“Comfort Women”
The issue of ‘comfort women’ has been in the news again recently. The US Congress passed a bill criticizing the Japanese government over the issue and requiring the Japanese to take responsibility and apologize for their wartime conduct. Prime Minister Abe was quick to rebuff this judgement, but, surprisingly, went so far as to suggest that there is no evidence that women were coerced into being ‘comfort women’.
The phrase ‘comfort women’ is a euphemism for ’sex slaves’ and the continued use of the phrase does suggest a certain reluctance on the part of the Japanese to ‘call a spade a spade’ and recognize the shame of their war-time conduct. Prime Minister Kono made an official apology in 1993 afterJapanese historians published books documenting the coercive use of women for the sexual entertainment of the military during the war.
Certainly, the actions of the US Congress should be regarded with some scepticism - we are here in the realm of international diplomatic games and there may be any number of reasons why the US want to put pressure on Japan in this way at this time. Nevertheless, I cannot help feeling that Abe’s reaction has been cack-handed. Surely, all that was required was a repeated admission of the atrocities of the war and a public apology, perhaps accompanied by a re-statement of Japan’s intention never to participate in war again. The fact that Abe opted for a denial instead raises some questions about the direction he intends to pursue while he is in power.
Unfortunately, Mr.Abe’s reaction has not gone down well abroad with articles appearing in major national newspapers in America and Europe criticizing him for ‘denying’ the existence of women who were forced into sexual slavery during the war. For sure, so long after the event and with numerous apologies and gestures of compensation already made, this all seems like so much point-scoring. Perhaps though, Mr.Abe would have done better to play along rather than present the western media with a statement of denial which will do nothing to endear the Japanese to the rest of the world.
ben wrote:
Kono was not Prime Minister in 1993, he was Chief Cabinet Secretary. Sorry for the error.
Posted on 12-Mar-07 at 11:53 am | Permalink
bamboo4 wrote:
You say that “comfort woman” is a euphemism. But it is not - those women were officially called 慰安婦 of which “comfort women” is a literal and direct translation. To call them “sex slaves” therefore involves subjective characterization by those who are critical of the Japanese military during the Chino-Japan war and that has nothing to do with the name they were actually called.
The Chino-Japanese war, which the Japanese started as the precursor to the eventual WWII, was an act of invasion and would have been a piece of cake becuase Chinese did not have any war planes and did not have well-trained and well-organized military setup, although the history tells us that it did not turn out quite that way. In any event, when the Japanese started that war, they invaded the mainland China like a prairie fire engulfing that country. The Japanese military were the conquerers everywhere they went far and beyond into that continent and the history tells us how conquorers generally behave against the vanquished in any war. There are gory tales to tell - All countries which enjoyed either ephemral or permanent victory and the taste of conquorer do have their share of what can retrospect be labeled as “misdeeds,” “crimes against humanity” and “wartime atrocities,” etc. Nobody is clean.
There is no question that war is hell, and having had some taste of it, I would never want to repeat that experience. Those who have not had a taste of it (either in the glory of the conquorer or the desperation of the vanquished) have no “real” sense of what that means.
All right, there were “comfort woman” recruited or coerced into that status during the war, not Japanese (there were a lot of Japanese, too), but as the women of the vanquished (at the time). I personally feel very sorry for them as sheer victim of circumstances, but that’s where my sympathy ends. As I said before, war is hell and we should never be placed in the position to go through that nightmare again at whatever the cost. However, the human history, since its very inception, is a history of never-ending war.
This issue must be dealt with in that context. Let’s pause and reflect who is trying to revive the atrocities of Chinggis Khan or Conquistador?
Posted on 14-Mar-07 at 4:17 am | Permalink
ben wrote:
Thank you for providing some balance, bamboo4-san. The victors usually escape criticism, but seeing as victory appears increasingly unlikely in Afghanistan or Iraq, maybe the western powers who initiated those campaigns will actually be forced to take some responsibility for the consequences. I wouldn’t say that because ‘war is hell’ no-one should have to take responsibility for the atrocities at Abu Graib or Guanatanamo (drops in the ocean of havoc that we are unleashing in the Middle East).
I apologize if my post is rather ignorant and insensitive - I can do no more than represent the opinion of a young Englishman, which I thought would be of some (admittedly limited) interest to Japanese readers.
Posted on 14-Mar-07 at 8:13 am | Permalink
bamboo4 wrote:
No apology is called for, ben-san. We all have our own perspectives about the matter of this sort based on each of our background, country, social and geopolitcal factors and they could be very very different from one person or one country to the next.
It has been demonstrated that our history, or any segment thereof, can be turned into a very convenient vehicle by which to advance political justifications and apologia associated with it, without regard to distortions that creep in or the mentality of the participants in that history prevailing at the time. This is ineventable and it must be countered equally politically, in which art the Japanese government is sorely deficient.
I do realize that the sentiments of various countries in the world more or less are, in many situations,
characterized by some deep-rooted anti-Japanese feelings and not only Chinese, Koreans and some island countries in the Far East, but Americans, The Netherlanders and British are no exceptions.
We Japanese have to live in that environment and we would have to accept it as a fact of life. While there is predominance of people in the world, I think, who are either not concerned or basically ignorant of such history, mostly due to the fact that those who had direct experience have left and are leaving this mortal world, human mentality is divergent and grudges can be carried over through many generations.
C’est la vie!
Posted on 15-Mar-07 at 5:48 am | Permalink