The Last Resort of a Scoundrel
In the absence of a nationhood based on principle, it is jingoistic nationalism that becomes the most politically and economically expedient binding agent. Two reports from South Korea today tell us of the woeful depths to which some would stoop to exploit it.
How does the contagion spread, you ask? One carrier is television:
Reigncom, an MP3 player maker, raised the specter of an American invader in its ads: “Will cheering for independence make you independent? Korean researchers have spent their nights in our labs to help Korea become a leading country for flash-memory MP3 players, but an American company is dominating the hard-disk MP3 player market and is now seeking to take over our realm. “We are the descendants of those that stood up against Japanese colonial rule to achieve independence,” the ad concludes. A large Korean flag was placed the top of the ad.
Now, as anyone with the first clue about Korea knows, there is no historical comparison that carries the incendiary power of the Japanese occupation. This ad is comparing American MP3 players to the Japanese empire, which forced Korean men to be slave laborers and Korean women to be sex slaves. I’d add that I saw more like it when I lived in Korea.
This kind of nauseating, scapegoating sales ploy would never stand if it were directed against blacks, Jews, or Arabs–nor should it be, because we have long since learned what it leads to. On 9/11, we learned that incitement of hatred against Americans kills, too. By then, anti-American rhetoric in Korea had been translated into a wave of violent and sometimes murderous action, a fact that appears to bother absolutely no one in the Korean government or media. It should. It’s simply dumfounding that a nation that demands the continued presence of our soldiers insists on a right to treat them this way, something for which ads like this (and crap like this) must bear some responsibility.
My answer? Forward this post to your American friends and ask them not to buy Reigncom products. You can contact Reigncom here (if you write them, post a copy of your comments at this post; no profanity, threats, or stooping to bigotry, please).
Supporting our troops should be more than a slogan. At a minimum, it ought to mean refusing to finance the incitement of hatred against them.