Korean people suffering from exposure to atomic bomb ~ Book review of ‘Surviving the discrimination against the atomic bomb victims’

This book titled,“Surviving the discrimination against the atomic bomb victims,”is a collection of writings by late KIM Hyong-Ryul, who was a son of Hibakusha and founded the organization for second generation Korean atomic bomb victims. In August 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, and about 700,000 people were exposed to radiation (240,000 of whom died in the explosion). Among them were 70,000 Koreans (40,000 of whom died in the explosion), and about 2,300 second-generation Koreans are said to suffer from post-traumatic symptoms in South Korea. The Hibakusha have experienced various kinds of discrimination. Particularly in South Korea, they say that the discrimination is fomented by the prejudice against those who went over to Japan, history education that Korea was liberated from the Japanese imperialism by America’s atomic bombing, and the militaristic notion in the context of the north-south confrontation in the Korean Peninsula. But such prejudice should not be someone else's problem, while we were exposed to radiation again in the Fukushima nuclear disaster and are now faced with a potential military superpower under the Abe administration. (By SATO Kazuyuki)

原爆被ばくに苦しむ韓国の人々～書評『被ばく者差別 をこえて生きる』

 
本 書『被ばく者差別をこえて生きる』は原爆被害者2世であり、「韓国原爆2世患友会を創設した、今は亡き金亨律（キム・ヒョンニュル）の遺稿を中心にまと め た追悼集である。1945年8月、 広島・長崎で被ばくした原爆被害者約70万人（爆死24万人）のうち、韓国人は約7万 人（爆死4万人）に達し、さらに、 原爆後遺症に苦しむ２世は、韓国国内だけで約2300人と言われている。 被ばく者は様々な差別を受けているが、特に韓国では日本へ渡った者に対する偏見、 米国による原爆投下で日帝支配から解放されたという歴史教育、朝鮮半島における南北対立を背景とした軍事中心の考え方が、差別を助長するという。だが、福 島原発事故で再び被ばくし、安倍政権下で軍事大国化する日本に生きる私たちにとっても、これらは他人事でない筈だ。（佐藤和之）