East Asian Post War Trauma and the Transition to Modernization Story

East Asian Post War Trauma and the Transition to Modernization
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East Asian Post War Trauma and the Transition to Modernization
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East Asian Transition from Post War Trauma to Modernization
Trauma is a person’s response towards disturbing events that leads them to feel hopeless, overpower their capacity to cope, lowers their self-esteem, and confuses their emotional reaction. Community violence, domestic violence, sexual abuse, dating violence, and war are some distressing experiences that can cause trauma (Siyi, 2020). The 20th Century was a time of political, economic, and social changes in the East Asian countries, especially Japan, Korea, and China. The three countries’ struggle to take their political position was a cause of war and tension in the area. Precisely, the dynamic contraction and imperialist expansions, the socialist resolution to capitalist contraction, and the internal purge wars destroyed the East Asian peace. The Japanese and Korean fight because of Japanese imperialism ignited the war. Moreover, the Chinese dynastic crisis the Japans insisting on the Meiji-era development and expansion increased the tension.
As all the fighting was going on, innocent people, children, women, and soldiers were in the middle of it. The terrible experiences made the people witness some horrific scenes that were disturbing to them. The daily killings and acts of torture and violence were mentally disturbing to them (Baligard, 2019). The war left many people grieving due to the death of people that were dear to them. The bad experience accumulation left most people to be traumatized. Different countries tackled mental issues in different ways. The time a government takes a shift from the traumatic experience determined the development time. The development pressure from other countries like America motivated the country to start setting up new development programs. Through development, the counties began to experience modernization. The diverse cultures in the region were a complication to the process. Convincing the people to stop their culture and follow the modern ways of living was a complication.
Japan
The Japanese invasion of different countries had a massive impact on the peace of East Asian Countries. Its 1910 entry in Korea, 1931 in Manchuria, and 1937 in China before the 1942 Pearl Harbor in the United States and many other colonies in Guan, Philippines, and Britain was slowly triggering the World War. Baligard (2019) says that, the period of the war was such a depressing experience for the Japanese and the citizens from other countries involved. According to Siyi (2020), the severity of the war led to the death of over 75 million people, where 35 million of them were during the Pacific War. All the countries that participated in the conflict have their share of the death toll. Japan itself lost 2 million of its military personnel 1 million civilians. The country also lost 200,000 people during the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that ended the War (Siyi, 2020).
The Japanese appeared to be the main reason for World War II. Their involvement was evident in each step of the war. Apart from the death of more than 3 million Japanese, trauma was a significant effect of the war. Most of the survivors ended up with the different mental disorders. The analysis of Japanese participation in the war shows that the country was traumatized even before the War (Saeyoung, 2017). The attacks were a way of dealing with the trauma of being colonized by modern western nations. The fear of remaining under the control of other countries pushed them to respond with attacks to respect the neighbors. In the process, the government ended up exposing their people o more disturbing experiences destabilizing the mental health of most of the citizens. An urgent strategy to settle the issue was important. The trauma solving process was complicated in Japan due to the mixed tension of either solving the problem or assuming responsibilities of the war. The country's time trying to justify its action wasted a lot of time they could use to solve the issue.
The Japanese role in the war made the world isolate them after the war. The isolation was a way of creating a solution to the mental disorder. The creation of different cultural groups made the people start dealing with the trauma. The people's collective experience during Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced the people to be bound together (Siyi, 2020). The pain they were facing due to the disaster made the people unite in such of safety. Most of the people were engaged in different cultural activities diverting their attention from the war. The cultural setup was able to deal with most of the mental cases. The groups allowed people to open up and share their experiences ending up releasing the pain. Additionally, most people participated in different physical activities and meditations, shifting their mindset and slowly leading to healing.
As the people enjoyed the cultural groups, some people took advantage and changed them into cultural colonies. For instance, traditional setups like the Samurai's bushido culture and Buddhism encouraged the group leaders to start imposing severe cultural beliefs that were torture to the people. The situation slowly moved to a cultural colony. The groups that were to redeem people ended up putting them in more traumas.
The introduction of cultural setups was both advantageous and disadvantageous to the country’s modernization process. After World War II, the Japanese government saw the need to initiate a modernization process to compete with Western countries. The fear of remaining old could not allow them to ignore the modernization move (Saeyoung, 2017). The US and Japan created an alliance to find solution s to the disaster. The start of "Kizuna" was an invocation of solidarity by the civil society groups and the government with the target of building solidarity with the victims of the triple disaster. The possibility of the entire process was through the citizens’ victimization and volunteering to offer mediation by information technology.
The ally between Japan and America was a start for development in Japan. The Americans started the transition process by rehabilitation and occupying of Japanese State. Siyi (2020) asserts that the force leader was General Douglas A. MacArthur, who enforced political, social reforms, military, and economic reforms to help with the modernization of Japan. The change process happened in three phases. First, at the end of the war in 1945 -1947, Americans punished the Japanese for the inequity and dismantled the Japanese Army locking the former leaders from participating in any political activities (Saeyoung, 2017). The introduction of SCAP created land reforms to benefit farmers' tenants and reduce landlord’s power. The changes encouraged farmers hence creating food security.
In late 1947 and early 1948, the introduction of the next phase started. The stage mainly focused on the economic rehabilitation that lasted till 1950. The process faced a challenge due to the lack of raw materials for the industries, making the Americans bring the Koreans on board to supply the materials (Fujinaga & Shimada, 2017). The Americans assured the Japanese of safety in case of any threats. Finally, in the third occupation phase, the SCAP started a peace treaty to end occupation and war. The final agreement allowed Americans to have territories in Okinawa and other places in Japan. The creation of peace led the entire country to enjoy stability.
Korea
The 1950 to 1953 war in Korea was a very traumatizing experience for the citizens. The war started with 75,000 North Korean soldiers pouring in the boundary between the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the South and the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the North. The area is known as the 38th parallel. Besides, the attack was retaliation for the cold war. The Americans justified the entry on behalf of the South Koreans as a fight against international communism. After ending the back and forth in the 38th parallel, the number of casualties increased without a good reason (Manojlivic, 2020). Due to the slight tension in the war compared to other wars, the Korean War was known as “The Forgotten War.” The war created a division in the Korean peninsula to date.
Korea has been under the Japanese empire since the 20th Century and then moved to American and Soviet territory after World War II, the decision of its war decision was all in the colonies’ hands. The two regions had to divide the country in two, where the Americans occupied the south and the Russians the North. The division continued the war, for the two colonies were struggling to overpower each other. According to Manojlivic (2020), the North Korean invasion of the South Korean border was a surprise war to the Americans. As far as the world was concerned, the war was brought about the fear of communists making the move of taking o...