Battleangel

It’s time for that Friday rant again, that I haven’t done in awhile. So I ran across this piece of rather sensational journalism in today’s Aftonbladet (in swedish of course). Given the uselessness of Aftonbladet and tabloid newspapers it’s difficult to make heads or tails of this but it seems safe to say that Tobias Hübinette (Lee Sam-dol) is in deep academic trouble.

Tobias Hübinette (Korean name: Lee Sam-dol) is the only Ph.D. candidate in Korean Studies at the Department of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, Sweden, since 2001. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Irish Studies from Uppsala University in 1991, and a Master’s degree in Korean Studies from Stockholm University in 2000. His Ph.D. project “Comforting an Orphaned Nation” which will be defended in December of 2005 examines international adoption from Korea, the Korean adoption issue and representations of adopted Koreans in Korean popular culture. He has lectured, published books and articles and made media research on National Socialism and Extreme Rightism, and writes in Swedish, Korean and international newspapers and journals on issues concerning (post)colonialism and on international adoption and international adoptees in general. Other interests are Swedish and Western images and representations of Korea and East Asians, problems regarding Orientalism and Asianists, and postcolonial diasporas and ethnic minorities.

Source: tobiashubinette.se

So what did he say and do? According to the work published on his site he has set out to do cultural and media studies of how Asian adoptees fare (mainly in Sweden) and how the general population views adoptees and Asian ethnicities in general (again mainly in Sweden).
The inflammatory piece, which I have been unable to find and verify, reasoned that the virtual fetish of asian women which we see around us is nothing but repressed paedophilic tendencies. The reasoning not being entirely clear but I assume it is linked to the perceived submissiveness, power relations and physical juvenility. Upon rummaging the net I found an article from Yale Daily News outlining some of the dangers of the fetish from a non-Swedish, non-pedophilic perspective. Anyhow, Tobias Hübinette is also annoyed that this trend (of older men “importing love” mainly) is almost always encouraged, seen as a role model and a multicultural ideal. He then goes on to put this in the perspective of European colonialism and American involvement in the region post-WW2. It’s a surprisingly packaged deal, entangling feminism, power, regional studies, culture and sexuality.

I’ve had similar philosophical meanderings myself but never quite been able to nail the issue as Tobias Hübinette does so eloquently, although bluntly. He is obviously more astute in that he has himself been subjected to many of the downsides of being an outsider.
As for pedophilia, I could just say that the ideal is such because we are genetically hardwired to react on those visual impulses. So it’s nothing strange per se. The strangeness begins when you go half way around the world to get around the social construct and mark of pedophilia. I.e. look for less stigmatized ways of quelling the same needs. And when you clearly lack a refinement and fundamental respect of the people with whom you enter a supposedly intimate relationship. Needless to say I frown when I see middle aged men with younger partners, especially when those partners are per se Asian. Not very nice either but I share in this dark outlook on the world. I mean … a healthy relationship … yeah rrrrright, what are the chances of that?

The problem with Tobias is not his research on adoption or general Asian studies. No, I wholly agree with him here, at least so far as I’ve read and understood his reasoning.
The problem is more along the lines of his checkered past. Namely his participation in AFA and EXPO, activists and publishers with a self-proclaimed image of countering fascism and racism wherever they find it. They are however strikingly incapable of spotting their own “reverse racism” and past statements made by Tobias Hübinette clearly demonstrate this. Add to this the cases of vandalism and slander that landed him in prison for a brief time at the beginning of the 90s and you have at least parts of the picture, which is not so often told. Mainly because EXPO for some reason has become a darling of political parties and the mainstream media. It would be bad PR to do otherwise. Bottom line: I can accept stone throwing, but not targeting another marginalized group (like the socially disadvantaged who are swept away in white supremacy). From a hierarchal perspective these two groups are on the same level, duking it out in the gutter. His ideas about latent racism in Sweden and its connection to extreme right wing groups and in turn what he has discovered about opinions on Asians are just ludicrous. As if Sweden would be significantly worse than anywhere else in this aspect. I doubt it.

In his defence, said events took place over 10 years ago and I suppose we all deserve a second chance. As for his ideology it’s hard to say. I kind of sympathize with all that bottled up hatred and contempt for the system. At least with this adoption and ethnicity line of thought, he has some real and timely purpose as opposed to his rather blunt and pointless exposé of alleged Nazi sympathizers and as a crusading apologetic for Zionists and the Holocaust Industry.

No, I suppose the real issue here is university censorship, in the event that there has been actual censorship. Time will tell. It is nevertheless unacceptable to remove material whether it refers to “men as animals”, “cross-cultural marriages as pedophilia” or selling “national socialism.” I vaguely recall the Karolina Matti case which I believe ended with the suspension of Matti from the Univ of Umeå. The irony here is that Hübinette just crossed a similar line that, albeit it wont get him dismissed or convicted of anything, will make his name ring in infamy. My personal opinion is of course that universities should maintain freedom of speech to absurdity if necessary and be an unabridged forum for debate. But the moment you step over the thin moral line and do something that is inflammatory or politically inconvenient (i.e. will spill over on someone else) the mud starts flying.

Big surprise … so academia sometimes has to deal with unpleasant subjects. Like power, hegemony, etnocentrism, racism and gender inequality. But unless we debate the issues, and kill off potential sacred cows, we’re never going to get any wiser.