Legacies of Japanese colonialism in the rhetorical constitution of South Korean national identity

Abstract

Despite Korea's independence from Japan in 1945, collective memories of Japanese colonialism continue to shape South Korean national identity today. This article extends Charland's theory of constitutive rhetoric and reconsiders Billig's theory of banal nationalism to analyse key discourses of national memory in South Korea, including presidential speeches delivered on the Liberation Day of Korea (Gwangbokjeol) and exhibits at the Independence Hall (Dongnip Ginyeomgwan). This article examines how South Korean nationalistic discourses today, by fostering a sustained antagonism towards the Japanese, constitute a national identity in an inextricable relationship to the Japanese Other.

Keywords:

• Korea (South)
• Japan
• Othering
• postcoloniality
• constitutive rhetoric

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Thomas P. Miller, Elfie Rembold, and the three anonymous reviewers for their help on earlier versions of this article.

Notes on contributor

Jerry Won Lee is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Arizona.

Notes

1. The division of the Korean peninsula into South Korea and North Korea followed the armistice of the Korean War in 1953. In this essay, ‘South Korea’ is used to refer to the country, whereas ‘Korea’ is used to refer to the Korean peninsula (such as in reference to Japan's colonisation of Korea), the Korean language, or the people of Korea collectively, including the people of South Korea, expatriates residing overseas, along with the people of North Korea. In speeches such as those analysed in this essay, the South Korean president typically addresses the people of ‘Korea’ collectively, but clarification (through the use of brackets) is provided for when references are made to South Korea or when South Koreans specifically are being addressed.

2. Il Risorgimento (Resurgence) was the political movement that led to the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century.

3. In a famous lecture delivered in1882, ‘Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?’, Renan (1990 [1882]) insisted that linguistic, racial, religious or geographical factors alone could not account for the ‘spiritual principle’ that is the nation (p. 18). Renan defined the nation as ‘a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future’ (p. 19). Renan added that a ‘nation's existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is in perpetual affirmation of life’ (p. 19).

4. English-language transcripts of the speeches are available from the Website of the Office of the President of South Korea: http://english.president.go.kr/. Only minor edits to the English-language text have been made, including grammatical edits or edits to distinguish between ‘Korea’ and ‘South Korea’ as needed.

5. The publication of the 1997 textbook was in immediate response to Radhika Coomaraswamy's 1996 report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The abbreviated discussion of the comfort women outraged Japanese ‘conservatives and neonationalists’, who argued that such representations necessarily neglect the sociohistorical context of prostitution, and that such facts are not appropriate for younger students (Soh, 2008, p. 170). The 2001 textbook Atrashii Rekishi Kyokasho (The New History Textbook), published by Tsukuru Kai, which omits any mention of the comfort women, appeared in response to the Japanese conservative, neonationalist backlash. Protests in South Korea included a public demonstration involving the defacement of a Japanese flag – the red circle of the Japanese flag was painted over with blue to resemble the blue and red yin-yang of the Korean flag (Soh, 2003).

6. English-language translations are provided at the exhibits at the Independence Hall.

7. At the time of the assassination, Hirobumi was meeting with Vladimir Kokovstov, a Russian official in Manchuria. The Russians who surround Ahn are other Russian officials who were present for the meeting.

8. The English-language text has been edited for clarity. The original text from the Independence Hall reads as follows: ‘In the 1990s, the victims, who remained silently due to shame, started disclosing the barbarous acts perpetrated to them by the Japanese Military, as they were growing old, asking for the Japanese government's official apology and compensation’ (n.p.).