The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 36 | Number 2 | Sep 05, 2011

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Tunneling Through Nationalism: The Phenomenology of aCertain Nationalist　　ナショナリズムをくぐり抜けて－あるナショナリストの現象学

Kang Sang Jung, Tessa Morris-Suzuki

T u n n e l i n g T h r o u g hNationalism: The Phenomenology ofa Certain Nationalist

By Kang Sangjung

With an introduction by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Translation by Mark Gibeau

Introduction

Throughout the modern era, issues ofnationalism and national identity have lain atthe heart of intellectual debate in Japan, butthe contours of the debate have repeatedlychanged over time.

From the 1950s onward, as Japan rose from theashes of defeat to become an economicsuperpower, visions of ethnic homogeneity andunique culture were widely propagated by theJapanese state and media, and were embracedby a number of commentators in the US andEurope as well as in Japan itself. During the1990s, this economic and cultural nationalismcame under sustained criticism, triggered inpart by the collapse of the economic bubble.Yet, far from hastening the demise ofnationalism, the two decades of relativeeconomic stagnation from the early 1990sonward were marked by the rise of new andmore overtly politicized nationalist ideologies,and by impassioned debates over the nationand its destiny. 1 More recently, somecommentators have suggested that a rightward

shift is occurring in Japanese intellectual life,bringing together people from opposite ends ofthe political spectrum into a new nationalistconsensus.2

For the past two decades or so, Kang Sangjung,who is a second-generation member of theKorean community in Japan and a professor atthe University of Tokyo, has been an active andinfluential participant in debates aboutnationalism in Japan and beyond. In this article,he reflects on the shifting context and nature ofnationalism in Japan, and on changes in hisown view of nationalism over the period fromthe 1970s to the present day. Nationalistdiscourse (he suggests) needs to be seen in thebroader context of economic and politicaltransformations, not only within Japan itself butalso on a regional and global scale. From thisperspective, the intense debates surroundingnationalism that erupted from the 1990sonward reflect a profound transformation inthe relationship between “nation” and “state”:a transformation that demands a deeprethinking of nationalism in the twenty-firstcentury context.

As he explains in the article translated here,Kang’s approach to political ideas has beenshaped by his experiences both as a Koreanborn and brought up in a Japanese provincialcity, and as a scholar of political thought(particularly of the ideas of Max Weber) whoconducted part of his graduate work in 1980s(West) Germany. His first major contributionsto controversies over national identity were aseries of articles on the identity of Zainichi

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Koreans, published in the 1980s3, and he hassince published widely on ideas of nationalismin a global and in a Japanese context.

I first encountered Kang’s ideas on nationalismin a recorded conversation (taidan) betweenKang and the scholar of social thought MuraiOsamu, published in a special issue of theJapanese journal Gendai Shisō entitled MinzokuMondai no Kigen e [To the Roots of theProblem of Ethnicity].4 In retrospect, the timingand content of this special issue seemssignificant. It appeared in May 1993, at almostexactly the same time as the original version ofS a m u e l H u n t i n g t o n ’ s C l a s h o fCivilizations.5 The Soviet Union had recentlycollapsed, and the Balkans Conflict wasreaching its peak. This, in other words, was themoment of the emergence (at least in Europe)of a “post-Cold War” order, when manyobservers were predicting a decline inideologically-based global tensions and arevival of conflicts based on ethno-nationalism.

The early 1990s, however, were also the periodwhen new constructivist and post-structuralistideas were encouraging radical critiques ofnationalism. The May 1993 Gendai Shisō issueincluded translations of critical writings byJacques Derrida and Etiènne Balibar, as well asessays by a number of scholars who would playkey roles in the deconstruction of nationalismwithin Japan (among them Ukai Satoshi,Takahashi Tetsuya and Ueno Toshiya). Kangand Murai’s taidan, meanwhile, used HarryHarootunian’s recently published essay“America’s Japan/ Japan’s Japan”6 as a startingpoint for exploring the ways in which Japaneseethno-nationalism was entangled and complicitwith US power and western orientalism.

By 1993, then, the stage was set for the intensedebates over nationalism discussed in Section 4of “Tunneling through Nationalism”. Thetemperature was further raised two years laterby controversies surrounding the fiftiethanniversary of Japan’s defeat in the Asia-Pacific

War. Timid steps by some Japanese politicianstowards apologies for the events of the warwere followed by a fierce backlash from theright, who revived an ethno-nationalistdiscourse reminiscent of the 1930s and early1940s. At the same time, though, the 1990ssaw the publication of outstanding Japanesecritiques of nationalism, exposing theideological underpinnings of the myths ofcultural uniqueness, and highlighting theparadoxical complicity of Japanese nationalistrhetoric with political subordination to the US.Among these were works like NishikawaNagao’s Kokkyō no Koekata [How to CrossNational Borders]7 and the collection of essaysNationaru Hisutorī o Koete [TranscendingNational History], edited by Komori Yôichi andTakahashi Tetsuya8.

The 1990s critique of nationalism in Japan wasnot simply a matter of intellectual debate, butinvolved a strong element of political activism.The teaching of history had already emerged asa political battleground from the 1960sonward9, and many of the key participants inthe 1990s debates campaigned energeticallyagainst the adoption of new nationalistichistory and civics textbooks in schools, andagainst the enforced singing of national anthemat graduation ceremonies and other publicoccasions. The battle lines, however, were farfrom simple. This was not a dichotomous dividebetween nationalists and their critics, butrather a more complex field in which pro- andanti-nationalism was interwoven with diverseattitudes toward issues including Japanesehistory, the constitution and the securityalliance with the United States. Some of thesecomplexities were brought to the surface in1995, when liberal literary scholar KatôNorihiro published his immensely controversialessay Haisengoron [After Defeat], in which heargued that Japan required a clear sense ofnational identity in order to be able toapologize to other Asian nations for the wrongscommitted in wartime.10 The fierce argumentsprovoked by this proposal exposed a range of

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intellectual and emotional dividing linesamongst people seen as being on the liberal-leftof the Japanese political spectrum.

Nationalist sentiment in Japan was immenselystrengthened in 2002, when revelations aboutthe kidnapping of Japanese citizens by NorthKorea (the Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, DPRK) led to an outpouring of mediafear and hostility towards the DPRK, in somecases triggering threats and physical attacks onKoreans in Japan seen as sympathetic to theNorth. The rising tide of nationalism during thisperiod was also influenced by social anxietiesstemming from the prolonged economicrecession which followed the bursting of the“bubble” in the early 1990s. At the level ofstate politics, the nationalist ascendancyappeared to reach a peak with the PrimeMinistership of Abe Shinzô (who served for oneyear, from September 2006 to September2007) . Abe’s hawkish foreign pol icy(particularly towards North Korea) anddetermination to revise Japan’s postwarconstitution and education laws wereunderpinned by an intense cultural nationalism,spelled out in his widely sold paperbackUtsukushii Kuni e [To the Beautiful Country].

Throughout this period, Kang Sangjung activelyparticipated in debates on Japanese nationalismfrom several angles. His writings includedOrientar izumu no Kanata e [BeyondOrientalism, 1996]12 and Nashonarizumu[Nationalism, 2001]13, both of which offeredcritical re-examinations of modern nationalistthought in Japan, but also works like NicchōKankei no Kokufuku [Overcoming Japan-NorthKorea Relations, 2003]14 and Higashi AjiaKyōdō no Ie o Mezashite [Towards a CommonHouse in East Asia, 2001]15, which argued, interms of practical contemporary policies, forthe normalization of relations with the DPRKand the creation of a Northeast Asian regionalcommunity. The second of these themes,closely related to Wada Haruki’s proposals forNortheast Asian regionalism16, forms an

important element in the article translatedhere.

His approach, however, has always been adistinctive one. As a South Korean nationalborn, brought up and resident in Japan, hedirects his critique of nationalism towardsKorea as well as towards Japan, often pointingto the complex ways in which Japanese andSouth Korean nationalism are historicallyintertwined and re-enforce one another.(Although, as in this article, his criticism alsorecognizes the power relationships whichdifferentiate the nationalism of former colonyfrom that of former colonizer).17 He stronglybelieves in the importance of communicatingwith a broad popular audience, and much of hiswork, particularly in the past ten years, hasappeared in media outlets (local as well asnational) that lie outside the normal circuits ofacademic debate. His popular writings haveincluded recorded discussions with a widerange of people, including those with politicalviews far removed from his own18, and alsoincreasingly include works written in novelisticsemi-fictional form.19 Kang’s works (includingthe article translated here) also express amulti-layered response to the complexphenomenon of nationalism: a desire tounderstand its economic and social wellsprings;a profound hostility to state mobilization ofethnonationalist symbols and passions; but alsoa recognition of, and a certain sympathy for,the human desire for community and thelonging for a place to call home.20

If the early 1990s marked the start of a newphase in Japan’s ongoing nashonarizumu ronsō[nationalism debate], the period from 2009onward may come to be seen as marking a shiftto a further phase whose outlines are not yetclearly defined. Events on the political stagehave had a deep impact on the contours ofpublic discourse in Japan. The 2009 advent of aDemocratic Party government, after over half acentury of almost uninterrupted LiberalDemocratic Party dominance, was welcomed by

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many people as opening up new domestic andinternational possibilities for Japan. But therapid collapse of the Hatoyama administrationand the problems that have beset theDemocratic Party regime ever since have leftmany feeling deeply disillusioned. In globalterms (as Kang emphasizes) US hegemonyseems in irreversible decline, yet the Japanesegovernment appears unable to find any policyalternative to the US strategic embrace.

In some respects, the power of culturalnationalism seems to have diminished since the1990s. Japanese audiences enthusiasticallyembrace the Korean and Chinese popularculture which reaches them via expandingcross-border media flows. Within the sphere ofmass culture, interaction between Japan and itsAsian neighbours is far closer than it was ten orfifteen years ago. But cultural transnationalismco-exists with the rise of populist nationalism,particularly at the level of prefectural and citygovernments, and has recently triggered anovertly racist backlash, played out above all onthe soc ia l networks o f the In ternetage.21 Meanwhile, efforts to resist the stateimposition of obeisance to the national symbolsof flag and anthem are repeatedly frustrated.The 1990s critique of nationalism could,indeed, be said to have triumphed in the realmof logic, only to fail in the realm of practicalpolitics. The fact that nations and ethnicitiesare constructed rather than natural, and thatnational symbols and traditions are invented, isnow widely accepted. But people continue tohate and fight in their name regardless.

In Japan, the disaster that has unfolded sincethe tsunami of 11 March 2011 has added a newtwist to the nationalism debate: on the onehand, deepening many people’s mistrust of thenational government, while on the otherevoking the rhetoric of national community –ganbare Nippon! – as a rallying cry forrecovery.

In his media comments on the disaster, KangSangjung has not only exposed failures in thecompany and government response to thenuclear crisis and called for regionalcooperation to develop alternatives to nuclearpower22, but has also sought to shift attentionfrom the nat ional to the local humandimensions of the event, which he defines notas a “national disaster” [kokunan] but as a“people’s disaster” [minnan].23

US power declines; the global financial systemsinks further into crisis; regional power shiftschallenge Japan’s economic dominance in EastAsia. In this uncertain world, how can we findeffective ways to resist a mass retreat to thepsychological fortresses of ethno-nationalismand racism? The essay translated here providesno simple answers to this question, but offersboth theoretical and personal reflections on thechanging forms and persisting power ofnationalism in Japan, while also pointing to theoutlines of one possible path beyond theethnonationalist hatreds of an age ofglobalization.TMS•

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Tunneling Through Nationalism: ThePhenomenology of a Certain Nationalist

What is nationalism? How does one answersuch a primitive yet essential question? As amember of one of Japan’s ethnic minorities, tome it is both an academic and an existentialproblem.

In this essay I will draw on the world systemsapproach of Immanuel Wallerstein and othertheories to trace the transformation of the EastAsian order in the post war period whiles imu l taneous ly d i scuss ing my owntransformation from pre-nationalist tonationalist and post-nationalist. I will outlinethe processes by which an East Asia baptisedinto nationalism might tunnel through thatnationalism to emerge on the far side, intowhat we may call an East Asian CommonHouse: a loose, cooperative regionalistcommunity connecting North East Asia andSouth East Asia. The conclusion I reach in thepresent essay is that this kind of regionalintegration has the potential to attenuatenationalist rivalries in East Asia.

1. From Gesellschaft to Gemeinschaft

Why must we begin any examination ofnationalism with the question of whatconstitutes the object of enquiry? What is theobject of enquiry? The problem is not simplythat the object is unclear at the start of theexamination; even at its end we cannot expecta single, univocal definition to emerge. Still,what is clear is that the concept of nationalismdoes exist, and that it contains within it anexcess of images. Nationalism is known to allas a household word: yet it lacks definition.Why does nationalism in particular embodysuch paradoxes? It would seem that simplylabelling a phenomenon as “nationalism” issufficient to bring nationalism into existence.

Whether you define nationalism as a discourseor see i t as a spec i f ic form of soc ia lconsciousness, it remains nonetheless a highlyvolatile phenomenon. Like a mercurial,explosive l iquid, the phenomenon ofnationalism is unstable, fleeting and transitory.

If nationalism is such a volatile phenomenon,why do nationalists see it as an unshakable andeternal “destiny”? We can liken nationalism tothe shimmering of the air on a hot day:ephemeral and trembling, rising like a flamefrom diffracting light. Yet, as we all know,these heat shimmers are only the product ofwarm air, rising from a patch of earth heatedby the sun’s rays. They live for but a moment.When air of a different density is introducedinto the rising flow, the light passing through isdiffracted into an array of colours. It is asthough the display were designed specificallyto deceive the eyes of the onlookers. Ifnationalism is akin to these heat shimmers,what are the powerful rays of light that causethe shimmering?

Even if nationalism is not solely a product ofthe modern era, but is predicated on the“ethnies” of previous ages24, there can be nodenying that the constructivist approach ishighly effect ive when analysing thisphenomenon. Whether one stands in oppositionto nationalism or supports it, there seems to bea consensus regarding the efficacy ofc o n s t r u c t i v i s m a s a f r a m e w o r k o funderstanding. Despite the rhetorical emphasison the persistence and immortality ofnat ional ism, there remains a sharedunderstanding that nationalism was discoveredat a specific point in time, and that it wascreated and is constantly being re-created.With that in mind, how do we go aboutdeveloping an argument about nationalism’sorigins, development and movement? Ifnationalism can be likened to the shimmeringof the air, perhaps we ought to look outside ofnationalism for the source of that iridescence.

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The best-known version of this somewhatexternal, objective explanation can be found inthe world systems theory developed byImmanuel Wallerstein and others. According toWallerstein, the modern world system (theglobal capitalist economy) was formed as aclass-based society [gesellschaft]. Yet, to justifyits own structure, while destroying a range ofh i s t o r i c a l l y e x t a n t c o m m u n i t i e s[gemeinschaften] , this world systemsimultaneously constructed new forms ofgemeinschaft which resembled status groups(race, nation, peoples, ethnic groups, religiousgroups, etc.). Thus the modern period is not, asone might expect , a movement f romgemeinschaft to gesellschaft, but rather theopposite: it is a movement from gesellschaft togemeinschaft.

If the above holds true, then the cultural role ofnationalism in the construction of differencemust be reconsidered. However much we mayemphasise the role of nationalism in ethnicidentity creation, language revival and culturaldifferentiation, in situations where suchphenomena do not serve class interests, statusgroup formation may take non-ethnic forms,such as the creation of religious identitygroups. So (for example) we can see cases ofshifts within a few decades from pan-Turkic topan-Is lamic movements, and then tonationalist- or class-based movements. Thus wecannot simply look at one section of the processand conclude that it is an “ethnic revival”.

Still, nationalism is not simply a reflection ofthe social reality of the world system. Like theshimmering produced by the diffraction oflight, nationalism too appears in an almostinfinite number of different guises. That is,unified forms of shared status identity such asethnicity are not unequivocally fixed. Rather,they are given their specific form by theadhesive force of the subjective moment. Theresult is a broad spectrum of innumerablegradations.

On this point Wallerstein makes the half-ironiccomment that, “Far from gemeinschaften dyingout, they have never been stronger, morecomplex, more overlapping and competitive,more determinative of our lives. And yet neverhave they been less legit imate.. . Ourgemeinschaften are, if you will, our loves thatdare not speak their names.”25 Research onnationalism must untangle these crypticparadoxes from within as well as from without.

Here, as a preliminary approach to this kind ofinternal/external understanding of nationalism,I would like to talk about my personaltransitions against the backdrop of the varioushistorical stages of nationalism in Japan andEast Asia. Setting aside the question ofwhether or not ontogeny (the development ofthe individual) recapitulates phylogeny (thedevelopment of the whole group or system), Ibelieve that discussing shifts in personalexperience in the context of the world systemsocial reality will highlight the contradictionsinherent to nationalism. It is also for thisreason that I have selected “Phenomenology ofa Certain Nationalist” for my subtitle.

2. Pre-Nationalist

It is necessary to pass through a number ofdifferent intermediary stages before the nationor state and their traditions and histories cometo occupy a central position in one’s self-consciousness, endowing one with a sense ofaffiliation and difference from others. I wasborn during the Korean War and I passed myyouth--until my adolescence—in the age of thePax Americana. The world economy was beingrun according to the Bretton Woods system,with post-war America and the overwhelmingpower of the U.S. dollar at its centre. AKeynesian welfare state with a Fordist systemof production and consumption at its coreaccompanied the spread of Americanismthroughout the world. This system pushed theformer Axis powers of Japan, West Germanyand Italy to unprecedented levels of growth and

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by 1968 Japan had surpassed West Germany’sGNP and had become the number twoeconomic power in the Western camp.

At the same time, the U.S. superpower becamebogged down in the Vietnam War and wasshaken by the turmoil brought on by thegrowing civil rights and student powermovements. The intensification of the Cold Warand the prosperity of former Axis powers gaveJapan a highly strategic position in Asia. In theUnited States the views of such people asEdwin Reischauer and Walt Rostow gainedtraction as they promoted Japan as a modelcase of Asian modernization and of the spreadof American-style mass consumerism. In thisway, as Japan grew increasingly dependentupon the U.S. both militarily and politically, italso came to occupy a central position in theworld system hierarchy, and was resurrectedas a major regional power in Asia.

Standing in stark contrast to Japan’s re-emergence was the former colonial state ofKorea. Impoverished by civil war and itssubsequent partition, it was only after themi l i t a ry coup d ’é ta t o f 1961 tha t adevelopmental d ictatorship sty le ofmodernisation finally commenced. This dividednation on the periphery of the world systemwas, as a result of pressure from Japan and theU.S., positioned at the front line of anti-communism and was subjected to the violentoppression of state-sponsored informationpolitics. America, Japan, and Korea, with an“imposed anti-communist internationalism” inthe latter, served as the base for the peculiarlystable postwar international hierarchical orderof centre, semi-periphery and periphery.

This Cold War structure concealed postcolonialhistories and forced former colonizing statesand former colonized states alike to adoptunitary national identities. Thus ZainichiKoreans, who existed as a minority stranded intheir former coloniser’s state, were put in anexcruciatingly difficult position. In Japan they

were discriminated against as “history’srefuse” and forced into a pariah-like role. Atthe same time, they were scorned by Koreansas “half Japanese” (panchoppari) or “ethnicdropouts”. Born in the state of their formercoloniser and speaking Japanese as their nativetongue, second-generation Zainichi Koreansfound themselves caught in a crushing vise,trapped in ambivalence between the suzerainand the colonised state.

At the time, the towering shadow of PaxAmericana continued to loom over East Asiadespite the U.S. becoming increasingly trappedin the quagmire of the Vietnam War. Americaretained its hegemonic position in virtuallyevery field: politics, military, the economy,culture, etc. Under America’s protection, andthanks in no small part to special militaryprocurements during the Korean and VietnamWars, Japan continued with its transformationinto an economic regional power. Thus, despitebeing castrated militarily, Japan was on its wayto becoming America’s greatest ally as EastAsia’s dominant regional power.

While Japan underwent its transformation,Korea--located on the periphery of the worldsystem--became a satellite state as an Americanmilitary supply base. With the conclusion of theJapan-Korea treaty of normalization in 1965, italso began to receive economic assistance fromits former coloniser and to embark on itsproject of modernisation via the developmentaldictatorship model. In contrast to Japan’sinteraction with South Korea, however, therewas no attempt to settle accounts with NorthKorea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea)and diplomatic relations between the twocountries remain severed.

Thrown into this tumultuous environment,Zainichi Koreans found themselves beingtwisted and bent as the opposing powersgrated and shoved against one another. Whileexisting as an ethnic minority in Japan, theynonetheless precisely reproduced the Korean

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North-South division. Not only were ZainichiKoreans forced to continue to occupy asubservient colonial position in Japan andsurvive in a situation that replicated the North-South division of their homeland, they also hadto deal with a wide range of unresolvedproblems within their own community such as alingering paternalistic social structure, genderinequality and so on. The pariah-like existenceof the Zainichi Koreans was further disruptedby sensational incidents of self-destructiveviolence: the Komatsukawa Incident26, whosecentral figure was Yi Jin-U, and the Kim Hi-roIncident27. It was inevitable that the unresolvedpostcolonial issues of postwar Japan shoulderupt into such periodic criminal incidents.

Amidst this oppressive reality I sought only toescape from all things ethnic or national. At thesame time I felt internally incomplete. I foundmyself overcome by a sense of drifting--notunlike what one senses in lachrymose, romanticsentimentality. Drifting aimlessly in this faintlyironical sorrow, unable to decide on a course ofaction and unbound by any commitment, I hada freedom which seemed like that of the prewarso-called “leisured intellectuals” [kōtō yūmin].Of course, in my case, that freedom wasconfined to a small space with a radius of onlya few meters. I ensconced myself in that spaceand peered out at the world through a tiny gapin the wall. I rejected the world even as Iceaselessly and desperately sought forsomething to connect me to that world. So,consumed and troubled by ambivalence, therewas no room for even the smallest particle ofnationalism in that second generation ZainichiKorean.

3. A disease called Nationalism

As I slumbered, lulled by my counterfeitfeelings of romanticism, the 1970’s arrived. Ivisited Korea at the moment when it was beingdragged into the orbit of a developmentaldictatorship. It was then that I experienced animportant transition. The distant seeds of our

present-day financial crisis were then beingsown in the form of the “Nixon shock”. Thepostwar economic system was under assaultand confidence in the standard currency--theUS dollar--was beginning to wobble. Thesuspension of the direct convertibility of thedollar into gold, the ultimate bastion of supportfor value, the drain of the Vietnam war on thevalue of the dollar, and the consequent chronicdeficits in US account balances all served toreveal that the framework of the economicsuperpower was being shaken. The move to avariable exchange rate system enhanced theincentive for the international flow of capital,and we began to understand the powerfulinfluence that currency, finance, exchangepolicies and the like hold over the realeconomy.

At the same time, in economic terms, the worldwas becoming multipolar. The emergence ofWestern Europe and Japan supported a tri-polar structure of global capitalism centred onthe US, Japan and Europe. With the summitmeetings of the mid-1970s, this cooperativestructure took on a more concrete form. Japanoccupied a privileged position in world financeand was largely unaffected by the stagflationthat swept across Europe and the UnitedStates, leaving long-term economic malaise inits wake. The country was therefore able toovercome the oil shock of 1973 and focused onmaking its position as an economic superpowerpermanent. The result was that culturalnational ism, now l inked to economicnationalism, resonated throughout Japan asconsciousness of Japan’s superpower statusgrew.

This was not a statist nationalism that focuseditself on the political realm, but rather it was ananti-political or apolitical nationalismembedded in the economy, society and culture.It was a nationalism grounded in the newly-emerging fields of consumer culture andpopular culture--themselves products of Japan’srapid transformation into a mass-consumption

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society. It was, in other words, the sediment ofa national consciousness atomised byconsumerism, which settled and came to formthe foundation upon which long-termconservative rule was established. In Korea, bycontrast, the split between dictator and peoplewas becoming clearer and the country wasapproaching a season of intense politics. Theechoes of that season reached the ears andminds of the Zainichi, resulting, for many ofthem, in an “ethnic awakening”.

In Japan, the protest movements against therenewal of the US-Japan Security Treaty of1970 were dying down and violent politicaleruptions on both the radical right (theMishima incident28) and on the radical left (theRed Army incident29) were breathing their last.With radical political factions receding into thebackground, political forces began to collapseinto a more general, centrist position. A new,“catch-all” system of politics was coming intobeing: a system that sought to encompasseverything while simultaneously maintaininginternal discrimination and difference. ZainichiKoreans, excluded from this catch-all system,were brought together by what BenedictAnderson calls “long distance nationalism”.They had no choice but to try to find their ownescape route by becoming attached to a quasi-conceptual democracy.

I too was drawn in by this force, and recited them a n t r a o f “ e t h n i c n a t i o n a l i s m =democracy=reunification”. I bade farewell tomy gloomy fixation on romantic sentimentalismand threw myself into student movementsopposing the dictatorship and supporting anethnically unified democracy in Korea. At thetime “ethnicity” [minzoku / minjok] seemed tobe a magical word, capable of solving all of ourproblems. To liberals and the left our supportfor an ethnically-based nationalism no doubtseemed like an absurd anachronism. However,to Zainichi Koreans the word “ethnicity”,remote though it may have been from everydayexperience, shone with a bright and inviting

aura.

My bias toward ethnicity and my increasedconsciousness of belonging to a specific ethnicgroup allowed me to construct an internalbarricade, separating me from the outsideworld. I moved from what I felt to be a “false”identity to a “true” identity. To exaggeratesomewhat, you could say that I experiencedthis as a Copernican revolution, as somethingakin to a religious conversion.

So was this spiritual elevation simply atemporary “illness”? Does it deserve thescornful label, to misquote Lenin, of “right-winginfantilism”? No, I do not think so. Even werewe to see it as an “illness”, that does not makeit mere delusion, nor does it make the ideasempty words. What other means remained tothe Zainichi Koreans, besides the “illness” ofnationalism, to affirm their own existence? Wehad been discriminated against, excluded,forcibly uprooted and expelled from thecommunity. Ought we to have assimilated intothe majority? Should we have assimilated into aclass that transcended ethnicity and race? Orshould we have tried to better ourselves andtransformed ourselves into cosmopolitan globalcitizens? To the extent that we were not in aposition to choose those options it was quitenatural that we should have been attracted tothe “illness” of nationalism.

However, this raises the question of why,knowing that it was an “illness”, I chosenationalism in the first place and clung to itwith such resolve. At that time I did not seenationalism as an “illness”. On the contrary, itseemed to me the very embodiment of health.Over time, however, I came to realise thatnationalism was an “illness” that drives itssufferers mad. This awakening was not unlike apatient discovering a portal to a new world and,by means of this new perspective, becomingaware for the first time of the unnatural“illness” with which he is afflicted.

For me, this transition occurred when I left

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Japan to live in a small corner of Europe. ThereI was able to witness directly the tragicaftermath of the diasporas, the dispersal andcoalescing of peoples and races. I came toappreciate that the “sufferings” (leiden) ofZainichi Koreans was not specific to Koreans.Rather, it was a tragic condition into whichmyriad peoples throughout history have fallen.It was at this moment that I first became awareof the “the world” as well as its past as “worldhistory”. That is, for the first time, I was able toview the history of the Korean people from anew perspective and in a new light. It was asthough I were peering through the wrong endof a telescope. From this vantage point, theindividual sufferings of the Korean peopleretreated into the distance and merged withthe sufferings of other peoples. It was asthough the innumerable individual streams ofsuffering of all the different peoples joinedtogether to form the river of “world history”.When I realised this, I distanced myself fromnationalism and made a different choice.

As it happens, it was right around this time thatthe Keynesian welfare state was in decline andthe neo-liberal reforms that sowed the seedsfor the current global financial crisis wereemerging. Then, ten years later socialismcrumbled and, as though to fill the subsequentvoid, Islamic fundamentalism appeared and theIranian Revolution was played out on the worldstage.

4. Beyond Nationalism

After the oil shock of the 1970s made the shiftfrom Fordism to Post-Fordism irreversible,capital, money and information transcendednational boundaries, moving freely throughoutthe world. Nationalism seemed to becomesomething of a throwback: the ghost of aprevious age. From the mid-1980’s I also beganto put down roots in the locality where I livedand, in the process of “implanting” my family inthat locality, I gradually came to distancemyself from my previous partiality for “ethnic

nationalism.” Additionally, through my readingsin sociology, history, literary criticism and post-colonialism, I encountered a variety of criticaldiscourses on the nation state and nationalculture. I turned this critical evaluation ofparadoxes onto myself and embarked on a kindof self-dissection.

Yet the path of history is unpredictable. At thevery moment I was embracing the subjectiveproblem of “dis-enchanting” nationalism, a newphenomenon one could call nationalism beganto sweep across Japan. It could, I suppose, beseen as a “virtual phenomenon”--dependent asit was upon the media and the Internet. In thissense, simply by defining it as a nationalistphenomenon may make it a sort of “self-declared nationalism”. Or, though wecharacterise it as nationalism, perhaps we arejust dressing up a variety of phenomena in thegarb of nationalism. In some cases this mayhave involved an ironic acceptance of mediaphenomena as nationalism when, in reality,what we were seeing was the manifestation of avariety of individual and social demands. In anyevent, there can be no denying that some sortof nationalism more firmly focused on the statewas beginning to spread. Why did thisphenomenon appear? To understand this wemust first revisit the classical definition ofnationalism.

To borrow from Ernest Gellner, nationalism canbe thought of as a political principle thatattempts to match the political unit with thecultural unit.30 Gellner’s analysis is obviouslypredicated on the assumption that the stateemerged in the form it did so that it could dealwith industrialisation, the one underlying forcefrom which so much else emerges. In contrastto agricultural societies, the modern industrialsociety is defined by an egalitarianism that isitself a by-product of the social fluidity ofindustrial societies. All members of this societyare expected to possess basic skills: literacy,numeracy, basic work habits and technicalskills, familiarity with essential social skills. A

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new trans-personal mode of communication,which does not depend on social context, isnecessary to cultivate these skills. That is tosay, these skills can only develop where ashared, standardised written and spokenlanguage exists. Clearly it is the modern nationstate that develops high culture based on theability to speak and write the commonlanguage. Through instruction in language andculture, the nation state holds a monopoly overthe “quality control” of the production of usefuland adaptable people (through education). It isfor this reason, Gellner asserts, that withoutthe existence of the state, the question ofnationalism would never arise.

In this sense, a nationalism in which humancommunities are organized into large,col lect ively educated and cultural lyhomogeneous units is not the result of anideological misstep or an impulsive excess, butrather is the inevitable product of the attemptto match the political with the cultural. Stateand society are joined, and a fictive systemcalled “unified national culture”--in which allmembers live, talk and produce--is constructed.

One aspect of this fictive unification, in thecase of Japan, was the identification of centreand region, and the assumption that one’snative locality (patrie) was equivalent to thenation as represented by the centre. In themodern nation state, and particularly in theMeiji state, there were in fact ongoing frictionsbetween centre and regions. But during theSino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars thestate prospered, and regional societiessupported that prosperity. Thus for a while theoptical illusion was established that theprosperity of the nation state and theprosperity of local regions operated inharmony.

To be sure, Gellner’s analysis of the origins ofnationalism relies on a highly rationalinterpretation. It does not address theirrationality of nationalism. How nationalism

spurs people to such zeal that they willingly goto their own deaths in its name is notexplained. Nor does he account for thetemporal lag that exists between theemergence of industrialisation and the suddenrise of nationalism. Having said that, however,Gellner’s important contributions to ourunderstanding of nationalism are beyondquestion. His analysis presents us with theprocesses by which the political unit of themodern world has become legitimised as the“nation-state” (two elements joined by ahyphen): from the social policies andcorporatist bureaucratic state of Germany’sSecond Reich, to the Anglo-Saxon welfare statein the period of total war (under the BeveridgePlan) and to the postwar Fordist regimes ofaccumulation and the Keynesian social welfarestate. In this sense, Gellner’s analysis is verycompelling.

If we see Gellner’s nationalism as “classicalnationalism”, then we are confronted withanother problem: that the very foundations ofthe society he describes are now beingdismantled. The spreading anxiety and malaisethat accompanies globalisation is the result ofglobalisation’s “liquefaction” of socialfoundations and the resultant collapse orvanishing of society. Under classicalnationalism, legitimacy depended upon theunion of state and society. Now that legitimacyis collapsing as societies fall to pieces anddisperse like so many atoms. It seems that theuniversal “regime of desire” better known as“the market” has brought about a situationwhere the state and society can be unified, if atall, only by external pressure.

The homogeneity cultivated and imposed by thei r res i s t ib l e , ob jec t i ve demands o findustrialisation can be seen as having beenexpressed in the form of nationalism. But nowthe homogeneous social infrastructure thatunderpins nationalism is on the brink of uttercollapse. So, why is it that nationalism seems tobe on the rise? To answer this we must first

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recognise that when we discuss nationalism, itsmeaning will inevitably differ depending uponwhat we emphasise. It will mean one thing ifwe stress the concept of “nation’ implied byBenedict Anderson’s “imagined communities”and something quite different if we focusinstead on Weber’s “state” as an ”anstalt”[institution] with a “monopoly on the use oflegitimate violence.”

This element of ambivalence can be seen in thehyphen that links the two words “nation-state”,and it extends to cover the area of the “nation”--a space that can be seen as roughly identicalwith society. In order to meet the demands ofindustrialisation, the state sought to integrateitself with society and mobilise humanresources by promoting universal literacy,numeracy, and technical skills, as well as ageneral “improvement” of the population.While serving as a model for economicdevelopment and regimes of accumulation,postwar Fordism and Keynesianism alsofunctioned as the integrating principles behindunified national economies.

As I have mentioned, however, we are alreadyat a s tage where , in the embrace o fglobalisation and the liberalisation of finance inparticular, we are busily dismantling thefoundations upon which the unified nationaleconomy is based. The link between state andsociety is crumbling. The state is separatingitself from the nation and transforming itselfinto an agent for the global regime ofaccumulation. As a result, not only is the statewithdrawing from its monopoly on the “qualitycontrol of the product ion of people”(education), it is also cutting the umbilical cordconnecting it to society by withdrawing fromwelfare and medicine, superannuation andemployment, and other areas essential to thereproduction of social life. It is moving, inshort, from “government” [seifu] to a form of“rule” or “control” [tōchi], involving a widerstructure encompassing both the state and keyfigures in civil society. What we have is not a

“credit crunch” but rather the phenomenon of a“public crunch”. Nationalism as the glue whichonce transcended class and unified the peopleis being weakened at its very foundations.

Hannah Arendt saw this kind of situation, inwhich the masses have “lost their connectionwith others and become defined by theirroot lessness ,” as the indispensableprecondition for totalitarian rule. Arendtdefines this condition of the masses as“verlassenheit”, loneliness, or the state of beingabandoned:

What prepares men for totalitariandomination in the non-totalitarianworld is the fact that loneliness[verlassenheit], once a borderlineexperience usually suffered incertain marginal social conditionslike old age, has become theeveryday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century.The merciless process into whichtota l i tar ianism dr ives andorganizes the masses looks like asuicidal escape from this reality.The “ice-cold reasoning” and the“mighty tentacle” of dialecticswhich “seizes you as in a vice”seems like the last support in aworld where nobody is reliable andnothing can be relied upon.31

In Japan, the national broadcaster NHK’sspecial documentary entitled The Working Poordepicts the plight of a thirty-five year oldhomeless man who is reduced to spending hisdays sifting through rubbish bins. He searchesfor magazines in the hope that he mightconvert them into enough money for a cup ofconvenience store instant ramen. It is a tellingstory that reveals the spread of “verlassenheit”among the younger generation of thatostensibly wealthy country: Japan.

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I am overcome by a sense of déjà vu when Iconsider the predicament of these youngpeople: abandoned by society and left noalternative but to abandon themselves. It bearsa close resemblance to the situation of theZainichi Korean ethnic minority in the 1970’s.This recent social phenomenon of the workingpoor is nothing more than a new manifestationof the “verlassenheit” of Japanese citizens whoare now becoming “Zainichi-fied”, turned intopariahs. This repetition indicates that theprinciple of a single, homogeneous unity uponwhich the nation is based has become virtuallymeaningless and that another kind of invisibleapartheid is emerging.

If that is the case we have no choice but torecognise that the social foundation for the“nation” no longer exists in contemporarynationalism. Rather we are left with a“nationalism without nationals” or a “post-national nationalism”. All we have is anationalism with the state at its centre.Ironically, the socially unifying force of “statenationalism” is left as the only force that cancontain both the anti-social conditions createdby verlassenheit and the “organizedverlassenheit” that destroys all socialrelationships (i.e. the violence and terror oftotalitarianism).

But the national state, transformed into theagent of neo-liberal capitalist plunder, now nolonger has the least iota of justification for itsclaim to unite the people of the nation. Today,the social basis of the nationalism on whichcitizens relied is destroyed, and forciblyimposed loyalty to the state alone is lauded as“patriotism”. What a distortion, what adeception this is! We are confronted by thespectacle of desolated home communities(patries), rural areas being torn apart, the landof the nation laid waste, and at the same time,servile and blind obedience to the state,accompanied by xenophobic nationalism.

As this transformation in the nature of

nationalism has become obvious, I have finallycome to think that it might be possible not somuch to overcome or transcend nationalism,but rather to burrow through it, to tunnel downand discover a passage that will lead us out, onto the far side, beyond nationalism. That is, it isnot simply a matter of repudiating nationalismas an “illness” or of unthinkingly embracing it.Rather, by digging the well as deep as it willgo, I believe that we might find ourselves onanother path to the other side of nationalism.

Conclusion – The Northeast Asian CommonHouse

With the current enormous shifts in globalcapitalism, which may be described as theprelude to global economic crisis, whattransformations will be wrought on existingstates and nationalism? This is the question Ifind myself thinking about most often. At theend of this phenomenological examination of anationalist, this question of future destinationsis a particularly critical one.

The perilous situation of global capitalism,perched on the brink of world crisis, is anindisputable indication that the “PaxAmericana” is drawing to a close. The age ofAmericanism that so defined the twentiethcentury is coming to an end. The end of theCold War was not the end of history, but ratherthe end of the Pax Americana. At the sametime, the financial crisis has shown us--quiteunexpectedly--how utterly powerless states areto control the arrogant movement of capital asit straddles national borders. Indeed the crisisrevealed that the state, in its new role as anagent for capital, can and will operate againstthe interests of the nation.

Yet, despite all this, the end of the state has notbegun. The nation, as before, remains the mostcritical, the most important embodiment ofgesellschaft and the most critical and the mostimportant embodiment of gemeinschaft. So,what will be the future of nationalism? Ifnationalism is a complex of ideas and

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movements that aims to maintain the existenceof the nation and that gives shape to the state(as political protective membrane of thenation), then nationalism must be prepared todeal with the greatest threat to the nation:capitalism run amok. Unless this issue isaddressed it will not be possible to avoid thefate of utter collapse that has already beenvisited upon those small and mid-sized statesonce lionised as models of globalisation.

So, it is not simply a matter of rejectingnationalism. We must consider how we canboth integrate nationalism and take its coreideals to a different level. Surely a way of doingthis is through a regionalism which wouldcreate a broader space for the free interchangeof people and information, capital andtechnology across borders; for suchregionalism would maintain the sovereignty ofthe state while, at the same time, attenuatingethnocentric nationalism and opening up thestate to a wider shared ownership. One part ofthis process of regionalisation involves diggingdown as deep as possible into the well of localhome communities – patries – and thus openingup tunnels to a region-wide transnationalnetwork of patries.

At the beginning of the post-America era theworld is divided into four poles: a regionalismemerging from the loose solidarity between theEU and Russia; the regionalism surroundingNorth and South America; African regionalism;and finally the regionalism of East Asia. Mightnot this era be a time when those four polesbegin to negotiate and cooperate with oneanother on a global level? Of course, it goeswithout saying that Japan and Korea belong tothe East Asian pole. Through the cooperation ofSouth East Asia and North East Asia, and withthe contributions of Japan, China and Korea inNorth East Asia in particular, the East Asia polewill prove to be immensely important to thefuture of the region.

An important possibility here is the notion of a

“North East Asian Common House”, whichrefers to the structure of a regionalist orderwith these three countries at its centre. Thethree countries at the core of Northeast Asia –China, Japan and South Korea – by themselvesproduce some 20% of the world’s GNP. Therehas never before been a region that hasexperienced such rapid economic growth.Besides, trade within the region andparticularly between Japan and China hasalready exceeded Japan-US trade in scale. Withinvestment and trade expanding, there can beno doubt that sooner or later this region willbecome a single economic sphere, even if in aninformal rather than in an institutionalisedsense.

Yet there are few places in the world where thepolitical rivalry between nations is as intense asin Northeast Asia. On the one hand, theeconomic interdependence and cultural flowsare rapidly growing, but on the other profoundconflicts over security and resources arebecoming more and more evident year by year.Why has it so far been impossible to establish aregional security framework and mechanismsto promote mutual trust in Northeast Asia? Onereason has been discord in terms of historicalconsciousness. I have discussed this problem ingreater detail elsewhere32, so will refer onlybriefly to it here. However, it is worthmentioning simply that with the rapid spread ofdemocratisation and new information networks,it becomes easier for nationalism to bepopularly disseminated, and this hasaggravated the problem.

The second reason for the failure to createcommon security frameworks is the fact that inNortheast Asia the Cold War has not yet fullycome to an end. Since the Korean Wararmistice was signed at Panmunjom on 27 July1953, more than half a century has passedwithout progress towards the signing of apeace treaty. In other words, Northeast Asia’s“post-war world” was created without comingto terms with the history of what might be

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termed an ongoing “semi-world war” situation.In this postwar regional order, the UnitedStates served as a hub, and the onlyrelationships that developed were anagglomeration of bilateral relationshipsbetween the US and Japan, the US and SouthKorea, the US and North Korea, the US andChina etc. There are many situations wherenegotiations between the neighbouringcountries of the region cannot proceedsmooth l y w i thou t the US ac t ing asintermediary: a situation that ColumbiaUniversity professor Carol Gluck has termed“the bilateralism syndrome”.

In 2003, however, an important experiment increating a multilateral framework for securityand for promot ing mutual t rust wasestablished. This was the Six Party Talks onNorth Korean denuclearisation. If theframework established by the Six Party Talks(themselves a move toward the end of the ColdWar) can be mobilized in the future, we canenvision the creation of an ANEAN (Associationof North East Asian Nations), consisting ofJapan, China, North and South Korea, the U.S.and Russia, and serving as a counterpart toASEAN. If this can be achieved, then thecontours of the East Asia pole will becomevisible.

With the inclusion of America (as an Asia-Pacific nation), Russia (as part of the Far East)and North Korea, the North East Asia CommonHouse would surely constitute a core entity inEast Asia. If each nation, while sharing theirnational sovereignties, created a broaderregional base, we might see nationalism finallyreleased from the yoke of ethnocentrism. Theresult, one imagines, could be a transformationfrom ethnocentric nationalism to a kind ofshared nationalism premised on coexistence. Ofcourse this vision of the future could becriticised as being over-optimistic. Yet, wecannot use reality as a tool for criticizingreal ity. I t is in ideals that we f ind analternative; and as we stand on the precipice of

global crisis, confronted by unprecedenteddangers, we should not dismiss those ideals outof hand as a “fool’s dream.”

An earlier Japanese version of this essay waspublished in Ōsawa Masachi and KangSangjung eds . , Nashonar izumu RonNyūmon, Tokyo, Yuhikaku, August 2009. Theversion published here is revised andexpanded.

Kang Sangjung is a Professor specialising inpolitical theory and inter-Asia relations in theInterfaculty Initiative in InformationStudies, University of Tokyo. His most recentworks include Omoni (2010) and Rīdā waHanpo mae o Aruke: Kim Dae-jung to iuHito (2009).

Tessa Morris-Suzuki is Professor of JapaneseHistory in the College of Asia and thePacific, Australian National University. Hermost recent works include Borderline Japan:Foreigners and Frontier Controls in theP o s t w a r E r a(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0521864607/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2010) and To the DiamondMountains: A Hundred Year Journey ThroughC h i n a a n d K o r e a(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1442205032/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (2010).

Mark Gibeau is a Lecturer in the JapaneseStudies in the College of Asia and thePacific, Australian National University. Hisresearch interests focus on postwar Japaneseliterature with particular emphasis on the workof Abe Kōbō. His literary translations includeworks by Kawabata Yasunari, Kakuda Mitsuyo,Yamamoto Shūgorō and Komatsu Sakyō.

Recommended citation: Kang Sangjung,'Tunneling Through Nationalism: ThePhenomenology of a Certain Nationalist with anintroduction by Tessa Morris-Suzuki,' The Asia-

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Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 36 No 2, September5, 2011

Notes

1 Laura Hein, “The Cultural Career of theJapanese Economy: Developmental andCultural Nat ional isms in Histor ica lPerspective”, Japan Focus, 26 June 2008.

2 For example, Kim Gwang-sang, “’Sato Masarugensho’ hihan,” Impaction, No 160, November2007

3 For essays by Kang and other participants inthis controversy, see Iinuma Jirō ed., ZainichiKankoku Chōsenjin: Sono Nihon Shakai niokeru Sonzai Kachi, Osaka, Kaifūsha, 1988.

4 Kang Sangjung and Murai Osamu, “Ran-Hansha suru Orientarizumu”, Gendai Shisō,May 2003, pp. 182-197.

5 Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash ofCivilizations?”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 72, no. 3,Summer, 1993, pp. 22-49; this essay was laterincorporated in Huntington’s book The Clash ofCivilizations and the Remaking of the WorldOrder, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1996.

6 H. D. Harootunian, “America’s Japan / Japan’sJapan” , in Masao Miyosh i and H. D .Harootunian eds., Japan in the World, DurhamN.C., Duke University Press, 1993, 196-221.

7 Nishikawa Nagao, Kokkyō no Koekata, Tokyo,Chikuma Shobō, 1992.

8 K o m o r i Y ô i c h i a n d T a k a h a s h iTetsuya, Nashonaru Hisutorī o Koete, Tokyo,Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1998.

9 From 1965 onward, historian Ienaga Saburōfiled a series of suits against the JapaneseMinistry of Education, which had demandedchanges to history textbooks that he hadauthored. During the 1980s, the textbookcontroversies became international, as Chinaand other Asian counties protested reportedplans by the Japanese government to replacethe word “invasion” in descriptions of Japan’srole in the Asia-Pacific War with the word“advance”. These controversies formed thebackground to the protests over nationalisttextbooks in the second half of the 1990s. SeeI e n a g a S a b u r ō ( t r a n s . R i c h a r d H .Minear), Japan’s Past, Japan’s Future: OneHistorian’s Odyssey, Lanham, Rowman andLittlefield, 2001; Laura Hein and Mark Seldeneds., Censoring History: Citizenship andMemory in Japan, Germany and the UnitedStates, Armonk, M. E. Sharpe, 2000.

1 0 Katō Norihiro, Haisengoron , Tokyo,Kōdansha, 1997; the three essays contained inthis book were originally published as journalarticles between 1995 and 1997.

11 Abe Shinzō, Utsukushii Kuni e, Tokyo, BungeiShunjūsha, 2006; Kang Sangjung’s Aikoku noSahō (Tokyo, Asahi Shinsho, 2006), published afew months later, can be read as a response toAbe.

12 Kang Sangjung, Orientarizumu no Kanata e,Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1996.

13 Kang Sangjung, Nashonarizumu, Tokyo,Iwanami Shoten, 2001.

14 Kang Sangjung, Nicchō Kankei no Kokufuku,Tokyo, Shūeisha Shinsho, 2003.

15 Kang Sangjung, Higashi Ajia Kyōdō no Ie oMezashite, Tokyo, Heibonsha, 2001.

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16 See Wada Haruki, Tōhoku Ajia Kyōdō no Ie:Shin-Chiikishugi Sengen, Tokyo, Heibonsha,2003.

17 For Kang Sangjung and Hyun Mooam, Dai-Nihon, Manshū Teikoku no Isan, Tokyo,Kōdansha, 2010.

1 8 For example, Tawara Sōichirō, KangSangjung and Nishibe Susumu, Aikokushin,Tokyo, Kōdansha, 2003; Kaneko Masaru, KangSangjung, Kim Mirei, Kobayashi Yoshinori etal., Aikokushin, Kokueki to wa nani ka, Tokyo,Asukomu, 2004.

19 For example, Kang Sangjung, Omoni, Tokyo,Shûeisha, 2010. This is a novel closely based onthe life of Kang’s mother.

20 For example, C. Douglas Lummis, KangSangjung and Kayano Toshihito, Kokka toAidentiti o Tou, Tokyo, Iwanami Bukkuretto,2009; Kang Sangjung and Nakaj imaTakeshi, Nihon: Konkyōchi kara no Toi, Tokyo,Mainichi Shimbunsha, 2008.

21 For a careful discussion of this phenomenon,see Rumi Sakamoto, ‘Koreans, Go Home!’Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan asa Digitally Mediated Subculture, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 10 No 2, March 7,2011.

22 See for example “Kakuheiki Shōmetsu toGenpatsu Jikō: Kang Kyōjū ni Kiku”, ShinanoMainichi Shimbun, 7 August 2011.

23 See, for example, Kang Sangjung, “Minnanga Tsuzuite iru”, Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, 17June 2011.

24 See Anthony Smith, Nationalism, Oxford,Polity Press, 2001.

25 Immanuel Wallerstein, Unthinking SocialScience: The Limits of Nineteenth CenturyParadigms, Temple University Press, 1991, p.75.

26 Komatsukawa Incident – A Zainichi Koreanman named Yi Jin-U (Ri Chin’u) was tried andfound guilty of raping and murdering a high-school girl and a young woman in 1958. Yi wasa highly intelligent young man, whose lettersreflecting on his crime and impendingexecution evoked a strong response, andbecame (amongst other things) the subject ofŌshima Nagisa’s film Kōshikei [Death byHanging]

27 Kim Hiro Incident – In 1968, Kim Hiro,a Zainichi Korean from an impoverishedbackground, shot two gangsters and then heldeighteen people hostage in a siege at a guesthouse before surrendering to police, an eventthat attracted massive nationwide mediacoverage in Japan.

28 Mishima Incident – the ritual suicide in 1970of novelist Mishima Yukio and an associatefollowing a far-fetched attempt to carry out aright-wing military coup d’état.

29 United Red Army Incident – A siege at MountAsama in 1972 which resulted in the arrest offive members of the extreme left-wing UnitedR e d A r m y [ R e n g ō S e k i g u n ] . I t w a ssubsequently revealed that fourteen othermembers of the group had been killed ininternal purges by their comrades.

30 Ernest Gellner, Nationalism, New York, NewYork University Press, 1997.

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3 1 H a n n a h A r e n d t , T h e O r i g i n s o fTotalitarianism, Cleveland and New York,World Publishing Co., 1962, p. 478.

32 See, for example, Kang Sangjung, KangSangjung no Seijigaku, Tokyo ShūeishaShinsho, 2006, ch. 6.