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'Koreans, Go Home!' Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan As a Digitally Mediated Subculture 「 コリアンズ ゴーホー ム」現代日本におけるデジタル方式下位文化としてのインターネット・ ナショナリズム

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'Koreans, Go Home!' Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan As a Digitally Mediated Subculture 「 コリアンズ ゴーホー ム」現代日本におけるデジタル方式下位文化としてのインターネット・ ナショナリズム Volume 9 | Issue 10 | Number 2 | Article ID 3497 | Mar 07, 2011 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus 'Koreans, Go Home!' Internet Nationalism in Contemporary Japan as a Digitally Mediated Subculture 「 コリアンズ ゴーホー ム」現代日本におけるデジタル方式下位文化としてのインターネット・ ナショナリズム Rumi Sakamoto ‘Koreans, Go Home!’ Internetgroup harassing Korean tourists on Tsushima, a Nationalism in Contemporary Japan Japanese island 138 km from Fukuoka and 2 as a Digitally Mediated Subculture 50km from Busan. This island has been attracting attention from Japanese nationalists Rumi Sakamoto because of the increasing presence of Korean tourists and Korean investment since the 2002 Introduction opening of high-speed ferry service between Busan and Tsushima. Nationalist campaigns over the island intensified when Korea’s Masan City adopted the ‘Tsushima Day’ bill in 2005, claiming that Tsushima should be a Korean territory, thereby countering Shimane prefecture’s ‘Takeshima Day’, establishing Japanese claim to Korea’s Dokdo island.3 The YouTube video in question captured several flag-holding Japanese men and women yelling: ‘Go home, Koreans!’ and ‘We won’t allow a Korean invasion!’ at tourists fresh off the ferry from Busan. Though not physically violent, the atmosphere was tense and disturbing. This episode is just one expression of Japan’s new grassroots nationalism, which has gained force over the last decade against the backdrop of increasingly vociferous historical revisionism and neonationalism.4 As seen in the recent conflict over the Senkaku Islands5 as well as Japan’s hard-line response to the North Korean Tsushima Island attack on South Korea, nationalistic sentiments seem to be increasingly dictating Japan’s foreign policy and public opinion. Contrary to On 18 September 2009, a person using the what is sometimes assumed, contemporary online name of ‘xegnojw’ posted a four-minute Japanese nationalism is not a monolithic entity, video on YouTube entitled ‘Japanese Racists for it is produced by multiple participants and Hoot Down Korean Tourists in Tsushima’.1 It groups with different ideas and modes of depicted members of a Japanese nationalist communication. The kind of blatant jingoism 1 9 | 10 | 2 APJ | JF and narrow-minded xenophobia seen above, has rarely been discussed in English language though still largely marginalised in the official scholarship.11 It is often pointed out that discourses of the state and public media, has today’s Japanese youths are increasingly found a niche in Japan, especially innationalistic and that the Internet is playing a cyberspace. New groups such asZaitokukai part in this trend.12 In considering how the (Citizens’ Group against Special Rights for technology and culture of the Internet Korean residents in Japan)6 and Shuken kaifuku influenced the formation of nationalism in o mezasu kai (Citizens’ Group that seeks cyberspace, this article engages with the idea Recovery of Sovereignty),7 however outlandish of a ‘cyber public sphere’. What internet- their stances, have successfully extended specific elements have contributed to the influence through effective use of the Internet, particular netto-uyo shape of nationalism? How incorporating YouTube and its Japanesemight we understand the paradox of the equivalents such as Niko-niko dōga (‘smiley borderless technology of the Internet videos’) and PeeVee TV to spread theirproducing an insular community and messages and publicise their activities.xenophobic nationalism? Channeru Sakura (2004-), which distributes conservative and nationalistic content via To answer these questions, after a brief look at satellite TV and Internet, also provides a 2-channeru and the netto-uyo phenomenon, this significant virtual space for neonationalist article offers a content analysis of nationalism perspectives. Without the Internet, it isin the Tsushima threads, focusing on the doubtful that an extreme nationalist group’s construction of ‘Korea’ as Japan’s other. It then foray into direct action on the peripheral island considers this case’s implication for the notion of Tsushima would have reached an audience of a ‘cyber public sphere,’ and discusses some beyond the group itself. As it happened, Internet-dependent factors relevant to the however, the video clip was immediately taken netto-uyo formation of the nation as an up by Japan’s largest online forum, 2-channeru, imagined community before finally considering prompting a barrage of nationalistic responses some unique characteristics of Internet there. A site ‘not for the faint of heart’,8 this nationalism in contemporary Japan. But first, unmoderated forum is known to be the main let us briefly look at some existing approaches outlet for revisionism and xenophobic neo- to nationalisms in cyberspace to put this study nationalism of the internet generation.9 into a context. Nationalisms in Cyberspace In the early days of the Internet, some Zaitokukai on YouTube: ‘Kick out Koreans predicted that, as a global and borderless from Tsushima!’ technology, the Internet would become a homogenising force that challenged and This article offers an analysis of the online eliminated chauvinism and narrow-mindedness. discourse of anti-Korean nationalism sparked Today’s optimistic observers also emphasise by the aforementioned YouTube video on2- the potential of cyberspace to provide channeru. It aims to examine thesomething akin to Habermas’ ‘ideal speech characteristics of the nationalistic postings and situation’ and ‘autonomous public sphere,’13 in the online construction of Korea as Japan’s which citizens/individuals communicate other.10 The case offers insight intorationally and democratically, without the contemporary Japan’s so-called netto-uyo (net constraints of ethnic, gender, class or other right-wingers . uyoku) phenomenon, which real-life inequalities. If we follow these insights 2 9 | 10 | 2 APJ | JF that the Internet provides an ‘autonomous are all considered potential enemies of the public sphere’ and ‘eradicates differences,’ nation. then we may conclude that the Internet challenges, and might even eventually end, Another relatively well-publicised and studied sectarian nationalisms. Nicholas Negroponte in case of Internet nationalism is Chinese online Being Digital, for one, famously stated that nationalism that emerged around the 2005 anti- 17 with the Internet ‘there will be no more room Japanese movement. Japanese Internet for nationalism than there is for smallpox’.14 nationalism is quite different from the Chinese counterpart. First, while Chinese online Such a prediction, however, seems, at best, nationalism has been widely viewed as decidedly premature. While the Internet has supporting or enabling on-street nationalism, certainly created an extensive global network the netto-uyo variety of Japanese Internet and promoted the exchange of ideas, it has nationalism this article addresses has largely hardly created a global democraticstayed within Cyberspace, rarely spilling out consciousness. Even a cursory survey reveals onto the street. Secondly, scholars of Chinese that nationalistic and xenophobic commentaries online nationalism have (in somewhat thrive on the Internet. And yet, in contrast to Habermasean spirit) typically located it within the abundant scholarship on nation andthe framework of civil society and citizens’ nationalism, Internet nationalism remains an activism, reading online activities as a sign of understudied phenomenon. In particular, the Chinese civil society as an independent sphere important question of how the Internet as a from the communist state. As one scholar put new medium affects the nature of nationalism it, ‘civil society and the Internet energise each and national imaginary deserves furtherother in their co-evolutionary development in investigation. China’.18 One strand of current scholarship on Internet As we will see, however, one can hardly nationalism focuses on the diasporicsuggest that Japanese internet nationalism communities’ online ‘long distance’embodies a democratic civil society. Not only nationalism.15 Such studies look at how, for does it fall short of producing on-street politics, example, the Palestinians, Kurds, or overseas but it is also confined within niche online Chinese maintain and reinforce their national communities, hardly representative of civil identities through the Internet. As Thomas society. Perhaps for these reasons, Japanese Eriksen points out, the aims of ‘virtual nations’ Internet nationalism has received much less are ‘of a classic nation-building kind’.16 In other attention than Chinese ‘civil’ nationalism has words, they aim to create and sustain the done in English-language scholarship. Though nation as a unified entity in the context of less visible than the Chinese examples and geographical dispersion of the population definitely not mainstream, Japanese Internet beyond national borders. Japanesenetto-uyo nationalism is a significant recent phenomenon internet nationalism, on the other hand, has no that indicates the formation of a shared space agenda for creating a transnational national where people engage with xenophobic identity among the overseas Japanese. It is nationalism and offers an opportunity for much more inward-looking and far lessexploring the interface between the Internet inclusive. Netto-uyo’s ‘we the Japanese’ does and nationalism. Besides, even though much not even include all ethnic Japanese, as those scholarship on Chinese online nationalism who do not share their values (liberals, left- focuses on its role in offline activism,
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