Abstract
An exploration of the political psychology of international conflict, this essay suggests the notion of a historically rooted “victim/victor complex” in its interpretation of South Korea’s recent national furor over Japanese history textbooks. Koreans harbor a deep sense of victimization in their collective memories of the checkered historical relationship with Japan, which, in turn, has generated a nationalist vehemence to vanquish Japan’s ethnocentric representations of bilateral and regional events in history textbooks. After providing some historical context of South Korean national demand to “settle the past” with Japan, the essay presents a textual analysis of Seoul’s official document of May 2001 that demands that Tokyo correct thirty-five “erroneous, distorted, and abbreviated or omitted” items in eight certified Japanese middle-school history textbooks. Then the essay describes and interprets South Korean citizens’ emotional outcries and public protests against Japanese “distortions of history” as collective enactments of the victim/victor complex. Finally, Japanese public responses and counter-demands for reverse corrections in the state-authored Korean textbook are discussed to comparatively highlight controversial issues. The bilateral conflict over history textbooks, on the one hand, hinges on narrative constructions of idealized Korean and Japanese national “subjectivities,” respectively, and, on the other hand, calls for further research and dialogue for a more balanced and accurate understanding of the bilateral history.