Published on November 15, 2019. Based on Yoshiko Sakurai’s serialized column in Shukan Shincho, this essay discusses Anti-Japan Tribalism, edited and written by Lee Young-hoon and others. It examines criticism of the anti-Japanese, pro-North Korean, and socialist course of the Moon Jae-in administration, the “culture of lies” in South Korean society, and the structure of shamanism, materialism, and tribalism, while introducing Lee’s life-risking denunciation of the pathology of his homeland as a scholar.

November 15, 2019.
For example, there is the prologue titled “The Country of Lies.”
Subheadings such as “A People Who Lie,” “Politics That Lies,” “Scholarship That Lies,” and “A Trial of Lies” will surely pierce the hearts of Koreans.
The following is from Yoshiko Sakurai’s serialized column, which, alongside Masayuki Takayama’s column, adorns the end of the issue of Shukan Shincho released yesterday.
As I have repeatedly stated, Sakurai is, in the words of Saicho, a national treasure.
Until August five years ago, when I was still subscribing to the Asahi Shimbun, it would not be an exaggeration to say that I knew almost nothing about her.
It was not merely that I knew only her face.
Through the Asahi, I had even been subjected to the outrageous indoctrination that she was some sort of right-leaning person.
What I had been told ad nauseam about was, for example, Kenzaburo Oe.
This is what true regret means.
A Patriotic Book Criticizing South Korea, “The Country of Lies.”
Yoshiko Sakurai.
The number of people rising up against South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s anti-Japanese, pro-North Korean, and moreover socialist course is rapidly increasing.
Standing at the very front line of the battle against Moon’s “anti-Japan” stance is Lee Young-hoon, former professor of economics at Seoul National University, and the book he edited and wrote, Anti-Japan Tribalism, hereafter Tribalism, has become a bestseller.
The Japanese edition of the book, which has also become a theoretical pillar of the anti-Moon Jae-in movement, will soon appear in bookstores, but I obtained it ahead of time and read it in one sitting.
As a specialist in economic history, Lee has consistently adhered to numbers and facts.
Facts derived from fieldwork have nothing to do with political bias.
Lee has continued to disseminate historical understanding and information entirely different from the distortions and fabrications for anti-Japanese purposes that have been circulated in South Korea.
For that reason, despite being in the respected position of a professor at Seoul National University, he has been subjected to fierce criticism.
Now he is waging his argument “at the risk of his life.”
That is the publication of this book.
Tribalism is filled with calm analysis and objective facts, while at the same time it contains fiery and intense expressions that cannot fail to give Koreans a powerful shock.
For example, there is the prologue titled “The Country of Lies.”
Subheadings such as “A People Who Lie,” “Politics That Lies,” “Scholarship That Lies,” and “A Trial of Lies” will surely pierce the hearts of Koreans.
After that, the term “anti-Japan tribalism” appears as a phrase expressing today’s South Korea.
After writing, “South Korea’s culture of lying is widely known internationally,” “Politics sets the example of lying,” “Lying scholarship bears the greatest responsibility,” and “The culture of lying in this country has finally come to dominate even the judiciary,” Lee explains the anti-Japan tribalism that has eroded the Korean spirit and led South Korea down the wrong path.
It will be long, but the explanation is as follows.
The shamanism that is deeply rooted in South Korean society is connected at its base with materialism and tribalism.
In the world of shamanism, a yangban remains a yangban even after death, and a slave remains a slave even after death.
That is precisely why people lie and commit fraud in order to obtain the status of yangban.
Dirty money is also permitted.
In such a world where everyone rushes toward materialism, there is no truth or set of values to be shared.
Anything goes.
And one group excludes another group for the sake of ultimate gain.
Those groups are by no means a nation sharing values, culture, or sentiment.
They are nothing more than tribes.
Politics based on tribes as its unit is tribalism.
To put it simply, tribalism is a foolish mentality born from “fantasy” that has nothing to do with fact, reason, or rationality.
It must not be trusted, nor must one be influenced by it.
It is an evil mentality that must be sternly rejected, and it is rampant in South Korea.
This fierce criticism of his homeland, South Korea, must be the cry of a scholar’s conscience, love for his homeland that has become a country of lies, and a frustration close to despair.
As an example of spinning history while being entangled in fantasy, Lee takes up the land survey project by the Government-General, one of the sources of Koreans’ hatred toward Japan.
This article continues.