Shot Through with Democracy: Japan’s Postwar Myths and the 1948 Hanshin Education Incident

Amin GHADIMIPhD

Social Science Japan Journal, 2018, vol. 21, issue 2, 193-217

Abstract: In 1948, Japanese authorities operating under directions from the US Occupation and the Japanese Ministry of Education tried to shut down independent Korean schools in Japan. Tens of thousands of civilians led by the League of Koreans in Japan streamed into the streets of Osaka and Kobe in April to protest. Hundreds raided prefectural headquarters, vandalized the buildings, and held government officials hostage. The Occupation and Japanese police brutally suppressed the uprising and shot and killed a Korean teenager. This paper parses the grammar of ideological utterance during this crisis, known as the Hanshin Education Incident, to reveal how politicians and social leaders feuded over the meaning of postwar Japanese democracy. Koreans buttressed the myth of democracy by being cast as what democracy was not. A policeman shot through the body of a Korean boy with impunity because the myth of democracy shot through Japanese sociopolitics.

Keywords: democracy; ideology; myths; education; schools; League of Koreans in Japan; postwar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:sscijp:v:21:y:2018:i:2:p:193-217.

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