SEOUL, Nov 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The managers of hugely popular South Korean
boyband BTS have issued an extensive apology after controversy erupted in the
lucrative Japanese market over a T-shirt worn by one of the vocalists showing
a nuclear blast.
In a 1,000-word statement released in Korean, English and Japanese,
management firm Big Hit Entertainment repeatedly offered its “sincerest
apologies”.
It sought to distance the septet from the row, saying it bore
responsibility, and went on: “Big Hit does not condone any activities of war
or the use of atomic weapons.”
Responding to further accusations the K-pop stars had used Nazi imagery,
the company said it opposed all organisations “oriented towards political
extremism and totalitarian beliefs including Nazism”.
Known for their boyish good looks, floppy haircuts and meticulously
choreographed dance moves, BTS have become one of South Korea’s best-known
and most valuable musical exports.
They have sold 380,000 tickets for their current Japanese tour, and their
singles sell hundreds of thousands of copies each.
But Koreans bitterly resent Tokyo’s brutal 1910-45 colonisation of the
peninsula, which came to an end with Japan’s Second World War defeat after
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Historical issues still weigh heavily on the relationship between the
neighbours, both of them market democracies and US allies, even while they
share widespread business and cultural connections.
Japanese television station TV Asahi last week cancelled a performance by
BTS after a photo went viral of band member Jimin wearing the offending
shirt.
The garment featured the phrase “PATRIOTISM OURHISTORY LIBERATION KOREA”
repeated multiple times alongside an image of an atomic bomb explosion and
another of Koreans celebrating their independence.
As the row escalated, images emerged of a concert last year where BTS wore
uniforms and waved flags that critics said recalled Nazi symbols, and a 2014
photoshoot that shows leader RM wearing a cap bearing an SS Death’s Head
logo.
The SS played a key role in the Nazi mass murder of six million Jews
during the Holocaust and a prominent Jewish human rights group accused the
band of “mocking the past”.
“It goes without saying that this group owes the people of Japan and the
victims of Nazism an apology”, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon
Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles.
“Those designing and promoting this group’s career are too comfortable
with denigrating the memory of the past,” he added.
“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.”
In its statement, published on Facebook late Tuesday, Big Hit
Entertainment said the performance in question was intended to criticise
totalitarianism and was “in no way associated with National Socialism”.
Rather, it said, it referred to a song “Classroom Idea”, by veteran South
Korean band Seo Taiji, which “levies social criticism against rigidly
standardised education”.