SEOUL: Japan should refrain from flying the “Rising Sun” flag on a warship in a fleet review planned in South Korea next week, a North Korean propaganda website said on Friday, joining South Koreans in the latest spat over the countries’ colonial history.
Relations between the neighbors and Japan have long been strained by lingering resentment over Japanese colonization, territorial disputes and the issue of girls and women forced to work in Japan’s wartime brothels.
Many people in both Koreas see the red-and-white flag as a symbol of Japan’s past military aggression and its occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
“The ‘Rising Sun’ flag is a war-crime flag that the 20th-century Japanese imperialists used when executing their barbaric invasions into our nation and other Asian nations,” North Korea’s state-controlled Uriminjokkiri website said.
“Planning to enter flying the ‘Rising Sun’ flag is an unbearable insult and ridicule to our people.”
In South Korea, which has formally asked Japan to reconsider flying the flag, articles about the controversy are among the most widely read on social media, with the president’s office receiving 250 petitions for the Japanese ship to be barred.
The South Korean Navy said on Friday that Japanese naval ships flew the ensign when they participated in fleet reviews in 1998 and 2008, but it has asked all ships at this year’s naval review to display national flags and the South Korean flag.
The “Rising Sun” ensign, used by the Japanese Imperial Navy in campaigns around Asia and the Pacific before and during World War Two, was adopted by the Maritime Self-Defense Force in 1954.
Variations of the flag are used by the ground Self-Defense Force and on the fatigues of some Japanese sailors, but some South Koreans liken the ensign to Nazi symbols such as the swastika.
Japanese officials have signaled the flag will be flown, despite the protests.
“Hoisting of the Maritime Self-Defense Force ensign is required by law,” Katsutoshi Kawano, the chief of staff of Japan’s Self Defense Forces, told reporters on Thursday.
“Members take pride in the ensign, and we will never go there with the flag unhoisted.”
South Korea’s foreign ministry had “conveyed our stance that the Japanese side should fully consider the Rising Sun flag’s emotional connotation to our people,” Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said on Thursday.
Japan is a key player in US-led efforts to isolate and punish North Korea over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
But it has remained a major target of criticism, despite warming ties between Pyongyang and Seoul as the North’s leader Kim Jong Un engaged in a flurry of diplomacy this year, during which he also met leaders of the US and China.
Japan and South Korea often trade barbs over disputed islands known as Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in Korea.
North Korea joins Seoul protest over Japan’s ‘Rising Sun’ flag
North Korea joins Seoul protest over Japan’s ‘Rising Sun’ flag
- Many people in both Koreas see the red-and-white flag as a symbol of Japan’s past military aggression
- Some South Koreans liken the ensign to Nazi symbols such as the swastika
With murals, Indian artist transforms slums into ‘walls of learning’
- Rouble Nagi won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize at Dubai summit last week
- Her foundation set up 800 learning centers across more than 100 slums, villages
New Delhi: It was about a decade ago that Rouble Nagi began painting the walls of Mumbai’s slums with art and colors, turning the neglected spaces where India’s low-income communities live into vibrancy.
What started as a project of beautification quickly transformed into a mission of education through art, one that seeks to reach the most marginalized children in India.
Together with a team of locals, volunteers and residents, Nagi started painting the slums with interactive murals, which she calls the “Living Walls of Learning,” as an alternative way to educate children.
“The ‘Living Walls of Learning’ is our answer to the lack of infrastructure within the education pillar. In these communities, traditional schools are often physically distant or psychologically intimidating. We solve this by turning the slum itself into a classroom,” Nagi told Arab News.
An estimated 236 million people, or nearly half of India’s urban population, lived in slums in 2020, according to World Bank data.
“The abandoned, broken or dilapidated walls (are transformed) into open-air classrooms using interactive murals created by the students themselves. These aren’t just paintings; they are visual curricula teaching literacy, numeracy, science and social responsibility,” she said, adding that the initiative “treats education as a living, breathing part of daily life.”
Her Rouble Nagi Art Foundation has established more than 800 learning centers across more than 100 slums and villages in India, as the slum transformation initiative expanded beyond Mumbai and now includes parts of Maharashtra, the country’s second-most populous state.
“These centers provide safe spaces for children to begin structured learning, receive remedial education, emotional support, and creative enrichment,” Nagi said.
Over the years, RNAF said that it had helped bring more than one million children into formal education and reduced dropout rates by more than 50 percent, with the help of more than 600 trained educators.
Last week, the 40-year-old Indian artist and educator became the 10th recipient of the $1 million Global Teacher Prize, which she accepted at the World Governments Summit in Dubai.
Nagi plans on using the money to build an institute that offers free vocational training and digital literacy.
“This project aims to equip (marginalized children and young people) with practical skills for employment and self-reliance, helping transform their life chances,” she said.
She believes that strengthening pathways from informal learning spaces to formal schooling and skill-based education can create “sustainable, long-term educational opportunities” that “empower learners to break cycles of poverty and become active contributors” to their communities.
“For me, this award is not just personal; it is a validation of the work done by the entire Rouble Nagi Art Foundation team, our teachers, volunteers and the communities we work with,” she said.
“It shines a global spotlight on children who are often invisible to the formal education system and affirms that creativity, compassion and persistence can transform lives.”
