아시아 내셔널리즘과 5.4 ― 5.4 운동에서 ‘문화’와 ‘민족’ 문제의 재인식

Abstract

This paper examines China's May Fourth New Cultural Movement from the perspective of Asian nationalism. It is to see the May Fourth Cultural Movement as one aspect of Asian nationalism and, at the same time, to re-contextualize it within the horizon of diverse attempts in Asia to overcome modernity. In doing so, a methodological attempt is made in order to address the problem of constructing an Asian political identity within the trend of global regionalization. Although Asia has a real historical existence, strictly speaking, it is a ‘modern construction’ of the West. It is not necessary here to repeat the historical vicissitudes of how Asia alienated itself. What is important is the fact that today's Asia has become totally integrated within the hegemonic global order, and from this position, what has become urgent is the reconstruction of Asia by Asia, the recovery of Asia's identity on its own terms. May Fourth was an anti-imperialist national movement of China, but the transformation of culture into politics found in the May Fourth movement symbolically shows the formation of the modern nation and the modern nation-state. This is because this transformation happened within the context of not one nation but of transnational cultural translation and practice. May Fourth emerges from the global historical moment of ethnic self-determination, the Russian revolution, and the March First anti-imperialist movement of the marginal, colonized land of Joseon. It self-transformed along with the march of world history, and it seems to be a vital task to reconceptualize May Fourth as a tradition of resistance in Asia. This is not to be blindly trapped by the illusion of western universalization called globalization, but to "recognize the subordinate identity that had been prescribed by the very identity produced by western universalism and to reconstruct our estranged identity as a form of resistance by rediscovering the universalism within us." As a method of this rediscovery, it is necessary to bring back May Fourth. An important task in recontextualizing May Fourth is to secure and protect the position of Asian nationalism. In the West, bourgeois nationalism was established before the formation of nation-states. However, in Asia, the formation of the nation and its particular characteristics were disturbed by the plunder and domination by western imperialism. The formation of the nation occurred within the national liberation movement, from the intense struggle against western imperialism and its system of domination. Here, while nationalism emerges as the ideological basis for nationalist movements, it takes on the characteristic of resistance against modernity's oppressive elements, on the one hand, and the characteristic of national ethnocentrism as a unifying logic, on the other hand. Asia's resistance nationalisms were ‘not about the essentialization of the difference in the concept of nation among them.’ When the foundations of national life was broken down by outside forces, re-mobilization had to occur at the level of the nation. The re-mobilization of national liberation movements led to the construction of a liberation front against global contradiction. And the national manifestations were practical and mutual pathways for the realization of a new world outlook. In other words, there is a need to historicize the moment when the May Fourth New Cultural Movement transformed from culture to politics, as an ideological and cultural resource of alternative regionalization in Asia. In short, we're talking about the wave that arose in the transformation from national liberation to socialist liberation, leaving in the wake a diverse ideological spectrum. what is important is to, first, pull out the duality in Asian nationalism: second, observe how Asian nationalism transforms antagonistically within the context of the nation-state and Asia: third, regionally recontextualize the phase in which it becomes both resistance nationalism and cultural nationalism: and fourth, make it into a new ideological resource for a new Asian regionalization. In doing so, we cannot overlook the fact that the Asia that was conceptualized a plural unit. This is because various elements such as empire, camp, nation, region, and supranation functioned in relation to Asia. This shows that the concept of Asia was very value-oriented. In short, we can see the vertical and hierarchical imperialist organization, on one side, and horizontal and equal community organization, on the other side. As such, Asia was a cultural page on which multiple ideological orientations struggled. Through the recognition of different and multiple temporality and spatiality within the region, we can recognize the autonomous character that can capture the various traces and possibilities of living as peoples of the region. We must continue the project of making them meaningful.