Hyphenating Japan

This article is interesting. She seems to have a pluralistic overgeneralization about the experiences of Zainichi Korean youth in Japan, but covers a lot of issues related to the community. It's interesting to see how Japanese youth or minority youth in Japan are being influenced by what they believe to be a multicultural utopian society in the U.S. - an idea I disagree with. That's why Eclipse Rising's work to connect minority youth from Japan to youth of color in the U.S. is so important! The issue is not with being able to hyphenate your identity, but ending discriminatory practices that effect the daily lives of so-called non-Japanese living in Japan, connecting modern prejudices (personal, institutional, policy) as the extension of oppressive practices from the colonial days, and creating a cross-cultural solidarity movement among all oppressed groups in Japan to fight for their space in Japanese society. What do you think?

Hyphenating Japan by Debbie Hodgson

Lee Yun Chul is not your typical 21-year-old Japanese youth. His Korean family took Japanese citizenship before he was born. But after spending his high-school years in multiethnic London, Lee grew to resent the fact that his parents hid their Korean roots. He broke away from his family's koseki —something almost sacrilegious in Japan—and went through a painful process in court to change his name to a Korean one. With the stage name Liyoon, he joined his friend Kwak Jeong Hoon (known as Jewong) to form the rap duo KP, and hopes to become a model for the next generation. "My dream is that by my kids' generation, Japan will be a society where you can be called Kim or Lee and still be OK," he says.

In short, Lee is Korean and proud of it. But it's not that simple. He is also Japanese and proud of it. His family represents only a fraction of the more than 9,000 Korean residents who are becoming Japanese citizens every year. And that trend could spell the end for the zainichi—Koreans and their descendants who came to Japan before the end of World War II and live here as permanent residents. Given that there are fewer than 600,000 zainichi, they could be absorbed in the next fifty years if current rates of population decline, naturalization and inter-ethnic marriage continue.

But with extinction as a distinct group looming, young zainichi and Japanese of Korean ancestryare awakening to their ethnic identity, and letting the world know about it. Kang Sachiko, activist and official at South-Korea affiliated Mindan, says rapper Lee is one of a breed she calls the "new zainichi"—those who are trying to escape the stereotypes and inferiority complexes that plagued the old generation. Affluent and relatively untouched by discrimination, the new zainichi are being met halfway by young Japanese who are eager to embrace difference. Despite naturalizing and marrying Japanese, the new zainichi are giving themselves Korean names, studying the Korean language and trying to revive a fading zainichiculture. "We are proud of our roots, but don't care about nationality and bloodline the way our parents do," Kang says. "With that flexibility we are going to change Japan's obsession with being a homogenous nation-state."

With relations between Japan and North Korea at their worst in living memory, it comes as a shock that young Korean residents can be so optimistic. Ever since Kim Jong Il admitted last September that Pyongyang had abducted at least thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s, zainichi have been on the defensive. Since then, the government has focused on North Korean residents of Japan as never before. The Man Gyong Bong, which ferries Koreans to visit their relatives in the North, has suddenly been subjected to stricter customs and safety checks. Tokyo's right-wing governor Shintaro Ishihara drew the ire of Koreans in Japan and abroad with his recent suggestion that Koreans asked Japan to occupy their country in 1910. The government has revoked a long-standing tax exclusion policy applying to Chongryon, the zainichi group associated with North Korea, and has conspicuously left Chongryon schools out of a law change allowing graduates of foreign schools to take the public university entrance examinations.

But despite current tension, Japan's treatment of its largest ethnic minority is far better than it's ever been before. The Japan that used Koreans as slave labor for the good of the empire is long gone. Tokyo today sees both Koreas as regional powers that cannot be ignored. To many younger Japanese, South Korea is cool—the host of the 1988 Olympics, the co-host with Japan of a successful World Cup, a fount of TV and pop stars who've found success singing and acting in Japanese. Korean food is hugely popular, as attested by the hundreds of trendy Korean izakaya, and the success of Jong Kwon Fa, a second-generation Korean cooking personality in the mold of Kurihara Harumi. And particularly since the World Cup, thousands of Japanese of all ages tune into emotional Korean dramas and pick up brochures for vacations in Cheju as readily as for tours to Okinawa. "In my generation, Japan and Korea are relating to each other more," says company employee Taiki Yamaoka, 27. "We've entered a new era."

As many as ninety percent of Japanese-born Koreans are, for all intents and purposes, completely assimilated. They lead quiet if somewhat schizophrenic lives, passing as Japanese in public and using Korean names among themselves. That's a legacy from the colonial period, when their ancestors were forced to use exclusively Japanese language and names. Deprived of citizenship after the war, they were denied access to most jobs in the new economy. So many turned to self-employment, setting up pachinko parlors, barbecued-meat restaurants and other businesses.

For many of this generation, there was but one goal: to guarantee a better life for their descendants. In Tokyo's Shibuya district, just up the road from the teen shopping mall 109, is a narrow unpaved alley with a fading sign that says "Love Letter Alley". It's where Japanese women who'd had love affairs with GIs during the Occupation went to have their letters translated, and it was amongst the alley's makeshift translators' stalls that Kim Byeong Hyo, 81, built her rags-to-riches story. Having escaped near-starvation in Japanese-occupied Cheju, she worked, since the age of twelve, sewing soldiers' uniforms in Osaka. Moving to Tokyo after the war, she set up a Chinese restaurant in Love Letter Alley, charming her customers with her pretty face and hardworking attitude. She'd come home at 4:00 a.m., breastfeed her baby, then grab two hours of sleep before opening the shop again. Soon she employed seven cooks and ten waitresses. "I just wanted my children to be able to go to school," she says.

She accomplished that for her nine children—and more. Kim now owns several large properties back in Cheju and a couple in Shibuya, too. But despite her success in Japan, she says, she would be heartbroken if her grandchildren naturalized or married Japanese. It's at this point that her grandson, Bu Dukjoo, jotting down his grandmother's oral history on his iMac, has to bite his tongue. "It hurts me," he says later, "when Grandma says she doesn't want her grandchildren to marry Japanese. She's had so much pain. I want to end that pain in this generation—by that I mean grow to love Japan, take citizenship. I don't tell her that, of course."

As far as Bu is concerned, he says, taking citizenship is like joining a soccer team and shouldn't be confused with personal identity. But by openly endorsing the idea of becoming a Japanese citizen, he's breaking a significant Korean-Japanese taboo. Though thousands of resident Koreans are doing just that, they tend to do it quietly. To naturalize or not is a complicated matter of pride and deference to one's ancestors—sometimes still living—who survived all manner of insults from the Japanese state. Add to that government pressure to adopt Japanese names, and taking Japanese citizenship is equated for many with denying one's Korean roots. "I was called a traitor many times by other Koreans," says Lee of the KP duo. "That hurt more than being taunted by Japanese."

None of this holds back ethnic Koreans who have decided to naturalize—if only because these days it's the practical thing to do. Chung Chon Su, who works processing documents for Koreans, including naturalization papers, says the process can take up to a year, cost up to ¥500,000, and involves copious paperwork and background checks to prove the will to assimilate. But many Koreans have decided to swallow their pride and comply, for their children's sake. "Of course, they aren't happy about it," says Chung. "In other countries like the U.S., naturalization is cause for a party. Here it's done in secret, and no one is celebrating much."

The issue splits zainichi intellectuals. Tokyo Metropolitan University's Chung Dae Kyun,　author of "The End of the Zainichi Korean", says that with discrimination at levels "so low as to ignore" and with little attachment to Seoul or Pyongyang, it's illogical to continue resisting becoming Japanese. Practising what he preaches, the professor recently completed his naturalisation paperwork. But Tokyo University professor Kang Sang Jung insists that there's a need for Japan to separate ethnicity and nationality. Instead, he says, Japan should provide avenues for non-Japanese to maintain their difference and still be treated with respect.

Whatever the arguments, the young generation is voting with their feet. The good news is, naturalisation no longer necessarily equals assimilation. Like rapper Lee, Kang Sachiko was born with Japanese nationality, as Yamazaki Sachiko, to a Korean-resident mum and half-zainichi/half-Japanese dad. But when she turned 23, she started working for the South Korean Residents Association youth group, gave herself a Korean name, and started researching her grandparents' history. "I want to create a Japan where it's natural for minorities to live openly, not to hide," she says. It's something that more and more Japanese agree with, too. "I don't like the aspect of Japan that is prejudiced against difference," says Dohi Ikumi, 25, who first met Kang Sachiko when they were studying Korean in Seoul. "I may be in the majority as a Japanese in Japan, but I can suddenly become a 'minority,' like when I had to have counseling for family problems." After getting to know Kang, Dohi was drawn to other Koreans in Japan, and now has a wide group of Korean-Japanese friends. "They're so positive and outgoing. When I see how much they love and take pride in their nationality and ethnicity, I start wondering why I as a Japanese wasn't like that. I even started going to rakugo, traditional story-telling performances, to get to know Japanese culture better," she says.

Indeed, rediscovering pride in one's Korean roots is natural now because so much of Korean culture has caught on. Some of the coolest celebrities—like hip-hop diva BoA and sexy actress Yun Son A—are Korean—as in straight from the peninsula. And now, Japan has its own homegrown version of Korea Cool—the tarento Sonin, a Korean-Japanese from Shikoku, who unlike many Korean performers in the past, never bothered to hide her ethnicity. Sonin herself doesn't know why on earth she should. "There was discrimination in the past, but it's nothing to do with me," she was quoted as saying in "Quick Japan" magazine in August.

She's luckier than some zainichi, who say they endure regular discrimination. The stigma is so embedded that even Korean bosses of "ethnic businesses" won't employ people with Korean names, says the son of such a pachinko parlor owner in Nagoya. "Koreans get discriminated against at the formative stages of life," says Mindan's Bae Cheoul Eun: "when they go for job interviews, propose marriage and look for an apartment."

Certainly, incidents of prejudice have been noticeable lately. Since Pyongyang admitted abducting Japanese citizens, attacks on girls wearing Korean school uniforms have increased sharply, the Association of North Korean Residents' Tokyo headquarters has been bombed, and bullets have been mailed to the organization. The Association receives hundreds of hate calls a day, and police now patrol its heavy steel gates. Prejudice can affect even the very young. Says Kim Jeho, a 27-year-old businessman in Tokyo's Okubo district: "My four-year-old niece stopped a family gathering in its tracks a while ago when she told us how a girl at nursery school had taunted her, saying how glad she was to have been born Japanese. I patted my niece on the head, but all the while I was thinking, 'Can this really still be happening?'"

It's because of incidents like this that Kim thinks the "new zainichi" are kidding themselves. "They say stuff that is music to Japanese people's ears, like 'Ethnicity doesn't affect anything;' 'We don't dwell on the past.' But I can tell them, I still receive discriminatory treatment when I go for jobs or try to rent an apartment. As long as that goes on, I choose to 'dwell' on it," he says.

Chongryon (the Association of North Korean Residents) and Mindan (Association of South Korean Residents) were originally set up to protect Koreans from such prejudice. But nowadays their role is less clear-cut. Mindan's Bae says individualistic young people are pulling away. "The organisation feels a sense of crisis," he says. Classrooms at Chongryon-affiliated schools are empty, and teachers go unpaid as enrollments drop—from 20,000 twenty years ago to 14,000 now. Reality, and the increased attacks are forcing Chongryon to adjust. It's changing its once heavily ideological, pro-Kim Jong Il textbooks, and this year for the first time had a Japanese Ministry of Education official visit a Chongryon school.

But more ideologically-flexible young people may already be ahead of them. Mindan's Youth Group leader in Okayama, Lee Bo Chang, does something that would have been unthinkable in the past: though he's a Mindan official, he meets for a drink once or twice a month with people from the rival Chongryon group. "I don't like the way organizations ignore individuals," says Lee. "We're making horizontal networks." Tonight, they gather in the bar of a restaurant run by Lee's mother. The friends rib each other about the shortcomings of each other's organisations over milky white makkoli wine. But they also share heart-to-hearts on love, marriage and the thorny subject of Korean reunification. "The older generation wouldn't drink together like this," Lee says. "But for us it's easy to become close."

Some zainichi Koreans express hopes to return and live in an eventually reunified Korea. But most Korean-Japanese, for better or for worse, have tied their future to that of Japan and are intent on making it a better society in whatever way they can. They're already influencing some young Japanese. Nineteen-year-old Hayasaki Wataru is one. "KP—that's Korean Pride, right?" he says at one of the duo's recent concerts. "That's cool. Why don't we have any 'Japanese Pride?' We need to work on that." Tabu Nobuhiro, strategy manager for KP, has a grand vision for a pan-Asian culture. "In New York City, no one cares where you are from. Different ethnic groups influencing each other is the way culture and a mature society is born," he says. "That's what I want for Japan."

KP's Lee is certain about the future. "When I finally finished the legal process, I saw my Japanese passport there with the Korean name on it, and I thought, Yes! This is the way the Korean-Japanese should be."It's certainly one option. And with the diverse politics, philosophy and goals of today's zainichi, expect many other variations on the theme.

Newsweek Japan Cover 26th November 2003

Korean forced laborers lose redress appeal

Korean forced laborers lose redress appeal (The Japan Times Online)
KANAZAWA, Ishikawa Pref. (Kyodo) An appeals court rejected a demand Monday that the government and a machinery maker pay compensation to Korean women coerced into working at a military plant in Japan during the war.

The Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court turned down an appeal by 23 South Korean former forced laborers and their relatives who demanded about ¥100 million in compensation from the state and Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. based in Toyama.

Presiding Judge Nobuaki Watanabe said the plaintiffs lost their right to demand compensation under the 1965 compensation rights treaty between Japan and South Korea.
Under the treaty, the nations agreed that South Korean residents of Japan who were brought to Japan as wartime laborers were not qualified to claim individual compensation. Japan instead paid a lump sum of $500 million to South Korea as a form of economic cooperation.

The plaintiffs said an internal Foreign Ministry document found in 2008 suggests the treaty only provides for the South Korean government renouncing compensation claims.

But the appeals court dismissed the argument.

The high court upheld a September 2007 decision by the Toyama District Court that rejected demands for redress.

The lower court recognized in its ruling that the government brought women from the Korean Peninsula to Japan under false pretenses and forced them to work at a military plant during the war, but dismissed the South Korean plaintiffs' damages claim.

The plaintiffs were taken to Japan from the Korean Peninsula from 1944 to 1945 after being misled by Japanese teachers and others who told them they would receive higher education or earn generous wages in Japan, the lower court said.

The plaintiffs were in fact coerced into performing hard labor, including grinding bearings, and were not provided with sufficient food or any wages, the court said.

Eclipse Rising Community Gathering

Eclipse Rising would like to invite you to a Community Gathering Dinner/Presentation!
Location: El Cerrito, CA - please e-mail for address if you are interested in attending
When: Saturday, March 20, 4:00PM
E-mail: eclipserising@gmail.com

Eclipse Rising would like to welcome Bay Area Zainichi Koreans, friends, and allies of our movement to a food party/Eclipse Rising presentation of our mission, our work, and our vision.

We also wanted to take this time to thank all the community supporters who have shown unwavering devotion to our cause.

Thank you for coming out to our events, volunteering, and taking an interest in Zainichi issues. I hope you can join us for an evening of zainichi food, laughter and friendship, where we would like to present to you all the wonderful work we've been able to accomplish so far because of your support, and introduce to you our future project ideas and ask you to help us in fundraising for such events.

We would greatly appreciate a donation to ER for our work (suggested $10 - $20) for the food and drinks we'll provide. PLEASE RSVP so we can have enough food prepared for you!
Thank you! We look forward to seeing you!

Haruki & Yongna's Eclipse Rising TV vol.1

We decided to launch this video blogging project by just talking in front of a camcorder. We will update new clips regularly!

So this is the very first one, and we are talking about our grandmothers.
Enjoy!

Japan apologizes for colonial rule of Korea

What are the implications for the apology? How do the government materialize their apology in the way that victim can be healed and redressed, and we can educate ourselves about the past and create the vision for the future?


http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/02/11/japan.korea.apology/index.html

(CNN) -- Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Thursday apologized to South Korea for the more than three decades when Japan ruled over Korea, calling the time a "tragic incident."

Okada made the rare apology during a joint news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan, Korean state-run media reported.

"I believe it was a tragic incident for Koreans when they were deprived of their nation and their identity," Okada said, according to the Yonhap news agency.

"I can fully understand the feelings of (Koreans) who were deprived of their identity and nation. I believe we must never forget the victims," he added.

Japan controlled Korea from 1910 to 1945. During that time, Japan's military is accused of forcing about 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, to serve as sex slaves. They were known as "comfort women" for soldiers in Japan's Imperial Army.

There have been street protests and lawsuits in that past in South Korea over the sufferings of the comfort women.

At least one other Japanese leader has apologized for the era.

In 2001, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi acknowledged the "enormous damage" inflicted by Japan's military "by colonization and invasion."

solidarity message

In response to the recent hate crime attack on the Korean school in Kyoto by Zaitoku-kai (lit. trans. "Citizens’ Group against Special Rights for Zainichi," an ultra right-wing nationalist group that has been accusing Zainichi Koreans for having various "special rights" by manipulating their alien/non-Japanese citizen status) , there was a huge public meeting to condemn their violence against students, teachers, families and communities of Kyoto Korean School. Eclipse Rising, along with numerous social justice groups both in Japan and globally, sent a message to show our solidarity in fighting against the injustice.

--------------------------------
（日本語）
私たち、エクリプス・ライジングは、アメリカを拠点とし、日本人および日本国家の特権を許さない、在日朝鮮人の会です。
「我々が自由を手に入れる唯一の手がかりは世界中の抑圧された人々との繋がりの中にある」と、かつてマルコムXが言ったように、
私たちエクリプス・ライジングもウリハッキョの直面する問題を我々自身の問題とし、他の被差別の仲間とともに闘う連帯表明をします。

(English)
Eclipse Rising is a SF bay area-based Zainichi Korean group that does not allow privileges of Japanese nationals and the Japanese state. As Malcolm X once said, The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world," Eclipse Rising situate the issues that Korean schools in Japan are confronted as a part of the bigger system of oppression that we all are forced to live under, and hence is determined to fight against the injustice in solidarity with people and communities of the oppressed in the world.

End the Korean War

Please see the following website and YouTube clip about Korean Americans asking for PEACE on the Korean peninsula.
Eclipse Rising supports the National Campaign to End the Korean War.
Please click on the website link and sign the petition for peace!
http://endthekoreanwar.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bq6YlWkob4

Eclipse Rising W. Coast Roadshow & Solidarity Tour

Zainichi Koreans in the United States!
An LA Zainichi Korean Community town hall meeting
A working collaboration between Zainichi Korean, Japanese American, and Korean American organizations in the United States
Please join us:
• Date: Saturday, November 21, 2009
• Time: 4:00 – 6:00pm
• Place: Little Tokyo Service Center’s Casa Heiwa
231 E. 3rd St. (between Los Angeles St. and San Pedro St.)
Los Angeles, CA

Presented by Eclipse Rising w/generous support of Little Tokyo Service Center

Eclipse Rising is a community organization of, by, and for Zainichi residents in the U.S., in and beyond the Bay Area, to recognize and celebrate the rich and unique history of Koreans in Japan, promote Zainichi community development, peace and reunification, and work for social justice for all minorities in Japan and around the world.

Background:
Eclipse Rising started in 2008 when some Bay Area residents of Zainichi Korean background decided it was time to finally start a community organization to reclaim Zainichi Korean history and elevate our voices as a key vehicle to shape our own destinies with dignity.

"Zainichi" literally translates to "resident of Japan." This term pertains to any so-called "foreign resident" in Japan, including Koreans who lived in Japan as a result of Japanese colonization of Korea between 1910 and 1945, and their descendents, who historically comprise the largest minority group of Japan. Although multiple generations of Koreans (4, 5 generations now) have been born and raised in Japan, basic rights (even access to public compulsory education) are/can be denied to Zainichi Koreans legally.

Our wish is that Korean and other ethnic minorities in Japan who still suffer many forms of discrimination to this day can live in harmony and craft a blueprint for a truly multicultural society.

Our organization was formed to recognize and build on the history and legacy of our ancestors, and to work toward social justice for all minorities in Japan. We also work to establish a stable and supportive community for Zainichi Koreans in the United States, an increasingly popular destination for Zainichi Koreans seeking a ‘home’ after generations of searching.

The name "Eclipse Rising" is meant to counter the imperialist Japanese flag with the "rising sun." The Eclipse, though through few occurrences, is able to cover the sun completely and change the perspective. We would like to view the eclipse as a symbol of Koreans in Japan rising up against oppression.

Find our group on Facebook & Connect with us today, or contact us to join our mailing list!

A Jainichi Scholar Scrutinizes the ‘Unresolved Past of Korea and Japan’

“A Contemporary History of Deadlocked Thought” by Yun Kon-cha, Translated by Park Jin-u et al., Changbi Publishers Inc., 625 pages, 27,000 won;

“Winter Forest” by Yun Kon-cha, Translated by Kim Eung-gyo, Hwanam Publishing Co., 134 pages, 6,300 won

“It seems it`s my duty to leave some meaningful marks by facing and struggling with an era that produced the so-called jainichi (Korean residents in Japan),” said Professor Yun Kon-cha of Kawakana University. Professor Yun is known as the author of “Trend of Modern Korean Thought” and “Modern Ideological Deadlocks in Korea and Japan.” He recently published two books in Seoul, “A Contemporary History of Deadlocked Thought” (Gyochak-doen sasang-eui hyeondae sa) and “Winter Forest” (Gyeoul sup). The former was originally published by Iwanami Shoten Publishers in Japan last year; the latter, simultaneously published in Korea and Japan, is Yun`s first poetry collection. For “Winter Forest,” Im Heon-yeong, a literary critic and professor, wrote an introduction under the heading “A Diasporean Intellectual`s Search for Self.” This can also be applied to “A Contemporary History of Deadlocked Thought.”

Yun`s search for self, though belated and seemingly sluggish, was dramatic and thoroughgoing. Through the vast research by Yun, who has studied enormous amounts of material, we may be able to experience an intellectual shock and an amazing extension of our views to encompass Japan and jainichi by moving our eyes to jainichi, from where his research began. This is directly linked to the problem of inaction in addressing the issue of “Japan`s imperial system and Joseon (Korea`s pre-modern state name)” and “the founding of a unified Korea,” which remains an unresolved question from the decolonization process between Korea and Japan.

The Japan that Yun talks about can be very different from the Japan we know. While in high school he was surprised to find his name written in Korean style in the roll book and “desperately pleaded that it be changed to the Japanese style.” He graduated from Kyoto University but could not find a job. “With nowhere else to go,” he enrolled for a graduate program at the University of Tokyo and earned a doctorate at the age of 38. It was about this time that he acknowledged he was jainichi. Thereafter he desperately clung to studying modern Japan, especially Japan after its defeat in World War II, and jainichi. These days he is more devoted to the study of Korean society. He met Hong Se-hwa, a pro-democracy activist known as “a taxi driver in Paris,” and his friends in Europe around the time of the democratization struggle of June 1987. Around that time his passport problems were solved so he began traveling to Korea frequently. Hence he began to see the world through Korea.

The original Japanese title of “A Contemporary History of Deadlocked Thought” may be translated into “Deadlocked Experience of Thought.” Therefore, it is not anyone else`s story but a chronicle of the author`s own experience of journeying back and forth between Japan, jainichi and Korea, each with a different ideological soil. The book grasps the paths trodden by Japan, Korea (South Korea) and Korean residents in Japan since the defeat/liberation of August 1945 to the present primarily “as the ideological experiences imprinted in history” by looking at them through the eyes of the Korean residents in Japan, who are the “products of Japan`s colonial rule over Korea, the living witnesses of history and the most acute embodiment of Japan`s brutal rule over other nations,” and “the historical existences manifesting the absurdity of modern Japan in the most miserable shape.”

The “thought” discussed by Yun refers to the “desperate and repeated question as to how to live.” And what is most important in his quest of thought is “pursuing the greatest absurdity and task of the era.” He thinks the three pillars constituting the identity of Japanese people are “worship of the West, the imperial ideology, and disdain of Asia.” The worship of the West and disdain of Asia are the two sides of a coin, which are rooted in discrimination and prejudice against the heterogeneous others. The imperial system, “forming the nucleus of Japanese nationalism asserting uniqueness and superiority and performing the oppressive and exclusive function internally and externally,” was the mechanism that made these thoughts possible. Under this mechanism Korea and the Korean people were imprinted in the minds of the Japanese with the gloomiest and the most negative images. In this regard, Japanese imperialism and Korean issues are mutually interrelated and form the core of modern Japanese thought.

Japan should have jettisoned its emperor system and established a republican democracy when it lost the war. However, the United States applied ambiguous terms in the surrender process and colluded with the Japanese ruling forces. The occupying power thus allowed Japan to maintain its monarchial system for its convenience in governing Japan as a bridgehead for its Cold War strategy in the Far East. It suppressed by force Korean residents and the Japanese Communist Party, who opposed the system most strongly, and revived the prewar elite forces including Nobusuke Kishi. Such a “reverse course” taken by postwar Japan exactly corresponded with a series of events that occurred in the southern half of the Korean peninsula under U.S. occupation, such as the annihilation of leftists, the civilian struggles in Daegu on October 1, 1946 and in Jeju Island on April 3, 1948, the bloody suppression of the uprising in Yeosu and Suncheon, and the taking of power by Rhee Syngman and pro-Japanese forces. A broad scope of cross-examination simultaneously delving into these crucial events in Japan and Korea is the biggest strength of this book. Perhaps it has an effect of triple vision expansion.

Korea`s biggest ideological challenge is building a unified country. This aborted task is closely linked to Japan`s original sin of colonial occupation leading to Korea`s territorial division and the U.S.-Japan alliance, which the postwar Japanese intellectuals thoroughly ignored. Shigeru Nanbara who led the “democratization” of postwar Japan and even Masao Maruyama who is known as “a leader and victor of postwar democracy” turned a blind eye to the problems of Korea and Koreans. Yoshimi Takeuchi, who was sympathetic to jainichi issues, talked only about Japan`s invasion of China and evaded the issues of Korea and Korean residents in Japan. Their self-centered “great power chauvinism” is apparent in taking issue with the so-called 15-year war from Japan`s invasion of Manchuria to its defeat but brushing aside its reckless assault upon Korea since the Sino-Japanese War. Yun points out that even Professor Haruki Wada whom he highly regards reveals his limitations by failing to criticize the emperor system straightforwardly.

From the Japanese intellectuals who simply define nation and nation state as “fallacy” and emphasize non-violence, tolerance, coexistence and reconciliation, Yun peeps at “an effort to free themselves from pressures of colonialism and nationalist issues” and also finds “the common illusion to shelve their responsibility as the wrongdoers.” Progressive intellectuals of the two countries once achieved a happy alliance during the democracy movement in Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. However, as reaffirmed afterwards through the history textbook controversies, comfort women issues, the rise of Korean “new rightists” and rapport by Japanese conservatives, “Japan basically has neither apologized nor compensated for its invasion and rule over Korea and the division of Korea, so the past history remains little liquidated.” Still worse, there seems to be little hope that this state of affairs will ever change in the future.

As for the argument by Park Yu-ha who has drawn applause from Japanese conservative intellectuals for her book “For Reconciliation,” Yun criticized it as “pseudo-rightist sentimentalism” showing no sympathy toward the national division of Korea and consequent sufferings. “Her logic is rough and shows a great deal of misunderstanding and distortion of historical facts,” he said.

Yun warned against hasty reconciliation, arguing that Park`s opinion welcomed by the Asahi Shimbun should probably be little different than the right-wing fascist Katsumi Sato`s view that “rejecting apologies should be the first step toward reconciliation.” The ultimate solution he suggests is that Korea should continue to demand Japan`s self-reflection and apology but without expecting its demand to be met. He says Korea should instead find the correct path to reunification and national prosperity on its own.

[ July 25, 2009 ]

今熱い！サンフランシスコ・ベイエリア発
Eclipse Rising 講演・レセプション

LA在住の在日コリアン求む！ （その他の方々も歓迎！）　
将来に働きかける次世代の‘草の根’の熱い声をお届けします!
　　　　

主催者：Eclipse Rising
　　　　支援団体：Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC)

日時：2009年11月21日(土) 午後4時〜6時

場所：Little Tokyo Service CenterのCASA HEIWA　　
231 E. 3rd St. (Los Angeles and San Pedro St.の間)

Los Angeles, CA 90013 (213) 473-3030

言語：日本語/English (通訳有)
連絡：eclipserising@gmail.com

Eclipse Rising はサンフランシスコ・ベイエリアを拠点とした在日コリアン団体でトランスナショナルな在日コミュニティの基盤を築き、在日特有の歴史性やアイデンティティの視点から、日本社会の公正そして朝鮮半島の平和的な統一を目指し2008年に発足。団体名のEclipse Risingは、日食が太陽を覆い隠す様に、抑圧の象徴である”Rising Sun”に対抗して立ち上がる在日コリアンをイメージして命名されました。Eclipse Risingは在日コリアン個人のリーダーシップを育み、在日の多様性を尊重し、 日本や米国、さらに世界のマイノリティーと連帯して差別と闘う活動を展開しています。

連絡先:
Email: eclipserising@gmail.com
Blog: www.eclipserising.blogspot.com
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