1.
There's a seventeen-year-old from 2014 who didn't return on Friday.
2.
There are also disasters that are not marked on the calendar.
3.
Looking at disasters through the eyes of victims
4.
Where will we go after the disaster, at the crossroads of counterattack and remembrance?
5.
Memory is a promise we all take responsibility for.
6.
We are all involved in disaster
7.
A song to sing together so that you don't walk alone

Disaster and Memory from a Sociological Perspective
Countless people who were here but never returned
With the heart of tying a yellow ribbon in front of the names taken away by the disaster

When we witness a disaster, we are immediately forced to ask ourselves questions that must be answered first.
“Why did the disaster occur?”, “Why did a similar disaster occur again?” are painful and easy to forget questions.
This book is the answer to that question.


Many disasters that have had a great impact on our world and are called 'catastrophes' are incidents in which 'a large number of people died at the same time on a single day or during a specific period of time.'
In the face of this disaster, which is so terrible in its very nature, we turn our heads in fear and dread.
However, in places that have been ignored, the pain and damage left by the disaster, as well as the causes of the disaster and the structure that causes the disaster to repeat itself, still remain.

In particular, the disasters that have occurred from the 20th century to the present, such as state violence, genocide, industrial accidents, natural disasters, and complex man-made disasters, sound like a distant story to contemporary teenagers.
Because it is far from today's teenage years, both temporally and spatially.
We have the right to be far from disaster.
A safe life, a healthy daily life, a trouble-free life… … .
But no one can confidently say that our world is safe.
Because we have witnessed time and again how our trust has been betrayed in the most inappropriate way when it should have been done.
How far have we truly come since the last disaster? Has it truly come?

In 『Why Do We Forget So Easily and Repeat Similar Things?』 (hereafter referred to as 『Why Do We』), the disasters that have occurred in our society are divided into provisional, premonitory, and outbreak phases, and we discuss what we could have done and what we must do in each phase.
The sociologist's perspective does not remain limited to Korea, but examines disasters around the world to reveal the structure and mechanisms of disasters.
It clearly shows a world that was similarly unethical, inhumane, irrational and unequal.
This allows us to reflect on what we were able to do in each disaster and explore what we need to do going forward.

The author maintains a calm tone and objective perspective throughout, a process that brings to mind someone walking through a long tunnel holding a candle.
A faithful and steadfast night watchman who stops wherever darkness deepens and quietly illuminates the surroundings until its source is revealed.
In the face of repeated disasters, for today's teenagers and a society whose memory is fading, isn't the story we can offer something beyond comforting: a sense of responsibility? Sociologist Noh Myung-woo, who studies alongside citizens, takes the time and heart to uncover the disasters he has uncovered with a poignant attitude.

Innocent, heartbreaking, and enduring stories from past centuries to the present encourage us to be more open to our neighbors, more attentive to the lives of our fellow citizens, and more attentive to the suffering of those we barely know.
From unexpected pandemics, unimaginable wars, ongoing conflicts, the deepening climate crisis, and similarly recurring major disasters, we convey our long-standing well-being to everyone in our society, including teenagers who live with the feeling that a series of disasters is part of their daily lives.

“Not forgetting”
Without turning away from the suffering of others
Reclaiming social responsibility through solidarity of memory

The purpose of expelling 'certain people*' is to protect our homeland, for the future.
They will never give up their inflammatory thoughts if they live anywhere.
So we need to reduce their number as much as possible.
Only orphans who do not remember the torture their parents suffered should be accepted and protected.
Send the other orphans with the deportation procession.
_Paulo Cossi, translated by Lee Hyeon-gyeong, 『Mez Yegern』, Mimesis, 2011, p. 95.

*Refers to Armenians living in Turkey in 1915.
The person who wrote this letter, which asked to accept only orphans who do not remember, was Mehmet Talat Pasha, the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire who carried out the massacre at the time.

10.29 5.18 4.3 1995 2014 2016 2018 1914~1918 1939~1945 1915~1916 1937 1978 1975~1979 1989 1994 1995.7.… …
Itaewon, Gwangju, Jeju, Sampoong Department Store, Sewol Ferry, Guui Station, Taean Thermal Power Plant.
World War I, World War II, Mez Jägern, Nanking, Love Canal, Cambodia, Hillsborough, Rwanda, Bosnia… …

We think of a certain day just by looking at a date, a year, or a noun, and we pause for a moment to catch our breath.
Because I feel like I can't breathe.
I feel suffocated in front of the huge memory.
State violence, genocide, industrial accidents, complex human disasters… … It would be no exaggeration to say that our history since the 20th century has been a history of disasters and human disasters, wars and conflicts, incidents and accidents.
The endless series of disasters left scars that, in many cases, have not yet healed.

It is painful to recall the disaster.
When I think about it, the death is so strange, so unnatural that it feels unreal that a person could die like that.
We almost forget about all this death in our daily lives.
But when the season approaches spring, when I see the yellow carpet in the children's play area, when the video on the subway screen shows what to do in case of a fire, when someone's anniversary comes around, it suddenly comes to mind.
All that death.

The order to protect only children who “do not remember the suffering their parents endured” reveals that what perpetrators fear is precisely memory.
In particular, the memory of future generations is what all perpetrators who seek to maintain the world without repentance fear most.
It is the only way to block the perpetrator's scheme to bury the truth beneath the layers of time that pile up and to let the evidence flow over the indifferent flow of time.
Those who remember the horrors that have befallen our world instill a tinge of fear in their hearts, lest the perpetrators who seek to conceal the truth and maintain the world without repentance run rampant.

When our memories are what bring the truth to mind, the memories of the next generation are more powerful than any other memories.
Just as when Elie Wiesel, the boy who was taken to Auschwitz at the age of fifteen, lost his parents and three sisters, and survived alone, began to speak out, the world heard the memories of the Holocaust anew.

Before some names,
On days when I couldn't say "hello,"
We make our promise today

What stories can our society tell on the 10th anniversary of the Sewol Ferry Disaster? Ten years on, I wonder what kind of stories we've become as citizens who can hear them.
And talking about '10 years ago' with teenagers, that is, teenagers whose age was not that far from their birth, talking about '10 years ago', talking about '100 years ago'.
Chew on its meaning.
How can we say that the world existed ten years ago, and that the world existed a hundred years ago, and that the world was so miserable?

"Why Us" is a book about similar disasters that occurred in different countries, such as the Itaewon disaster, the Hillsborough disaster in the UK, the humidifier disinfectant disaster, the Love Canal disaster in the US, the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store, and the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh.
State violence, including the genocide in Armenia, Nanjing, across Europe, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia, the Jeju April 3 Incident and the military massacre during the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement, and the No Gun Ri massacre.
Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster, and the Guui Station screen door disaster, an industrial disaster, made us think about the inequality of disasters.
It explores the causes of catastrophic disasters that have occurred in our world, including the Sewol ferry disasters that occurred in the Changgyeongho, Namyeongho, and Seohae Ferry, and the structure that leads to such disasters being repeated.

The book analyzes disasters that occur on various foundations, such as the process that begins with hostile remarks toward a group and progresses to mass murder, deregulation and social indifference, irresponsibility, inadequate disaster response and rescue, and the unequal social conditions of individual victims. It also makes clear that in the face of similarly recurring disasters, our 'memory' provides a starting point for solutions.
The power to resist the silent counterattack of time and the perpetrators that drag us into oblivion lies only in 'memory'.


Only those who remember can keep other humans from disappearing.
Memory is how we protect each other and how we move toward a safer world.
Knowing the darkness of our world, and remembering that it is still there.


When you walk through a storm (When you walk alone in a storm)
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm
There's a golden sky (with golden clouds)
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone

You'll never walk alone
_Hammerstein Oscar Ⅱ, 〈You'll never walk alone〉, 1945.

So that it doesn't disappear, so that it doesn't become blurred.
Until the truth is fully revealed and our grief is alleviated, until innocent souls can depart in peace.
It offers a promise of remembrance to stories that are so ancient and sometimes so close that they seem even more distant.

Editor's Note

The reason I, a third-year middle school student in the spring of 2014, was able to safely get through that season was simply because I happened to be absent from a certain place.
On the same day, the following year, we drew all the curtains to darken the classroom and watched a memorial video for people who had clearly been there until the spring of last year.
That day was the birthday of a child in my class, and the child cried, asking what was this on his birthday.
I thought.
'Yeah, what is all this?' I wanted to cry from the moment the video started.
No tears came out.
I thought there was no good reason to cry.
I shouldn't cry.
I couldn't save anyone, I'm sorry.
I'm not going to be saved, I'm angry.
I stared at those two sentences.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I went on a school trip to Jeju Island.
I went by plane.
But for some reason, I don't remember ever getting on a plane.
It was only after seeing the photos my friend showed me later that I realized that I had taken a plane there and that it had rained on the way back, so I had to wear a raincoat.
Before I saw the photo, I remembered that I had gone on a boat.

Some memories are not mine.
But it forms a part of me.
Sometimes I feel like humans have come too far, and even more sometimes I feel like it's a wonder we're even alive.
Life expectancy has increased dramatically, but what does that really mean? Surviving from birth to adulthood was a miracle a thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, a decade ago, and still is today.
I don't believe in miracles.
I believe in myself and in people like me.
Our memories.
It is said that the human ability to think of the past, present, and future separately emerged as the neocortex developed.
Then I believe in the neocortex.

When it is said that what is not my memory makes me, examining the memories of disasters from the past century to the present is like bringing another person into my life.
I hope I can live long enough to be satisfied and have some good memories with them.
Because disasters are repeated through indifference and forgetfulness.
May our memories protect us enough.
Editor's Note

The reason I, a third-year middle school student in the spring of 2014, was able to safely get through that season was simply because I happened to be absent from a certain place.
On the same day, the following year, we drew all the curtains to darken the classroom and watched a memorial video for people who had clearly been there until the spring of last year.
That day was the birthday of a child in my class, and the child cried, asking what was this on his birthday.
I thought.
'Yeah, what is all this?' I wanted to cry from the moment the video started.
No tears came out.
I thought there was no good reason to cry.
I shouldn't cry.
I couldn't save anyone, I'm sorry.
I'm not going to be saved, I'm angry.
I stared at those two sentences.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I went on a school trip to Jeju Island.
I went by plane.
But for some reason, I don't remember ever getting on a plane.
It was only after seeing the photos my friend showed me later that I realized that I had taken a plane there and that it had rained on the way back, so I had to wear a raincoat.
Before I saw the photo, I remembered that I had gone on a boat.

Some memories are not mine.
But it forms a part of me.
Sometimes I feel like humans have come too far, and even more sometimes I feel like it's a wonder we're even alive.
Life expectancy has increased dramatically, but what does that really mean? Surviving from birth to adulthood was a miracle a thousand years ago, a hundred years ago, a decade ago, and still is today.
I don't believe in miracles.
I believe in myself and in people like me.
Our memories.
It is said that the human ability to think of the past, present, and future separately emerged as the neocortex developed.
Then I believe in the neocortex.

When it is said that what is not my memory makes me, examining the memories of disasters from the past century to the present is like bringing another person into my life.
I hope I can live long enough to be satisfied and have some good memories with them.
Because disasters are repeated through indifference and forgetfulness.
May our memories protect us enough.