Korean ethnic nationalism

Korean ethnic nationalism, or racial nationalism,^[1] is a political ideology and a form of ethnic identity that is prevalent in modern Korea. It is based on the belief that Koreans form a nation, a race, or an ethnic group that shares a unified bloodline and a distinct culture.^[2] It is centered on the notion of the minjok (민족; 民族), a term that had been coined in Japan in the early Meiji period on the basis of Social Darwinian conceptions. Minjok has been translated as "nation," "people," "ethnic group," and "race-nation." The same characters in Chinese mean ethnicity, culture or nationality, not race.

This conception started to emerge among Korean intellectuals after the Japanese-imposed Protectorate of 1905,^[3] when the Japanese were trying to persuade Koreans that both nations were of the same racial stock.^[4][5] The notion of the Korean minjok was first made popular by essayist and historian Shin Chaeho in his New Reading of History (1908), a history of Korea from the mythical times of Dangun to the fall of Balhae in 926. Shin portrayed the minjok as a warlike race that had fought bravely to preserve Korean identity, had later declined, and now needed to be reinvigorated.^[6] During the period of Japanese rule (1910-1945), this belief in the uniqueness of the Korean minjok gave an impetus for resisting Japanese assimilation policies and historical scholarship.^[7]

In contrast to Japan and Germany, where such race-based conceptions of the nation were discarded after the Second World War because they were associated with ultranationalism or Nazism,^[8] postwar North and South Korea continued to proclaim the ethnic homogeneity and pure bloodline of the "Great Han" race.^[4][9] In the 1960s, President Park Chung-hee strengthened this "ideology of racial purity" to legitimize his authoritarian rule,^[10] while in North Korea official propaganda has portrayed Koreans as "the cleanest race."^[4][5] Contemporary Korean historians continue to write about the nation's "unique racial and cultural heritage."^[11] This shared conception of a racially defined Korea continues to shape Korean politics and foreign relations,^[9] gives Koreans an impetus to national pride,^[12] and feeds hopes for the reunification of the two Koreas.^[13]

Despite statistics showing that Korea is becoming an increasingly multi-ethnic society,^[14] most of the Korean population continues to identify itself as "one people" (danil minjok; 단일민족; 單一民族) joined by a common bloodline.^[15] A renewed emphasis on the purity of Korean "blood"^[16] has caused tensions, leading to renewed debates on multi-ethnicity and xenophobia both in Korea and abroad.^[14] Ethnic nationalism in Korean culture may partly stem from a reaction against not only the Japanese invasion and Anglo-American cultural colonialism, but also a history of Chinese cultural colonialism.

Origins

Early use

Contrary to popular belief in Korea, the Korean ideology of purest race began only in the early 20th century when the Japanese annexed Korea^[4] and launched a campaign to persuade them that they were of the same pure racial stock as the Japanese themselves.^[5]

In the colonial period, the Japanese assimilation policy claimed that Koreans and Japanese were of common origin but the former always subordinate. The pure blood theory was used to justify colonialist policies to replace Korean cultural traditions with Japanese ones in order to supposedly get rid of all distinctions and achieve equality between Koreans and inlanders.^[9] The policy included changing Korean names into Japanese, exclusive use of Japanese language, school instruction in the Japanese ethical system, and Shinto worship.^[9] B.R. Myers argues that seeing the failure of the pure assimilationist policy, Japanese imperial ideologues changed their policy into creating a Korean ethnic-patriotism on par with the Japanese one. They encouraged Koreans to take pride in their Koreanness, in their history, heritage, culture and "dialect" as a brother nation going back to a common ancestry with the Japanese. Thus, Korean nationalism is a deliberate creation of the empire of Japan.^[4]

Independence

Heaven Lake of Baekdu Mountain where Hwan Woong (환웅; 桓雄), Dangun's father, is said to have descended from heaven, constitutes a foundation for the legend of blood purity in Korean

Shin Chaeho (1880–1936), the founder of the nationalistic historiography of modern Korea and a Korean independence movement activist, published his influential book of reconstructed history Joseon Sanggosa (The Early History of Joseon) in 1924-25, proclaiming that Koreans are descendants of Dangun, the legendary ancestor of Korean people, who merged with Buyo of Manchuria to form the Goguryeo people.^[17]

Borrowing from the Japanese theory of nation and race,^[17] Shin Chaeho located the martial roots of the Korean in Goguryeo,^[17] which he depicted as militarist, expansionist which turned out to inspire pride and confidence in the resistance against the Japanese.^[17] In order to establish Korean uniqueness, he also replaced the story of Gija Joseon, whose founder (Gija) was the paternal uncle or brother of the Chinese Shang emperor Zhou, with the Dangun legend^[18] and asserted that it was an important way to establish Korea’s uniqueness.^[17]

After the independence in the late 1940s, despite the split between North and South Korea, neither side disputed the ethnic homogeneity of the Korean nation based on a firm conviction that they are purest descendant of a legendary genitor and half-god figure called Dangun who founded Gojoseon in 2333 BCE based on the description of the Dongguk Tonggam (1485).^[9][19]

Reception

In Korea, pure blood theory is a common belief justified as "defensive nationalism."^[20] The debates on this topic can be found sporadic in the South, whereas the public opinion in the North is hard to access. In a nationalistic view, to impugn the theory would have been tantamount to betraying Koreanness in the face of the challenge of an alien ethnic nation.^[9]

Some Korean scholars observed that the pure blood theory served as a useful tool for the South Korean government to make its people obedient and easy to govern when the country was embroiled in ideological turmoil.^[20] It was especially true in the dictatorial leaderships by former presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee when nationalism was incorporated into anti-Communism.^[20]

The ideology also maintains a conviction amongst Koreans that both South and North Koreans are all brothers and sisters of the same blood-family and reunification is the ultimate goal.

Contemporary social issues

Xenophobia

American football player Hines Ward's visit to South Korea has stirred debate if the society should accept mixed blood people.

The notion of pure blood results in discrimination toward people of both "foreign-blood" and "mixed blood."^[14] Those with this "mixed blood" or "foreign-blood" are sometimes referred to as Honhyul (혼혈) in South Korea.^[21]

According to 2009 statistics published by Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, there are 144,385 couples of international marriage in South Korea as of May, 2008. 88.4% of immigrants were female, and 61.9% were from China.^[22] Recently it has been argued that South Korean society had already become a multicultural society. As of 2011, 10 ministries and agencies of South Korean government are supporting international couples and foreign workers in South Korea toward the cultural plurality.^[23]

In 2006, American football player Hines Ward, who was born in Seoul to a South Korean mother and an African American father became the first Korean American to win the Super Bowl MVP award. This achievement threw him into the media spotlight in South Korea.^[24] When he travelled to South Korea for the first time, he raised unprecedented attention to the acceptance of "mixed blood" children. He also donated USD 1 million to establish the "Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation", which the media called "a foundation to help mixed-race children like himself in South Korea, where they have suffered discrimination."^[25]

However, while Koreans are fascinated by the bi-racial sport hero, the majority of ordinary mixed-race people and migrant workers face various forms of discrimination and prejudice.^[14] In 2007, the Korean pure blood theory became an international issue when the U.N. Committee on the International Convention Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination urged better education on the pure blood theory is needed especially for judicial workers such as police officers, lawyers, prosecutors and judges.^[26][27] The suggestion received mixed reception in South Korea in which some raised a concern that foreigners will invade the Korean culture and challenge national sovereignty.^[28] Others say that the embrace of multi-ethnicism will diminish chances of reunifying the Korean peninsula.^[28]

The Korea nationality law is based on jus sanguinis^[9][28] instead of the territorial principle which takes into account the place of birth. In this context, most Koreans have stronger attachment to "ethnic Koreans living in foreign countries" than to "ethnic non-Koreans living in Korea."^[9][28]

In 2005, the opposition Grand National Party suggested a revision of the current nationality law to allow Korean nationality to people who are born in South Korea regardless of the nationalities of their parents but it was discarded due to unfavorable public opinion.^[14]

Racism is an ongoing issue and there has been a great deal of awareness in South Korea. Hines Ward was granted "honorary" South Korean citizenship.^[29] Tasha Reid (also known as Natasha Shanta Reid, Korean name is Yoon Mi-rae (윤미래)) is a famous mixed race singer in Korea.^[30] Middle school access has been expanded to children of illegal immigrants.^[31]

In 2007 the Korean government passed the Act on Treatment of Foreigners.^[32][33][34] Later in 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination praised the Act on Treatment of Foreigners, but also expressed a number of concerns. The Committee was concerned "about the persistence ofwidespread societal discrimination against foreigners, including migrant workers and childrenborn from inter-ethnic unions, in all areas of life, including employment, marriage, housing,education and interpersonal relationships." It also noted that the terminology such as "pure blood" and "mixed blood" used in Korea, including by the government, is widespread, and may reinforce concepts of racial superiority. The committee recommended improvement in the areas of treatment of migrant workers, abuse of and violence against foreign women married to Korean nationals, and trafficking of foreign women for the purpose of sexual exploitation or domestic servitude.^[35] It also noted that contrary to domestic perception South Korea is no longer "ethnically homogenous".^[36]

Another legislation aimed at improving the integration of minoroties into Korean society, the Support for Multicultural Families Act, was passed in 2008^[37] (and revised in 2011).^[38]>^[34]

Existing Korean criminal law provisions may be used to punish acts of racial discrimination, but have never been used for that^[35] until 2009, when the first case of a Korean national verbally attacking a foreigner have been brought to court.^[36]

North Korea is rumored to have abducted foreign women to marry to American men that defected to North Korea in order to keep these American men from having relationships with North Korean women. North Korea is accused of killing babies born to North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers.^[39] The Korean Central News Agency attacked President Obama using racist slurs.^{[40][41][42][43]}

See also

• The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters

General:

• Korean nationalism
• Anti-American sentiment in Korea
• Japan–Korea disputes

References

Further reading

• Chae, Ou-Byung. "Non-Western Colonial Rule and its Aftermath: Postcolonial State Formation in South Korea." Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan. ProQuest, 2006.
• Grinker, Roy Richard. Korea and its Futures: Unification and the Unfinished War. Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
• Jager, Sheila Miyoshi. Narratives of Nation-Building in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism. M.E. Sharpe, 2003.
• Kim, Nadia Y. Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.
• Lee Gage, Sue-Je. "Pure Mixed Blood: The Multiple Identities of Amerasians in South Korea." Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University. ProQuest, 2007.
• Pai, Hyung Il. Constructing "Korean" Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories. Harvard University Asia Center, 2000.
• Pai, Hyung Il, and Timothy R. Tangherlini (eds.). Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1998.
• Schmid, Andre. Korea Between Empires, 1895-1919. Columbia University Press, 2002.
• Shin, Gi-Wook, and Michael Robinson (eds.). Colonial Modernity in Korea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University East Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press, 2001.
• Shin, Gi-Wook. Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006.