상호문화철학과 한반도 분단: 종족적 민족주의를 중심으로

Abstract

In order to properly understand the current reality of division and hostility between South and North Korea, the perspectives of modernization discourse and nationalism discourse are essential. Not only the Japanese occupation, but also the division by foreign powers followed the logic of the discourse that Western modernity is the only civilization. And what resisted this is the nationalist discourse. This is a contribution of nationalist discourse. However, it is also the nationalist discourse that the South and the North have used to unify the Korean peninsula and to justify their regimes. Furthermore, nationalist discourse plays a large role in excluding foreigners in South Korea or North Korean defectors.Intercultural philosophy emphasizes the diversity and equal dignity of peoples and cultures. In addition, intercultural philosophy reveals interculturality, which states that peoples and cultures have developed while exchanging mutual influences. Therefore, it insists on understanding each other, communicating with each other, and changing itself. To apply this to our history, intercultural philosophy criticizes the fact that the great powers colonized Korea and divided it into South and North Korea as Western-centered. However, regarding the discourse of nationalism, the intercultural philosophy affirms on the one hand as a discourse of resistance to powerful foreign powers, but on the other hand criticizes the South Korean and North Korean regimes for using it as an ideology to defend their systems. This is because the discourse of nationalism as a systemic ideology excludes others centering on the nation. And this binary opposition between ‘us and them’ and exclusion of ‘them’ as the other also applies to North Korean defectors in South Korea. Such a nationalist discourse cannot achieve peaceful reunification, nor can it reduce tensions between the two Koreas.