The Tonghak Rebellion: Harbinger of Korean Nationalism

The Tonghak Rebellion: Harbinger of Korean Nationalism By Key Ray Chong The Tonghak Rebellion (1893—1894) has attracted much attention during the last few decades, and some sholars of the East as well as the West have made serious studies of the subject. 1TInS movement, to be sure, is essential to an understanding of Korea in the present century because of its enormous after effect-a full-scale nationalist movement. Before embarking on our task, we may do well to bear in mind the following positions: (1) this movement has often been interpreted as agrarian, national, religious, economic, social or political; (2) some scholars, of course, accept the above identifications only with caution and often question them seriously; (3) some simply look upon the movement as a sporadic, ignorant but large-scale peasant uprising which was not uncommon in Korea's history .2 My study is to view it as s kind of incipient nationalist movement created by both external and internal forces, a movement which made a definite contribution to national survival in warding off foreign influences both physical and ideological. The Background of the Tonghak Rebellion According to the classical economists, Asia (which referred to China and India and, in my opinion, Korea too) could be characterized as a peculiar agrarian society or "Asiatic" or "Oriental" society dominated by a very strong state which some have called an Oriental Despotism.administered with the help of a group of Confucian scholar-bureaucrats who favored the doctrine of status quo in the management of state and society3. According to them (including Karl Marx), social order was static in Asiatic countries because the people largely depended upon the system of self-sufficient agrarian economy. One of the characteristics of this society was atomization of the peoples, villages, and countries resulting from a lack of communication and transportation among themselves. The only way such a social order could be changed was by the impact of outside forces if inner forces 74\Chong were unable to dissolve it.* The Tonghak Rebellion occurred in such a civilization and resulted in "some" change in this order. Therefore, we here place Korea in the general context of what the classical economists call "Asiatic" social order, even though they make no mention of Korea in their theses on Asia. Political corruption or stagnation seems to be one of the fundamental causes of the rebellion. In Korea, a Confucian order backed by a hereditary group of Confucian scholars known as the yangban ("Two Groups") was to blame. The Yi dynasty (1392-1910) witnessed the maturing of Confucianism even though Confucianism had been transmitted from China as early as the Three Kingdoms period in China (A.D. 221-265). The new ruling Yi regime stressed the importance of Confucianism in particular in order to consolidate their position. Due largely to official blessing, new state doctrine Confucianism came to play an increasingly important role in moulding the whole of Korean society and government. The Confucianism which Korea adopted was known as the orthodoxy of Confucianism developed by Chu Hsi (1130-1200) who placed stress upon metaphysical, intuitional and ab stract aspects of Confucianism, analogous to Plato's teaching.5 The faithfu adherents to this doctrine permitted no deviation whatever. Such rigid inter pretation created stagnation and blandness in academies and government. Emphasis on the metaphysical often produced destructive ideological dia logues which later turned into a series of fierce power struggles among court officals and between those who were in power and those who were out. These rivalries stemmed in large part from the fact that the aristocratic families in Korea almost monoplized the educational system and the resulting access to privileges and official positions. Intrigue and assassination were not uncommon, and the bitter struggles among the Yangban scholars and officals corrupted the time-honored Confucian system. Characteristically, they narrowed their concern to the interest of their own family and faction at most, neglecting the welfare of the people. The chief drawback of this Neo-Confucianism Korea adopted was that it' linked the social and political order to the moral order of the universe, and therefore was a closed intellectual system. In this system, social reality and Tonghak Rebellion\75...