[Column] A turn to the right in Japan and Korea

Park No Ja (Russian name Vladimir Tikhonov), Professor of Korean Studies at University of Oslo

Lately we have been using the Korean expression "ugyeonghwa," or "turning towards the right," in reference to Japan. The claim is that Japan is "regressing into the past," that it uses the sanguinary ideology of patriotism to cover up the class conflict that is intensifying. This while the country is in the course of reorganization along the lines of neoliberalism, having faced a crisis in late capitalism.

This assessment is not incorrect. It is indeed a reason for concern when Japan, in a state of crisis domestically because of a stumbling economy coupled with the threat of China’s rise, is using the crisis of the Stalinist Left to move in the direction of the politics of the extreme right.

Yet, every time I hear a conservative Korean commentator talk about how Japan’s turn to the right is reason for concern, I feel my nose pierced with the stench of hypocrisy.

In Japan, liberal and moderate left discourse that dominated the sphere of public debate after the fall of the Japanese empire has indeed been pushed aside by the rightists. But in Korea, when has liberalism - forget about leftism - ever been given credence? It is more that a little shocking for progressive Japanese and Koreans to see how Japan’s ruling party added a clause stating the need for a "love of tradition and country," a clause about the need to cultivate "patriotism," to Japanese education law.

Japan used to state that education is to be based on "individual dignity." But have Korean education officials and the far-right media ever cared about personal dignity, when teachers who use corporal punishment on children still in lower grades are barely reprimanded and teachers who refuse to participate in ceremonies like the pledge of allegiance, so reminiscent of the totalitarianism of imperial Japan, are continuously subjected to witch hunts? If the Korean system ever had any notion of the dignity of the individual, then the hair length restriction still in place in Korean schools, which reminds one of the Japanese colonial era, would have landed in history books long ago.

Reckless remarks (mangeon) by Japanese politicians about the invasion of Asia and Japanesediscrimination against minorities like the zainichi Koreans are deserving of anger. But is the Korean government qualified to criticize when it remains silent about the possibility of withdrawing Korean troops from Iraq and continues to play a supporting role in America’s brutal invasion of the Middle East, especially at a time when the Japanese military will soon be going home? It gives you a bitter smile and puts you on the verge of shedding tears of rage to think of the officials who repeat that fashionable slogan, "multi-ethnic, multicultural society," all while ruining the lives of hard-working people of different skin color with brutal crackdowns, and refusing to give undocumented foreign workers with jobs amnesty and the opportunity to become legal residents, as other developed countries have done.

It feels evil for Japanese conglomerates that scored their fortunes from the invasion of Asia to refuse to show any signs of remorse, but never once have I heard of Korean conglomerates like Hanjin and Hyundai using even some of the money they came back from Vietnam with to contribute to Vietnamese society today, having succeeded in advancing into business outside of Korea and earning cash overseas because of the American imperialist invasion of Vietnam.

Japan is moving from postwar liberalism to the far right, but in Korea we have tried just a little to move away from the ultra-rightism of the end stages of Japanese imperialism only to now be doing a right-face once again. The extent of the insensitivity towards the suffering of those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, brought about by rightism that is "Made in Korea," surpasses that of the U.S. and Europe, of course, but even that of Japan. When have the "mainstream" newspapers or civic groups really challenged the government, which treats the masses as the enemy, even when farmers and workers are beaten to death or injured, or when pregnant women are made to miscarry, as have been the results of police violence at demonstrations?

It is no coincidence that Japan’s right-wing newspapers are telling readers they should go to Korea to learn about patriotism. Historically, the Korean ultra-right grew from being epigones of Japan, collaborating stooges who today have "developed" to they point where they are "examples" to follow for the Japanese right. They are the stumbling blocks to the nation’s future.