Living in the Afterimage
The Cold Heat of a Vanishing Motherland
Motherland. A word that once housed a strength akin to iron. The twentieth century was an era that, while swallowing every definition of good and evil, cast with intense heat the contours of the “nation”—a vessel in which people could dwell in peace, or for which they would wager their very lives to defend. Yet now, having passed the threshold of the twenty-first century by a quarter and stepping ever further into the abyss, this concept of the motherland seems to have become unprecedentedly dilute. More than that, it appears to be transmuting into a grave interrogation that eats away at our spirit.
Looking back at the twentieth century, for better or worse, the motherland was constructed upon a robust narrative. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say it was the narrative itself. Yet, though I call it a narrative, it was not a mere illusion; it contained the specific quality of materialized fantasy. That is to say, the narrative possessed a tangible texture. Because people could substantially share this story and feel that their identities were deeply rooted in its soil, they were able to secure tranquility, pride, and at times, even madness. Quite literally, a life lived in one flesh with the state certainly existed there. However, as the hands of the era have turned, the concept of the motherland, which should have been solid, has begun to undergo rapid dilution.
We now stand in a place that is utterly inexplicable, suspended in mid-air. While I can only describe this as a mysterious sensation within myself, I am writing this article today with the thought that surely many others harbor a similar feeling toward their own motherlands. I believe that by earnestly voicing these complex emotions regarding the motherland, some resonance might be found with readers born and raised in different lands. If that is so, perhaps there is a common source to this thing we call the motherland. I do not trust empathy, but I believe in the resonance of the heart. To discuss the motherland is indeed difficult. It is inevitable that ideology will intervene; but if that is the case, one need only change one’s mindset and write while accepting the burden of it all.
The frameworks of “world” and “nation,” which once enveloped people and served as the premise for a rich existence, have now become, for the most part, actual impediments to living—sources of pain that seem to tear at our skin from the inside. Or perhaps it could be rephrased that the world and the nation themselves have been posited as the source of pain, as evil itself. Consequently, holding attachment to one’s motherland is forcibly denied and shut down as paranoid nationalism, falling into a state where love for one’s country is equated with radical thought, causing people to fall into a cessation of thinking. However, even if such rejection seems valid as an external statement, when one looks earnestly inward, the reality is vastly different. Rather, the stronger the sense of belonging to the soil, the deeper the wound of being torn apart becomes, and the agony felt in reaction increases year by year. Even gazing into my own interiority, I am forced to admit that such a fractured state certainly exists.
This issue will likely increase in radicalism, standing before all people in a more sharpened form. That is precisely why I feel strongly that we must now, from various angles, gaze once again at the phantom called the motherland. To that end, I proceed upon the foundational premise that love for the motherland should neither be denied nor rejected. No matter what motherland that may be.
Why does this attachment to the motherland surge up so quietly, yet so surely and deeply, as a kind of reaction? When I ruminate on such questions daily, I arrive at one symbolic event. It is the fact that the extreme decline of the country that is my motherland, Japan—or perhaps a tragic transfiguration for which “decline” is too tepid a word, a devastation—lies before me as a grim fact in the real, and in the everyday.
To be honest, the act of frivolously trumpeting “Japan is beautiful” in a cultural context at this juncture is nothing more than a selfish re-emphasis of Orientalism that ignores the real. Countless Japanese people, or foreigners residing in Japan, are colluding to express this while still conjuring a false image of Japan; but from my perspective, this is precisely the nationalism (the degraded type) serving as modern ideology. First of all, there is no contemplation among these speakers. It is highly doubtful whether they are truly looking at the real Japan or the Japanese people. From their perspective, fortunately, Japan remains, now as in the past, merely a country at the far eastern edge, distant from the majority of the world. Thus, even in the 2020s, due to physical distance and the language barrier, there is a reality that most things remain unknown. Taking advantage of this, people spreading the “Japan is beautiful” ideology are rampant these days, but they do not realize that this is the very dynamic driving Japan to ruin. In other words, the true identity of what is damaging Japan and driving it into a corner is not limited to the external; rather, it lies within the hotbed of this facile, degraded internal ideology.
This inexplicable attachment to the motherland, or perhaps an emotion too complex to be easily put into words—worthy of being called grief for one’s country—is surely not a matter unconcern to many readers. Whether it is the United States, the United Kingdom, or anywhere else, if one surveys the current world, it is clear to anyone’s eyes that every nation is pregnant with some form of collapse and suffering from great anomalies. And at the center of that anomaly lies the pain of the concept of the “20th-century motherland,” which was once the axis of a rigid identity, being torn up by the roots. There is also the anxiety that declaring love for one’s motherland openly will be canceled as the expression of an anachronistic attitude. The motherland we know no longer exists as a substantial image. The fact of that loss is the greatest divergence, the severance we face.
Why, then, do we hold onto the real image that has ceased to exist, carrying it as a shadow? Conversely, why is the human being capable of holding onto an afterimage?
By now, grieving for one’s motherland while simultaneously remaining there has become synonymous with increasing the risk of actual harm to one’s own life. Many people are considering the choice of leaving their motherland from every perspective—economic rationality, safety of life—and are putting it into action. This is reflected in the real as a rapid increase in global digital nomads; indeed, the greatest ethnic migration of the twenty-first century implies this new tribe called the digital nomad. Whatever the reason, we are living in a transitional period where we are compelled to leave the land where we were born and raised and live in foreign lands. In that flux and instability, how each individual maintains mental equilibrium is likely the characteristic struggle of the modern era.
Unlike the historical dynamism of tribal or ethnic group migrations of the past, the modern iteration occurs at the individual level, rooted in a more solitary and earnest circumstance where the individual soul is forced to peel away from the motherland. Of course, there are those who detest the country of their birth, but the majority likely do not feel so in their true hearts. Currently, a perspective in advanced nations that deems hatred of one’s motherland as justice is spreading, particularly among the youth. As to why this is happening, honestly, it seems no one has yet been able to provide an answer.
However, even if one voices concern about the motherland on the surface, do they not feel, in the depths of their heart, an inexplicable attachment, a passion difficult to sever, as I am writing now? And is this concept of the motherland something that can be debated in a monolithic manner? If we do not gaze seriously at this point, we will see no breakthrough in this problem. While acknowledging that the issue of the motherland is highly sensitive in the modern age because it directly involves history, if we do nothing out of fear of that sensitivity, the situation will only worsen, and the responsibility will invariably be postponed to future generations.
First, the attachment I hold for my motherland is unrelated to so-called political nationalism. Yet, simultaneously, the motherland as political nationalism certainly exists within myself. To deny this would be a lie. However, while patriotism in a political context has an aspect of being fermented as a tool for consensus-building, the love for the motherland in the individual soul is not such an institutional thing. Where lies the key to unraveling this stratification? And how does one distinguish it within the inner self?