This piece, based on a text dated April 20, 2019, uses a Seoul report in the Sankei Shimbun to examine the abnormality of South Korea’s ongoing campaign to “liquidate pro-Japan remnants.”
Through the changing of school songs and street names, the selective judgments based on the so-called Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Figures, and the self-destructive treatment of history and culture within Korean society, it exposes the danger of the values fostered under the Moon Jae-in administration.
At the same time, it sharply questions the responsibility of postwar Japanese media and cultural figures — including the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, Kenzaburō Ōe, and Haruki Murakami — who have long appeased such a country, and shows how Japan’s honor and credibility have continued to be damaged.

2019-04-20
Because the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and so-called cultural figures such as Kenzaburō Ōe and Haruki Murakami have fawned over such a country, postwar Japan has not only suffered enormous financial damage, but even at this very moment….

The following is from an article published today in the Sankei Shimbun.
Because the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and so-called cultural figures such as Kenzaburō Ōe and Haruki Murakami have fawned over such a country, postwar Japan has not only suffered enormous financial damage, but even at this very moment….
I may well have been the first person in the world to denounce to the fullest extent how utterly fraudulent and despicable the United Nations and similar bodies they have long praised really are….
That is only natural, since I am one who has continued writing The Turntable of Civilization.
The recent WTO decision, something as base and fraudulent as could possibly be imagined in human terms….
A decision made by something that is the very opposite of intelligence….
Yet, as the Yomiuri Shimbun made clear in its reporting that very day,
The United States, having grown exasperated with a WTO that would do nothing to recommend or correct the behavior of China and the like….
And in that respect, the United States is utterly unlike postwar Japan, which has been dominated by the Asahi, NHK, and so-called cultural figures….
The committee had, if I recall, around seven members….
But the dispatch or reappointment of members had not been approved, and it was left in a state with only about three members remaining….
South Korea, that country of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies,” would never have overlooked such a situation….
It likely took advantage of that state of affairs and engaged in its usual propaganda operations.
The Japanese government, which for the whole of the postwar era had left matters entirely to a foolish and worthless Foreign Ministry, was careless as well, but….
Apart from the likes of the Asahi Shimbun….
Those who controlled NHK’s news division….
Those left-wing documentary makers who parasitize NHK and make their living from it….
Those tantamount to traitors….
All Japanese citizens were appalled by….
The WTO’s judgment concerning South Korea’s import restrictions on Japanese marine products….
And the fact that this was supposedly the final ruling….
Once again laid bare in broad daylight how slipshod and low-level the so-called United Nations and similar bodies so thoroughly exploited by the Asahi truly are….
As had already been made clear, for example, by the Coomaraswamy report on the comfort women issue.

Because of the Asahi Shimbun, NHK, and the so-called cultural figures such as Kenzaburō Ōe and Haruki Murakami….
The honor and credibility of Japan and the Japanese people….
Are, even at this very moment, continuing to be gravely damaged….
Yet I, as a Nobunaga living in the present age….
As a warrior truly worth a thousand men….
Have continued since 2010 to proclaim my great voice to the world….
And the fact that this voice has now spread throughout the world….
Is, as all men of discernment across the globe know, beyond dispute.

School Songs Written and Composed by “Pro-Japanese” Figures.
Moves in South Korea to Review and Change Them.
Influence of the Moon Administration’s “Liquidation.”
Fear of Denying Basic Values.

Across South Korea, moves are spreading among elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools to review or change their school songs.
The claim is that school songs written or composed by “pro-Japanese” figures should be abolished.
This is not unrelated to the words and actions of President Moon Jae-in, who has continued condemning previous conservative administrations under the slogan of “liquidating pro-Japanese remnants.”
However, it is impossible to classify in any strict sense those who lived under Japanese rule into “independence faction” and “pro-Japanese faction,” and there is also the danger that important values for society may be denied.

The review of school songs began after it was announced in January this year in Gwangju, in the southwest, that 13 middle and high schools and four universities in the city were using school songs created by four lyricists and composers listed in the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Figures.
At Gwangju First High School, they had sung for many years a school song composed by Lee Heung-ryeol (1909–1980), who created nationally beloved children’s songs and is said to have been “a composer representing twentieth-century Korea.”
However, deciding that Lee was “one of the pro-Japanese lyricists and composers,” the school chose to change its song and requested a graduate of the school, known as the creator of songs beloved by the left, to create a new one.

According to Korean newspapers, of the cases singled out as school songs by pro-Japanese figures, six schools ceased singing them at their entrance ceremonies in March.
Among South Korea’s 17 municipal and provincial education offices, ten are investigating the backgrounds of the lyricists and composers of school songs under their jurisdiction or recommending that they be changed.
Meanwhile, Seoul’s Seongbuk District changed the name of a street called “Inchon-ro,” named after the pen name of Kim Sŏng-su (1891–1955), known as the founder of Korea University and the major newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, to “Korea University Road,” on the grounds that he had been “pro-Japanese.”

These movements are based in the first place on nothing more than the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Figures, compiled by a private organization.
Lee Heung-ryeol was selected as “pro-Japanese” because he had performed or conducted militaristic songs.
It was also this dictionary that branded Kim Sŏng-su, who left immense contributions to society, as pro-Japanese.
Former President Park Chung-hee, who led South Korea to economic development and enjoys the respect of many citizens, is of course classified as pro-Japanese as well, on the basis of his military record during the period of Japanese rule.
Not only that, even Ahn Eak-tai (1906–1965), who composed South Korea’s national anthem, the “Aegukga,” is treated as pro-Japanese.
According to this standard, even the national anthem itself could become a target of the “pro-Japanese hunt.”

For this reason, the dictionary has been criticized from the compilation stage onward as having “arbitrary selection standards.”
Nevertheless, there are moves by local authorities such as the education offices of Busan and Ulsan to distribute the dictionary to schools.
In a speech on March 1 commemorating the centenary of the March First Movement, which sought independence from Japanese rule, Mr. Moon declared that “the liquidation of pro-Japanese remnants is homework that has been postponed for far too long.
The establishment of the national spirit is the responsibility and duty of the state.”
He further argued that the liquidation of pro-Japanese remnants means “restoring the most simple values — that pro-Japanese conduct should be repented of, and that the independence movement should be honored.
This simple truth is justice, and justice standing upright is the beginning of a fair nation.”

In a column, the Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo pointed out that the full development of Western music on the Korean Peninsula was brought about by musicians who studied in Japan in the 1920s with the support of the Government-General of Korea.
It argued that “one could even say that the Western music we enjoy today itself bears the past burden of being pro-Japanese.”
Regarding the movement demanding the changing of school songs because they were written or composed by pro-Japanese figures, it warned of the danger that this could lead to the destruction of history and culture, saying, “It would be like the Taliban in Afghanistan or China’s Red Guards, who destroyed cultural relics.”
(Seoul, Norio Sakurai)