Reviewed by Miyamoto Fujiko, Guest Fellow, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories
During the Moon Jae-in administration amid storming anti-Japan sentiment and the crisis looming that the Federal Democratic Republic of Korea may arise, the South Korean people kept holding large-scale rallies at Gwanghwamun in Seoul every weekend to oust the Moon Jae-in administration during his term of office. Intellectuals held lectures across the country to wipe out the anti-Japan frame of mind that penetrated deeply the minds of the South Koreans. At universities, the Truth Forum was held to recognize the true historical facts. And to overcome the crisis of the Japan-South Korea relationships, in 2019, the book Anti-Japan Tribalism was published (2019, Miraesa) in South Korea. It revealed the root of the Japan-South Korea crisis and became a best seller with roughly 100,000 copies sold. Six scholars stood up for the publication. It was an epoch-making book, closely analyzing how astoundingly untrue the South Korean anti-Japan thinking was, based on historical facts from the respective perspectives of the scholars’ expertise. The book became a sensation in South Korea. Did the book change the South Korean people’s anti-Japan sentiment? In school education, textbooks still teach that Japan is a villain and anti-Japan education is going on, the same as ever. Nothing has changed. I myself feel that South Korean people’s deep-routed anti-Japan thinking is not easy to change at all. This is my impression after I have lived with my South Korean husband in the South Korean society for more than thirty years.
I always felt it puzzling why it is that while Japan ruled Taiwan longer than it did Korea and invested far larger amounts of money in Korea than in Taiwan, Taiwan is Japan-friendly, and Korea is anti-Japan. What made it so? Ms. Oh Sonfa’s book Why Anti-Japan South Korea Has No Future gave a perfect answer to my question. The analysis, composed of six chapters, is profound, precise and perfect. The view held by most Japanese intellectuals is that “Korean people who lived through the period of Japan’s Annexation of Korea are Japan-friendly, but from the postwar Syngman Rhee administration up to the present, through the anti-Japan policy and education implemented by consecutive Presidents, South Korea became an anti-Japan state.” However, Ms. Oh Sonfa pointed out, “South Korean anti-Japan principle is not a mere political policy. Importantly, South Korea started as a state, upholding anti-Japan principle as its just cause. The preamble to the South Korean Constitution itself is false and therefore, it distorted historical facts and chose to thoroughly teach and propagandize the distorted history to the people.”
This book was published in 2013, six years prior to Anti-Japan Tribalism. Anti-Japan Tribalism explains how the distorted contexts and facts differ in terms of the six typical anti-Japan themes. Ms. Oh Sonfa’s analysis of anti-Japan sentiment is done, by deeper exploration of the South Korean DNA, close tribal ties and the roots of the Korean way of thinking. What I have felt for many years while living in the Korean society was clearly explained in printed form. “This is it!” I fully sympathized with the book and felt truly great. I was profoundly amazed at Ms. Oh Sonfa’s analyzing power. It is superbly described in Chapter IV “Why anti-Japan sentiment cannot be wiped out.” “The bitter feeling toward the period of Japan’s rule is not the basis of anti-Japan but the fact that the despicable tribe (Japan) ruled the Koreans is unforgivable, which brews anti-Japan tribalism.”(p.137) Thus, Chapter IV unravels in an excellent way South Koreans’ deep psychology, something that no other scholar has done before.
There is a sentence on page 142: “The Japanese tribe with natural savagery and aggressive traits humiliated the integrity of our sacred tribal blood.” Anti-Japan is a sentiment born out of anger which is almost a physiological response. I understand that this sentiment is used as a motive, in many newly made dramas, movies and musicals, and the people believe that they are true. This negative spiral aggravated South Koreans’ anti-Japan sentiment. Even if a decent scholar appears with the appeal, “That historical view is false and fabricated, and the truth is this!” The deep-rooted sense of value permeated to the bone will not change immediately. This is the reality.
However, even in South Korea as it is, it’s been five years since National Action to Abolish the Comfort Women Act led by Mr. Kim Byungheon started working to remove comfort woman statues and delete descriptions related to comfort women from the South Korean history textbooks. Things improved significantly compared to the early time of the movement and sea change was accomplished and the movement of the Korean Council for Justice was reduced in scale. Although President Yoon Suk-yeol was to face the peril of impeachment at the time when this book review was written, it is a great change in South Korea in recent years that President Yoon did not implement anti-Japan policy at the start of his administration. As mentioned earlier, all the consecutive Presidents carried out anti-Japan policy, but President Yoon did not do so for the national interest.
I am appalled by the totally outrageous anti-Japan policies of the consecutive Korean Presidents , who used every possible means to act against Japan. Ms. Oh Sonfa points out that the South Korean anti-Japan sentiment is much more extreme than the Chinese people’s.
I presume the author Oh wrote this book, worrying about the serious Korean situation in 2013. The details of her concerns are discussed in Chapter VI, covering many fields. However, I cannot help thinking that it is rather Japan that is plagued with violent crimes and serious social problems.
In fact, as I mentioned earlier, while the root of anti-Japan sentiments is deep and grave, on the other hand, if you go to bookstores in South Korea, there are many Japanese novels and manga translated into the Korean language, on TV, Japanese animations are broadcast almost endlessly and Japanese restaurants are everywhere. Through the recent expansion of the Internet, everyone can easily enjoy Japanese culture, songs and dramas and Japanese actors and talents are getting popular in South Korea. Among young people, there are many Japanese-friendly Youtubers and they attract many viewers. Even if the truth about the period of Japan’s Annexation of Korea is not taught at school, they can learn it on the Internet.
Especially at present, some say that J-POP has become more popular than K-POP. Acting in a Japan-friendly way used to be thought as evil, but this concept will gradually change through the Internet in a natural manner. Ms. Oh Sonfa was taught anti-Japan education and was anti-Japan just like other South Koreans. After she came to Japan, she had doubts about the Korean historical interpretations and devoured one book after another on Japan and South Korea histories and was gradually freed from the anti-Japan magic spell.
Ms. Oh Sonfa points out in this book that in the modern South Korean society “South Koreans do not try to view past Japan’s rule in the objective international circumstance and there are no books covering this topic.”. What will happen if this book Why Anti-Japan South Korea Has No Future is translated and published in South Korea? This book provides the most excellent analysis of South Korea and I personally wish that the book is published in South Korea some day soon. If that happens, South Korea will have future. And on the part of Japan, the self-deprecating view of history will be immediately abandoned.
Among many expressions that I truly sympathize with and feel appropriate in this book, I would like to introduce the following paragraph:
The Confucianist idea that the morally superior must always teach, educate and inspire the morally inferior forms the degrading-Japan view, which lies at the base of the Korean sense of tribal superiority tribe over Japan. Moreover, in South Korea, there is a concept of the superior tribe born out of the lesser Chinese principle that South Korea is the very authentic successor of the Sino-centrist idea. Therefore, the sense of tribal superiority over Japan is made all the more consolidated.
Such a sense seems to apply to those aged fifties and older. Young people seem to be less influenced by this sense. In either case, there is an urgent task to revise the biased South Korean history textbooks as soon as possible.