Would IOC let Nazi flags fly in Berlin?

South Korean protesters hold Japanese rising sun flags during a rally to mark the Aug. 15 Liberation Day from Japanese colonial rule, in downtown Seoul. Korea asked the International Olympic Committee to ban the Japanese "rising sun" flag at 2020 Tokyo Games, calling it a symbol of Japan's brutal wartime past. AP

By Oh Young-jin

Why is the International Olympic Committee (IOC) so tolerant of Japan's use of the Rising Sun flag, the symbol of the country's imperial adventurism?

South Korea and China, victim countries of imperial Japan, requested a ban of its use at 2020 Tokyo Olympics venues but the IOC said no.

Would the IOC or its leader Thomas Bach of Germany allow Nazi swastika flags or "hakenkreuz" if Berlin or Munich hosted the quadrennial games, the sports festival of the world? Definitely no.

Conscientious Germans, who oppose the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right, ultra-nationalist political party, would not allow its use. If Germany failed to act, France, Poland, Belgium and other victim nations in the Second World War triggered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler would be up in arms and ensure there was no return of the swastika.

So it is puzzling that the IOC and Bach allow the Rising Sun flag, while being surely opposed to the hooked cross.

Most likely, Western sensitivity about the Asian perspective, or lack thereof, is responsible. The Western countries did not suffer directly from Japan's invasion and were by and large free from the atrocities it committed.

True, the Japanese defeated the British in Southeast Asia. Americans, notably Gen. Douglas MacArthur, fled the Philippines as a result of the Japanese onslaught. But they were colonists, not indigenous, so, to them, losing Malaysia or the Philippines to Japan was similar in terms of emotional stress to the loss of property.

For Koreans, it was their grandmas, moms and aunts who were taken away and forced to serve at Japanese army brothels. It was their uncles, fathers and grandpas who were forced to work in Japan's military industrial complex and produce guns and bombs to kill the Chinese and fight Americans.

So with fewer loved ones lost to the Japanese, Westerners might be less heavy-hearted about what Japan did to other Asians. Perhaps their bond as colonialists might further cloud their vision and let Japan off more lightly. The IOC, originally a European organization, could reflect this outsider tendency about Asian affairs, the Rising Sun flag case an example.

For Koreans and Chinese, however, the IOC is turning horrible memories into reality. Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's goal of making Japan a normal state again, the nation ― a member of the Axis with Nazi Germany ― is trying to change its pacifist constitution, imposed by Allied nations at the end of war, and regain the ability to wage war.

Abe's move could not come at a worse time as the United States, the old power, is battling an emerging superpower in China in a typical case of the Thucydides Trap.

The U.S. is enlisting the help of Japan in its China fight, so it is inevitable that Washington wants Japan to become stronger. Its mercantilist President Donald Trump can serve as no brake, being the type who prefers to work with the highest bidders more than with allies that share the same set of values.

Under these circumstances, Japan may not be immediately incarnated in the same form of imperial Japan. But a "normal" Japan would certainly assume aggressive DNA and could threaten its neighbors. Westerners again would not be worried about a resurgent Japan because its threat would be marginal compared with a German resurgence based on the old Nazi nationalism.

Of course, it is not just Westerners' folly but rather a case of being "all too human." Asians might be less sensitive to the Holocaust, the Nazi's shameful effort to exterminate Jews, Russian suffering in Stalingrad while under the Nazi siege or the messy aftermath of the pro-Nazi Vichy government.

Perhaps this mutual lack of understanding could work as the more urgent reason for Asia and the West to affirm their basic human values and enforce them without fail. A unified message to future mass murderers or tyrants of Hitler's scale or that of imperial Japan is that they won't be tolerated and must bear the brunt of the united condemnation.

Maybe the IOC is too drunk with rich corporate and state sponsorships from Japan to ban the Rising Sun flag. It is public knowledge that fewer countries want to host the Olympics because it is too expensive and often leaves a big hole in the host city's finances for years, and waning public interest. Abe wants to use the Games to showcase to the world his country's recovery from its "lost decades," when it made no progress.

It is worth the IOC remembering the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which ended up a resounding endorsement of Nazi Germany and Hitler. Then, calls for a boycott over the Nazi's anti-Semitism were ignored. What if the Berlin Games had been cancelled? Would there have been no Second World War? It is hard to know, but the IOC would have been spared the stigma as a facilitator of the Nazis.

Perhaps Bach is facing a Chamberlain moment. It appears that the German is following the steps of the British prime minister still remembered as an appeaser. Bach still has time and he had better use it wisely to correct his wrong approach.

Oh Young-jin (foolsdie@gmail.com, foolsdie5@koreatimes.co.kr) is the digital managing editor of The Korea Times.

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