By Oh Young-jin
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The global K-pop sensation said it was not its intention to cause distress among the victims but nonetheless offered apologies for those who suffered.
In moral and business terms, it is a sensible decision for the band that has a worldwide following to get these controversies behind it quickly.
But one thing remains perplexing ― how Japan, more specifically its ultra-nationalistic elements, and Jews, more exactly their advocacy organization, are embracing each other.
Emperor Hirohito's Japan was a member of the World War II Axis that included Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. German Nazis slaughtered Jews by the millions. Koreans had been under Japanese colonial rule for 36 years until Allied forces defeated Japan.
So it would look more natural for Jews to embrace Koreans over Japan, an aggressor that teamed up with Germany, the perpetrator of the Holocaust.
Was it due to ignorance of history or aspirations of the victims to identify with the victors?
Now, it is expected that an unrepentant Japan would make an issue of the T-shirt, which resulted in the cancelation of BTS appearances on TV Asahi and other channels.
The backlash came days after Korea's Supreme Court ruling that allowed Koreans to seek damages from Japan over their forced labor during the colonial period.
It angered Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ultra-conservative friends, who also fear that hallyu, or the Korean cultural wave, will take over their country.
So a big fuss was made over the photo of the T-shirt taken more than a year ago.
But it is one thing to apologize to the victims of the bombs, who also included many Koreans, but it carries the risk of enabling imperial Japan to feign as victim.
Japan did invade Korea, China and other Asian countries, killed a lot of people and mobilized human resources for its war effort against the United States. The U.S. atomized Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender.
If Japan blames anybody, it should be U.S.
President Barack Obama did not make any apology when he visited Hiroshima in May 2016.
Japan has offered apologies for its misdeeds against Korea only to have Abe withdraw them.
Japan still absurdly claims that "comfort women" ― Korean and Chinese women who served at Japan's army brothels ― were volunteers. The scheme appears to be a calculated race against the dwindling number of survivors who are succumbing to old age and sickness after years of living in disgrace and ostracism.
To Koreans, the whole episode is like Japan screaming bloody murder on Korea, its victim, in an irrational reversal of roles.
A rabbi filled the critical missing gap in Japan's leap of logic by linking the two unlikely allies when he accused BTS of "mocking the past."
"Wearing a T-shirt in Japan mocking the victims of the Nagasaki A-bomb is just the latest incident of this band mocking the past," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director at the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, Sunday.
Can't this rabbi see it is Japan that is mocking the past? Japan argues that its colonial victims, such as Korea, should thank it for industrialization.
The rabbi said: "The result is that young generations in Korea and around the world are more likely to identify bigotry and intolerance as being 'cool' and help erase the lessons of history."
Can this rabbi see that he is helping Japan erase the bigger lessons of history? Abe says Japan would stop apologizing to the victims because the country has paid damages. It is as if it sees its crimes against humanity settled with a fistful of dollars and that Japan should move on, turning away from the truth that a future without reflections of past mistakes would be a ticket to recidivism.
We Koreans laud Jews for their persistence in chasing Nazi perpetrators to the last one and bringing them to justice, and Germans for trying to repent over the horrible deeds against Jews so as not to repeat them.
We are trying to apply the Jewish formula in settling history issues with Japan.
But the rabbi has singlehandedly put the wisdom of the Jewish example into doubt because his words basically tell us that its rule applies only to their chosen case.
Does he represent the whole Jewish attitude? Or is it an isolated case?
If the first were the case, it would surely be a great disappointment. Quo vadis?
Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is the digital managing editor of The Korea Times.
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