The Concept of Minjok; A Historical Reflection

I. Introduction

 According to the statistics of 2000 provided in the book of Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea, 93% of the people answered that they considered Koreans as ‘mono-blooded nation”. This coincides with the argument of Korean intellectual, Ho-Sang, Ahn, who was the first minister of education; “From the beginning of the history, Korean nation (Minjok) was and is homogeneous with several thousand years of history, sharing blood, region, language, culture and the historical destiny.”

 Although now, the amount of people who doubts the truth of the nationalism or the concept of Minjok is not ignorable, yet, majority of the people firmly believe in the solidarity of Minjok. Even those who do not believe in it still have emotional attachment to the nationalism, which can be represented by Red Devils of 20002 in World-Cup. The fact that the mascot of Red Devils is Chiwoo, who is an oriental legendary figure in history, shows that this kind of sports nationalism can be evolved into radical nationalism, because Chiwoo is argued by the radical nationalist historians to be the Korean king who conquered most of the territory of China.

Chiwoo

KMLA

 It should be noted that there is a high school which is named after the nationalistic historical perspective. KMLA is one of the most nationalistic schools in Korea, and it urges for the necessity of the education of the Korean traditions. Thus, students are very keen to the nationalistic point-of-view, and as a student of KMLA, I suppose that it is important to analyze the meaning and the origins of the Korean concept of Minjok.

II. The Origins of the Korean Nationalism

 Before the late 20^th Century, nationalism held dominions on the historical academia, and it was almost impossible to raise doubt on the concept of Minjok. From the 1990s, as the post- or anti-nationalistic historical philosophies (notably, Hobsbawm and Anderson) influx into the Korean academic world, some of the scholars, including Ji-hyeon, Lim, started viewing the origins and essentials of the Korean nationalism objectively.

 According to those researches, the history of the Korean nationalism is no longer than a century, because many historians suppose that the initiation of it was during the Japanese colonization era. There were many nationalist historians and activists who resisted against the Japanese colonial rules, such as Chae-Ho, Shin, Eun-sik, Park, Chang-Ho, Ahn, and In-Bo, Jeong. To beat up the colonial logics and pan-Asianism of the Japanese Empire, they exaggerated Korean ancient history and its people (In such perspective, they developed their specific historical perspectives, and it is evaluated to be pretty advanced. Ironically, the studies on historical philosophies are underdeveloped now) However, we should not view the incipient history of the Korean nationalism in such a simple way. It had to compete not only against the Imperialism and the Pan-Asianism, but also socialism, anarchism and universalism. In the context of the Korean independent movement, the competence between nationalism and socialism was quite notable. They didn’t only fight the Japanese but also against each other. Unfortunately, dispute, enmity and assassination were prevalent. Although after the separation of the country, the North and the South Korea followed opposite ideologies, it was the nationalism which took the champion belt, in both states.

Three Kingdoms...

...to be united

 How can we prove that there was no, or at least faint cognitions on nationalism? Many traditional historians who believe in the long and innate nationalism asserts that from the period of three kingdoms (삼국시대), Koreans had realization that they were sharing the blood, and the evidence is the unification of three states. It is true that the final victor Silla used the term Unification of three Korean (Han, 韓) countries (삼한일통), it should be doubt that whether that term based on nationalism. What really mattered in the period was survival, rather than desire for united nation, and all three countries carried out complicated diplomatic strategies not only with each other, but with Japan, China and even south-eastern Asian countries. The concept of the unification should be understood in the context of the legitimacy and the consolations (for the displaced), not in that of the nationalism. It is possible to admit that the separation between Chinese continent and Korean peninsula (Yalu river to Du-man river) appeared by the unification, but the nationalism, which requires a kind of direct emotional empathy and the sense of kinship within the imagined (and invisible) group had to wait longer for its emergence.

 What about the resistance of Goryeo (고려) dynasty against Liao, Jin or Mongolian invades? The people of Goryeo even made an immortal heritage of the Tripitaka Koreana, which is consisted of 80,000 woodblocks. However, we should think whether the project was voluntary or by fiat. Most of those resistances against the foreign powers were done by the governments and the nobles. The conspicuous evidence is that there was no militia leader from the commoner who led the battle until the early 20^th Century. During the age of seven-year war against the Japanese invasion (Im-Jin-Ue-Ran, 임진왜란) in 16^th Century, all the militia leaders were nobles (Yang-Ban, 양반) or monks. In contrast, what did the lower classes people do? Those in Seoul threw all the documents including their slave certifications into fire and destroyed palaces, and the king fled to north. The people of Han-Gyeong province, who had long been discriminated, arrested two princes and handed them over to Japanese army. The class-conscious was much stronger than the nation-conscious.

 Other evidence is provided in the dissertation by the professor Tae-hoon, Lee (The Historical Process of the Development of the Concept of Minjok, and its Meaning). The author asserts that until 1910s, it was “country-citizens”(국민), not “nation” which used to indicate all Koreans, or to urge for the unity. Actually the word Minjok was invented by Japanese scholars in late 19^th Century. If there was a sense of unity of kinship, it was about the people inside the borderline, not the same blood.

III. Nationalism to Gain Power

             

 It was the Japanese colonial era, which ironically gave power to the Korean nationalism. As a counterpart of the rulers Japanese, the recognition of Koreans as a repressed and victim group emerged. The Korean War was another watershed for the nationalism, as well as decades-long dictatorship. The Korean War was a quite shocking incident for both countries firmly believed that they were same nation. The contradiction of two countries with the same nation began, and regardless of that, both countries boasted nationalism as much as they could.

 When we reflect the historical examples of the Nazi German or Fascist Italy, it was nationalism they tried to manipulate. The Japanese Empire was also the perfect example for the nationalism-centered country. The Empire urged all the Japanese to be united under the name of Ten-no (Heavenly Emperor), and to fight until death (玉砕), because Japanese are the sons of the sun-god. Although Korean authorities didn’t implement such mythological metaphor, they did grant Dan-gun as their national father. Every school had Dan-gun statue and other Korean historical figures as well as anti-communist ‘heroes’. Dictator Park Jeong-hee tried to revive the Korean economy and felt necessity to boast the Korean nationalities, and emphasized Korean traditions, which were carefully selected in taste of the dictator.

Distorted Korean ancient history

 The next dictator Jeon Du-hwan also maneuvered nationalism to harden his basis. The desire for democracy and the welfares were concealed by the nationalism. The democratic activists were often incriminated to be the traitor against the Minjok. Dictator Jeon distorted the Korean history without hesitation. According to the book of Han Hong-gu who is a professor of the Korean Anglican University, the military officers who got authority during the time of the dictator said, “Korean History textbook is like a national bible to instill national consciousness, national confidence and pride, so it is possible to include unproved historical facts if it is needed to educate citizens.”

The Korean military dictator, Park Jeong-hee (man in the right with sunglasses)

Another Korean dictator, Jeong Du-hwan. He was also from military.

 Thus, here we can conclude the dictatorship authorities played crucial roles to enable Korean nationalism gaining a great power. Korea experienced the modernization after its independence and the people felt anxiety of the dynamic changes, and that would be the important reason for Koreans to be attached to such a conservative ideology, nationalism. Nationalism is not about the logical ideology such as capitalism, socialism or anarchism, but rather a religious term, which require people to imagine an invisible group called nation. It was a Miranda method dictators used in manipulating the nationalism; touching the emotions of the people.

IV. And… the Present (21^st Century)

 In 2002, Korea surprised the world with gathering more than a million red-shirts wearing people into Gwang-Hwa-Mun Square. In addition the hatred crimes on foreigners are increasing, especially on South-east Asian people. There even is an internet café aiming the expulsion of every foreigner, and once, one of the public TV channels of Korea broadcasted the highly-biased program on foreigners’ crime. As mentioned above, still many people believe in mono-blooded nation.

 There are two things to be noted. First, Lim Ji-hyeon, whom I mentioned as a radical anti-nationalist, admits the existence of the nation, or the national consciousness, but urges for the open-minded nationalism. Second, already one tenth of the newly-married couples are Korean-foreigner (or foreign-born) spouses. The mythology of a sacred nation is collapsing much faster than we think, and it is time to make change in the nationalism.

* Postscript: The example of the North Korea

 Now, it is impossible to deny that the North Korea is a nationalistic state. It officially gave up the principle of socialism in 1990s already, and only the Jucheism (주체사상) is the ideology defines the North Korea. What is Jucheism? It is similar with self-determinism, but in extreme way. They say that Koreans were born with pure blood, and the South Koreans are contaminating it by having relations with the world. Their ideas are, interestingly, quite similar with Nazi ideologies. They believed in ethnocentrism, considering the Koreans to be the best nation in the world. One of the foreign travelers who visited Pyeong-yang, the capital of the North Korea asked the guide the reason he cannot see any disabled people. The guide’s answer was shocking; “The superior Korean genes don’t bare disabled!” They adopt strong eugenics in dealing with the disabled, which seems to be a return of the Nazi government. They enlarge the ancient Korean territory much larger than originally assumed. They assert to find the tomb of Dan-gun, and these remind us the Pan-Aryanism. Furthermore, the North Korea had been worshiped three Führer, and make a complete hierarchy under the name of the republic (DPRK) The extreme nationalism creates such cruel and illogical scenes.