Anti-communist Ideology Research Articles

Critical Discourse Analysis of G30S Representations in Grade XII Indonesian History Textbooks: A Comparative Study Across Different Curricula (1994-2013)

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of the Gerakan 30 September (G30S) event's portrayal in Indonesian Grade XII history textbooks across various curricula from 1994 to 2013. By analysing four textbooks, the study reveals an evolving narrative of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) from a predominantly negative portrayal in earlier curricula to more nuanced and multiperspective representations in later editions. Early textbooks, aligned with the New Order's anti-communist ideology, depict the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) as a malevolent force, whereas later texts, especially under the 2013 curriculum, offer diverse viewpoints, reflecting a shift toward critical thinking and balanced historical understanding. This shift indicates changing political ideologies and educational approaches in Indonesia, highlighting the role of textbooks in shaping historical perception and national identity. The findings illuminate the transformation in educational narratives, emphasizing how these changes in textbooks are indicative of broader societal and political shifts and their significant impact on shaping collective memory and national consciousness in Indonesia.

제주4·3과 젠더기반폭력

The Jeju 4·3 Incident constitutes state violence targeting civilians, including gender-based violence, mass killings, and war crimes. However, throughout the Cold War era, all acts of violence were justified and concealed under anti-communist ideology. In particular, gender-based violence perpetrated against the socially vulnerable during armed conflicts has remained largely silenced. This paper reframes the essence of the Jeju 4.3 Incident through the prism of gender-based violence. At that time, gender-based violence, primarily perpetrated by military and police forces of the Northwest Youth Corp, included violence and murder against pregnant women and fetuses, sexual torture, killing of escapees and their families, sexual assault and rape, sexual exploitation and murder, mass rape, forced marriage, and forced sexual acts, comprising eight types of mechanisms. These acts were combined with acts of violence constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law, such as civilian killings, mass killings, and torture. Gender-based violence in the Jeju 4·3 Incident clearly indicates that it was a genocide approved by state power, involving indiscriminate killings and human rights abuses against civilians, which is beyond the level of suppressing certain leftist factions. Therefore, further investigation is necessary to redefine the nature of the Jeju 4·3 Incident.

О кантовском понятии человеческого достоинства сегодня

Although Kant was born three hundred years ago, his practical philosophy is still relevant and helpful for understanding difficult and crucial issues of today. One example is the strange transformation the concept of human dignity has undergone in post-Soviet Russia — in everyday language, in ideological doctrines, and in legal documents. While in ordinary life dignity is increasingly reduced to access to material benefits, in its legal sense — above all in the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation — anti-communist ideology has turned it into the “right” to enjoy comfortable living conditions, being almost totally divorced from duties and from morality. Such interpretations of human dignity lead to a dead end, creating problems for its perception and for its relationship to other constitutional provisions — problems that are impossible to resolve in the framework of such an interpretation of right. By turning to Kant, one of the pillars of the modern egalitarian universalist conception of human dignity, we can trace the idea of personal dignity back to its origin as an absolute inner value which, unlike external material benefits, has no equivalent, and involves self-legislation, restriction of freedom, and the fulfilling of moral duty.

Revisiting South Vietnam: On Battlefield Tourism in “The Americans” and “Fatherland”

Although the Vietnam War has officially ended, the battle over memory persists. In The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen offers a transnational perspective on the shaping and contestation of collective memories between the U.S. and Vietnam. Despite being defeated, America employs anticommunist ideology during the Cold War to assimilate the refugee community for its own purposes, creating a salvation myth of “freedom and democracy” and successfully revising history. In contrast, Vietnam is left to commemorate the revolutionary struggle against imperialism through museums, statues, and public cemeteries on its own territory, with South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians systematically erased from history. This homogenized social memory is affiliated with the tourism industry in the global operation of capitalism, further relegating Vietnam to the exotic, Orientalist “Other” struggling on the battlefield of memory.

A Theological Critique of the National Security Act from the Perspective of Universal Human Rights

Freedom of thought and conscience are fundamental human rights and are guaranteed in a democratic society. The Constitution of the Republic of Korea states that “the state has the duty to affirm and guarantee the inviolable and fundamental human rights of individuals”(Article 10). However, in South Korean society, this common sense goes out the window the moment someone is labeled a “bbalgaengyi” (reds) or a “jongbukjueuija” (followers of North Korea). This is because the National Security Act legally supports a divided country with anti-communism at the forefront. When it was first enacted in 1948, it was seen as a temporary device to maintain authoritarianism under the divided system, but the reality was different. Even as political democratization has progressed and inter-Korean relations have improved, it has remained powerful as a device for restricting popular movements and unification movements and controlling ideas. It has not only restricted social movements but also controlled academic and artistic activities and regulated people’s inner worlds. The National Security Act has been controversial since the 1987 democratization, but it is still alive and well in 2023. For a long time, research on the National Security Act was a taboo subject that was not easily accessible because it could be considered a violation of the law. Adding to the difficulty of research was the lack of access to documentation of cases where the law was applied. With the democratization of 1987 and the development of the Northern Policy and inter-Korean relations in the early 1990s, the environment was ripe for rethinking the meaning of the National Security Act. Pioneering studies before and after 1990 and the Constitutional Court’s unconstitutionality review process, which began in 1990, led to a serious examination of its legal issues. Theological commentary on the National Security Act is scarce. Not only from the point of view of the church, which was responsible for integrating the public into the anti-communist ideology during the formation and development of the pro- American anti-communist state, but also from the point of view of Minjung theology. For theologians, too, it was not a simple matter to overcome the taboo of anti-communism. They were always conscious of the limits of that taboo, and when they crossed them, they were bound to face the swift blade of state power. In the absence of a theological response to the National Security Act, this article begins that discussion. Approaching it from a theological position is based on an awareness of universal human rights that can no longer be avoided as a theological task today. After articulating that position, this article briefly reaffirms the problems with the National Security Act and addresses the issues of the rule of law and human dignity.

전후 문인 증언 수기집의 기억 재현 양상 연구

This study aims to analyze the representation of war in the memoirs of postwar writers, 90 days of hardship. Memoirs of the war contain a self-proof of the purpose of surviving in South Korea. The state deployed literary men in cultural projects to spread anti-communist ideology. The book produced as part of this program is 90 days of hardship. The national anthem emphasized the North Korean military’s reality, South Korea’s position in the international situation of June 25, and the victims’ consciousness. Memoirs played the role of spreading the memory of the nation at that time.
 Yu Jin-oh and Mo Yun-suk, Korea University professor Lee Kun-ho, and former Hansung Ilbo political and police chief Koo Cheol-hoe wrote this book. They recalled their experiences during the occupation of Seoul by North Korea. The narrative structure of Yu Jin-oh and Mo Yun-suk’s writings highlights the central character and ventures through hardships and overcoming. While Yu Jin-oh described fragmented psychological experiences in which the rational self collapsed, Mo Yun-suk emphasized the tragic story of the victim. Their writings explored the true story and revealed the historical reality. On the other hand, the writings of Lee Kun-ho and Gu Cheol-hoe eliminated the subject of memory, eloquently expressed anti-communism, and maximized the horrors of war.
 90 days of hardship echoed the national identity and spread the anti-communist ideology. It specified the victims of the war and embodied the confrontation between the South and the North. ‘Remembering’ is the task of establishing meaning to individual and collective identities. This was an important purpose for investigating the war after the restoration of Seoul in 1950.

풍문으로 들었소, 『이북통신』을 경유한 북조선

The purpose of this study is to examine how knowledge of the North was produced and distributed after the separated occupation of the peninsula with the 38 Parallel as the border, which prevented free traveling between the North and the South, focusing on the case of the magazine EeBookTongShin which was published by Sampalsa, a publishing house, starting from June 1946. North Korea Studies for the cold war geography begun in the 1960s, but objective and academic discussion of North Korea stalled, turning it into a mysterious being while the Cold War intensified. Primarily there was a movement among North Korean defectors in the South to produce and distribute news on North Korea or at least acquire such news for personal consumption.BRBuk Lee(real name Gyeongdeuk Lee) was a North Korean defector with a history of collaborating with the Japanese Imperialists. He obtained support from other North Korean defector groups such as ‘North-Western association(SeoBookHyupHoe)’, which was presided by Eungmo Bang as the Chairperson and utilized their human network to publish EeBookTongShin, which was a product of anti-communist ideology and aspiration for publishing power. The magazine declared its purpose to reveal the truth about North Korea, but most of its articles were from anonymous sources, using rhetorics of ‘secrets’ and ‘revelation’. They never refrained from producing fake news on North Korea, such as the conspiracy of Jiyong Jeong’s defection to North Korea or the fabricated theory of fake Il-sung Kim. These baseless messages made it impossible to verify the stories and transformed the North into something ‘incomprehensible,’ as a part of their narrative strategy to secure authority as the messenger on North Korea. Their reproduction of the North was structured to contribute to the spread of anti-communism ideology and internalization thereof, which evidences the involvement of the media and political powers. As such, it is necessary to examine the context of the discourse on the North being formed aer the Liberation for a close examination of the popular image of the North and the process in which the cultural cold war, including anti-communism, came to be.

피해자 중심적 이행기 정의와 전환적 사법의 실현

With the revision of the "Basic Act on the Settlement of Past History for Truth and Reconciliation" in 2020, the legal basis for the activities of the 2nd Truth and Reconciliation Committee was established. And based on this, the committee began investigating 328 cases, including the Brotherhood Welfare Support Case, on May 27, 2021, and began activities to investigate the past truth. Apart from the historical causality after liberation, it cannot be denied that Korea has also undergone a transitional history of state violence and infringement of basic rights due to military dictatorship and anti-communist ideology. In addition, in this regard, There have already been tried to shed light on our history, such as the May 18 Democratic Movement, forced mobilization of Japanese colonial era, and the liquidation of Korea-Japan history in Japanese colonial era, from the perspective of the transitional justice. Even before the introduction of the international standard of liquidation of the implementation period in Korea, such historical events had been mentioned under the name of past liquidation or fact-finding for the purpose of truth finding, restoring honor, or compensation. The definition of transitional justice is not completely unified and although the concept is not consistent, it can be understood as the process of securing responsibility by the state or society in the process of transition to a free democratic society after massive human rights violations by state power or state violence. In other words, it would be appropriate to understand the transitional justice as a means of realizing the transition in the process of pursuing the social ideal of freedom and democracy, not as a society that realizes complete purpose like the term 'transitional'. In other words, past liquidation through compensation and honor recovery is not the direction in which society should ultimately proceed, but is itself a transitional definition. The international community also sees the direction that society should pursue after liquidation in the past as a transformative justice, which means realizing or pursuing justice through systematic transformation not only in law but also in all fields of society. Regarding the activities of the 2nd Truth Reconciliation Committee and the direction of the committee, there would be first looked at the concept and background of the transitional justice in the international community, and then examine the relationship between transitional justice and transformative justice to realize social transformation after past liquidation.

A Study on the Process of Seizing Power by Syngman Rhee : By Focusing on the Roles of Public Mobilization and Anti Communist Ideology

A Study on the Process of Seizing Power by Syngman Rhee : By Focusing on the Roles of Public Mobilization and Anti Communist Ideology

Prison Narratives: The Year in South Korea

Prison NarrativesThe Year in South Korea Heui-Yung Park (bio) One of the most significant roles that life narratives have played in South Korea has been giving voice to those who have suffered social injustice and want to be heard. Lifewriting texts often serve as trial sites outside the legal systems, where writers can tell their stories to the reader without judicial authority being present. In their prison narratives, Im Pang-gyu1 and Ch'oe Sŏ-wŏn2 both turn to autobiographical representation beyond the jurisdiction of the court to present their cases in public and to disclose the injustice that they believe they have suffered. This year's essay examines how Im's Pijŏnhyang changgisu Im Pang-gyu chasŏjŏn (2019) and Ch'oe's Na nŭn nugu in'ga: Ch'oe Sŏ-wŏn okchung hoeogi (2020) defend their writers, and try to convince others of their innocence. Im was a pro-North prisoner for more than thirty years who rejected conversion to democracy following his imprisonment during the Korean War (1950–1953). His autobiography describes how he became a ppalch'isan—a communist guerrilla—who fought against the Korean military and its allies during the war. Ch'oe, on the other hand, was accused of manipulating state affairs during the presidency of Park Geun-hye, the eighteenth president of South Korea. Telling her own story in the form of a memoir, she denies all such accusations. Im's and Ch'oe's prison narratives—in which each makes a case for themselves—show how recently published South Korean life writing has spoken for those who feel they have been mistreated, offering "a forum of judgment in which the subject may achieve a control over [their] story that [they] would not hold in court" (Gilmore 696). Outside the judicial system, Im's and Ch'oe's autobiographical representations enable them to speak for themselves, presenting their own stories that differ from what others assume they know. In so doing, their life narratives turn into alternative venues for telling the truth about themselves and seeking out justice. Examining these narratives, however, should also remind us of Paul John Eakin's proposal "to think of ethics as the deep subject of autobiographical discourse" ("Introduction" 6). Im's Pijŏnhyang changgisu works to correct the [End Page 91] stereotypical, negative views of unconverted communist prisoners—most of whom have suffered long-term imprisonment and state violence—and addresses the ethics of these laws. But Ch'oe's also raises questions about the amount of truth in the information provided to the public, and can therefore lead us to think about the ethical responsibilities of the autobiographer, and especially when demanding justice. Looking into these prison narratives sheds light on the empowering roles that life writing can offer these prisoners, and more generally, on the ethics of writing one's own life story. Unconverted Long-term Prisoners: National Heroes or Enemies? Pijŏnhyang changgisu (unconverted long-term prisoners in Korea) refers to those who have been imprisoned for an extensive period (the majority for more than thirty years) for maintaining their socialist ideology, or for participating in communist activities in South Korea since the 1945 liberation of the country. Im Pang-gyu was a communist imprisoned for twenty years (1952–1972) for his participation in a communist guerrilla unit. Five years after his release, he was reimprisoned without trial because he had refused to convert to democracy. While serving an additional twelve years (1977–1989), Im and other unconverted inmates were exposed to so-called conversion "maneuvering" imposed by the state in the form of physical abuse. Published years after Im's 1989 release, Pijŏnhyang changgisu Im Pang-gyu chasŏjŏn reveals the unfair treatment long-term prisoners like Im experienced, and also tries to change defamatory preconceptions about them by presenting their life stories. In South Korea, ppalch'isan and those with communist ideologies have aroused fear and hatred among people influenced by Cold War, anti-communist ideology. The still-famous story of nine-year-old Yi Sŭng-bok—reportedly killed in 1968 by armed North spies because he shouted "I...

Evropska politika i istorijski revizionizam

The radical change of politics and ideology in the post-Communist states in the Yugoslav area caused a revaluation of national histories. The production of desirable history has the political support of the current authorities in the states that emerged from the break-up of Yugoslavia. The features of revaluing the past and writing desirable history are: anti-communism, anti-Yugoslavism and radical nationalism. At the same time, the engaged attitude towards anti-fascism as a national phenomenon is evident. Partisan anti-fascism is diminished or denied, the partisan movement and Communist ideology are criminalized by insisting on real and imagined crimes, retaliation and repression against ideological opponents. Communism is completely declared a totalitarianism and a nationally harmful ideology. On the other hand, the ideology and practice of the subjects of collaboration are being relativized and efforts are being made to relativize responsibility, to present collaboration as a national need. Through a series of resolutions and recommendations from 1996 to 2019, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe obliged the former socialist states to reconsider their past, to "dismantle" communism and remove the consequences of Communist rule, to rehabilitate victims of punishment for ideological conflicts. Everything is at the level of theory and anti-communist ideology. Procedures are not standardized, as the re-examination of the Communist-socialist past should be performed by the proposed subjects who can competently revise history and eliminate the consequences of totalitarian rule. History is being re-examined by whoever wants it, and rehabilitation without guilt is being done by local courts. There are no clear statements that revisionist practice is conditioned by European resolutions and declarations, but the character and content of revisionist journalism is in line with the adopted requirements.

O jornal A cruzada em Sergipe e a Igreja Católica: a questão social no período republicano

Este artigo investiga o jornal A Cruzada, importante periódico sergipano que existiu de 1918- 1970, e a Igreja Católica no período republicano, como uma forma de compreender a relação entre este periódico e o ideal cristão. Nesse sentido, busca fornecer um panorama geral da forma como se encontra a Igreja no século XX no Brasil e informações acerca deste semanário católico. É importante salientar que o presente trabalho é um recorte da pesquisa de mestrado em desenvolvimento intitulada como Igreja, Poder e Imprensa: O ideário anticomunista no semanário sergipano A Cruzada (1937-1970). Assim, a análise da Igreja Católica nacional e local no período republicano mostrou esta instituição muito próxima das questões políticas e sociais de seu tempo, e justamente por isso é importante compreender o cenário mais amplo que estão envolvidos os responsáveis pelo referido periódico católico.

The Tragedy That Dare Not Speak Its Name: a Reading of Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad

Arthur Kopit’s Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad (1962) has received so far limited scholarly attention, and the studies on the play have mostly focused on the text’s psychoanalytic overtones. The play features the relationship between its bizarre protagonist, Mme. Rosepettle, and her son Jonathan, who is completely subjected to her despotic and repressive will. The Oedipal complex foreshadowed in the play, however, does not exhaust the complex matter of the text, whose references to Cuba and South American countries strongly ask for a political reading. This article paper, consequently, reads the play as instancing the impossibility of an American national tragedy in the Cold War era. The play, in fact, assaults the US chauvinist and anti-communist ideology of the 1950s, and displays its consequences upon individuals and society. The post-war paranoia is acted out in the hidden corpse of Mr. Rosepettle, which Mme. Rosepettle preserves in her closet. The corpse, as a fetishistic object (for Mme. Rosepettle) and a source of fear and anxiety (for Jonathan), signals the impossibility, for the US of the time, to identify with tangible models and positive values (despite the materialistic ethos of the culture of the 1950s, as witness Mme. Rosepettle’s obsessive need for fun and self-gratification). On the contrary, only death and loss, as overhanging threats and macabre horizon of collective expectation, paradoxically provide the nation with a unifying sense of identification. The Cold War, as a conflict that was never directly waged or fought, but nevertheless informed American identity, politics and culture, thus functions as the ‘void center’ of the play. By instancing the lack (or the loss) as a site of affirmative identification, this fantasmatic war is what turns the play into an impossible tragedy.

한국전쟁 뒤 반공이데올로기 지형과 지식인의 자리 — 1950년대 『사상계』의 사상 —

한국전쟁 뒤 반공이데올로기 지형과 지식인의 자리 — 1950년대 『사상계』의 사상 —

‘Collective memories’ of global media events: Anniversary journalism of the Berlin Wall and Tiananmen crackdown in the Anglo-American elite press, 1990–2014

This study applies a most similar systems design to examine ‘anniversary journalism’ of two epic global events in the year 1989 – the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen crackdown – as reported by the elite press in the United States and Britain from 1990 to 2014, through the combined methods of computerized network-based text analysis and critical historical discourse analysis. Findings suggest that the elite press in both countries continued to view these two events through the lenses of the lingering anti-Communist ideology in the post–Cold War era and shared an increasingly converged cosmopolitan vocabulary primarily in terms of the universal rights of global citizens. Most commemorative anniversary coverage drew on the memory of correspondents who had covered the events. We argue that both US and British representations have become central political-cultural icons facilitating the emergence of a memory transcending national boundaries. Meanwhile, results indicate that elite press discourses in the United States and United Kingdom still varied significantly with their respective national concerns and global position.

South Korea's New Nationalism: The End of ''One Korea''? by Emma Campbell

Reviewed by: South Korea's New Nationalism: The End of ''One Korea''? by Emma Campbell Jaehoon Bae (bio) South Korea's New Nationalism: The End of ''One Korea''? by Emma Campbell. Boulder First Forum Press, 2016. 228 pages. $67.00 cloth. Emma Campbell's South Korea's New Nationalism: The End of ''One Korea''? is a case study that shows how contemporary young South Koreans conceive of their nation in a way that excludes North Koreans, people who share the same ethnicity. This is a quite unprecedented form of nationalism in South Korea, where minjok, a form of ethnic nationalism that is grounded in ''blood'' and history, has been sanctified above all other forms of nationalism and has provided the absolute rationale for reunification, regardless of the decades-long political division. Campbell contends that this new nationalism is emerging among South Koreans in their twenties and takes the form of a '''globalized cultural nationalism' which is based upon shared cultural values such as modernity, cosmopolitanism, and status influenced by globalization and neo-liberal values.'' Since young people are preoccupied with national reputation and status in the milieu of globalized competition, they are likely to highlight the difference between North Koreans and South Koreans in terms of modernity and the embodiment of cosmopolitan attributes. Predicated upon this expression of different national identities, Campbell emphasizes that the ambivalence toward, and antagonism against, the idea of unification held among young South Koreans has reached unprecedented levels precisely because they are afraid that unification will increase risk and uncertainty in the ''South Korean nation,'' damaging their prospects for the future. Campbell conducted interviews in 2009 and 2014 with 159 university students and 23 experts, including schoolteachers, journalists, NGO activists, public policy specialists, and an advertising executive. Throughout the collection of qualitative data, she has sought to reveal the ''bottom-up,'' collective voices of young people who expressed thoughts on unification and the national identity in relation to North Korea. She applies an instrumentalist approach that represents nationalism and a national [End Page 285] identity as not based upon history or social interaction but ''a conscious choice to protect their common interests and goals.'' The first two chapters start with a broad review of the history of Korean nationalism, mainly focusing on the aspect of ethnic nationalism. In particular, chapter 2, ''South Korea's Nationalist Student Movement,'' clearly demonstrates how the student movements of twentieth-century Korea, representing themselves as the ''conscience of the nation,'' were successful in mobilizing a wide range of people to advance their nationalist goals, such as independence from colonial Japanese rule and the fulfillment of democracy. Meanwhile, the post-1948 student movements rigorously attempted to proclaim the idea that North Koreans are members of the same nation in the face of an expansive education of anti-communist ideology. However, the next three chapters demonstrate how the current youth in South Korea have radically changed their attitudes regarding unification and national identity. These young people, who were born in post-1987 democratic South Korea, easily identify South Korea as their nation and they regard unification as a process that threatens the South Korean welfare system and national interests. Reflecting on the dominant image of North Korea as a poor country left behind in globalized competition, chapter 3, ''Changing Attitudes to Unification,'' shows how young people conceive of North Koreans as a different people in terms of stylistics of language, lifestyles, and customs. Not surprisingly, there is a growing number of young South Koreans who explicitly refuse the idea of a unification that might undermine the status quo. Chapter 4, ''New Nationalist Attitudes in Action'' demonstrates how these South Korean youths have developed a ''globalized cultural nationalism,'' which leads them to adopt a condescending attitude toward North Koreans and Chinese Koreans. Taking strong national pride in the economic achievements of the chaebŏl, the massive and globally successful South Korean conglomerates, these young people find more similarities in the cultural capital and ''savoir faire'' of non-ethnic expatriates coming from the United States and European countries than with North Korean immigrants. Chapter 5, ''Globalization and Nation Building,'' analyzes three components of structural forces, such as democracy, banal nationalism, and globalization, which influence...

Quest for the Holy Grail: Central American War, Catholic Internationalism, and United States Public Diplomacy in Reagan’s America

Among the polarizing ideological concerns of the 1980s was President Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy in Central America. The Reagan Administration prioritized its anticommunist agenda over other concerns by supporting military generals and their governments and by condemning left-leaning groups in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The development and consequences of Reagan’s foreign policy in Central America, as well as the White House efforts to sell its Central American policy to the American people, have been well researched by historians and social scientists. Reagan’s hardline against communism in Central America excited his political base in advance of his 1984 reelection bid and shore up a coalition of Reagan voters, including Protestants in the so-called “religious right” and working class Catholics who had recently abandoned the Democratic Party. However, less is known about the ways in which the Reagan White House contended with Catholics in the United States and in Central America who were actively concerned about the potentially dangerous implications of Reagan’s policies for the Catholic Church and the poor in Central America. Transnational Catholic institutions and networks, including missionary associations, bishops’ conferences, colleges and universities, peace and justice organizations, and the Catholic press, challenged Reagan’s policies on the ground in Central America and in Washington, D.C. By the end of Reagan’s first term, this “Catholic internationalism” became an obstacle to Reagan’s Central American “public diplomacy.” The White House Office of Public Liaison (OPL) targeted American Catholics whose loyalty to Reagan may have been tested by reports from Central America that U.S. allies in the region were targeting the poor as well as Catholic priests and sisters. OPL officials, specifically Faith Ryan Whittlesey (director, 1983–1985) successfully situated the Central America policies within a popular anticommunist discourse, allowing Reagan’s political advisers to sidestep the transnational criticisms from Catholic missionary associations, including Maryknoll, and their allies in the Central America solidarity movement, including the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and the United States Catholic Conference (USCC). Although Reagan never won support for his Central America policy in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, his agenda in Central America generated popular enthusiasm for anticommunist ideology and methods even as it spurred on transnational Catholic activism, marking one of the defining moments of the 1980s “war of ideas.”

Exploring the Function of the Anti-communist Ideology and Identity in the Vietnamese American Diasporic Community

Anti-communist ideology in the Vietnamese American community is increasingly perceived as a destabilizing force. This article argues that when the anti-communist ideology is analyzed across time, persistence and change are part and parcel of the anti-communist identity. So that the anti-communist identity can be organized for other purposes or reproduced to reflect the concerns and needs of the growing and diverse members of the community. Moreover, it is argued that the concept of social capital may prove to be more analytical in delineating the effects of the anti-communist ideology.

Exile on the Commercial Strip: Vietnam War Memorials in Little Saigon and the Politics of Commemoration

Exile on the Commercial StripVietnam War Memorials in Little Saigon and the Politics of Commemoration Erica S. Allen-Kim (bio) In 1999 Consul General Phong Xuan Nguyen denounced the creation of a Vietnam War memorial in Orange County, California. Although dozens of memorials have been constructed since the dedication of the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982, the memorial in Westminster caused particular offense to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam because of its depiction of a South Vietnamese soldier. In a letter to Mayor Frank Fry, Nguyen argued that the project would “dredge up a bitter past … that both sides have decided to leave behind.”1 In a bid to take control from the Vietnamese refugees funding the project, he suggested replacing the proposed South Vietnamese soldier with a North Vietnamese, thereby transforming the project into a monument to reconciliation between the two nations. In an interview published in the Orange County Register, Nguyen argued, “We should have a statue that represents our relationship today.”2 At stake was not only the communist country’s recently acquired standing with the United States but also its tenuous relationship with Vietnamese refugees. The completion of a memorial by the largest Vietnamese community in the United States challenged the existing discourse on Vietnam War commemoration.3 As the first officially designated Little Saigon, a term that broadly refers to an overseas Vietnamese community but in this case specifies a tourist and redevelopment zone, Westminster’s Little Saigon is considered the capital of the South Vietnamese diaspora. Prominent members of the Little Saigon business and political community initially envisioned a memorial that contrasted sharply with American and Vietnamese narratives of the war that marginalized the contributions of South Vietnamese veterans (Figure 1).4 Dedicated in 2003, it is the product of nearly thirty years of predominantly suburban community formation by Vietnamese in the United States. Two years later, a second memorial funded by Vietnamese Americans was installed in a shopping center’s parking lot in southwestern Houston (Figure 2).5 Both of these projects appropriate suburban space to make claims about the war’s legacy for Vietnamese refugees within a transnational context. They do so by countering the absence of South Vietnamese veterans in American Vietnam veterans’ memorials and the bulldozing of South Vietnamese military monuments and cemeteries following the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. In response to the official histories produced by the United States and Vietnam, Vietnamese refugees imagine their collective identity as political exiles through explicit references to other Vietnam War monuments in the United States.6 The two memorials critique the invisibility of South Vietnamese veterans and their implied inferiority to the American military. They also participate in the resurgence of overtly didactic monument designs since architect Maya Lin’s design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., was selected in 1981.7 Architectural historian Dell Upton notes that Lin’s black granite wall inscribed with the names of American casualties has spurred the recent period of “energetic commemoration,” in which monument builders negotiate between [End Page 31] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Westminster Vietnam War Memorial, Sid Goldstein Freedom Park, Westminster, California, dedicated 2003. Photograph by Erica S. Allen-Kim. Courtesy of Tuan Nguyen. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Houston Vietnam War Memorial, Universal Shopping Center, 11360 Bellaire Boulevard, Houston, Texas, dedicated 2005. Photograph by Erica S. Allen-Kim. Reproduced with permission from Thong Pham. [End Page 32] symbolic and literal truths by presenting what they claim are authoritative interpretations.8 In the case of the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial, additions of an American flag and two figurative sculptural groups, Frederick Hart’s Three Soldiers (1982-84) and Glenna Goodacre’s Vietnam Women’s Memorial (1984-93), illustrate this impulse toward didacticism. The memorials in Westminster, California, and Houston, Texas, also participate in this didactic commemorative impulse. More specifically, they express the anticommunist ideology that has dominated the Vietnamese refugee community and shaped its cultural landscapes.9 Their respective siting—in a civic center and in a shopping center parking lot—indicates the extent to which refugees have established a presence in suburbs, where the majority...

The South Korean Catholic Church’s Attitude towards North Korea: from Antagonism to Development of Dialogue and Cooperation

Since the liberation of the Korean peninsula in 1945, the South Korean Catholic Church’s relationship with North Korea has been characterized by several types of attitudes, ranging from the Church’s historically strong antagonistic position toward communism to the more recent development of dialogue and cooperation with North Korea. The purpose of this article is to present and analyze chronologically several key periods that reveal the different kinds of relationships the South Korean Catholic Church has sought to build with North Korea. This paper will focus on three periods: the period of the foundation of the two Korean states when the Korean Catholic Church’s relationship with the emerging North Korean state was strongly antagonistic; the period of South Korean military dictatorship when the South Korean Catholic Church’s anti-communist ideology began partly to erode; and the period after the democratization of the South Korean state when some South Korean governments entered into a period of dialogue and cooperation with North Korea, a movement in which the South Korean Catholic Church participated.