by
Kwang Ok Kim
[Seoul National University, Korea]
posted September 18, 2006
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Article : |
*This paper is an edited version of a paper presented at the international symposium on "Constructing a Northeast Asian Community and the Role of Universities," organized by the Northeast Asian Presidents Association and the National Reasearch Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences, Seoul, Korea, May 22-23, 2006.
1. The Northeast Asian Cultural Community
In recent times, notwithstanding existing structural differences
between nations, there has been an upsurge in corporate and cooperative
ventures that strive for increased exchange of capital and technology.
Also, the proliferation of information industries coupled with the
spread of new communication and technological systems has largely
facilitated a cross-boundary expansion of knowledge and culture. An
increase in migrant labor and interracial marriages in both Korea and
Japan has aptly shattered the myth behind a singular and homogeneous
base of their ethnicity. As a whole, the promotion of socio-cultural
exchange, widening mutual economic relations, and the new 'ethnoscapes'
imbedded in the process possibly predict the formation of a new
international order among the nations involved.
In 2004, the Korean National Research Council for Economics, Humanities
and Social Sciences established a Special Committee for a Northeast
Asian Cultural Community. The purpose of this committee was to promote,
through various movements, the designation of Northeast Asia as a proper
and unified cultural community. The committee has endeavored to build up
the regional concept of Northeast Asia and the concept of cultural
community, and carried out various research projects to find out ways to
construct a transnational cultural community in the region of Northeast
Asia.
These issues are linked to the growing competition and conflict over
the amassing of energy resources; the military and diplomatic tensions
surrounding the Korean peninsula; the mutual dependency within market
economy systems that strive towards common prosperity; the protection of
the environment against degradation and pollution accompanying the rapid
development of China; the expansion of cooperative technological systems
and the exchange in human resources. Thus, it is fair to say that
without an expansion of communitarian relations based on a philosophy of
coexistence, these important issues cannot be properly addressed and
fully resolved.
National leaders have reiterated their rhetoric of regional community,
but their assertions are based around the common recognition of possible
gains in military security or the economy. These are nothing more than
strategic words imbued with a sense of prudence and caution. Today, we
find ourselves in a stage of planning out our future world from a
rational and discerning perspective, trying to construct a transnational
society or a cross-boundary regional community of cultural understanding
and respect. Let us assume that the first stage is an individualistic
mind frame that considers basic feelings and actions. This first stage
would then be followed by one where rational thought and practical
knowledge coalesce to form a world based on general ethical values. This
would be further developed by the emergence of a cultural community
characterized by mutual respect and recognition.
The community we envision does not revolve around a notion of
singularity, nor does it opt for a singular form of dominance and
control. Instead, it is based on the ideal of multiplicity, one
predicated on the facets peculiar to each nation and ethnicity. At the
same time, once we go beyond the boundaries of a given nation and
ethnicity, we can then begin to imagine a borderless world, one based on
a common ideal and a set of reciprocal values shared by its members.
This effectively takes shape around a common discourse of universal
ethics and morals. However, it is hard, if not impossible for people to
go one step beyond the confines of an individualistic and laissez-faire
stance. In order to construct and maintain the multifaceted,
heterogeneous aspect of an ethnically diverse community, it is first
necessary for all of us to practice reciprocal and mutual relations in
the context of daily life so that we can build up our fundamental
conceptions of diversity. Secondly, it is important to nurture our
capacity to accommodate and adapt to the increasing multicultural
environment.
Until now, these ideas of 'cultural community' have been underestimated
on account of the significant political and economic relations existing
between nations. However, it has become urgently necessary to acquire
adaptive ability to a new inevitable environment where transnational
flow of cultures and human resources constitute an everyday social
reality.
2. Difficult Conditions for the Northeast Asian Community
Yet there are many difficulties on the road to our dream of regional
community. The difference in perspective between China and Japan has
amounted to a veritable clash in the advancement of a regional community,
both in terms of power and physical boundaries. Furthermore, the notions
of ethnicity and nation in Northeast Asia are invested with an
ethnocentric bias.
Since the 1980s, people in Northeast Asia have increased awareness of
their neighboring countries through participation in various
international sports tournaments, cultural festivals, and economic
cooperative networks. A change in consumer culture following economic
growth has evidently contributed to the widening of a certain worldview.
The growth and proliferation of the tourism industry, in conjunction
with the popularization of visual and information technologies, has
animated exchange, especially in the field of popular culture. This in
turn has made it possible to envision a regional cultural community, one
that is effectively larger than immediate national boundaries.
In spite of this development, there is a need to confront the often-
concealed, hidden forms of ethno-nationalism that still exist today and
sometimes emerge with explosive force. This spirit of ethno-nationalism
not only is responsible for hindering a just or impartial understanding
of history but also has given rise to conflicting histories. This has
led to the aptly named 'wars on history' that take place between
countries within this region of the world. National leaders as well as
the media take advantage of this conflict to devise a 'proper' version
of history, one that is based on the centrality of one's own motherland
so that a sentiment of ethno-nationalism is revived and reproduced.
Therefore, we need to properly address and deconstruct these issues from
a regional perspective rather than from a limited historical frame of a
single homogeneous nation-state.
The recent explosion of the 'Korean wave' phenomenon has raised the
possibility that 'ordinary people' from all regions of Asia can develop
an Asian emotional base to create a transnational space for mutual
understanding. At the same time, however, the emerging growth of a
shared consumer culture is prone to a set of problems. These problems
stem from how this shared medium of popular culture can exacerbate a
country's image based on a set of linkages made between a country's
economic growth and its possibly belligerent national strength.
Notwithstanding this superficial development, one finds nestled within
these very foundations a space that separates and maintains cultures in
their heterogeneous state. This could turn into an expression of sheer
hostility towards a close and neighboring culture or nation.
If we take this latter point into consideration, we should call for the
establishment of transnational networks of civil movement in the region
of Northeast Asia. This, in due course, will initiate a movement based
on exchange among peoples whereby we can establish a cultural foundation
for reciprocal understandings across national boundaries.
Nations of Northeast Asia have endured the ravages brought on by the
historical memories of colonial violence and the post-colonial cold war.
The last fifty years were marked by a feeling of hostility among these
nations, whereby distrust and distorted images of one another further
created a void in between these national boundaries. In the 1980s, this
foundation of ignorance and bias began to be radically replaced by an
increase in trade relations which broke open these formerly closed
spaces and borders. Thus, until the present day, this exchange was
largely based on trial-and-error attempts. Furthermore, when regional
networks of civil movement began to take shape, their emergence took
place in disparate situations. The situations were marked by differences
in the worth and attributes of civil society, as well as differences
that each country had vis-a-vis its own population. It is imperative to
state that the ability for such civil movement networks to exert an
influence across borders is based on a precedent of understanding,
itself the result of effective consolidation in the exchange amongst
people.
3. The 'Cultural Abilities' for Construction of a Community
The transnational cultural community that we strive for is based on the
ideal that each member enjoys an enriched quality of life within it. In
other words, an individual should be able to incorporate elements not
'native' to his or her own world so that they become part of that very
world he or she inhibits. In order to achieve this goal, the first
necessary step is the implementation of cultural exchange. To be more
specific, exchanges in the realm of popular culture have become the most
effective vehicle for creating a space for communication and
understanding among peoples and nations. By consuming other cultures in
everyday life, people are unconsciously brought closer to someone else's
world.
Expansion of communal life beyond national boundaries ultimately is
possible only through the efforts made between and amongst people opting
for an exchange of cultures. This type of contact will take various
forms until mixed marriages, employment, and migration become more
commonplace. In other words, a regional community can only be realized
when people 'localize' their contacts with others to the extent that
other people's problems are perceived as one's own. In order to attain
this, we must develop the philosophy that we can survive only when we
are able to adapt ourselves to surrounding cultures. Simply stated,
community is something that allows us to live together while
acknowledging our differences.
Needless to say, under the wave of globalization, transnational flows
of culture and migrations of people have gradually expanded. However,
the cross-border movement of people and resources is quite often blocked
by the self-protectionism of nations. Migrants are easily degraded to a
new category of social minority in the host country as they fall victims
to social marginalization; thus they are not allowed proper economic and
legal opportunities and are unable to break out of the cycle of poverty.
Since the government of the host country applies citizenship as the
legal criteria to grant access to formal social and economic activities,
the immigrant communities are excluded from the social guarantees that
others enjoy by virtue of being citizens, and thus their voices are not
heard. Their status as outsiders is cemented to a further extent as it
becomes hard to adequately 'fit in' a certain society. Citizens of the
host country explain this marginalization in terms of the immigrants'
foreign and different cultural characteristics rather than on the host
country's often complex and highly bureaucratized legislative mechanisms
of isolation. Furthermore, citizens overlook the fact that these
immigrant groups find employment in areas that many other people refuse
to engage in, and it is these same people who then raise the objection
that these 'new arrivals' are a source of anguish and frustration.
In order for these immigrant societies to acclimatize and 'fit in' to
their host country, they need to learn the cultural differences inherent
in the host society, and they also have to overcome the bias and
prejudice against them. Furthermore, the host government or state should
make specific legal provisions to accommodate these groups. On top of
that, the host country should provide instituted means through which
these newly arrived peoples can retain and 'practice' their own cultures.
A cultural center should function as a space where immigrants and
'natives' come to understand one another through cultural exchanges and
experiences. Also, educational institutes are needed to provide special
vocational and cultural training for immigrant peoples, especially of
the younger generation, to qualify them as members of a newly forming
multicultural community.
In this context, I would emphasize that universities and other research
institutes have to take the role as centers that promote cultural
diversity and function as a locus in bridging cultural differences.
Universities can no longer confine themselves to the task of raising the
so-called competitive edge of the nation. Rather, they must take an
active role in creating transnational cultural flows and promoting
dissemination of science and technology common to all member nations of
the regional community. Thus, it is important to institute cooperative
networks across universities in Northeast Asia that are devoted to such
enterprises.
4. Conclusion
In order to construct a regional community for peace and common
prosperity in Northeast Asia, peoples in the region have to overcome
their inherent and self-centered views that prioritize issues of
political hegemony and maximization of economic power centered on their
nation-state. One way in which this 'common idea' can be created is to
facilitate transnational flows of people and cultures in everyday life.
Also, this should come about not only through the forms of a market
economy but also through communal efforts developed in a broader scheme.
A network of intellectuals in the region should be established as a most
efficient body of practice to mobilize and provide impetus for this type
of exchange.
In today's world, it is evident that intercultural exchange across
borders has become a fixture of reality that does not discriminate in
favor of elites. Nevertheless, a network of intellectuals is needed to
set the stage for a future where a powerful group of elites cannot raise
and maintain borders with the intention of keeping individuals trapped
within politically charged boundaries. In reality, this dream of greater
cultural community may not easily or necessarily materialize in full-
fledged form, as nations in this region vary widely in their systems of
administration and state ideology. However, the movement toward this
idea cannot be blocked by any type of political power, and it is
important for us to realize that the multifaceted transnational flow of
cultures, information, and technology, and most of all, the migratory
movement of people are slowly creating a new world, which cannot be put
on hold by political agendas or economic interests.
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