers, organization, and training of the Japanese military. It was for these reasons they largely pursued guerilla tactics and tried to avoid armed engagements larger than skirmishes against local police as part of their independence movement.

It should now be noted, therefore, that to say the “Korean Independence Movement” perpetuates something of a misconception; it implies the existence of a single, unified, and cohesive organization, which did not exist even within the Righteous Army. In fact, there were many different political protest organizations dedicated to the independence of Korea, sometimes working in tandem, but more often working individually and at cross-purposes to each other; they seldom united together. The Sam-Il demonstrations in 1919 are something of an exception to this tendency, but they do demonstrate the generally peaceful protests which characterized what one might call the typical “Korean Independence Movements”.

Some of the earliest manifestations of this tendency towards peaceful manifestation begin in 1896, when Philip Jaisohn (formerly Seo Jai-Pil, who had fled to the US after leading a failed coup in 1884) returned to Korea and founded The Independent, the first in Korea (published in both English and Korean), and the . Both called upon then Emperor Kojong to move “toward autonomy, reform, and self-strengthening [of the nation]” (according to Hwang on page 147), but the latter especially “organized a series of mass, open-air debates that promoted the participation of people regardless of social status”—also the first in all of Korean history. Philip Jaisohn, at McKenzie’s request, wrote a section for Part 1 entitled “The Independence Club” in which he states the club had nearly 10,000 members within three months of its formation, and that:

“There were no obstacles or formalities in joining in and no dues or admission were charged. As a result, many joined, some from curiosity and some for the sake of learning the way of conducting a public meeting in Parliamentary fashion. The subjects discussed were mostly political and economical questions, but religion and education were not overlooked . . . A good many new thoughts were brought out which were beneficial. Besides, the calm and orderly manner in which various subjects were debated on equal footing, produced a wonderful effect among the Korean young men and to those who were in the audience.”

Though both the club and the newspaper where shut down in 1898 by the Empire (both being suspected of republican leanings), they had “spawned a revolution in mass culture”, according to Hwang (page 148). He continues, “People associated with the Club started other , which all sustained the general spirit of using these organs to disseminate information and knowledge, and thereby to build a strong, independent nation . . .” No matter how many newspapers or venues of public debate would be repressed from this point forward (either by the Koreans or the Japanese), others would be founded for nearly every political way of thought in Korea—even if they had to do so clandestinely.

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In point of fact, any nationalist spirit the Koreans felt did require clandestine expression. Hwang summarizes it on page 162, saying, “the first decade of the colonial period, the so-called “military rule” era characterized by stifling limitations on social activity, suppressed the outward expression of the people’s discontent, but this served only to intensify the ensuing explosion.” During this time, ergo, many political movements resorted to printing and dispersing their ideas in secret. McKenzie writes that the Japanese “started out to assimilate the Koreans, to destroy their national ideals, to root out their ancient ways, to make them over again as Japanese, but Japanese of an inferior brand ...” before detailing in three full sections16 the brutally authoritarian measures taken to impose this assimilation, referencing what he himself witnessed, what victims recounted to him, what other foreign correspondents corroborated independently, and even what official Japanese records did not attempt to deny. For example, the police essentially had authority to administer public beatings with impunity to any they felt were not sufficiently submissive to Japanese rule; McKenzie, citing the official numbers kept in the police records between 1916 and 1917, states “82,121 offenders were handled by police summary judgment, that is, punished by the police on the spot, without trial ...” and that “two-thirds of these ... were floggings”. Schools were a particular point of focus, with it being not uncommon for materials to be censored for “dangerous thoughts”, and for teachers and even students (generally of middle- school age or younger) to be arrested for propagating anti-Japanese sentiment—or whatever an overseer decided to consider as anti-Japanese sentiment. Christian churches were no exception (if anything, they received double the scrutiny), and there are accounts of sermons on common images like the Kingdom of Heaven and the story of David and Goliath being deemed subversive Korean-nationalistic propaganda. Torture was used indiscriminately on men, women, and children to extract confessions of nationalist sentiment and conspiracy against Japanese officials in many cases, with penal labor often being sentenced as a result. Facing the threat of torture, many chose to flee Korea for exile in the United States or China.

It is simultaneously not astounding these outrages should lead to the “Sam-Il Movement”, and yet very astounding that the participants should have the courage to undertake it. Or that they would carry it out peaceably. Yet before, during, and after the Sam-Il demonstrations, “various notices and appeals issued by the leaders, strongly urged the people to avoid insulting behavior, insulting language or violence towards the Japanese.”17 This is in no small part due to the influence of the Chondo Kyo religion which Son Byong-Hi organized in 190518 (which was itself greatly influential in Korea, with even Kojong espousing it, and placed great emphasis on the power of pacifism and personal virtue to effect positive change in the world) and of the various Protestant Christian churches (which had enjoyed a frankly astonishing success in Korea since

16 These sections are titled “I Will Whip You with Scorpions”, “The Missionaries”, and “Torture a la Mode”. 17 This is in the section “The People Speak—The Tyrants Answer” of Part 3. 18 And for which he is also commemorated in the Taekwon-Do pattern history of Ui-Am.

Page 9 being introduced in 188419, and likewise emphasized pacifism and personal virtue). As the horrors of the 1910s ensued, leaders of the Chondo Kyo and the native Christians came together in mutual support. Most notably among them: Son Byong-Hi himself and Pastor Kil Sun-Chu20 of Pyongyang. Meanwhile, Korean students in Japan itself found, besides greater educational opportunities, “ironically, also a much freer atmosphere for political thought and agitation” (according to Hwang on page 162). They, like many of their expatriate compatriots in the US and China, continued to work politically for the independence of their nation, mainly producing philosophical treatises (laying down an framework for later years), and raising both awareness and funds to dedicate to political activity on the peninsula. As WWI concluded and President Woodrow Wilson, in late 1918, called for a formation of a to “provide for the freedom of small nations” and “prevent the domination of small nations by big ones”21, their activity exploded; many of them “joined forces with like-minded students in their homeland to recruit social and cultural leaders for a mass demonstration for independence” (162), and Son Byong-Hi and Kil Sun-Chu, among other religious leaders, were among them.

Their timing could not have been more fortuitous, for Kojong died shortly after (in late February of 191922), and it was expected that “that people from throughout the country would gather in the capital for his funeral” (163). In preparation of suppressing a popular nationalistic demonstration, the Japanese prepared to have a large military presence in Seoul on Tuesday, March 4 (the day scheduled for the funeral). For this reason, it was decided that the mass demonstration for independence should be held on Saturday, March 1—Sam-Il. The 33 patriots celebrated in the pattern history—representatives from throughout Korea, and each leaders of their own localized independence movements—gathered then to sign “The Proclamation of Korean Independence” which they had drafted prior to meeting. Son Byong-Hi and Kil Sun-Chu signed it first, a gesture which is particularly symbolic given their status as leaders of the two major religious movements of Korea23. Copies were immediately dispatched throughout Korea, but the first public reading of the Proclamation transpired in Pagoda Park. Large crowds gathered to hear it read and to march with old Korean flags and shouts of “Mansei!” (which McKenzie asserts connotes the meaning “May Korea live ten thousand years!”) even as the 33 signers voluntarily submitted to arrest. Similar peaceable demonstrations—and McKenzie insists that

19 McKenzie includes a brief history of Christianity in Korea in the section “The Missionaries” of Part 3. In it, he speaks at length of the religion’s success in winning converts, but also of its success in reforming adherents to an unheard of in education and even equality of the sexes. Hwang confirms both these affirmations on pages 169 to 171 of A History of Korea. 20 Their names are listed first on “The Korean Proclamation of Independence”, a copy of which is included in McKenzie’s Part 3. 21 McKenzie so renders it in “The Independence Movement” of Part 3. 22 McKenzie even reports in “The Independence Movement” about two rumors circulating at the time, both claiming his death was a suicide in protest against Japanese policies. 23 Hwang notes on page 171 that 16 of the 33 signers were Protestant. 15 of the 33 signers were adherents of Chondo Kyo.

Page 10 these were “demonstrations, not a riot . . .” for “the Japanese, scattered all over the country, were uninjured; the Japanese shops were left alone; when the police attacked, elders ordered the people to submit and to offer no resistance . . .24”—arose throughout the country, as did other nationalistic manifestations in or near locations of official colonial such as schools, police stations, and government installations. The spirit of Sam-Il was strong; Hwang estimates on page 163 that “upwards of one million participants nationwide” took part in the protests.

Sadly, the peaceable nature of the Sam-Il demonstrations was answered with shocking violence. Hwang describes on page 163 them as “senselessly ruthless . . . with the cycle of suppression and resistance escalating into atrocities that included random shootings, massacres, and burnings of churches and entire villages . . . Even the colonial government’s tallies totaled more than 500 deaths and thousands of injuries over the course of the spring.” McKenzie, with the same balance of personal record, of victims accounts, and of corroboration from the reports of other foreign nationals, details some of the nauseating atrocities of the colonial government in the section “The People Speak—The Tyrants Answer” of Part 3. He ends it with the official numbers from the “Public Procurators”, which had “16,183 men . . . brought up for examination” between March 1st and June 8th, adding that “these figures do not include the large numbers released by the police after arrest, and after possible summary punishment.” It is staggering— staggering that so much horror should be wrought by the occupiers, and staggering that it should be so consistently endured by the Koreans. Perhaps this is why the General values Perseverance and Indomitable Spirit enough to number them among the five Tenets of Taekwon-Do.

It is little wonder that many more Koreans elected to flee their homeland after this, or that “representatives of disparate efforts to achieve independence, militarily and otherwise, were inspired to gather in Shanghai in April [1919] to organize a government in exile . . .” (page 163). Sadly, though they all accepted that “The Proclamation of Korean Independence” granted them the authority to form their Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (with modest recognition and support from the Nationalist Government of China), they agreed on little else. “This effort faltered due to ideological and other divisions among the activists, but the [foreign] independence movements continued throughout the colonial period, if along divergent tracks.” The Provisional Government would manage to coordinate some armed resistance through the 1920s and 1930s, eventually organizing the aforementioned Korean Liberation Army in 1940, but their direct efforts, like the Sam-Il demonstrations, did not achieve their primary goal of Korean liberation.

However, the Sam-Il demonstrations did eventually serve to better the lives of Koreans until the wartime mobilization of WWII. They “elicited a sweeping reevaluation of colonial rule on the part of the Japanese government,” Hwang asserts on pages 161 and 164. The policies of immediate assimilation were deemed a failure. Instead, though “Japanese leaders were not ready to grant independence . . . they realized that harsh enforcement was counterproductive . . .” and

24 This is in section “The People Speak—The Tyrants Answer” of Part 3.

Page 11 began to institute programs with “an outwardly more benign governing approach that encouraged Koreans to pursue social, economic, and cultural activities more freely. This so-called Cultural Rule, then, constituted a strategy of co-opting Koreans into the colonial system by allowing them a greater stake in its development.” Restrictions on publications (like newspapers) or expression of discontent were loosened, as were restrictions on commerce and production (allowing many to rise socioeconomically); increased urbanization allowed for unprecedented social mobility, and programs in the colonial government were undertaken especially to promote compliant Koreans into positions of high rank and prestige. One might say that the occupiers found a loose grip kept a better hold, for the Koreans resisted less against it. This is not to say that nationalistic feeling was eliminated in the 1920s and 1930s, nor that it ceased to be repressed; however, it was repressed much less indiscriminately and much more strategically throughout these decades. Thus, the quality of life of many manifestly improved throughout them.

By WWII, as Hwang observes on page 190, “many Koreans earned their livelihoods or otherwise benefited from the colonial system.” What is more, colonial rule had taken on an aura of permanence, leading to a “resignation” (on page 192) for many Koreans that was “almost unavoidable and equated simply to accommodation with the inexorable changes of modernity.” Japan seemed to be the future. Even Choe Nam-Sun, who had authored “The Proclamation of Korean Independence”, came to argue (along with “thousands of civil servants, businessman, , artists, educators” etc.) that cooperation with the Japanese war effort during WWII might be in the best pragmatic interests of the Korean citizens (if not of the Korean people)25. The Japanese occupiers had all but succeeded in their slow assimilation of Korea; it seemed that the Korean Independence Movements had been all but defeated.

Yet the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, maintaining its association with the Nationalist Government of China, persevered. It is doubtless thanks to this that Korea was eventually liberated, for when China joined the Allies in WWII, it demanded that Korea’s liberation be among the terms of surrender which the Japanese empire be forced to accept. Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, this was finally achieved; the Japanese relinquished all claim to Korea and withdrew their colonial forces within a month. But, as previously established, this was not the long-awaited fulfillment for which the Korean Independence Movements had long worked. Rather, it signaled an evolution in their struggle— one which is ongoing and unresolved to this day.

Taekwon-Do: A Global Independence Movement

One might justifiably claim that the continuing disunity between North and South Korea is the result of the disunity among the various Korean Independence Movements. Had they been

25 Hwang makes the poignant comparison on page 190 that this was “akin to Thomas Jefferson joining the British forces in the War of 1812.”

Page 12 able to join together instead of allowing their political differences to divide them, they might not be divided today. Perhaps they might never have been subjected to foreign rule. Yet disunity and division were the norm of the larger movement; politically, there were royalists, republicans, and communists, as well as isolationists and anti-isolationists, conservatives and liberals, and especially pacifists and militants—with every possible combination of these political distinctions (and more) all striving to free their nation. But seldom together and seldom unified.

It becomes immediately apparent how Taekwon-Do is supposed to be a unifying force, how it is supposed to continue the larger Korean Independence Movement—and even the larger global independence movement26—when one considers that a practitioner swears, above all else, to comport themself with Courtesy, Integrity, and Self-Control in their interpersonal dealings. All creeds and are subject to these principles, meaning that a practitioner’s actions will (of necessity) be tempered away from extremism and towards the good of others. As an art of self-defense, furthermore, it even tempers away from the extreme pacifism which one could justifiably argue served to enable the colonial occupation of Korea; one may defend oneself and others against violence with violence (if necessary). Indeed, it is taught by the Masters of the Yom-Chi Taekwon-Do Association that a practitioner has a moral imperative to defend others against violence—that not using one’s Taekwon-Do in defense of another constitutes a violation of the vow to “never misuse Taekwon-Do”.

Imagine if all were to embrace such a ; exploitation would cease and all would be liberated, for the independence of individuals and nations would be safeguarded by all other individuals and nations. The appeal implicit in the pattern history of Tong-Il would finally be achieved then, not only for Koreans, but for all of humanity—making of us all a resolved and unified “homogenous [human] race” in our dedication to independence.

26 Does not the Student Oath conclude with a vow to be “a champion of freedom and justice” and to “build a more peaceful world”?

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