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Jie-Hyun Lim, "Victimhood Nationalism: History and Memory in a Global Age" (Columbia UP, 2025)
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Podcast Host
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Leslie Hickman
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to New Books Network. My name is Leslie Hickman. I'm one of the channel's hosts. Today we'll be talking to Dr. Ji Hyun Lim about his book Victimhood, Nationalism, History and Memory in a Global Age. It was originally published in Korean in 2021 by Humanist Publishing Group, and the English version, translated by Megan Seung Yoon, was published in 2025 by Columbia University Press. His book explores how historical memory of past suffering endows nationalist movements with political legitimacy and a sense of moral superiority. By examining relations among Poland, Germany, Israel, Korea and Japan, Dr. Lim shows how memories of colonialism, the Holocaust and Stalinist terror have converged and intertwined in transnational spaces, constructing nations as victims and perpetrators. Dr. Lim, thank you for joining us on the podcast.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Thank you very much for having me and for your excellent summary. I can't summarize like your excellent of my book. Thank you.
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Leslie Hickman
Most of it was taken from your book. Okay, wonderful. So let's get started. First, if you would please tell us a bit more about yourself and how you came to write this book.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, you know, I'm a historian, I'm trained in history and also I'm a historian from South Korea who has been working on the Poland for a long time. Since 1990s, I have been working on Poland, but also I was working on this sort of European intellectual history in Korean Soyangza or in Japan Seiyoshi. Although I'm not sure if Poland belong to the west because it's Eastern Europe. So I say I define my work as, you know, just the East Asian historian working on Eastern Europe. So I mean, from my position, I just developed idea of global east in plural. So this is a sort of alternative, truly a binary of east and west, north and South Central peripheries. So nowadays we cannot say, difficult to say that South Korea belongs to the East. Right. And that to some countries, compared to some European countries, Korea might be the more western than they many European countries in some sense, if you take Edward Seiz concept of imaginary geography. Right. So I just. My work has been disrupting our conventional edifice about history and the world history and national histories. Nowadays I have been shifting towards memory studies from history proper.
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Leslie Hickman
Okay, so moving right into your book, you have a chapter titled Sublimation wherein you describe how nations turn passive victims of violence into active martyrs through memory formation. So such interpreting the dead according to the desires of the living became prominent in Korea and Japan in the Asia Pacific War through the cult of fallen soldiers so can you speak more about this process, the cult of fallen soldiers specifically, and how it manifested?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, I mean, this is. Each rank has a different nuance about victimhood and victims and sacrifices. Right. I would say in my book, I wrote explicitly a victim nationalism appears on the scene in the transition from victims to sacrifices. Usually, you know, there's a war dead. The people who are innocent, people who are killed during the war, just this is a really innocent death. But after that, the historians or this next generation or their descendants began to interpret their deaths as a sublime sacrifice for our nation and for our country. So in a sense, victim nationalism is talking about neither victim nor sacrifice in pure terms. So it is a term which deals with the sort of transitional periods of our perception of those victims, from victims to sacrifices. So I said this is a sublimation of the innocent deathless into active sacrifice or their willingness to sacrifice. But those dead people cannot really refute. But the historians interpret, oh, this was a really sort of life, the sacrifice for the nation and country. So I'm relatively critical of this. But in the scenographic world, right, In Korean and Heeseng ja is different. It's more distinctive than the English wording of victims and sacrifices. So he sang or kisei in Japanese has a connotation of, how can I say, more active, more sublime actions who sacrifice oneself for something great or something sublime. Right. So I mean, this is. But I had to express it also in English, so that's why I'm not really confident victim of nationalism is really, really right thing to understand victim nationalism. But in English, I can't find any other expression other than victim nationalism.
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Leslie Hickman
So the title in Korean is like, has he sang in the title? Correct?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah. So this is sacrifice, Right. Closer to sacrifice than to victims in Korea. So he thinks of in Korean also, Japanese translation was also no nationalism. So in the stenographic language, in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, I would say this is closer to sacrifice, but not exactly as a sacrifice. So when people begin to interpret innocent deaths or passive victims into active sacrifice for the national cause or for the revolution or for something great, sublime things, the people, then we can see that, oh, this is a phenomenon of victim nationalism or certain transition, which has a connotation of transition from victims to sacrifices.
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Leslie Hickman
Hey, thank you. Yeah, I asked specifically also, or I was, because I'm a Korean studies person. I'm specifically interested in the. How it manifests in Japan and Korea. I know Yasukuni shrine was something that you spoke about often in your. In your. Or spoke about in Your book, Can you speak more about that?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, because Yasukuni shrine is a typical site of memory where those innocence victims are being changed into sublime sacrifices for our country, for the empire, for the Tenno, for the Emperor. So in our many memorial sites actually functions as a sort of place where the innocent or oppressive victims are sublimated into, you know, some sublime sacrifices. So but Yasukuni is already from the Chinese classic. So we can find Yasukuni in Korean pronunciation. But you know, in the national cemetery in Seoul, there is also Jungkook. Yo means it's Yasukuni Bashi Yasukuni bridge. Right. But the, in Korean, the national cemetery also used this Jungu Yasukuni in national cemetery. Because in the Chinese classics, this Jungkook means a certain to remember the people who sacrificed themselves to save our country or nation or something like that. So this is not the Japanese peculiarity. But also in China, Kunming, there is a Jungkook elementary school or Canggu Middle school. Even the war roles in the interwar period in Kunming area, they called themselves Cheongukun Yasukuni military, Yaskuni Army. So Yasukuni and Canggu is not the specific Japanese peculiarity or I think that they can be found very broadly from different parts of the world.
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Leslie Hickman
Okay, thank you. Yeah. So throughout the book you reference instances when the Holocaust was linked with other global atrocities, so including apartheid in South Africa, the Nanjing massacre and atomic bombings in Japan. So how did the Holocaust become so central to global memory formation and national narratives of victimhood?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
I think that the, for instance, Korean comfort women memory activists, right, Whenever they have a press conference in United States, usually they pick up the Jewish Cultural center in anti local to make a press conference for comfort women. Because, you know, they know that the Holocaust is quite familiar, this memory to just ordinary Americans who doesn't know about the East Asian history, Right. So I think it was a sort of memory activist tactic to pick up Holocausts as a way of persuading the American or any Western so called Western audience who are ignorant of East Asian history or South African history, why the Mandela was so fascinated or obsessed with the Anne Frank. So Diary of Anne Frank was one of the most popular books among the political prisoners in South Africa under the apartheid era. And also in Japan, this Anne Frank became the best seller in Japan even before Germany and Netherlands. So Japan is a country where the Anne Frank diary was sold the most. Right. And also so many, many, many, many memory activists actually in the different parts of the world. They know the Holocaust has been represented through films and novels and many studies. Right. And also many just ordinary people who never experienced Second World War. They know what the Holocaust looks like, at least they have a little idea. And then very difficult to explain the long history of Second World War in the East, Asia or other part of the world. But then when he said, oh, it's like Holocaust, right. When they begin to begin to make a parody of Holocaust in describing their own things. So I mean, it has a quite strong impact to the audience who are ignorant of those specific histories or from a given part of the world.
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Leslie Hickman
Right. I remember was there some sort of event that happened in Europe that sort of consecrated, almost like the Holocaust and you know, never forget and it became really important in curriculum. Is that partly the reason as well that it became so used, like aligned with so many different things around the world?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, I think that for instance, in the communist period, in the Cold War period, Holocaust education was not that well done in the communist countries because in the name of proletarian internationalism, they did not specifically emphasize Jewish victims. Holocaust is a sort of crime against humanity. Crime against humanity means that the victims of Holocaust was not only Jews, but also Roma and Sinti and the communists. Right. And partisans and also some handicapped people. Right. So quite a variety of Holocaust victims. Holocaust victims, in sum is about 11 million. Among 11 million Holocaust victims, 6 million victims were Jews. So the victims of Nazi's crime, which is called roughly Holocaust, comprises not only Jews, but also the other victims. But also on the other end in the communist countries, they specifically, they just, how can I say? Marginalized Jewish sufferings, Jewish victims in the corner because of communist countries. In many, many Eastern European countries, Communist regime has been very much nationalistic. Sometimes it was very much anti Semitic nationalist. So those communist regimes did not really, how can I say, accommodate the memory of Jewish victims in their official memories. Only among those sort of Jewish descendants in those countries. They could keep these sort of memories in the grassroots level only after the end of the Cold War. So those oppressed suppressed memories began to erupt. This is first point and second point is a sort of international politics. You know, in the year January of 2000 there was a so called Sokolong conference. One of the most important resolution was made by the 46 countries summit meetings. So 46 from 46 countries President and Prime Ministers and 40 minutes came to Sokolong and they made a resolution that Holocaust education is prerequisite for the Eastern European countries to enter the European Union and NATO. So East European countries. Right. The former Communist countries had to anyway, introduce Holocaust education in their curriculum. So this is really, how can I say, certain a moment from when the Holocaust education has been quite universal beyond Israel and Germany and Western Europe, but also the other parts of the world.
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Leslie Hickman
Great. Yeah, thank you. So in your chapter titled Dehistorization, you write about how both Germany and Japan used the Holocaust to dismiss or downplay their own violent past. Can you give a few examples or 1, 2 examples of how these nations asserted victimhood through memories of the Holocaust?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, I mean, for instance, in Japan's case, Japan is the country which used the term of Holocaust in. In the public domain for the first time after the Second World War. It was neither Germany nor Poland nor Israel. It was Japan where this, you know, Nagai Takashi, who was the. A Catholic doctor in Nagasaki and was also whose wife was just Hiroshi's wife during the A bombing in Nagasaki. And he himself was also, you know, disinfluenced by the A bombing. He was suffering from the side effect. But in 1945, in November, in a meeting to commemorate Nagasaki Catholic victims by a bombing, he used the term of Holocaust for the first time. But of course, it was Japanese translation Hansai in Korean Bonjae. But Bonje and Hansai is a direct translation of Holocaust from the Old Testament in Genesis. But you know, interestingly, the west or the other countries never recognized that the Holocaust or Japanese translation of Holocaust was used already in 1945. I think that the Jewish Institute of History in Warsaw and Yadavashem in Jerusalem, they began to use Holocaust quite late in 1960s. And Jewish Institute of History, they insist that they began to use the term of Holocaust in late 1950s, but still it's quite later than Japan. So in order to, how can I say, describe or express certain empathy of those especially Catholic victims in Nagasaki. Right. In the Japanese public memory space, we can find this usage of Holocaust Hansai, Japanese translation of Holocaust hansai. Already in 1945, and especially in Nagasaki, those Catholic victims, right, they tend to refer their sufferings by citing a Holocaust or the Old Testament because, you know, this catastrophe burnt out by the A bombing, right? It was in a sense, literally it reminds them of Holocaust in the Old Testament also. On the other hand, they tried to, how can I say, persuade themselves, you know, many Catholic, Japanese Catholics, while they were doing in the mass, collecting the Mass in the Urakami Cathedral. And this a bomb detonated over the sky of the Urakami Cathedral. So those Catholic, Japanese Catholic could not understand why. Why did God give them such suffering, although they are really innocent Catholics. Also, Japanese Catholics in Nasaki has been persecuted for quite a long time. Right. So I mean, then, and then by using Holocaust they began to console themselves. Right? Okay. This is, this is a sort of, you know, try that God especially specifically selected us Nagasaki Catholics to save the humankind or you know, human beings in that way. Japanese used this, but also after that and then a Hansai or the Holocaust. As the popularity of Anne Frank's diary in the pen shows, Japanese unconsciously or consciously began to appropriate experience of Holocaust or memory of Holocaust on their own and put the parallel of their suffering by the atomic bombing, right. With the Jewish victims of Holocaust while in Germany. I mean, you know, you know, hitchage, right. Hikyagi, Japanese police from Manchuria and the, and the Manchuku and the, and the Korean peninsula. Right. But in, in, in Germany it's. The scale is not comparable with Hikage. About 12 million Germans were expelled from the former East Prussian territories. Today it's politic countries and the, a, a Polish Bomoze. Not in Polish Pomoze, but in German Pomeran. Pomeran. In English Pomerania and Silesia and Sudetenland. Right. About 12 million Germans were expelled from their own hometown, especially as Red army advances to these areas. And then among those 12 millions about between half million and 2 million German refugees were killed, were dead by the bombing or by the attacks or by the hunger and you know, cold frozen to death. It was really tragedy. So I mean, they were really thinking of this. But also, but only after the end of the Cold War in 1990s, Germans began to speak of their own victimhood, like for all night bombing in Dresden and Hamburg. Then this one guy, this firebombing, I mean, he wrote a book, Friedrich, he was a social democrat sort of journalist who used to contribute to Spiegel. And this guy just began to describe, for instance, the whole German city like Hamburg became sort of like a crematorium. Crematorium was the place where these Nazis bond the causes of Jewish victims in the concentration camp. Right. He very intentionally looks like he intentionally, he used the term of crematorium. And also Ainsat's command, all the allied bombers. Ainsat's commander was a special Nazi task forces who were actually a specialist in killing Jews in the occupied Eastern Europe. So he very intentionally took these certain old Holocaust terms to describe this perpetuation of all night bombings and these sort of things. Also when those German refugees fled from their homeland in the East Prussian territories, they were also, you Know, just forced to stay in the interment camp. That intermount camp was called as concentration camp for among those German expellees.
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Leslie Hickman
So.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
So in that way this Holocaust parallels has been used very willfully and very not graciously. So this is problematic. That's why I said they just took these Holocaust terms in a context totally detached from the historical context in which Holocaust was perpetrated. Right? Just the historical context was just erased. For instance, this true, they were victims, right? Japanese hikyage and the able victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki they were victims. There were many also innocent victims and German expellees in German they called it. Right? They were victims of course, but also very often they were perpetrators. Then why did those Japanese begin to settle in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria? Because it was based on the Japanese imperial project. Right, Japanese colonial project. So in that sense they were implicated in the Japanese the crimes of Japanese Empire, Japanese colonialism, those Tudetan Germans and also the East Prussian Germans. Proportionally there was a very strong support to the Nazi parties in the elections, previous elections before the second World War. And also ratio of these Nazi supporters was very high. So they were also implicated in the Nazi crimes. But on the other hand also one cannot deny they were also victims. Right? But if just how can I say certain one sided emphasis or exclusive emphasis of their victimhood without considering historical context how they were victimized in the end of second World War, this is problematic. But on the other hand, for instance a Korean nationalists and Polish nationalists just denied the fact that these Germans and the Japanese, the police were victimized. They say it's a pure lie. This is, how can I say certain. But I think yeah, it's true they were victimized. But my point is that we need to contextualize the history of their victim. That's my point.
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Leslie Hickman
Yeah, thank you for, I don't know, giving some more nuance to that dichotomy between victims and perpetrators. And it actually flows really well into my next question. You reference Hannah Arendt's concepts of collective innocence and collective guilt which both decide one's level of guilt based on national belonging. So how are these concepts related to victimhood? Nationalism. So if we could speak a bit more about that.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, just it's a continuity of my previous mention about those Japanese and German victims. Right. The Korean and the Polish nationalists tend to think that oh, they are Germans, they cannot be victims because they belong to the German nation. Whoever belongs to a German nation is a perpetrator. Anyone. Whoever belongs to the Japanese nation is perpetrator. This is collective guilt. And the Koreans who were just the guards of the POW camp in Burma, in Indonesia, right, who were charged of crime against humanity and who was actually how many, I can't remember the number. And almost 100 Korean POW guards were prosecuted in the war criminal trial in Indonesia, in Tokyo. And the Koreans think that, oh, they are Koreans. They are poor, innocent, colonized Koreans. They were forced to work in the Japanese POW camp, but it's not true. But anyway, in the underlying logic is that these guys cannot be perpetrators. These guys cannot be guilty because these guys belong to Korean nation. So all the Koreans are innocent people, victims, and all the Japanese are terrible perpetrators. So all the Poles, even in Polish case, more complicated, for instance, many Poles, not many, some Poles collaborated with Nazi Germans in killing Jews. So quite a few Poles and Ukrainians also in the apartheid, the Lithuanians and Estonians and Latvians, they were involved in killing Jews, right? But on the ground, oh, they were victimized by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Union. So they were victims by both the Stalin and Hitler. So I mean, that they just hide the fact that they collaborated. So even among those victimized nations, there are collaborators, there are perpetrators, their accomplices, Right? But the collective guilt and collective innocence does not allow the room for those, you know, for those complicated position of these Korean or Polish or, you know, these Eastern European collaborators and perpetrators. And also in the perpetrating nations like Germany and Japan, there are also victims, right? So it does not allow further room for those victims. So that's why collective guilt and collective innocence is all very problematic. But Hannah Arendt already wrote about the 1961, right. This is already more than 65 years ago, but still people are caught by the binary of collective guilt and collective innocence. So now in East Asian case, I'm now suggesting to use colonial guilt and colonial innocence. It's a little bit modification of Hannah Arend's binary of collective guilt and collective innocence, Right. But we can say that this is colonial guilt and colonial innocence.
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Leslie Hickman
Wow. Yeah. That made me think that sometimes saying that a group or a person is only a perpetrator or only a victim can make them feel less human, remove some sort of humanity. Because humans are not so. They're not so simple like they. They can do really wonderful and very terrible things. So that was a thought that came across my mind when I was reading. So you spoke a bit earlier about some of the Catholic victims in Nagasaki. I thought it was really interesting when you spoke more about the Polish martyr Maximilian Kolbe and how he became Part of this like memory formation in Japan as well as in Poland. Can you speak about him?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, Marshmil. And Kolbe is very interesting. A Catholic priest. Oh, sorry. But you know, he spent six years in Nagasaki as a Catholic missionary. So even in Japan. And Shusak, right. Is quite well known Japanese liberal writer, novelist. He. He wrote a novel on this Maximilian Kolbe Nagasaki. And that story was entangled with the story of the Second World War as a Pacific war in Japan. So it was quite popular novel. But it was published in 1980. He made a regular contribution to Asahi Shimbun. So Andrew Chusak was the man who actually initiated a remembrance of Maximilian Kolbe in Nagasaki. But I have known some little bit debates on Maximilian Kolbe while I was in Poland. I read about this because there was a very serious debate about Maximilian Kolbe as an anti Semite. And then when I just visited Nagasaki for the first time, I was shocked to see that my God, is that. That Kolbe whom I know and I didn't know that Maximiliano Kolbe was a missionary in Nagasaki. Then I found, oh, this Kolbe is like Kolbe. But to my surprise, you know, even in New York times in early 1980s there was a certain. The reader's letter to editor of New York Times. Some letters revealed certainly a Polish debate on the Maksmina Korbe as. As antisemite. But in Japan this semicide of Mashmina Kolbe as an antisemite was totally erased. They just remembered Mashimila Kolbe as a great Catholic father who sacrificed himself to save the other inmate in Auschwitz. And almost unconsciously, I think that Japanese memory of Nagasaki actually put a parallel of Masimilian Kolbe as a sacrifice in Auschwitz with Japanese ape victims in Nagasaki. Right. Who also saved the humankind by the ending the Second World War quickly by sacrificing themselves. So I mean very interestingly, a certain. How can I say. Allegorical. Allegorical entanglement of memories of a bombing in Nagasaki and the Maximilian Kolbe in Poland. Maximilian Kolbe also is one of the. Now is one of the national savior in Poland. So it is very difficult in Poland to talk about Maximilian Kolbe's anti Semitism publicly, openly because he was now. He was beautified in 1971 and then he sacralized. He's now saint. So I mean in Poland also he's a national savior. And it's very difficult. But I think it shows how this sort of. How Can I say a way of appropriating the memories of totally different culture. Sometimes it's very dangerous. Also misleading and also screening some very important part of the memories. So I think. But this is just one case. There would be so many examples to show that sort of, how can I say, certain appropriation and then misunderstanding, misapprehension. Right. And the entanglement in the wrong way. So this is just one example.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
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Leslie Hickman
Yeah, and a very interesting example. So moving on to my next question. Near the end of the book you have a chapter titled Forgiveness and forgiveness explores a possible release or just an answer to the binary between victim and perpetrator. And it's in this 1965 letter by Catholic priests in Poland to priests in Germany. So it's a very interesting letter and you said it was very progressive. So what was progressive or unique about this letter? And what does this letter perhaps offer to modern day or current narratives about victimhood and perpetrators?
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
You know there is a beyond the story of this chapter, forgiveness. You know, as you see, I have been teaching at Sagan University. This is a Jesuit university, right? Jesuit missionaries in United States, in German Jesuit missionaries, they established so Young University in 1960, 61, right? So, but I know, as you say, the historical, historical reconciliation in East Asia has been tumbled on many rocks, right? And it's very difficult to find a way of a escape from that stalemate at the historical reconciliation in East Asia, especially between Japan and Korea. So I organized a small workshop to invite bishops from Nagoya and Japan's Catholic fathers and the Korean Jesuit fathers, right, to Ho Chi Da to find a way of solution to historical reconciliation. Because I said, you know, Catholic Church is transnational organization. It shouldn't be national by nature, it's a transnational organization. So I said that you guys, you Catholic priests, you should be the pioneer of finding a way for historical reconciliation, because you are working in the transnational institution called Catholic Church, and you should find a way. So as a way of just pushing them to the history reconciliation, I organized a workshop and at that time I prepared that a Polish Catholic bishop's letter to German Bishop's letter 1965 but this, I mean, the hidden idea was that it's also, how can I say, cliche that only perpetrated nations should apologize first. If they are reluctant to apologize, then what about the victims can apologize? Because if we are free from this national binary of collective guilt and collective innocence, even the colonized nation or victimized nation has something to apologize, right? To the small minority of victims of this victimizing nations. So there was a hidden agenda of this chapter. But I have to admit that I failed in persuasion because, you know, still even Catholic fathers cannot be free from that nationalist pressure. In case of Korea and in Japanese case, Catholic Church belongs to really extreme minority, so their voice is not very well heard, right? So we had such problems. But it happens. But Still, I regard 1965 letter, especially the Polish archbishop at that time. Later he became the cardinal a communist. He is a really, really unbelievable guy. I mean, his text in 1965, I say this is a pioneer of transnational history or overlapping history. That paradigm is much, much later developed by the professional historians in Europe. Only in 1980s, 1990s, right? But 1965, from the position of Polish archbishop in Vurochua, wrote that letter. It's really. I think it's a miracle. And I'm an atheist, I'm not a Catholic. But despite that, I appreciate the letter very much. And then still I want to come back to this. So I'm now a member of Polish National Committee to register the bishop's letter to the UNESCO document Heritage.
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Leslie Hickman
So yeah, I remember the, the letter is very famous because it asks, it said like, you know, we seek your forgiveness. But we. Yeah, we seek your forgiveness and. But also like requested, I suppose. So it was like a two way street where Polish. Even though there was this narrative in the nation that they were the victims that they, they gave forgive or like they asked for forgiveness, like please forgive us. And so that was what was really progressive about the letter. And it was really impressive to me as well. I think that's very difficult thing to do, especially on behalf of others. And you mentioned that partly in your book, like forgiveness on behalf of others and how that can be a very difficult decision to make.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, this is why the forgiveness is very, very difficult, difficult work. Right. And also forgiveness can be sometimes very violent. For instance, some guy said, oh, I made apology to you, why don't you forgive me? And sometimes they force forgiveness on the ground that I apologized. And that is also very difficult part. When you just go deeply into the narratives of history, reconciliation between countries, right? This, how can I say, some violent forgiveness, violence of imposing forgiveness can be found. But just imagine just 1965 is 20 years after 1945 and Poland was one of the most victimized nation. But at that time they tried to write, compose this and deliver to German bishops and German bishops. I think they were actually shocked to read this. I think they felt a sort of shame and they read this. But nowadays Korea, Korea for instance, GDP per capita is higher than Japan. Then we think that why Koreans cannot offer certain their hands to Japanese. Okay, some of you really suffered also on the way back to repatriation to Japan. But I mean, okay, we can also, or ask for forgiveness. But also, why don't you ask for forgiveness? We are willing to forgive all these things. And also, I mean nowadays, post war generation of Japanese, they didn't do nothing, they didn't do anything wrong because all those colonial rule was done before they were born.
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Leslie Hickman
Yeah, that's the collective.
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Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Right? So. But still we can think of a responsibility of remembrance. Because remembering those past is being made now, right? I mean, in the remembrance course, even the post war generations like you and me are involved in making memories. So we are responsible for what happened before you being born. But we are responsible for remembrance of what happened in the past. Because remembrance is a contemporary action.
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Leslie Hickman
Yeah, very well put. So I'll move to our next question that goes into the coda. So there you call for a critical relativization. And this also goes into what you just mentioned and radical juxtaposition, for instance, the Holocaust and other global atrocities surrounding Holocaust memories and to overcome Eurocentrism in global memory formation as well. If you would speak more about that.
- [43:34]
Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, I mean, relativization is an index of German German memory culture. Because relativization of Jews in 1980s historical context. Right. Sometimes this related with the antisemitism who are denying the Holocaust or who are just, how can I say making a Holocaust memory as a trivial one. Because for instance, how many victims were actually killed by the Stalinist crime? 10 million. But Jewish victims by Holocaust only. Only 6 million. In the way the relativizing Holocaust means actually sort of anti Semitic approach to the memory of Holocaust at that time. But nowadays we know all this history of remembrance of Holocaust in the Germany and the Soviet Union in the Cold War era. And nowadays suddenly I think that this a Holocaust memory has become very, very dominant. Right. And so suddenly, how can I Sometimes Holocaust memory works out as a memory to stream memory to make the other victims, other sufferings very trivial. So that's why I said, okay, now it's time to come back to relativization. But we need to keep a stance of critical relativization. This is definitely different from the previous relativization of Holocaust that was done by the antisemites or some people of Holocaust deniers. Right. In 1980s. But now we know all the other victims. For instance, colonial victims in Africa, in Congo also Germans made a genocide in Namibia in 1904, 1905, Hellers and Namas. And for the first time the Germans used the concentration camp already at that time. And also extermination war at that time they used that word. All these, you know, such Holocaust wars, Holocaust related wars were already used in Namibia by the German colonialists. So we can see the certain continuity and discontinuity between a colonial genocide and Holocaust. So why shouldn't we put these colonial genocide and Holocaust under certain same global memories, in the same global memory space and on the same global memory formation. So we don't have to fear about the comparison. Mekong comparison. That's my point. And rhetorical juxtaposition is just based on my experience of the memory of Maximilian Kolbe in Nagasaki. Right. I never expected this, but suddenly when I put these two cases together in Poland, they don't know well about how this Maximilian Kolbe has been remembered in the Japanese memory space in Nagasaki. But in Japan they didn't know about the anti Semitism of Maximilian Korve in Poland and how that certain very sharp debates about this. So just by juxtaposing some for instance Nagasaki and in Poland suddenly we can find an unexpected revelation. Unexpected revelation of this past and. And those. I mean that sort of Red culture position should be welcome.
- [47:17]
Leslie Hickman
Thank you. Yeah, great. So thank you. Francine, speaking so much about your book. I'm wondering what you're working on now. You said before we started recording that you were writing some of your book this morning. Can you tell us what to expect in that book later on?
- [47:32]
Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Yeah, I mean the first one is almost finished. I edited a book a titled National Megalomania. An emergent ancient. This is how this ancient historiography in Poland, Eastern Europe and Korea and Japan actually was the main battlefield for the nationalist struggle. You know all these Korean so called fake ultra nationalist historiography Ungoguryo and all the Han commandery was outside the Tuma Nihil. Right. And also there was always debates about the Japanese colonial settlements in the south southern part of Korean peninsula. All those things, all those fantasies, even those fantasies extended to ancient Smer civilization in the Middle East. But the Polish ultra nationalists also insisted that ancient smell civilization was the byproduct of Polish nation. And I said okay then the Polish ultranationalists and the Korean ultranationalists are fighting for the historical ownership of the ancient smell civilization. So I mean this is a same way of nationalist fantasy about the history. So I collected about a 1012 articles but it's almost done. And I wrote this introduction. So that will be published at the Amsterdam University Press perhaps in February of next year. But also my personal book is I'm now writing Mass Dictatorship for the general readers. As you may see, I have been working on the my own also paradigm of mass dictatorship more than 20 years ago. And I published five volumes at Pygrave Series of Mass Dictatorship from 2009 2014. And also we had also Pyglave Handbook of Mass Dictatorship that was edited in 2016 and then I thought it was finished. Then suddenly we done A change of political climate in United States actually makes people demand for domestic dictatorship. Just eight years ago I got an email from the Maya editor. Mass Dictatorship series books began to move because of political change in United States. And then again you have the same situation. So I mean this mass dictatorship is no more unique phenomena today globalists Germany or Italy or Japan or Korea. Also we can find the rise of neo populism in the so called western European countries in the West. So I'm now writing a book of this mass dictatorship with the subtitle of A Yanus Faced Democracy. So I don't posit dictatorship and democracy as an antithesis and they are intermingled and all those very dangerous phenomena of today's dictatorship just is a part of democracy or potential danger immanent to our understanding of democracy. So this is a really, I mean, how can I certain epistemological upheaval of our understanding of dictatorship and democracy in 20th century.
- [51:13]
Leslie Hickman
Wow. Yeah. Very interesting. So thanks for giving us a look into the books that you're working on and I look forward to reading them. Great. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This is all that I had planned for now, but this has been Dr. Ji Hyun Lim on his new book Victimhood, Nationalism, History and Memory in a Global Age. Thank you again and take care.
- [51:38]
Dr. Ji Hyun Lim
Thank you very much. Thank you.