『계간삼천리』 피폭조선인 기사를 통해 본 일본 지식인의 탈식민 담론 실천의 단층

Abstract

Founded in 1975 in Japan, “Quarterly Magazine Samcheon-ri” is a literary magazine published in Japanese by Korean residents in Japan. There was a steady, if not a lot, publication of articles related to Korean atomic bomb survivors in the magazine. Considering the reality that there are not enough records of Korean atomic bomb survivors, such articles have important historical value in themselves for ‘thick reading’ or ‘ethnographic reading’. This paper takes into account the importance of the articles on Korean atomic bomb survivors in the “Quarterly Magazine Samcheon-ri”, while also noting that these articles have significant implications for reviewing fault lines and transformation process of post-war and post-colonial discourse of Japanese intellectuals. Those who contributed articles on Korean atomic bomb survivors to the magazine were mostly Japanese who had been working in the media and education in Hiroshima to support the atomic bomb victims. Accordingly, the articles in the magazine mainly consisted of reports on the status of “the bombed Koreans” and critical reviews of Japan’s post-war peace discourse. This illustrates that the existence of the Korean atomic bomb survivors was an important symbol for the Japanese intellctuals to use when questioning historical responsibility of the Imperial Japan and its colonial rule. On the one hand the Korean atomic bomb survivors were a reminder of the history of war and defeat, and a charge against continuing Imperial Japan’s colonial history on the other. Meanwhile, the time when the magazine was published from 1975 to 1987 overlapped the period of Japanese high growth and internationalization efforts, Korean dictatorship, and the Cold War order in East Asia. Thus, the articles on Korean atomic bomb survivors shed light on historical strata where the existence of the exposed Koreans has piled up and submerged in the societies of Korea and Japan. In the layers of the strata are dissolved social and discursive practices as historical obstacles that came from post-colonialism, Cold War, the shadow of devided Korea, cooperation/conflict and solidarity/cracks in Korea, Japan and society of Korean residents in Japan. Therefore, these articles on Korean survivors clearly reveal the limitations of post-war peace discourse in Japanese society during this period. In Japan's domestic political context, political differences between divided anti-nuclear peace groups interlocked with structural constraints faced by Korean atomic bomb victims, creating quite a few blind spots in looking at each other's situations. Political differences within Japan's anti-nuclear peace discourse have also emerged as a competition for the political effects of the symbol of exposed Koreans. As a result, the lack of a delicate understanding of the Cold War in East Asia and the political oppression structure of the divided Korea in the 1970s and 1980s delayed responding to calls for a discourse on the historical responsibility, and made the existence of the Korean atomic bomb survivors drifted as a symbol of “peace” in rhetoric of de-politicized “humanitarianism”.