Victimhood Nationalism and History Reconciliation in East Asia

Lim, Jie-Hyun

doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00654.x

Cited by 27 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Invoking the image of Moses leading the Israelites out of enslavement into salvation, Jo effectively appealed to a Korean identity that is built on memories of a history marked by hardship and suffering; and to the idea of the Koreans as God's chosen people following the Jews (see: Han, 2009;Jung, 2014). Presenting herself as a saviour and a possible martyr (due to threats from brothel owners), Jo personally embodied the 'victimhood nationalism' (Lim, 2009) of a good Korean Christian woman.…”

Section: Victimhood Nationalisedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Echoes of victimhood: on passionate activism and ‘sex trafficking’

Cheng

2019

Feminist Theory

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The sexually violated woman has become a salient symbol in feminist discourse, government policies, the media and transnational activism at this historical juncture. In this article, I seek to understand the conviction of anti-prostitution activists that all women in prostitution are victims (despite evidence to the contrary), and their simultaneous dismissal or condemnation of those women who identify as sex workers. The analysis identifies the centrality of victimhood to the affective logic of women activist leaders in the anti-prostitution movement, and its embeddedness in discourses of suffering and redemption in Korean nationalist historiography. Sexual victimhood thus acquires the power to incite moral outrage, compel consensus and inhibit dissent. Sex workers further come to bear the historical and political burden of righting all that is wrong with the nation, making their elimination essential for the nation’s rescue. Critiques of capitalism and the state become footnotes and silences in this process. In effect, the victimhood of ‘prostituted women’ allows women activists to circulate effectively in the affective economy of the nation as well as in the global anti-trafficking campaign. The passionate activism of anti-prostitution women activists may say less about the state of prostitution than about the activists’ subjectivity as historical and global subjects, and the symbolic world that they locate themselves in.

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Section: Victimhood Nationalisedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Echoes of victimhood: on passionate activism and ‘sex trafficking’

Cheng

2019

Feminist Theory

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“…13 These examples illustrate how current nationalism in Poland re-uses the dichotomy of victimizers and victims. As Lim (2010) has suggested, victimhood becomes hereditary and consolidates national solidarity (and enmity) beyond generations.…”

Section: Internal and External Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Victimhood as victory: The role of memory politics in the process of de-Europeanisation in East-Central Europe

Vermeersch

2019

Global Discourse

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To a large extent, the traditional narrative of EU integration has revolved around reconciliation and peace-building after the Second World War. This article examines how current memory work in nationalist movements in East-Central Europe subverts this moral story and uses it as the basis for a politics of backlash against the EU. Recent developments in national commemoration and remembrance practices in the region have enabled not only the glorification of the national past but also the suppression of 'heretical' interpretations of specific traumatic historical episodes. The fault lines of national belonging are now often used to eclipse stories of post-war state reconciliation in Europe and focus directly on the victimised population. As a result, commemorations carry strong normative and moral overtones related to justice and culpability. Nationalism in this context has received moral connotation and, vice versa, questions of morality become questions of nationhood. The 'we' of this distinguishing work embodies a subject of immaculate historical innocence and victimhood; by extension, the 'others' always bear responsibility and guilt. This nationalist moral classification work changes and reframes the moral underpinnings of the EU enlargement. The victim theme has adhered a strong potential to garner solidarity among various social groups in East-Central Europe against the EU. The role of victimiser is easily projected onto both the abstract notion of the 'European elites' and the supposed allies of those elites: the internal 'others'.

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“…In these exchanges, two competing "victimhood nationalisms" (Lim 2010) As a member of the Finnish speaking majority, Setälä denies the existence of nationalistic tendencies among the Finnish speakers, thus implying that nationalism is something negative. The debaters did not explicitly link the Finnish language policy conflict with the wave of democratisation and liberal internationalism that followed the First World War, but the implication might be that the inclusion of the people in politics implied complete equality in language policy as well (more on this in Ihalainen 2017).…”

Section: Finns Vs Swedes As Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%