The shock that accompanied the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, quickly turned into a mood of national mourning that continues to hang over the United States a year later. As a form of social behavior, mourning comes with its own protocol, and in this particular case attempts to place the attacks in a relevant historical context were met with anger and resentment, since they were automatically considered disrespectful of the victims.

Something similar accompanied the news that emerged on Sept. 17, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that members of his intelligence forces had kidnapped, over the past 25 years or so, at least a dozen Japanese, of whom eight had died. Though for years the Japanese media has circulated reports that these missing persons were, in fact, abducted by North Korean agents, the admission caused shock and anger among the general population. The media has since fed this anger with extensive coverage of the families of the abducted Japanese, allowing them to vent their rage and frustration in print and on TV at both North Korea and the Japanese government.

So far, the historical context of the abductions has been presented as something that only has relevance in connection to the abductions themselves, rather than to Japan-Korea relations in general. The magazine Sunday Mainichi reported that, in the '60s, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung had wanted to invade South Korea in order to unify the peninsula under communism. Kim didn't think it was possible without the help of China, which at the time was bickering with the Soviet Union.