I
On February 28, Japanese government raided again a Korean organization, called by its acronym, “Chongryon” in Tokyo. It was another nakedly vicious “political oppression” inflicted upon an ethnic minority organization by Japanese authority.
According to most influential and globally-recognized Korean daily newspaper in Tokyo, called “Chosun Shinbo,” Japanese public security police troops’ early morning raid was carried out as if they executed a fearmongering military operation where they mobilized “over 250 heavily armed public security police troops” assisted by “over 25 armored vehicles.”
It was obiously an overtly excessive and intimidating show of fascist police power to intentionally incite senses of fear, insult and terror among the historically discriminated, oppressed and defenseless population.
The Feb. 28th’s raid was specifically targeted at two Korean NGOs: One is Korean Association of Scientists in Japan, the other Korean Association of Athletes. Both organizations belong to the above-mentioned Chongryon organization.
Japanese security police troops cordoned the whole area where a “Korean Printing Company” building is located. Both NGOs have their offices in that building. The police troops even sealed off the immediae area traffic for more than 4 hours.
Doubtlessly all were unnecessary. Evidently everything was intentional. It was another xenophobic and racist act committed by Japanese government against Koreans in Japan.
As usual, it was intentionally and overtly hostile. It was another sick hatemongering act against the independent-minded, progressive and nationalistic Koreans.
Conclusively, as it’s never been stopped last 60 some years, it’s another repetition of colonial-style hidden crime committed by former vicious colonial power over against their former defenseless and innocent colonial victims.
II
As was the case in the past, this time, too, none of Japanese, South Korean and US/Western mainstream media reported the incident at all. They were, as if they’d promised each other, all too silent about the continuation of Japanese regimes’ legal, moral and sociopolitical crimes.
While they are all too busy with their typical, habitual, and repetitive nonstop demonization campaign against their “manufactured ideological enemies” such as DPRK most distinctively, indeed, neither Japanese nor US, South Korean corporate media carried the story.
Of course, their faithful conservative media are busy also in their usual demonization campaigns against their “other enemies” such as China, Russia, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and so on and so on.
The Japanese “official rational for their third raid” at the very same Korean printing building this year alone was the above-mentioned “two Korean NGOs were involved with a small Korean computer company which allegedly conducted illegal exports of used computers to DPRK.”
However, the Chongryon organization as a whole and those two Korean NGOs all categorically denied Japanese government’s ill-willed rational. The Chongryon calls it another “groundless and fabricated accusation against their organization.”
In other words, Japanese government’s official rational, Koreans emphatically charge, was to “cover up” again to “justify their ongoing political oppressions against the Chongryon people.”
III
The presence of over a half a million Korean populations in Japan in 1945 when the Imperial Japan finally surrendered to the Allies of WWII was the direct result of Japanese vicious colonial rule against Koreans for almost a half a century.
The majority of those Korean populations then in Japan were the tens of thousands “forced laborers” and another tens of thousands “forcibly conscripted Korean soldiers served in the Imperial Japanese Military.”
Most Korean laborers in Japan were “forcibly ABDUCTED” by Japanese colonial police and military forces or “DECEIVED for decent jobs” and then brought to Japanese military factories and mines.
Those “forced laborers,” “forced soldiers,” and even “another tens of thousands forcibly ABDUCTED” so-called “comfort women” in Japanese military barracks were merely part of all together “more than 6 million Korean victims” by the Japanese imperialists during that almost a half a century-long colonial rule.
It seems, however, the countless number of many crimes was not enough for the descendents of Imperial Japan, probably one of the most vicious, the most despicable but the most coward colonial powers in human history, to stop their ancestors’ sick habits to commit crimes against the innocent minority populations.
It seems those descendents of Japanese imperialists do not have any genuine sense of remorse.
To make this sort of challenging remark is mainly, now as well-known internationally, due to their “constant denials, distortions and falsely rewritings or lack of honest acknowledgments” of their ancestors’ colonial crimes such as the case of “military comfort women,” “Nanjing Massacre,” and many other countless (both known and unknown) atrocities.
Most among those millions of Korean victims during the entire period of Japanese colonialism were brought to notorious “secret mines” as “slave laborers,” to “battlefields’ frontlines in imperialists’ wars” as “human shields,” and to “military brothels” as so-called “comfort women.”
However, those “forced laborers, soldiers, comfort women” had not been paid, treated as promised only but also “forced to work until either they die from complete exhaustions, illnesses or beatings, or labor like medieval slaves” not only before the end of WWII but also after the Japanese surrender in August, 1945.
As briefly mentioned above, those tens of thousands of forcibly conscripted young soldiers served in the Imperial Japanese Army were brought mostly to the frontlines of many fierce battlefields in the Asia-Pacific region where they’d become either “human shields” or been meaninglessly killed in combat for the Japanese criminal wars of aggression.
Japanese, here one must say clear and loud enough, “crimes against humanity” didn’t stop when the Imperial Japan was forcibly brought to an end.
It instead continued clandestinely and most cowardly and viciously afterwards, too.
Even after the Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allies, an unknown number of “forced Korean laborers, soldiers, and comfort women” were viciously slaughtered and buried alive at a number of unknown places by then the already defeated Japanese military and police forces.
There is one distinctive historical case which had not been well-known to the world either.
After the Imperial Japan surrendered, another unknown number of survived “Koreans by thousands on a Japanese navy transport ship were all buried at sea between Japan and Korean peninsula.”
Japanese imperialists destroyed and sank their own navy ship, called “Ukishimamaru” which carried those tens of hundreds supposed-to-be already liberated Koreans on their way back home finally away from the harshest yoke of colonial slavery.
That story of another vicious Japanese colonial crime which was committed even after they officially surrendered had not been brought to international justice only.
But the story itself hasn’t been also hardly known, heard by, and told to the world at all.
IV
The Chongryon stands for “National Association of Koreans in Japan.”
Right after the WWII, the majority population of Chongryon was composed by mainly the descendents of those above-mentioned “forced laborers and soldiers” and other Korean residents then in Japan. Of course, there were other types of Korean populations such as overseas students who then studied and worked in Japan.
So the post-liberation politics of most, if not all, Koreans then was naturally “anti-imperialist, anti-Japanese thereby progressive.”
Needlessly to say, their nationalistic fever was overwhelming.
Therefore, it was also quite natural the Chongryon people chose Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, however, much more known in Western media as “North Korea”), though the 2/3 of their population’s provincial backgrounds originally from the south rather than north, as their “newly liberated fatherland” over against the “re-colonized South” which then already became a military-ruled colony occupied by another new slave master the US imperialists.
For 100 percent sure, that was and still is the main key reason why the descendents of Japanese imperialists have continued to ideologically, politically and legally oppress the Chongryon organization and its most devoted population throughout the entire history of its organization for over 50 years.
Despite consecutive Japanese governments’ harshest-ever sociopolitical, legal and racial discriminations and oppressions against Chongryon as a whole, however, from the very beginning of its foundation in 1955 as the only Korean anti-imperialist thereby anti-Japanese, anti-US, therefore very progressive and nationalistic organization in Japan, it’s become the largest, the strongest and the most devoted grassroots nationwide organization.
Under such a viciously, almost mentally-ill thereby sickly-racist society like Japan, the continued presence and strength of an organization like the Chongryon is often or should be considered “a miracle.”
They even have refused not only legally, ideologically, educationally, culturally, linguistically, and politically being assimilated or acculturated into the Japanese society but also remained by choice as “overseas citizens of DPRK” right inside of that extremely hostile racist society against DPRK.
It’s been no secret that not a small population of Japanese society is badly tainted with their largely manufactured “anti-North Korean politics.”
In order to permanently tie their general population into that some sort of “manufactured enemy,” the Japanese sitting governments and their corporate media and their official school education have had to keep lying about DPRK as a whole specifically.
As a result, a large number of Japanese population constantly lives with mostly FICTIONAL stories which are made up (i.e., manufactured) by full of lies, false witnesses, disinformation, misinformation, fabricated stories, and so on and so on.
Of course, one of the most internationally-politicized case is the infamous issue of “ABDEUCTION” by DPRK of “TEN some Japanese” thirty some years ago.
However, the world do not know necessarily of Japanese imperialists’ countless number of “ABDUCTION” cases of “TENS OF THOUSANDS Koreans” more than a half a century ago.
It literally means the ongoing “demonization” campaign against DPRK by Japanese, Americans and their South Korean lackeys have been quite successful.
In that imperialists’ typical “war propaganda” based upon mostly lies, false witnesses, disinformation, misinformation, fabrications and/or manufactured stories, they won absolutely. No doubt about it!
But in the war of conscience, justice and truth, it’s they who’ve lost miserably and constantly.
All good people and even all good gods and all good spirits know this. It’s they who are absolutely wrong. In fact, they know this in their conscience and in their consciousness, though they keep in public denying and lying.
That’s why they are in a state of constant fear. It could mean their psyches and souls have been already condemned badly.
They know this!
Of course, this type of typical demonization campaign against “manufactured enemy (or enemies)” is not done by Japanese governments and their mainstream media only.
American governments which may rank the TOP, its Western junior patners, their lackeys all over the world, and, probably most importantly now, their corporate-run monopolized global media do the same thing all the time as well.
V
Many question then why Japanese aren’t free from their some sort of psychologically deep-seated sense of fear or inferior before Koreans in general, Koreans in north in particular.
Their abnormal relationship with Koreans, particularly DPRK people might be possibly explained from the notion of their psychologically very reactionary psyche such as a “inferiority complex” to Koreans in general, Koreans in the north in particular.
The above-mentioned psychologically deep-seated sense of fear or inferiority complex, as many Korean social scientists and historians conclude, might have begun ever since the self-claimed “best fighting and best-equipped in armaments” Japanese regular military unit, called “Guan-dong-gun” in Manchuria were numerously defeated, humbled and miserably suffered by the “famous anti-Japanese Korean partisan guerrillas,” most distinctively the “partisan guerillas led by the legendary hero General Kim Il Sung” who later became the DPRK’s founding president in 1948.
Now let’s go back to the Chongryon story and finish this rather long article soon.
Needless to contemplate, what it meant to have chosen their nationalities or political alliance not with Japan, while they continue to live in Japan, but with its arch and seemingly most fearsome enemy the DPRK, was the Chongryon people have voluntarily risked almost everything in Japan including their own lives.
However, despite all sorts of disadvantages, discriminations, oppressions and nonstop threats, the Chongryon organization has survived till this very day, though the number of devotedly participating members has somewhat dwindled down over the years.
But it seems their moral justification, political commitment and, most importantly, educational dedication have neither stopped nor decreased at all.
They now have even their fifth and sixth generation kids who still do attend, though the number of attendees has significantly reduced, at their famous Korean (called, Chosun) schools from kindergarten all the way up to the highly honorable and internationally well-known Chosun (Korea) University.
Therefore, this sort of overseas grassroots, politically progressive and nationalistic organization like Chongryon in an extremely unfriendly and hostile environment like the Japanese society could, it seems, be hardly found in any other parts of the world.
They’ve not only kept their political and ideological independence from Japanese society and their ruling ideology, but also have built their own independent SOCIETY within that very hostile Japanese society.
They have built not only schools but also their own hospitals, community credit unions (banks), businesses, and so on and so on.
When they organized themselves in mid 1950s, they had over 150 schools around the whole Japan, as mentioned above, from kindergarten all the way up to the higher education institution such as the Chosun University.
The following information must not be also well-known to the world either.
Japan has not legally and socially recognized the Chosun University graduates as legally-recognizable official university graduates in Japan.
However, last November in 2011, the Chosun University has enthusiastically celebrated its 55th Anniversary together with tens of hundreds peoples: students, graduates, special guests, supporters and their family members from all over the country, including some diplomats from DPRK friendly countries such as Russia, China and so on.
Their graduates work all over the country and overseas including Japanese and other universities around the world as their university faculties.
As repeatedly highlighted before, even if they’ve been constantly discriminated, disadvantaged and threatened by Japanese authorities, they’ve never stopped to build their own independent entities whatever and whenever they were needed for the sake of their sociopolitical, educational and financial independence within that racially and morally sick sociopolitical environment.
So, as a result, the sociopolitical and legal discriminations and oppressions by Japanese authorities have never stopped accordingly.
In that sense it seems such an organization like the Chongryon could be most likely unheard of in the history of racism.
It seems quite unprecedent.
VI
Again as usual, this time, too, the story of Japanese government’s coward, despicable and vicious crime against Korean minority population in Japan was not reported in the West’s mainstream media in general.
Indeed, neither Japanese nor South Korean and American mainstream media carried the story.
So, as a result, those unhonorable descendents of Japanese imperialists have been able to commit those hidden, coward and despicable colonial-style crimes against Koreans in Japan continually for another a half a century without being brought to any sort of international justice, international outcry, international condemnations, or even to UN Human Rights Commission where Japanese, together with their American and their Westeran allies and their South Korean lackeys love to bring DPRK’s, Chinese, Cuban’s, Iranian’s, Syrian’s, Russian’s “manufactured human rights” issues instead.
Those consecutive Japanese regimes’ hidden colonial-style crimes against Koreans in Japan, since from the very inception of pro-US flunkey regime in Tokyo under the direction and blessing of US military auspices in August 1945, have not been known to the world.
It’s hidden! Truth has been buried.
While Koreans’ real “human rights” being horribly abused at the hands of Japanese authorities, that very same Japanese governments have rushed to the UN Human Rights Commission to talk aloud and accuse the so-call “HUMAN RIGHTS” issues of OTHERS, BUT NOT THEIRS.
Either they are habitually forgetful, if they are unconscious of what they are doing.
Or extremely hypocritical, if they are consciously doing.
At any rate, unbelievably, it’s exactly the case of United States of America.
Alas, they are in that sense like the real twins.
Apparently they both seem to live with the UN-real world. They seem love listening the UN-true stories. They seem love living in the world of fictions.
Therefore, one may conclude, they seem live like they love to hang around with the UN-real, UN-true people and stories, in other words, the illusions only.
It may not be necessary to further question what kind of life if one lives in that sort of life environments throughout his/her whole life.
The cruel point here is that real and true stories about the Koreans in general, the Chongryon people in particular in Japan have not been heard by most in the world.
This is the main reason why this somewhar rather long article is written.
Therefore, this article is humbly dedicated to those tens of thousands devoted Chongryon populations who’ve founded and kept their most honorable and miraculous organization, and who’ve tried to do their best to endure being faithful to their moral and political conscience all the way through throughout their lives.
Dr. Kiyul Chung is Editor-in-Chief at The 4th Media and also a Visiting Professor at School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.