Japanese revisionist scholar Hideaki Kase [Wikipedia] warns in Newsweek that the “harder its neighbors or the United States push it for apologies, the harder Japan may start pushing back.”
Oh, and he says the comfort stations were commercial establishments and U.S. Army records (no doubt records like this [Report No. 49..., English], but probably not ones like this [OhMyNews, Korean]) declare the comfort women were prostitutes. And many Japanese politicians think the Rape of Nanjing is a Chinese fabrication. Or so he said.
{ 163 comments… read them below or add one }
“And many Japanese politicians think the Rape of Nanjing is a Chinese fabrication. Or so he said.”
ha ha ha ha
There must be many debates about Nanjing Massacre. Nobody knows how many civilians were killed in Nanjing. The point is the reason why Japanese and Chinese fought in Shanghai and Nanjing.
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. Yes. But Nationalists government of China did not try to fight with Japan.
Japanese and Chinese forces had an accidental fight at “Marco Polo Bridge” of Peking in July of 1937. Yes. But that battle was small and stopped soon.
However, as for the fight of Shanghai in August of 1937, it was the invasion of China, not Japan. China fabricated Japanese invaded first, and is broadcasting this lie in the world.
As for Korean War, China fabricated S. Korea invaded first, either. They still write so in Chinese history textbook.
The fabricated story of “Japan invaded first” and “Nanjing Massacre” are the package to distort that Japan was evil and China was justice.
Criticizing the Massacre of enemy is so convenient for China to hide the shame to lose the capital and to cheat the Japanese naïve leftists to work for them.
Criticizing the enemy after losing the battle is just like football coach’s criticizing the opponent players after the game to excuse his fault.
The truth of “The rape of Nanjing” is just “The fall of Nanjing.” That’s it.
Chinese nationalists and Japanese naïve leftists had better criticize the crimes of CCP first before criticizing any other countries.
“The Japanese army will not rest until it finds the army responsible for the Rape of Nanking.” — spoof newspaper issued during 50th anniversary of WW2 end in 1995 in wake of OJ Simpson line.
Nanjing Massacre.
Unit 731.
Comfort women.
Bataan Death March.
Massacre of POW by Japanese force.
So many war crimes of Japanese. German was criticized, either.
But don’t you wonder why only losers committed so many crimes and victors did not.
(Italian was so weak that nobody criticizes them. It is a comedy.)
I think some kind of people must be so naïve who believe the victor’s justice and propaganda and try to point out the war crimes of losers only.
There is no justice or evil in the war. All of countries fight for its national interests.
But the government tries to make people believe they are fighting for justice.
This is propaganda. And ignorant people like to believe it.
We are always right, and they are always wrong.
WW2 was the first war that victors punished losers on the name of war crimes after the war.
“War crime” is just an excuse of victors to revenge losers.
That is the reason why war crimes of victors were never punished.
When Chinese and Korean shout “War crimes of Japanese”, it means they try to exploit the name of justice to revenge Japanese.
They never have an idea to punish their own war crimes at all.
Tomojiro
It seems you do not have any knowledge about political and economical background of WW2.
I recommend you to read this.
http://power.consumercide.com/VJ_Day.html
Do you label this writer as “revisionist” or “Japan apologist” again?
What is the essenatial differece?
“The nature of this “service” was not specified but it was assumed to be work connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy. The inducement used by these agents was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen.”
(Report No. 49…, English)
“With the exception of Mrs.Hwang Nam-suk, all of the 23 women became “comfortgirls”, apparently under compulsion and misrepresentation. The fifteen who left Korea in July, 1943, for example, were recruited through advertisements in Korean newspapers offering employment for girls in Japanese factories in Singapore. The contingent with which they were sent southward included at least 300 girls who were similarly misled.”(OhMyNews, Korean])
What Korean media has been hiding is that in most
of the cases it was Korean pimps who deceived/forced women to make them prositututes just as they have been doing after Japanese rule,
during Korean War and around A-town.
And Japanese troop didn’t order Korean pimps to recruit that way, rather it regulated such illegal pimps.
As for Nanjing Massacre, Japanese government admits that it happened.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/taisen/qa/08.html
Comfort women controversy
Yasukuni controversy
They were invented and broadcasted by Japanese leftists, not by Korean or Chinese.
In short, some of controversies about Japan have the origins in the conflicts between Japanese leftists and rightists in Japan.
Unfortunately, Japanese leftists have lost its power and credibility in Japanese society in these ten years.
But ironically, the seeds which Japanese leftists broadcasted about Comfort women controversy 20 years ago have come true in America when Japanese leftists lost power and influence in Japan.
Now, Japanese is being criticized as rapists, thanks to the activities of Japanese leftists.
Japanese leftists are trying to use the comfort women controversy in US to recover its influence in Japan now.
But does it work?
How do most of Japanese people feel about the result of the activity of Japanese leftists who broadcasted the distorted story about comfort women in the world?
The flowers which lost its roots have a destiny to die sooner or later.
Ponta wrote:
“What Korean media has been hiding is that in most
of the cases it was Korean pimps who deceived/forced women to make them prositututes just as they have been doing after Japanese rule,
during Korean War and around A-town.”
The very paragraph you cited, the report by the US Army, contradicts your statement although it’s not apparent in your post because you edited out the first sentence, which identifies Japanese agents as having recruited the group of Korean comfort women interviewed for the report. Below is the paragraph with the key first sentence intact:
“Early in May of 1942 Japanese agents arrived in Korea for the purpose of enlisting Korean girls for “comfort service” in newly conquered Japanese territories in Southeast Asia. The nature of this “service” was not specified but it was assumed to be work connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy. The inducement used by these agents was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen.”
http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html
Why Japanese Politicians have so much trouble moving beyond its past?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3760
Obviously, It’s because “Advanced-Democratic” Japan has only been ruled by LDP(自民党) over 60 years.
jion, I’m beginning to think you should turn those nines over.
Winners and losers huh? I think the point of those war crimes tribunals was to take a look behind the lines at the plight of non-combatants. Genocide was not merely collateral damage. What rankled is that Aushwitz existed in the first place.
As far as Nanjing, the uproar had little to do with the ebb and flow of war. Why were there baby brouchettes? What ticks me off was the Japanese end zone celebration.
Come on jion, spin that one for me. Let me see another parade of tripe come off your keyboard. I know, I know. The babies invaded first.
Maddlew wrote:
“jion, I’m beginning to think you should turn those nines over.”
Sonagi
“The very paragraph you cited, the report by the US Army, contradicts your statement”
It does not contradict my statement.
I didn’t say Japanese agent was not involved; they were involved; for instance, there were Japanese brothel owners, and there are also records of that. And your record shows Japanese agent was running away with Korean comfort women. It is well known.
What I said was in most of the cases, it were Korean pimps that deceived/forced women to make the pimps.
That and what happened to Korean women in Korea after Independence are what Korean media has been covering up.
And that is what you or some pro-Korean people have not dared to touch upon it.
I am glad even Kase didn’t call ex-comfort women “old senile whores”.
I don’t understand why some people want to call them that way. But after all, the female victims under Korean government were called yanggalbo(Western whore) in Korea, so there may be a background for them to call them that way.
“it were Korean pimps that deceived/forced women to make the pimps.
→ to make them prostitutes.
“I think the point of those war crimes tribunals was to take a look behind the lines at the plight of non-combatants.”
I agree. And i think the point of the article jion linked was while Japanese (and Korean) civilians and Pow were killed, the victors were not tried, isn’t it?
Then please the proof for this allegation, Ponta:
“What I said was in most of the cases, it were Korean pimps that deceived/forced women to make the pimps.”
And why did you lop off that first sentence mentioning Japanese agents? I thought historical accuracy was important to you.
Sonagi
In that paragraph I wanted to ask what the essential difference was between two reports.
One report(Korean version) emphasize that women was deceived.
Another report in 1944 also claims the women were deceived.
The part I cited is sufficient enough to show that.
That there were Japanese brothel owners is no secret; after all comfort women system is the extension of the then brothel system in Japan.
And it is also natural most of pimps in Korea were Koreans. Japanese didn’t have to speak Koreans, but to deceive Korean women, you need to speak Koreans.
You are posing this kind of question probably because you have some bias that I am hiding the truth, or I am trying to cover up the wrongs Japan did. I am not. I hold to admit the wrong Japan committed is important, but I also hold Japan does’t have to accept the allegation that she didn’t committed.
I have been asking people to give us the evidence, for instance the testimonies of Korean head of the village, Korean pimps, the document to the effect Japanese troop odered Korean pimps to abduct Korean women. So far you have shown none and the documents available show Japanese politice regulated such illegal bokers.And it is a fact that Korean illegal brokers have been rampant in Korea after Japanese rule.That is what
you have been silent about.
I am going to change my opinion.
It’s really interesting the minds that are at work here. The evil “Korean pimps” who forced and kidnapped those ‘hookers’, versus the good “Japanese agents” who recruited the girls with kindness and goodness. Forgive me, but I was thought the pimps were pimps, even if those Japanese agents were sanctioned by their government.
cm
“the good “Japanese agents” who recruited the girls with kindness and goodness. Forgive me, but I was thought the pimps were pimps”
Where did people say that?
Could you quote that?
Or are you trying to make opponents’s argument look bad just like somebody by misrepresenting the argument?
Didn’t you say “Japanese agents” instead of what they really were, pimps and goons from the Japanese government?
cm
I also said “Korean brokers”.
You are reading too much into my comment like somebody else.
Nationalism is messed up. I think the world breathed a collective sigh of relief when Germany and Japan went down after WWII. We’d gotten a whif of their act. Any group of people with an idea that others are somehow inferior are not fit to equitably run the show. People marginalize other groups of people and it makes it easier to do all kinds of unspeakable things. To use the veil of war to shield these acts is a self-serving cop-out.
Yeah, the victors didn’t go on trial. So what. You’re still walking around, freely I might add, in the wake of all that supremist nonsense and voila, no gas chambers and no babies on sticks.
Ponta, you say “most”. How many are excluded from that most.
I don’t care about apologies. As a victim’s tormented world begins to fade to black I don’t think an apology from the great grandson of some sick putz is going to help much. But to deny that it even happened or to somehow try to rationalize it? You might as well take these people and encase them in cement then blast them into space. You are piling a crime on top of a crime.
Do the Japanese not bear some responsibility – at least of the moral variety – even if they used brokers/agents – Japanese or local – to acquire prostitutes for their troops? Even if they were not involved in the actual organization of the system – and that is a very big “if” – do they not bear some responsibility for allowing comfort stations to operate on territories they conquered and were administering?
The only thing I agree with – in part, anyway – with Kase is that it may be counterproductive to keep on criticizing/demonizing Japanese people – most of whom were not born at the time – in the name of justice. I don’t believe the Japanese have owed up to the actions of their government and many citizens during the first half of the 20th century – nowhere near as much as the Germans have – but I also don’t believe that the intentions of some Chinese and Korean critics are all that noble.
“harder its neighbors or the United States push it for apologies, the harder Japan may start pushing back.”
This comment is correct. It never happens that all of Japanese apologize for the abduction of 200,000 Korean women because it is not true. It never happens that Japanese writes so in its textbook.
Who believes there were no prostitutes in Korea in those days in spite of the fact that there are plenty of Korean prostitutes in Japan and US now?
On the other hand, Japanese will start to hate Korean and try to expose all of their lies.
Some Koreans try to exploit the name of justice to revenge Japanese to hide their miserable modern history and inferior complex against Japanese.
But if you hate and attack someone, you must be hated and attacked by him.
Korean must know this reality. It is so counterproductive.
P.S.
Chinese is so clever. They are big sponsors of Rep. Mike Honda, but they never attack Japan in the front line regarding comfort women controversy and use Korean to do so.
Korean must know why Chinese is so quiet against Japan now.
Maddlew
“Yeah, the victors didn’t go on trial. So what”
That was the point of the article.
“Ponta, you say “most”. How many are excluded from that most.”
As far as i read the testimonies and documents.
“As a victim’s tormented world begins to fade to black I don’t think an apology from the great grandson of some sick putz is going to help much”
Sure that is what I am saying. Japanese comfort women system was wrong just as brothel system during Korean War and around A-town was wrong.
I don’t care about apologies from the grandson of some “sick puts”
“But to deny that it even happened or to somehow try to rationalize it?”
Who denied it ? I didn’t. I showed Japanese government admit Nangjing massacre took place.
What is controversial is the death toll, but that
does not justify the massacre:Nanjing Massacre was a horrible crime.
I am afraid you are piling your ungrounded imagination on top of ungrounded accusation.
It’s lies!! All lies!!
globalvillageidiot
“Do the Japanese not bear some responsibility – at least of the moral variety – even if they used brokers/agents ”
Yes they do.
Japanese troop set up the house, transfered women, regulated illegal pimp/agents/brokers. But there were cases where the living condition was horrible. In kono’s words, there were cases where the brothels was running in coercive atmosphere. In view of that, Japanese government set up the funds, and PMs issues apology.
What has not been focused is Korean brokers role they played under and after Japanese rule, and the horrible living condition Korean prostitutes
had to go through after Japanese rule.
When I read many comments on the above, it seems there are so many Korean here.
Is it convenient for you to insist 200,000 of Korean women were abducted by Japanese soldiers?
Korean did not fight when Korea was colonized by Japan. (Except some terrorism and riots.)
Korean did not fight for its independence except some small numbers of terrorists in the foreign countries.
And do you like to insist Korean did not fight at all even if 200,000 of Korean daughters and sisters were kidnapped by Japanese soldiers?
I know Korean likes to become almighty victim like Jews.
But such kind Koreans do not understand they are insulting Korean men in those days as coward.
“Japanese comfort women system was wrong just as brothel system during Korean War and around A-town was wrong.”
Keep up the rationalizing and excuses Ponta. Many, if not most Japanese have this kind of view. It’s not really surprising why China and Korea just yawns when Japan makes another irrelevant apology with strings attached, only designed to avert international criticisms with vaguely worded double speak.
Having said that, I say Korea should make Japan irrelevant. I would love to see the day when Korea just ignores the BS coming out of Japanese politicians mouths.
“Robert Koehler your flag
Posted March 29, 2007 at 12:04 pm | Permalink
It’s lies!! All lies!!”
Who is telling lies? What are they lying about?
“Who is telling lies? What are they lying about?”
One perfect example: jion999.
cm
Keep up the rationalizing and excuses, cm.
But the fact remains that Korean had the similar system during Korean war and around A-town.
Korean government has not set up fund and has not apologized.
International community will be surprised to know that. It is just that Korea, except North Korea, has been relatively invisible to the world.
Koreans have become rich now. GDP of Korea is 12th in the world.
However, in the statistic of US to show the numbers of arrested illegal prostitutes, Korean occupied 23.5%, No.1 in nationalities.
How do you explain this reality?
(Korean)
http://www.donga.com/fbin/output?sfrm=2&n=200609250118
(English)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2006092571388&path_dir=20060925
Will you criticize American for the abduction of Korean women and forcing them to work as sex slaves 60 years hence?
Many Koreans on a Korea-based blog about Korea? Go figure.
“However, in the statistic of US to show the numbers of arrested illegal prostitutes, Korean occupied 23.5%, No.1 in nationalities.”
Because bubba, modern day prostitution in Korea has nothing to do with what happened 70 years ago. You have some clear problems separating issues that are not related and are comparing apples with pineapples. Unless what you’re suggesting is that Korean women are borned to be natural prostitutes (I do believe that is a common belief in Japan).
cm
“modern day prostitution in Korea has nothing to do with what happened 70 years ago”
Even if the way the brokers deceive women and exploit women is the same?
It’s the quite the leap of logic to compare today’s Korean prostitutes plying their trade in Miari, with comfort women of 70 years ago, who got dragged into battlefield fronts in South East Asia where many were simply raped or murdered or killed in action (no pun intended).
For foreigners except Korean;
If you like to understand the background of comfort women controversy, you must know the inferior complex of Koreans who forgive any kinds of lies if they criticize Japan.
Korean learned a lot of modern technologies and Japanese cultures during the colonial period. But Korean could not admit this reality and fabricated the all of origins and histories.
Taekwondo is the most famous case.
If you can read Korean, read this. You could understand why haraboji told a lie.
http://www.donga.com/docs/magazine/new_donga/200204/nd2002040010.html
If you can read English only, this is good either. You would understand how Korean fabricated the history of Korean national martial arts.
http://winstonstableford.com/identity.html
Korean ex-comfort women have become national heroines because they are criticizing Japan.
If there are some women who confess they became prostitutes of Japanese soldiers for money, what will happen to them?
They must be criticized as “chinirupa” or “traitors” by Korean.
This is a reality of Korean society.
jion999
You are the perfect example who has an inferiority complex here. Covering the ears with your hand, closing your eyes, just shouting to the wall ” We were not bad, it’s not our fault”.
If a Korean and a Japanese had a contest of who is most stubborn, who would win?
tomojiro
Personal attack?
Take it easy, ponta.
Can’t you answer to my posts properly?
You are just running away from answering every time.(笑）
The difference here, Ponta and Jion999, the US government in no way condone nor is involved in kidnapping, recruiting of Korean women. Furthermore, the US government frawns upon the exploitation of women through deceit, fraud, and violence. For instance, the US government does not force Korean women to open their legs to US soldiers in Iraqi battlefields where they get blown to bits from RPG rocket attacks. Furthermore, the US does not have a secret government program to run military prostitution camps where women are thrown away like garbage after they’ve been used up.
But we all know what happened in WWII with how Japan treated their neighbors. Not that I care a rat’s ass about getting another meaningless one quarter apology. But it would be nice if Japan did the morally right things to give back what is rightfully owed (not really compensations). For example like paying the back wages to surviving Korean labourers who got ripped off, and returning the bodies of the dead Korean labourers who died in the black mines due to hunger, abuse, overwork, and murder. That would be a huge step in the right direction.
Allow me again to summarize jion999′s argument:
“It’s lies. All lies. By Koreans. Who are lying liars who lie.”
cm—I might point out perhaps the most obvious contextual difference between Korean prostitution exports to the States and the comfort women of the 1930s, namely, that as I look outside my office toward Gwanghwamun, nowhere do I see the U.S. Government-General.
tomojiro
I am explaining my idea with URLs of evidences.
How about you?
Laughing hahaha and a slander?
It is the the perfect example of “Covering the ears with your hand, closing your eyes, just shouting to the wall ” (笑）
If you have courage to show your justice, explain something, not a slander. (笑)
Robert
Not exactly correct. You have forgotten to add the “chinese”, and the american government (who are brainwashed by sino-korean propaganda).
tomojiro, not exactly correct either.
You forgot to add the whores of Phillipines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Netherlands, and others, who have the same “brain washing”.
Hard to deny the Nanjing massacre. Even if you discount the thousands of reports from the Chinese (who – like Koreans – can’t be entirely trusted to be objective re Japan) – several of the witnesses were foreigners, and there is a raft of photographic evidence that’s impossible to refute.
One foreign witness was a nazi member, who set up a safety zone in Nanjing. He kept a diary on the attrocities, many of which defy belief. He had no vested interest in attacking Japan.
Also, if you take into account the psychology of the Japanese at the time – who considered themselves a super race to the extent that in comparison other peoples were mere animals – one begins to understand how they could carry out such crimes without conscience.
The hardline right-wingers in Japan do themselves a huge disservice by trying to water down the comfort women issue in the same breath and denying the Nanjing massacre – much akin to denying the holocaust. Their credibility has to be questioned.
In saying all that I’d be interested to find out how many Koreans are genuinely interested in helping the comfort women, as opposed to simply damaging Japan’s reputation. To me this whole sordid affair stinks of jingoism and inter-ethnic affray, rather than genuine concern for a group of abused people. Were Koreans genuinely concerned they’d be doing more (as Joshua has pointed out at OneFreeKorea time and time again) about stopping the traffic and forced prostitution of Koreans happening now in China/North Korea. Of course they aren’t, because the perpetrators of these crimes (the scale of which is comparable to the comfort women mobilization of yesteryear) are ethnic Koreans, not Japanese.
All the attention is on the comfort women.
But here’s another ticking bomb that has been relatively silent and ignored. But for how long?
And how will the Japanese defend and rationalize this one?
“But absent from Tokyo’s agenda will be another unresolved disgrace: decades of enforced removal to Japan for work-slavery of a million Koreans — including 12,000 laborers compelled to work under grotesque conditions in coal mines owned by a firm still run by the family of Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Aso.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/reed02022006.html
cm
Robert
Of course Korean doesn’t criticize American for Korean prostitutes. Because everybody knows they are prostitutes. Nothing more.
Korean didn’t criticize Japanese for comfort women either in 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. They started to criticize Japan after 1980s, after losing the memory of old reality.
So, I have a question for all of Korean here except abusing Tomojiro.
If you insist 200,000 of Korean women were abducted by Japanese soldiers, could you show me any news article which is the evidence that Korean protested for the abduction in 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s?
Korean did not do any protests or demonstrations for losing so many daughters and sisters?
Remember. The usual excuse that Korean families could not do so because of shame of rape does not work.
If daughters are abducted, raped and killed by Japanese soldiers, how the families know their daughters worked as comfort women?
OK? Go ahead.
What woman living in the 40s, 50, 60s and 70s in their right mind is going to admit that they spent the war years getting gang raped by the Imperial Japanese Army? Especially when the country was being run by Japanese collaborators? Even today, it’s believed most Korean rape victims do not report what happened to them due to the stigma surrounding rape.
You’re right that it was only in the 1980s—and the late 1980s, to be more precise—that people started talking about this issue, though. It was only in the late 1980s that people started talking about a lot of things. Democratization tends to have that effect on a society.
jion999, you have to understand Korean history.
1940′s Koreans were made to be third class Japanese citizens. They had no place for complaints.
1950′s was the Korean War, everybody was too busy warring and recovering from warring.
1960′s and 1970′s Korea was so poor that it was in no position to complain, especially after a military dictatorship who was a byproduct of Japanese military, took over.
What didn’t change though is the fact that all throughout the decades (40′s,50′s,60′s,70′s,80′s), S.Korea always had animosity against Japanese military rule over Korea. Why do you think that is?
Couldn’t agree more that there’s a serious disconnect there.
cm
You mean Korean were so busy for war and poorness that they did not make protests or demonstrations for abductions?
hahaha
You could find so many news articles and pictures of Korean making protests or demonstrations violently in 50s, 60s and 70s.
Don’t you see?
How do you explain it?
Find a better excuse.
Robert, 200 000 Korean women were supposedly kidnapped. Is there any newspaper article, protest, entry in a father, mother, brother or sisters diary detailing these events? Even one contemporary record of this? Did people wake up in the morning and say “oh, my daughter has disappeared. Oh well, time to get on with my life and not mention it and not report it to the police, not write about it, and not complain, because we Koreans are not a vociferous bunch, no sir”?
I do not buy the “Japanese collaborators” running the country for all these women remaining silent (all of them, supposedly 200 000 of them doing the same thing) because these “Japanese collaborators” were already undertaking a hostile stance towards Japan (mixed with realism, or course, in economic matters), with the occupation of Takeshima, anti Japanese education, the total ban on Japanese culture, etc.
There is no concrete difference to the way that Korean prostitutes were recruited then, and the way they are recruited now, except that back then parents would coerce their daughters to do it for the big payoff.
Korean is so notorious to love to make violent protests and demonstrations frequently.
Such kind of Korean did not make protests and demonstrations against Japan at all in 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s even if they lost 200,000 their daughters and sisters.
Unbelievable.
As I told you, the usual excuse that Korean families could not do so because of shame of rape does not work.
If daughters are abducted, raped and killed by Japanese soldiers, how the families know their daughters worked as comfort women?
They lost their daughters and sisters suddenly without any reason. And those women did not come back even after the war.
Why their families kept quiet?
The family members of 200,000 women must be around 1 million!!!
What made them so quiet?
Please find a good excuse to make people of the world understand.
jion on shaku,
Korean men definately mobilized the comfort women for the Japanese soldiers – of this I have no doubt. But that does not absolve Japan of blame. Far from it. The mobilization of the comfort women for Japanese soldiers finds its root first in the fact of Japanese invasion, and second in the deliberate policy of subcontracting out such unpopular tasks to ethnic Koreans. Divide and conquer.
To paraphrase Cumings: Japan fractured the Korean national psyche, pitting Korean against Korean with consequences that continue down to our time.
There are many other examples of this philosophy of division by the Japanese. Many, if not most, of the police in Korea were ethnic Koreans, acting at the behest of their Japanese masters. Even camp guards in POW campes were often Koreans. It was a deliberate, cynical policy by the Japanese military, who were nothing if not shrewd. The fact that people in this day, in this forum, still point out the fact of colaboration as an excuse for imperial transgression attests to its success.
hoju_saram
”Korean men definitely mobilized the comfort women for the Japanese soldiers”
If you admit so, you and other Koreans must insist that the resolution of US house of representative is wrong. If you do not so, you must be criticized as a liar in the future.
“The mobilization of the comfort women for Japanese soldiers finds its root first in the fact of Japanese invasion”
It is wrong. How do you explain the tradition of “gisaeng” in Korea.
The system of military prostitutes is not bad to stop raping local women in the battlefields. Korean and US forces had similar system.
If Korean comfort women were not abducted by Japanese soldiers, there is no excuse to criticize Japanese.
You had better start to criticize Japan after wiping out all of pimps and gangs in your country.
You see?
Where is cm?
I am waiting for your reply for my questions of No. 49, 53, and 55.
Do you run away without a word? (笑）
cm
“The difference here, Ponta and Jion999, the US government in no way condone nor is involved in kidnapping, recruiting of Korean women.”
And the US regulated illegal pimps, right?
You are neo-nationalist according to Robert.
Robert
“cm—I might point out perhaps the most obvious contextual difference between Korean prostitution exports to the States and the comfort women of the 1930s, namely, that as I look outside my office toward Gwanghwamun, nowhere do I see the U.S. Government-General.”
But you have seen a lot of GI at A town, buying “western whores” in Korean term? No?
And Korean women have been deceived/exploited by Korean brokers, No?
Why do you keep covering it up?
cm
“All the attention is on the comfort women.
But here’s another ticking bomb that has been relatively silent and ignored. But for how long?”
I have a lot to say about it, but this is off the
topic, and it only goes to show your willing to hide Korean injustice and the will to keep bashing Japan.
Robert
“You’re right that it was only in the 1980s—and the late 1980s, to be more precise—that people started talking about this issue, though. It was only in the late 1980s that people started talking about a lot of things. Democratization tends to have that effect on a society”
So are Korean people going to talk and keep bashing themselves about rape/deception/coercion of Korean brothels during Korean war and around A-town from now on?
There is something wrong with this game.
When Japan acknowledges that she did wrongs and apologize, she keeps being bashed.
when Korea ignore the wrongs she committed, she goes unnoticed, uncriticized.
hoju_saram
“Korean men definately mobilized the comfort women for the Japanese soldiers – of this I have no doubt. But that does not absolve Japan of blame”
I agree.
“The mobilization of the comfort women for Japanese soldiers finds its root first in the fact of Japanese invasion, and second in the deliberate policy of subcontracting out such unpopular tasks to ethnic Koreans. Divide and conquer.”
In a way, you can blame everything on Japan because it happened under Japanese rule.
But the fact is that Korean brokers has been deceiving/forcing/exploiting Korean women with or without Japanese rule.
I don’t see why some people do not want to face this fact.
ponta-san
Am I so aggressive today?
I can not change my style. (笑）
I never said 200,000 Korean women were kidnapped. I’m sure kidnappings did take place, but I don’t think the Japanese military needed to resort to going house to house when it could rely on agents to do its dirty work and after August 23, 1944, when it could divert drafted female labor. Frankly, if Abe and Co. simply arguing about whether Japanese troops launched an organized campaign to kidnap women, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But it should be pretty clear, especially at this point, that it’s about more than that—it’s about Tokyo trying to wash its hands of the problem by a) either blaming Korean pimps, or b) calling the comfort women ordinary prostitutes.
Robert Koehler
It is so interesting that Japanese comfort women never complain about their sad destiny and never criticize others.
Korean old women who are shouting, crying, abusing others.
They are saying the truth because they make such a big performance every time?
I feel there must be big difference of culture between Japan and Korea.
Robert have you evidence about that the Japanese military systematicaly diverted drafted female labor to comfort women?
That was the problem and a point of missunderstanding from the beginning when the comfort women problem became official. Again there are no historical evidence on the Japanese side that the so called 挺身隊 were systematicaly diverted to comfort women. In the mid-ninties the Japanese government had officialy protested that these confusion about comfort women should be removed from Korean history books, and as far as I know, the answer from the Korean government was, that they were aware that these both are quite different but there were some examples as it seems, that some brothels and pimps disguised their recruitement campain as that for the teishintai.
Robert
“don’t think the Japanese military needed to resort to going house to house when it could rely on agents to do its dirty work and after August 23, 1944, when it could divert drafted female labor.”
I agree. And I don’t think neither Korean government nor the US troop needed to resort to going house to house when it could rely on agents.
“Frankly, if Abe and Co. simply arguing about whether Japanese troops launched an organized campaign to kidnap women, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.”
Huh?
Am I mistaken people on this blog made a big fuss when I said Japanese did not systematically kidnapped women?
“But it should be pretty clear, especially at this point, that it’s about more than that—it’s about Tokyo trying to wash its hands of the problem by a) either blaming Korean pimps, or b) calling the comfort women ordinary prostitutes.”
From early on—from he took office, Abe has been consistent he affirmed Kono’s statement.
It should be pretty clear, especially at this point, that Korea and the media is not concerned with women’s right, but political game stimulated
by Honda at the US congress.
“after August 23, 1944, when it could divert drafted female labor.”
Ops, I miss that one, thank Tomojiro.
Women’s Brigade is for female workers mobilized to the factories.
It has nothing to do with recruiting comfort women.
Some Korean people keep being confused about it.
tomojiro
Your comment to Korean does not work.
Korean is using the opinions of Japanese leftists and broadcasting that Japanese abuducted Korean woman and raped.
Even if you try to stop the runaway of Koreans, they do not stop to use any kind of imaginations to criticize Japan.
They just like to degrade Japan.
If the opinion of Japanese leftists is useful, they just use it. That is it.
Their motivation of them is not for justice.
It is revenge. Nothing more.
You had better understand this reality sooner or later.
Jion999
I hate to preach you,and I wan’t do it again, but at least try to read this book.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%92%8C%E8%A7%A3%E3%81%AE%E3%81%9F%E3%82%81%E3%81%AB-%E6%95%99%E7%A7%91%E6%9B%B8%E3%80%81%E6%85%B0%E5%AE%89%E5%A9%A6%E3%80%81%E9%9D%96%E5%9B%BD%E3%80%81%E7%8B%AC%E5%B3%B6-%E6%9C%B4-%E8%A3%95%E6%B2%B3/dp/4582702651/ref=sr_1_1/249-2439600-3729111?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175150347&sr=1-1
It gives you a more subtle look and understanding what it means to become a colony.
No wonder some people are furious.
They are not informed of the fact.
(Or do they not want to know the fact, because they can not keep bashing Japan?)
Robert,
http://www.geocities.jp/nakanolib/rei/rs19-519.htm#女子挺身勤労令(昭和19年勅令第519号)
http://www.ndl.go.jp/horei_jp/kakugi/txt/txt00549.htm
Here is a law about the female mobilization in 1944. Let your reliable friends, sonagi or anybody familiar with Japanese, read it.
OK, lets say that the Japanese military did not do that. Lets says their agents did it, and their techniques included diverting labor from the 여자정신대. Lets repeat the question again.
“Is there any newspaper article, protest, entry in a father, mother, brother or sisters diary detailing these events? Even one contemporary record of this? Did people wake up in the morning and say “oh, my daughter has disappeared. Oh well, time to get on with my life and not mention it and not report it to the police, not write about it, and not complain, because we Koreans are not a vociferous bunch, no sir”?”
Perhaps you could also explain why prostitutes were in such short supply in Korea that Japan had to force women to become prostitutes. Perhaps you could also explain why there were willing prostitutes for the US occupation force in Korea immediately after the war when the Japanese were seemingly unable to find any (if you believe the “all the comfort women were forced” idea).
Tomojiro
“I hate to preach you, and I won’t do it again, but at least try to read this book.”
If I have a chance, I will read that book.
I understand your goodwill to Korean.
But it is reallity that the activities of Japanese leftists for the friendship between Japan and Korea have been used by Korean nationalists to attack Japan.
The controversies of comfort women and Yasukuni……
Those topics have been broadcasted by Japanese leftists first and do you believe those activities helped the friendship between Japan and Korea?
No.
They are just another excuse for Korean to hate Japanese. Now they are broadcasting that Japanese is rapist in the world.
Korean teaches about comfort women and Yasukuni to Korean children and they learn how to hate Japanese either.
And this chain of hate never stops.
Do you really believe Japan and Korea would have a good relationship if Japanese continue to apologize forever?
It is impossible for Japanese, but Korean have become to be not satisfied if Japanese don’t apologize.
It is an unhappy situation.
Japanese will hate Korean if this situation continues.
I am wondering the motivation of Japanese leftists.
Do you really hope the peace of Japan-Korea relationship?
Or, in other words, why aren’t there records of Koreans complaining to the colonial police and military, and why aren’t there reports in the papers of a fascist dictatorship at war that the government was involved in impressing sexual slave labor? And at any rate, I already said that I don’t think the Japanese military resorted to systemic kidnapping.
Perhaps because with Japan fielding a several million man military fighting throughout China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, demand was higher?
Ponta—I’m well aware of what the law said. Nor did I say the stated objective of the law was to recruit sexual labor.
Robert, read any history book about and name one that mentions any incidents related to comfort women. Usually historical events have names, dates, journal entries, etc. They do happen in a historical void.
If you say that you don’t think that the Japanese military resorted to systematic kidnapping, then you agree with Prime Minister Abe, because that is exactly what he said. You criticised him at the time he said that, and if I recall correctly, problems with the translation in the NYT was dismissed as “obscurantism”.
So what is your opinion on the comfort women? That all of them were forced or tricked into it? Or that some of them were, but it was not systematic, and there were actually willing prostitutes among the comfort women? Please elaborate.
Robert
thanks.
“Ponta—I’m well aware of what the law said. Nor did I say the stated objective of the law was to recruit sexual labor.”
But you said,
“I don’t think the Japanese military needed to resort to going house to house when it could rely on agents to do its dirty work and after August 23, 1944, when it could divert drafted female labor”
Were you not talking about this law? This law was enacted and executed on August 23, 1944.
So what were you talking about? May I ask?
OK, I’ll say it again, with italics to help:
Robert
Thanks but, Robert, I am not a Jap in need of an English lesson, as you seem to be suggesting.
Okay, I’ll ask with italics to help:
Where is your evidence that Japan diverted the labor needed for factories as required by law?
So, is there any Korean to answer my question of No. 49, 53, and 55?
cm has run away and nobody can not make a reply.
If Korean tries to insist that 200,000 of Korean were abducted by Japanese soldiers, they would suffer how to deceive to keep their lies forever.
The same situation of fabricated history of Taekwondo.
You could deceive the world once. But it is so difficult to continue to deceive forever.
it’s not worth replying to your kind. But I will. 5 minutes of my precious time spent your kind. What a waste, but here is my final answer.
53. Lt. Okamoto.
49. Lt. Okamoto.
55. Lt. Okamoto.
Happy? You do deny Nan Jing massacre, Unit 731, Comfort Women, in part or whole, do you not?
In post #16, Ponta wrote:
“In that paragraph I wanted to ask what the essential difference was between two reports.
One report(Korean version) emphasize that women was deceived.
Another report in 1944 also claims the women were deceived.
The part I cited is sufficient enough to show that.”
However, you posted the quote sans the critical first sentence identifying the pimps as Japanese along with the allegation that most pimps were Korean. It is ironic and looks deceptive.
“And it is also natural most of pimps in Korea were Koreans. Japanese didn’t have to speak Koreans, but to deceive Korean women, you need to speak Koreans.
In post #15, I asked you for proof. Repeating your allegation is not proof. As for your “logical” conclusion that most pimps had to be Korean because of the imagined language barrier, the recruitment ads I’ve seen in links provided by you and others were written in Japanese, not Korean. Many Koreans could read them because Japanese was the medium of instruction in schools and the language of government business. Moreover, as you recall from So Far from the Bamboo Grove, a number of Japanese, like members of Yoko Watkins’ family, could speak “perfect Korean.”
In plain English, you have no evidence to back up your assertion that most pimps were Korean, and your illogical conclusion flies in the face of historical accounts like So Far from the Bamboo Grove.
wkj
If you could not reply logicaly, you had better be quiet.
Even if you lose your face, I don’t give a damn.
(笑）
wkj
What is the meaning of your ID?
“We kill Jap”?
(笑）
I feel so pity that you have such kind of inferior complex against Japanese. (笑）
I have little time for some of the extreme nationalists in China or Korea who use any little excuse to demonize the Japanese, whether it involves hate sites on the net or teaching hatred in the classroom. Although I think Japan, when compared to Germany, has done a pretty poor job of coming to terms with its historical shortcomings, I don’t think the average Japanese deserves to be hated for it.
I also don’t believe that ALL Koreans who wound up working in brothels or factories or serving in the Japanese military were outright kidnapped, though that doesn’t mean there wasn’t trickery – Japanese and/or local, Japanese pressure to support the empire’s war effort, and an utter lack of options for those who had to get involved.
However, comfort stations, forced labor, and general brutality did play a role in Japan’s occupation and administration of much of Asia. The Japanese brought the war and the misery that accompanied it on the people they conquered in the 30s and 40s. The percentage of the dirty work done by collaborators and middlemen versus that done by the Japanese isn’t the point. Who was running the show?
“wkj
What is the meaning of your ID?
“We kill Jap”?”
Very good deductions. How did you know?
I too will waste 5 minutes of my time. Again, as it has been pointed out again and again, it was in the best interest of the Korean military dictatorship government (Japanese collaborators who were the ruling elite) to cover up, shut up, and hide the truth. That’s what collaborators do, to protect themselves.
globalvillageidiot
When Germany went to WW2, it was only one years for Austrian to unite with Germany.
But they feel guilty for WW2.
In Asia, there is a funny county who hoped to unite with Japan 100 years ago, and enjoyed the status as Japanese for 35 years, and criticize Japanese most after Japan lost the war and pretend they were just like a victim like Jews.
You must remember that 149 Korean was guilty for war crime and 23 were executed after the war.
Because Allied soldiers could not recognize the difference between Japanese and Korean, such kind of excuse “I am a Korean” did not work.
cm
Welcome back.
When do you reply to my questions of No. 49, 53, and 55?
“it has been pointed out again and again, it was in the best interest of the Korean military dictatorship government (Japanese collaborators who were the ruling elite) to cover up, shut up, and hide the truth. That’s what collaborators do, to protect themselves.”
It is not Japanese fault that you had a military dictatorship.
It was your fault.
Even if you do not like the policies of the military dictatorship, it was your government and you have to take responsibility for that.
Understand?
jion,
“there is a funny county who hoped to unite with Japan 100 years ago, and enjoyed the status as Japanese for 35 years”
Supremecist and disgusting.
“You must remember that 149 Korean was guilty for war crime and 23 were executed after the war.”
149 war criminals pales in comparison to the horrors inflicted by the Japanese. You can say what you want about collaberation and muddy the debate about who exactly should be blamed for the comfort women issue, but comparing Japan’s WW2 crimes to Korea’s is infantile. The Japanese inflicted misery on such a grand scale as to be almost unimaginable.
I’m not Korean, I’m Australia – to this day my grandfather won’t speak about what he saw in Papua New Guinea.
This debate finds fresh tinder not just in Korean nationalists but it people like you, who refuse to accept that the Japanese had ill intent or caused any harm in the recent century.
All I know is that most Western doctors did not know of the disease beriberi, caused by a deficiency in thiamine, before Allied war prisoners were released after Japan’s capitulation. Those prisoners had been kept on a starvation diet of white rice, which lacks thiamine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriberi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rice
PS. Most American rice is parboiled rice because the process drives thiamine from the husk into the grain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parboiled_rice
“globalvillageidiot
When Germany went to WW2, it was only one years for Austrian to unite with Germany.”
Actually, Germany annexed Austria BEFORE WW2. And there were plenty of Hungarian, Croatian, Ukrainian, etc. traitor underlings who wound up executed for the work they did in association with the Germans, just as some Koreans did for serving with the Japanese. So what? Who was calling the shots?
Straight back at you, citizen of the Empire of Japan.
“In Asia, there is a funny county who hoped to unite with Japan 100 years ago, and enjoyed the status as Japanese for 35 years, and criticize Japanese most after Japan lost the war and pretend they were just like a victim like Jews.”
I don’t think there is any point debating with people as this guy, who I think honestly believe half the crap that he reads and writes. The sad part is, he’s representative of the new Japan.
As I have said before, historically verifiable proof is important and Ponta, Shakuhachi, and even jion999 have made some good points, or at least raised some important questions that should not be ignored or dismissed. Often though, I read this at the end of the day and am too tired to write all the rebuttal I might wish. However, I cannot let this one slide (by jion999):
Not a bad idea? I cannot diasgree more! The proper response to soldiers raping anyone is to shoot the soldier! Or if unusually gracious, years in military prison. It is outrageous statements like that which unravel any sincerity in your historical argumentation. You have lost all respect. Even Abe does not say things as stupid as that.
shakuhachi—OK, here’s what I think about the comfort women.
I’m sure there was a good number of working girls in the comfort stations. I’m also sure that many of the girls were in the stations against their will. As for percentages, it’s hard to say, although both US Army documents commonly cited would seem to suggest the bulk were there because they were tricked into it by agents, many of them Korean. I don’t believe that the Japanese military kidnapped women as a matter of policy, although I’m sure such incidents happened. Obviously, it would be nice to have more documentary evidence, but a lack of documentary evidence doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, especially in Japan’s case, where the lack of documentary evidence is at least partially thanks to Tokyo systematically burning its documents following the surrender. I’d also argue that even if the bulk of the comfort station staff was tricked into the position by agents, it was still the Japanese military that was setting up and running the comfort stations.
Sure, Koreans aren’t being honest about their role in the comfort women system, just as they aren’t being honest about their role in the POW camps. And sure, Korea and China use the issue politically to bash Japan. Moreover, I’d also argue that for most of the post independence period, Korea never gave a shit about exploiting women, and even now, it ignores what is probably the sexual enslavement of North Korean refugees on a mass scale in China. However, I’d also argue that LDP is more interested in acting like a defendant in court than a party interested in uncovering historical truth. Deny, deny, deny until incontrovertible evidence is produced. And you know as well as I do that Abe’s comment was not just a reaffirmation of the Kono Statement or a simple denial of systemic kidnapping, but the first step in trying to pass responsibility for the comfort women from the Japanese military to Korean pimps.
And on an administrative note:
jion999 has been banned
Thank you Robert. I was beginning to despair. Looking at those nines only made me think he was replicating.
Sonagi
Thanks
” It is ironic and looks deceptive.”
As I argued it looked deceptive for the person who have bias.
“n post #15, I asked you for proof. Repeating your allegation is not proof”
Oh I answered it in another thread. As far as I read the testimonies and evidence.
I can list the testimonies, but that will be a long one.
Do you remember the case where three comfort women filed suit. Out of three comfort women, two cases were where they were deceived by Korean broker, the one case was deceived by Korean broker together with a Japanese.
And “true storty comfort women list 19 women.
Kan Hausun in the book said he was taken away by Japanese military, but in her file to the court, she said she was sold by her step father.
Kim Tkchin was deceived by a Korean man.
In case of Yi Yongsuk it is not clear, she said she was handed over to Japanese by a couple. I guess, a couple was Korean from the context.
Ha Sunnyo was deceived by a Korean man together with Japanese.
Oh omok was deceived by a Korean man.
Hwang Kumju was deceived by a wife of the community head. She said the head was Japanese but it is not clear her wife was Japanese .But in her filing suit, she said she was sold by her parent.
Mun pilgi was deceived by a Korean man who worked
for Japanese.
Yi yongsu was deceived by a Japanese citizen.
Yi Okpun was deceived by Korean together with Japanese.
Mu Okchu was taken away by a Japanese man in what
look like military officer.
Yi Sunokwas deceived by Mr Oh.
Yi Sangok was deceived by a Korean man working for Korean and Japanese citizen.
Yi Tungnam was deceived by Japanese businessman.
Yi yongnyo was deceived by a woman who worked at a big bar in front of the prison at Sodaemun, Souel’s west gate.
Kim Taeson was deceived by Choe.
Pak sunae was sold by her husband.
Choe Myongsun was deceived by a Neighbourhood Community Center official.
Kang Tokyong was taken away by Japanese military officer to the comfort station (where there is not military comfort station in reality)
Yun Tri was taken away by a Japanese police to the comfort station (where there is no military comfort station in reality)
(Correct me if my interpretation of their testimonies were wrong.)
I think I can give you other examples where women
were deceived by korean brokers or sold by parents. For instance, comfort women in Indonesia
testified “where did all the Korean brokers disappeared after the war, we were left alone”
Sure there was Japanese who could speak Korean but it is reasonable to assume that Japan let the local brokers recruit the women. And the population of Japanese were not large in Korea, and I guess people who could speak korean fluently were rather exceptions.
As for the ad in the newspaper by Japanese agent, the Ads were rather clear case where the agent were looking for women for sex industry.
The starting salary for the solder was 6-9 yen a month but the salary for the women was 300 yen.
what job can you think of paying this payment at the tie other than sex industry?
“In plain English, you have no evidence to back up your assertion that most pimps were Korean, and your illogical conclusion flies in the face of historical accounts like So Far from the Bamboo Grove.”
Sonagi I am afraid this sounds rather emotional conclusion you are making, even considering the fact that you haven’t seen my comment in other places.
So far from bamboo is a novel, isn’t it? and it is not about comfort women. Besides it just shows there were Japanese who could speak Korean.
For that matter, i cited “under black umbrella” that you know. In the book, most of women said they knew nothing about comfort women. Why didn’t you mention the fact?
Historian estimate that the way they were recruited by way of brokers including Korean head of community, parents.
Considering this fact, and considering the fact that it is much easier to recruit local women by local brokers, considering the testimonies and records, coupled with the fact Korean brokers have been rampant with or without Japanese, I concluded in most of the case, the brokers were Koreans.
Sonagi, I am open to the discussion.
Robert
So where is your evidence that Japan diverted the labor needed for factories as required by law?
Robert
(BTW Kidnapping did take place, Gerry showed the site where it cited the newspaper in which Japanese police tried to arrest pimps, arrested pimps. Kidnapping by Japanese military officers did take place. And the brothel was closed by Japanese military, finding out that women was forced. A Japanese officer was hanged dead at the war tribunal for inaction despite the fact he was in a position to know women was forced. Incidentally a korean professor claims there were case during korean war, women were raped and made prostitutes. I don’t know why some people want this issue as mainly the problem of nationalism, this has been happening at war zone, and the similar exploitation has been happening in the poverty stricken countries)
Robert
“Abe’s comment was not just a reaffirmation of the Kono Statement or a simple denial of systemic kidnapping, but the first step in trying to pass responsibility for the comfort women from the Japanese military to Korean pimps.”
How can Abe pass the buck when he reaffirmed Kono’s statement from the beginning? It is the fact that many korean brokers were involved. Rather it seems this overreaction from some people to the statement that there is no backed up evidence to show Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women and Korean brokers (and parents) were involved shows that it is them who want to pass the buck. I think they make light of the fact too easily considering the fact the practice has been rampant until today.
The next thing ponta will be telling us is that military Japan was a free democracy where everyone had the right to complain about injustice. Ponta quotes historians, yet most historians except for the few wackos in Japan, do not absolve Japan as the main culprit. What does it matter that the brokers were Koreans or not. It was the very Japanese system that was in place . As mentioned before, Japanese strategy was to divide and conquer Korea. Reward handsomely those who collaborrated with Japan (hold them up as proof that Koreans were happy with Japanese rule), but at the same time punish those who resisted. As a result, you had the prevlidged minority elite ruling over the majority disadvantaged.
cm
I think you keep misreprestnting my comment.
And I am afraid you keep passing the buck to Japan.
There is no need for apologies for what was done half a century ago. What value is there to those words if the speaker does not believe in them?
But there needs to be condemnation of revisionists who assert, for example, that Nanking Massacre never happened.
War atrocities happen. People who believe that Japan somehow avoided any wrongdoing in the decades of military activities performed by such large armies over so many lands has got their head so far up their nationalist ass that they wouldn’t be able to read the nonexistent documents they gripe about even if they weren’t burned.
“there needs to be condemnation of revisionists who assert, for example, that Nanking Massacre never happened.”
I sort of agree. Those who deny the massacre happened should be refuted.
But I also hold that those who keep turning a blind eye to the same exploitation that has been happening should be condemned as well.
And I also hold those who keep alleging what didn’t happen to use it as a political tool, or as an expression of the hatred should be condemned too.
“There is no need for apologies for what was done half a century ago. What value is there to those words if the speaker does not believe in them?”
But there needs to be condemnation of revisionists who assert, for example, that Nanking Massacre never happened.”
Fully agree. You shouldn’t apologize if you don’t believe in it nor really mean it, nor do I really care if they do or not. Nor do I hold Japan up to a different standard. But what does bother me is when the revisionists spread misinformation. What should we do, just sit still and accept it (which almost makes them look right), or counter it? That’s a fine line that to me, is blurred everyday.
RE: post #96 by Ponta
Let me summarize our exchange to make things clear:
In comment #6 you alleged that most pimps who tricked comfort women were Korean. You provided no objective support for this assertion in your post. You provided only a paragraph describing the manner in which the women were tricked, leaving off the first sentence, which identified the pimps as Japanese.
In comment #8, I challenged you to support your allegation and put the quoted paragraph in full context, showing that the particular pimping described in your paragraph was carried out, in fact, by Japanese.
In comment #16, you provided no empirical data, merely a conclusion that the pimps must have been Korean because they could use the Korean language to lure women. This conclusion depends on two assumptions – 1) that Korean, not Japanese, was the language of trickery; and 2) that few if any Japanese pimps/agents can speak Korean.
Look here, Ponta, from a source you trust:
http://www.occidentalism.org/?p=527
Now which language was used in those ads?
When the “Korean language” argument failed, you finally trotted out some empirical evidence of sorts in post #96: some of the 19 women were pimped by Koreans, some by Japanese, and some by booth. Nineteen women number one less than the twenty women interviewed by the US army interpreter. Nineteen women is not statistically significant to prove that “most pimps were Korean” especially since your very own data shows a broad mix of both nationalities involved in tricking women and girls.
Without statistically significant empirical data, your claim that most pimps were Korean remains unproven.
In comment #96, Ponta wrote:
“Sure there was Japanese who could speak Korean but it is reasonable to assume that Japan let the local brokers recruit the women. And the population of Japanese were not large in Korea, and I guess people who could speak korean fluently were rather exceptions.
Since Japan built so many schools during the colonial period and since those schools used Japanese as the medium of instruction during the latter part of the era, then those girls ought to have been fluent in Japanese.
As for the ad in the newspaper by Japanese agent, the Ads were rather clear case where the agent were looking for women for sex industry.
The starting salary for the solder was 6-9 yen a month but the salary for the women was 300 yen.
what job can you think of paying this payment at the tie other than sex industry?
I agree that the ads were probably aimed at prostitutes, so if prostitutes could read Japanese ads, then so could school girls and young women. In other words, if the Japanese language was used to recruit prostitutes, then it could have been used to trick other women.
It is evident that both Koreans and Japanese were involved in human trafficking of Korean women. It is not evident that Korean pimps are mostly to blame for forcing young women and girls into prostitution.
Refutation instead of condemnation? I think both are needed.
There is no bound on what some people will masquerade as truth. Their logic flow is backward. They must be right so evidence to the contrary must be wrong.
Hideaki Kase is one of these people, apparently. So go ahead and refute the statements. Then condemn his methods.
About the politicians picking petty fights… Are we playing a game of who’s more wrong? Why don’t we start a list of all despicable acts? Will relativism then come to Hideaki Kase’s rescue?
Sonagi
thanks
“so if prostitutes could read Japanese ads,”
I am not so sure whethere the protistutes could read Japanese. Yes some could, but in 1943, people who could speak was 22% of the population, not every women could go to school. So it might be possible the ads are for Korean brokers, collaborator for Japanese. And keep in mind Korean pimps who collaborated for Korean government have been rampant.
“It is not evident that Korean pimps are mostly to blame for forcing young women and girls into prostitution.”
Japanese system was mostly to blame.
But keep in mind, the system similar to that have
been present in Korea.
And you have been silent about it.
I doubt if people who argue this issue are really thinking of the right of ex-comfort women or for that matter , the right of exploited women in Korea.
I think they are just using it as a political tool.
“The Government of the Republic of Korea initially showed a favorable stance toward the establishment of the Asian Women’s Fund”
…..the new administration decided that, although it would not demand state reparations from the Japanese Government, it would pay 31.5 million won……The Government of the Republic of Korea paid this sum to 142 people, but did not pay it to 11 people ó the seven who had accepted Fund benefits in the early stages, and four others who did not sign the written oath because they had accepted Fund benefits……The seven who initially accepted Fund benefits, and the others who did so confidentially, were placed in a psychologically painful situation because of the strong influence of activist groups…. ”
http://www.awf.or.jp/english/project2.html
empraptor
Thanks
The reason why I said the refutation is needed is that just condemnation prevent from rational discussion. It was after I have read several books about Nanjing and I have thought about the what was really issues I am convinced it did take place, it was horrible crime. Have you ever read the books on Nanjing of both sides?
As for me, I learned from the both side.
It was after several documents about comfort women, pros and cons that I am convinced that Japanese troop didn’t systematically kidnapped women. I am still open to discussion, though.
Many people commenting here do not know the facts about comfort stations; they just condemn who deny the information/myth they were given, they just keep on pointing out wrongs Japan did during the world war two despite the fact they are off the topic. (It again cofirms they just want to use it as an expression of the hatred)
I think rational discussion should be given to Korean apologists who ignore and defend Korean pimps/brokers who have been rampant with or without Japanese rule.
Do you want just condemn them without giving them
time to discuss?
Ponta wrote:
“Japanese system was mostly to blame.”
That is a significant acknowledgement.
But keep in mind, the system similar to that have
been present in Korea.
And you have been silent about it.
If you mean the entire of history of prostitution in Korea, I have been silent because it is irrelevant to our debate. I challenged you to support your generalization that most pimps were Korean. That is all.
Sonagi
I didn’t notice comment #103
As I said, to show there is no essential difference
between two us document, what I quoted was suffient .And that was my point of quoting. I am afraid it is only biased person who thinks it is deceptive.
“In comment #16, you provided no empirical data, merely a conclusion that the pimps must have been Korean because they could use the Korean language to lure women.”
Before comment # 16, I commented, “as far as i read testimonies and document”, I didn’t explore it fully because it would be a long one.
As for the ads, I might add,
“since many women gave testimony orally, partly because most of them were illiterate, most testimonies were recorded and edited by
researchers or journalists”
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:G_sEfU2RTAMJ:www.lse.ac.uk/collections/genderInstitute/pdf/listeningToVoices.pdf+LISTENING+TO+VOICES:+TESTIMONIES+OF+%E2%80%9CCOMFORT+WOMEN%E2%80%9D+OF+THE+SECOND+WORLD+WAR+Maki+Kimura+Issue+8,+April+2003+New&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=opera
Sonagi wrote
“Nineteen women is not statistically significant to prove that “most pimps were Korean””
I agree, though it is a fact it is still most of them were deceived by Koreans pimps.
My argument is not just that. I reinforced the argument with the fact Korean pimps have been rampant with or without Japanese rule, it is much easier to let local pimps to recruit women(that was the way Japan set up the brothels after WWⅡ for GIs) etc.
I don’t think my assumption is unreasonable.
I would rather doubt why you want to deny my assumption as if you want to let Korean evade the
responsibility.
Sonagi
““Japanese system was mostly to blame.”
That is a significant acknowledgement.”
Japanese PM apologized and Abe reaffirmed Kono’s statement. I have been insisting the system was wrong. It is you who for some reason do not want to admit it like many Koreans.
Sonagi wrote
“If you mean the entire of history of prostitution in Korea, I have been silent because it is irrelevant to our debate. I challenged you to support your generalization that most pimps were Korean. That is all.”
That is the difference of frame of reference between you and me. As I said again and again, I see it as a problem of man’s exploitation of women, you turn it into a political game of Korea-Japan relation, the tactics Korean nationalist often takes.
It is clear you make comment more in favor of Korea rather than Japan.
You asked me why I stated wjk is Korean-American on occidentalism,the subject off the topic. But you never bother to ask, for instance, Robert where your evidence that Japan diverted the labor needed for factories as required by law is?
That is okay, nobody is neutral.
It wasn’t off topic. It was meant to show that apparently ad hominem attacks—to which you had objected to earlier—were apparently OK.
As for my evidence, it’s entirely conjecture, namely, given the racist and sexist nature of imperial Japanese society, it wouldn’t surprise me that girls who were supposedly drafted to work in factories ended up in comfort stations.
Both sides meaning one side that acknowledges that Nanking Massacre occurred and one that does not? It was not enought that diaries of multiple persons corroborated that civilians were killed? If there are legitimate doubts to whether civilians were killed at Nanking, I would like to know about it.
Conjecture is imagination.
Yep, given the racist and sexist nature of those rich Duke boys, they must have raped that black girl! A womans testimony is never to be disbelieved or questioned, no matter how outrageous or how many times it changes, right, Robert?
Perhaps, but not necessarily untrue, as Ponta has attempted to show with his “reasonable assumption” that most agents were Korean.
Another ad hominem argument. I thought you didn’t do that (see also . Or is question the credibility of the source allowed only when the source is “pro-Korean” or “leftist?”
And you were wondering why this was relevant…
Robert
Thanks.
It is your blog, so you have every right to ban the person you don’t like, or to moderate unfairly.
But IMO, you were referring to my comment on another blog, it seems apparent that it is off the topic.
As for your conjecture, so it is not based on any
concrete evidence. There are many sexists, but they don’t kidnap women. It is a big logical leap
from the premise that Japanese troop was sexist to the conclusion that it diverted the labor as required by the law. I am afraid that it only show your have only biased information .
empraptor
Thanks
Nanjing massacre is off the topic, but as I showed you on another blog, so called denier’s focus is refuting the alleged death toll.
So do you want to just condemn Korean apologists?
or do you want to listen to their discussion? Maybe there is a difference to this question between you and me. My answer is the latter. I am even willing to listen to the opinion of holocaust denier and holocaust blind people.
Robert
Thanks.
” I would rather doubt why you want to deny my assumption as if you want to let Korean evade the responsibility.
Another ad hominem argument.”
Sure I was wrong to insinuate her motivation. I apologize.
But you are wrong it is not “another” ad hominem argument.
All I have shown was your argument was wrong, and
it turned out to be wrong. And you care so much about me.
It is your blog, just moderate in your own way, leaving the hate speech against Japan.
Have a banned you or moderated unfairly? And if so, why is this relevant to the discussion at hand?
It’s not off topic if it demonstrates that what you consider a valid argument changes depending on the subject.
So is your conjecture that the agents who recruited the comfort women were mostly Korean. Where is your solid evidence? In fact, one might say my assumption—that enforcing a draft on unmarried colonial women ages 14-40 by a military government already disposed to filling military brothels with women forced into it by “private agents” might have resulted in abuses—is actually more reasonable.
shakuhachi—And if history were determined in legal court—and if Unit 731 is any indication, in Japan it is—your Duke analogy would be very convincing.
No, I’m not wrong. I demonstrated—quite clearly, I thought—that you’ve engaged in ad hominem attacks quite frequently, going as far as to a) accuse one commenter of taking money from Koreans b) question his wardrobe choice and c) invoke the ethnicity of another commenter as a means to discredit them.
No, all I did was admit it was conjecture. That does NOT make it wrong, as you seem to have indicated by claiming that most pimps were Korean due to conjectural evidence. Or is this just another case of a line of argumentation being “wrong” only when its employed by suspected leftists or pro-Koreans? (see above)
Hey, I’m not the one leaving a gazillion book-long comments on YOUR blog.
Again, why is moderating an issue? Have I moderated your comments? Or again, is this an ad hominem attempt to discredit me my insinuating—in a completely off-topic way, I might add—that I am unfairly moderating my comments?
I’m not even going to touch the “hate speech” part…
Nanking Massacre only came up because Hideaki Kase brought it up in his article. It sounds to me like he wants to deny any pattern of brutality against civilians.
I can understand wanting to live in a fantasy world and using sophistry to fabricate one. I’m sure many do it and as long as it doesn’t hurt others, why not? But justifying Japanese leaders who deny flatly that Nanking Massacre happened is a little out of this galaxy.
Robert
Thanks
“, I thought—that you’ve engaged in ad hominem attacks quite frequently, going as far as to a) accuse one commenter of taking money from Koreans b) question his wardrobe choice and c) invoke the ethnicity of another commenter as a means to discredit them.”
I think it is apparent referring to my comment on another blog is off the topic.
And as for the ethnicity, it is natural to refer to ethnicity.
You yourself posted several times mentioning ethnicity. For instance,
“Male teacher, 30, Canadian, reports that his human rights were violated when the Korean”
http://www.rjkoehler.com/?p=2589
If you think citing American as a Korean American
mean discrediting him, I am afraid it is you who are presupposing something bad about them.
Robert wrote
“No, all I did was admit it was conjecture.”
But after all you agreed with Abe didn’t you, though you were against the statement that there are no backed up evidence that Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women.
“Again, why is moderating an issue? ”
“Sorry for being vague. What I meant is that you have a right to moderate in whatever way you want to, even if it means banning Jion999 while not banning wjk and jk, who are even worse. That is what I meant by “unfair”. Sorry, I wont bother you with this kind of comment again
94: jion999 has been banned by Robert Koehler with no mentioning reason.
Ponta—You’re right, I do have the right to moderate in whatever way I want, as do Occidentalism, Ampontan and any other blog.
BTW, just so you know, Jiromaru—who I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts is Jion999—has just been banned as well.
‘As for your conjecture, so it is not based on any concrete evidence. There are many sexists, but they don’t kidnap women. It is a big logical leap from the premise that Japanese troop was sexist to the conclusion that it diverted the labor as required by the law. I am afraid that it only show your have only biased information.’ ponta
during ww2 in manchuria, the japanese set up a unit called 731. unit 731′s mission was to conduct experiments on people for medical information. here’s some things they did there:
1. boiled people alive
2. opened up people’s abdominal cavitites while still alive.
3. axed people over the head when a brain was needed.
4. blow torched people while still alive.
5. removed stomachs and attached esophoguses to intestines just to see what would happen.
6. centrifuged human beings while alive….
the list could go on but you get the point. now, i ask you, is it really too hard to believe that japan would make women into prostitutes considering they were willing to do the things mentioned above? c’mon, now. who you think you’re fooling?
btw, before moving on, let me mention that most the victims of unit 731 were Chinese. may their souls rest in peace.
‘koreans were in on it.’ ponta
yeah, so? no occupation, no issue, right?
you keep talking, ponta. you’re worth more than a million finger chops.
‘And on an administrative note: jion999 has been banned’ robert
(笑)
Robert
Thanks
As for the evidence and reasoning for my claim, I have already argued essentially on comment 96
As for you conjecture, for you reference.
또 국사 교과서에는 일제가 생산된 쌀의 절반을 빼앗아 일본으로 실어 날랐다고 되어 있습니다. 농사를 다 짓고 나면 일본 경찰과 헌병이 총칼을 들이대고 절반을 빼앗아간 것처럼, 그렇게 직접 쓰고 있지 않습니다만, 그렇게 해석될 수 있는 문맥으로 학생들을 가르쳐 왔습니다. 또 일제는 조선인의 노동력을 수탈하였다고 합니다. 1940년대의 전시기(戰時期)에 약 650만 명의 조선인을 전선으로 공장으로 탄광으로 강제 연행하였으며, 끌고 가서는 임금을 주지 않고 노예와 같이 부려먹었다는 것입니다. 그 가운데 조선의 처녀들이 있었습니다. 정신대(挺身隊)라는 명목으로 조선의 처녀들을 동원하여 일본군의 위안부로 삼았는데, 그 수가 수십 만에 이른다고 교과서는 기술하고 있습니다.
그런데 이런 이야기들은 모두 사실이 아닙니다. 깜짝 놀랄 분들이 많으시겠지만, 거두절미하고 말한다면 이런 이야기들은 모두 교과서를 쓴 역사학자들이 지어낸 이야기입니다. 해방 이후의 역사 교과서를 검토해 보면 1960년대까지는 이러한 이야기가 없었습니다. 그러다가 1970년대에 들어와, 특히 1974년 이후 국정교과서 체제로 넘어가면서, 위와 같이 난폭한 서술들이 교과서에 등장하기 시작하였습니다. 이에 대해 여기서 더 이상 자세히 설명할 겨를이 없습니다만, 궁금하신 분은 저의 이전 논문을 참조하시기 바랍니다.(이영훈, 「국사 교과서에 그려진 일제의 수탈상과 그 신화성」, 『시대정신』28, 2005)
http://naksung.re.kr/spboard/board.cgi?id=media&action=view&gul=241&page=2&go_cnt=0
“정신대를 강제동원한 흔적이 없다는 것은 무슨 소리냐? 수많은 대한민국 여성들이 끌려가 희생을 당한 살아있는 흔적이 있다”고 했습니다. 아마도 이것은 정신대가 아니라 위안부 이야기일 겁니다. 저는 위안부를 강제 동원했다는 자료가 일본은 물론 한국에서도 발견되지 않았다고 이야기했을 뿐이지, 위안부를 강제동원 했다, 안했다라고 이야기한 바가 없습니다.
http://www.nrzen.com/cafebbs/view.html?gid=main&bid=cat_05&pid=22067
Robert wrote
“Ponta—You’re right, I do have the right to moderate in whatever way I want, as do Occidentalism, Ampontan and any other blog.
BTW, just so you know, Jiromaru—who I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts is Jion999—has just been banned as well”
Robert………
This has become so tiresome. So if it was Korean agents supplying the girls it is OK? On the other end of the argument, no possible compensation can send back the sands of time. And to our Japanese friends who can not believe that their countrymen were brutal, it happened, deal with it. As an American I could hold a grudge for Pearl Harbor and WW2, but it serves nothing. Hindsight being 20-20, we should have invited a Korean to fly with us on the Enola Gay. If a Korean pulled the lever that let loose Japans demise, perhaps they would feel less angst.
railwaycharm….
The issue, despite what people like yourself, be they American, Japanese, or Korean, think, the issue is a not nationalistic one or a way for Korea to “get back” at Japan although some have tried to make it that way.
The issue is about the Korean comfort women. Period.
The issue is about the Korean comfort women who were victims of systemized sexual slavery sex up by the Japanese who were aided and abetted by either Koreans who didn’t know better when they were helping to recruit “workers”….or Koreans who DID know and were forced to do it…..or Koreans who DID know and just did it to make a quick buck (or won or yen).
Ultimately, it was a Japanese system. And these are women who for years encountered a reluctant Korean government. Then suddenly as the issue drawms more attention around the world, the Korean AND Japanese nationalists are jumping on board. Posters on this blog….and stupid prime ministers.
No, lest we forget, which apparently many of us have….let’s remember this is about the Korean comfort women FINALLY being heard. And about damn time.
Forget the screaming emotional Korean protesters or the Japanese history revisionists; this is about the former comfort women. You may think it is tiresome. They probably think so also that it has taken so long and NOW that they are having their voices heard…..they have to encounter young Korean nationalists who are perhaps distorting their message….Japanese history revisionists who are sitting in as high a position as the prime ministership of Japan…..and Americans going, “This is tiresome.”
I think you would agree these comfort women have been very patient. So let’s not forget….the issue is about them.
But again, just what do they expect JK? I do appreciate your eloquent response but I the solution is still missing from the debate.
Stike the “I” please
Now that it looks like the children have gone to bed…. The comfort women issue can only be politicized since the women themselves have not set out the requirements for a definitive compensation, material or otherwise. From their viewpoint, very reasonably, the issue is simply unforgivable, so it’s up to the governments concerned to thrash out a compromise.
Japan would do well to follow the German model of setting up a commission with China, Korea, Phillipines, etc. to pay claims for wartime atrocities:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2412711,00.html
Like the story says, it could compensate those “whose claims were deemed credible but could not be substantiated due to ‘the ravages of war and the passage of time.’” That doesn’t seem unreasonable given that Japan was the agressor in attacking its neighbors, and would go a long way toward removing itself as a political whipping boy of China and Korea.
Michael,
If a woman is raped, should she be paid? Were the comfort women not compensated at the time, is that the problem? My contention is this issue will be a gadfly until all of the victims pass on. I am not being insensitive, it just they way it goes.
JK is saying the focus should be on the women themselves, and is not political, but these women understandably reject compensation from the Asian Women’s Fund or government apologies offered so far as insufficient, and the issue is certainly political insofar as China and Korea use Japan’s wartime atrocities to whip up nationalism. So, if Japan sets up a commission like Germany did and includes its neighbors in it, that removes the accusation that it’s insensitive to the suffering of the comfort women and others. The commission in the story I linked to was set up to make insurance companies pay Holocaust-era claims, so it’s not the best example, but doing something similar with neighboring countries, paying a symbolic compensation based on a panel’s judgment that a claim was “deemed credible,” would defuse a lot of nationalist chest-beating in the region. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for it happening though.
My two won. Now time for a beer
Fair enough, thanks and cheers!
“Japan would do well to follow the German model of setting up a commission with China, Korea, Phillipines, etc. to pay claims for wartime atrocities:”
Michael, from the Japan’s perspective, all they did wrong was not being able to control the Korean pimps from kidnapping and abusing their own prostitutes. It would be a political suicide for Abe to admit to something that they feel they are being railroaded for by the Koreans and Chinese (for that matter, fillipinos and other Asians).
You’re asking for step 10, when Japan hasn’t even gotten to step 2 yet.
“Japan would do well to follow the German model of setting up a commission with China, Korea, Phillipines, etc. to pay claims for wartime atrocities:”
German didn’t set up commission for their former forced prostitute not did she apologize for them:the vicitms are left ignored just as Korean comfort women during Korean war and around A-town have been left ignored.
This is really a queer game.
If you admit your own faults, and apologize, set up the fund, you will be bashed forever.
If you ignore your own faults, and do not apologize, do not set up the the fund, you will go without being bashed.
Politics.
I think ponta’s post perfectly illustrates what all the Japan’s past “apologies” mean (which a lot of Westerners misunderstand because most fail to understand the Japanese mindset when Japanese apologize ). When Japanese apologize, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are admitting fault.
Japan’s apologies up to this point are for strained relations, hurt feelings, and bad mood generated by an ‘unfortunate’ incident in history. It basically means “we regret that you feel bad and it must’ve really sucked that you had to go through all that hardship”. It certainly is not about admitting what they did was wrong and that they are sorry.
They are only sorry for the ill will caused by this – nothing more and nothing less.
So how can Michael’s suggestion ever be adopted by Japan (which will be a long time before that happens, if ever), when they feel they didn’t do anything wrong and that they are being unfairly picked on?
cm
Please refain from misrepresenting my comments.
Notice cm’s comment rather shows however Japan admits her fault, however she apologizes, some people will never admit it.
oh, come on. Have you ever seen a One Won coin? It’s made of plastic.
You should say, my ee-ship-won
‘then japan can remove itself as political whipping boy of korea and china.’
yeah, i think abe is responsible for the current whipping. yeah, i think abe is using ww2 for political gain. yeah, is abe korean or chinese? yeah, that’s what i thought.
‘these women have not clearly stated what they want.’
maybe they want to promote awareness. maybe they want to provide a more balanced view of japan for western audiences.
it’s funny how you want to question the motives of little old ladies but ask nothing about the motives of those who say they’re just lying whores. sad.
lastly, ponta, where’s the evidence sonagi asked for? where’s the proof of your statement that most of those who abducted korean women were korean pimps? i noticed you avoided that one. did you make it up or do you feel your thoughts constitute proof?
anyway, keep up the good work, ponta. you’re worth more than a million finger chops.
Over on another Asian blog, we had an individual who would periodically post inflammatory essays in the forum section and then sit back and watch everybody gobble up the troll bait. He never responded to any follow-up comments or defended his posts. Some of us regulars grew tired of his antics, but rather than ban him, we called for a public shunning, asking everyone to refrain from commenting on his essays. The shunning worked. We haven’t heard from him in two months.
I won’t mention any names here, but this thread seems to have been dragged down by ad-hominem attacks and strawman arguments. I will no longer respond to such comments and I strongly encourage others to do the same. Silence is golden as many Marmot regulars already know.
Ponta,
First of all, please accept my apology as I could not state my 20 won (or 2 Yen) to you with wisely summarized short paragraph with my weak second language skill.
I do not know why you are so much focus on local agents (Korean pimps as you stated) on this issue. Let’s recap, we know that it was common in Korea, Japan and any other Asian countries (may be western countries too), Many poor families to sold their daughters to the brokers and riches back then. So it might be an understandable job for Local agents recruited Korean women from poor families with advance payment then supplied to their contractor, Japanese brothel owners. Imperial Japanse Army only ran thousand of “legal” brothel or comfort station. (as the illegal brothel always busted by Imperial Japanese Army as you stated). In front line, wounded, drunken, psychic, wacky or just ordinary officers and soldiers lined up and waited for their turn in comfort stations. And you are insisting it is local agent to blame responsible that Korean hiding.
Who planned, built and ran the comfort station? Was it local agents (Korean) who proposed to their Japanese contractor? Or was it the Japanese contractor, pimps or brothel owners proposed Imperial Japanese Army as they saw new business opportunities during the war? Why would local agents deceive/forced/kidnapped or coerced (as you claim) women to send them to their contractors? Was there incremental demand of Imperial Japanese Army’s comfort women system from Korean poor families or local agents as it’s the way to getaway from the poverty? Why Imperial Japanse Army kind enough to shut downed the illegal brothels but didn’t send back hundreds and thousands of 14, 15, 16, or 17 years-old girls to their home who became sex slaves with conditions they never dreamed of (everyday facing horrors, brutalities, suffering, beating, physical torture and starvation) in Legal military brothels or comfort station? Was it because they were just whores? Do you think Imperial Japanse Army sent back any of these girls to home if they claimed that they were recruited by local agent as a factory worker not as a prostitution of the Emperor’s soldiers? Was it OK to Japanese culture to treat these women (even for prostitutes) in such a brutal way? Even if most Korean women worked in comfort station with their own will, were they treated same conditions as thousands of other Japanse whore who worked in comfort stations?
So let me ask you again. Is this sad history of comfort women started from local agents? Who were the victims here? Who were responsible? Poor families? Local agent? Japanese brothel comfort station owners? Or millions of Emperor’s officers and soldiers?
I believe you and I know that the True Victims are these women’s. And Abe and Japanese politicians just trying to deny it’s part of responsibilities. That’s point where the flame started.
If you allow me to suggest, I would start to form a civic group to educate your own Japanese politicians like Abe or Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura who officially denied “No Japan military involvement in running wartime brothels” than depending/minimizing the responsibility of Japanse gov. And insisted to focus responsibilities of Local agents. And tell them, Saying “there is no evidence to prove there was coercion ..” is like “you are free of guilt” to a rapist if the victim couldn’t provide the written note from a rapist. And tell them they need to fully admit their responsibility when make an “Apology”. You see how I admitted my lack of English skill to you?
How about local Korean agents or collaborators? As you already been getting sources from Korean newspapers and researchers, there’s more awareness in Korea and among Korean people digging “Wrong, fabricated, brain washed” facts of own history than Japan.
Don’t get me wrong Ponta, I am also glad to see a Japanese, like you, acknowledges the fact that Japanese comfort women system was WRONG. And a comfort women system is the extension of the then a brothel system in Japan.
As far as Korean families selling daughters to brokers, or girls willingly working in Japanese brothels to serve the Imperial Japanese Army, that’s all a bunch of bullshit.
My mother and grandmother have told me that the way the Japanese Police recruited Korean comfort women in the 40s, was going up to any Korean girl of marriageable age in public, and asking if they were married or not.
If the answer was “No,” they were immediately detained and press-ganged into service. When word got out that any single girl could be shanghaied by the police, a flurry of instant marriages took place in villages throughout Korea (the police apparently didn’t recruit married women).
In her village in South Hamgyeong Province where my mother grew up, my grandmother told me that in order to foil the Japanese order, people set up marriages of convenience overnight with neighbors, classmates, acquaintances, etc., — literally anyone who was available — to get every available single girl married before the Japanese could get their hands on them.
She said that the funny thing was that many of these “sham” marriages did in fact lasted the war and long thereafter (unlike the ones we’re seeing nowadays).
“As far as Korean families selling daughters to brokers, or girls willingly working in Japanese brothels to serve the Imperial Japanese Army, that’s all a bunch of bullshit.”
I tend to think that there were such cases, though it does not mean that the Japanese did not develop a system of comfort stations that involved coercion at different levels. (They did!)
However, there have been thousands of Korean women “earning” money for their families in the years since. Lots of rural girls moving up to Seoul or near a US Army base to earn, and if their families – assuming they still had families – didn’t exactly know what was up, they didn’t always ask too many questions.
I don’t know how truly “willing” these girls have been either, but extreme poverty and a lack of options were likely also factors in the 1940s, in addition to dishonest brokers and Japanese authorities.
If there has since been a minority of families that would sell off – or write off – a daughter to sell her herself – possibly with the motive of helping out the family – I have no doubt this could have been true in some cases in the miserable conditions of 1940s Korea. I think this would be the case in many countries that are/have been ravaged by poverty, war, etc.
But as your story about your mother and grandmother’s village indicates, there were obviously cases of women being forced to serve, and the story suggests that local people had a pretty good idea of what the service was going to entail, despite what the police may or may not have been telling people. Anyway, it is good – inspirational actually – to read a story of a Korean community working together during some of the darkest days of the Japanese occupation, because we so often read/hear about collaborators, etc.
Jimong
thanks
As I said again and again
Japan troop set up the house for the brothel, let the broker recruit women and run the brothel and regulated illegal brokers.
As the US report shows, in some case, when the contract is over, Japanese troop let the women return to home.
In some cases, as US report from the testimonies during WWⅡ shows,
http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html
the living condition was good, in other cases as the testimonis after 50 years later shows, it was horrible.
It was not okay for the soldier to treat women i a bruatl way. In some cases, it might be true some soldier treated them badly. In other cases,
it was not. Here is an testimony from ex-comfort -women” Note in passing how it is edited..
One of Japanese kamikaze pilots who repeatedly raped her in Taiwan, )told Ms. Lee that she was his first love.“I think he is my savior. I still thank him,” she said, clarifying that she felt no romance for him.
“He came to me many times. That soldier told me I was his first love.”
Occasionally weeping while telling her tale, Ms. Lee said the kamikaze pilot “gave me all his soap, and other things for taking care of myself, because he said he was leaving tomorrow to die.”
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00059.htm
Jimong wrote
“I believe you and I know that the True Victims are these women’s”
Yes. the women was victim and Japanese system had
a serious flaw, Japan was responsible. There is no denying for that.
“Abe and Japanese politicians just trying to deny it’s part of responsibilities. That’s point where the flame started.”
I disagree. Abe affirmed the Kono’s statement from the beginning in which Kono admitted Japan was responsible for the victim.
IMO the flame started when the media started ignoring this fact, and started mistranslating what he said, kept misinforming the readers.
Jimong wrote
“If you allow me to suggest, I would start to form a civic group to educate your own Japanese politicians like Abe or Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura who officially denied “No Japan military involvement in running wartime brothels”
That is where the readers are mislead by journalism
Neither Abe nor shimomura denied that Japanese military involvement in running war time brothels. What they said is there were no backed up evidence to show Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women, the fact which even Robert, and
some of Korean professor admitted.
They were stating fact. They are not evading responsibility.
However, that Japan has a responsibility for the brothels during WWⅡ does not negate the fact in most of the cases Korean brokers were involved just as they were involved during Korean War and around A-town.
That Japan was unjust in running the system does not cancel the unjust in Korea running the unjust
system during Korean War and around A-town.
When someone realised that he is also responsible, he started to make a big fuss.
As I said, it is a queer game;
you admit your own faults, apologize, you will be
bashed whatever, and some keep denying the apology.
you ignore your own faults, never apologize you will go unbashed, you keep bashing the same fault you yourself committed.
I appreciate your comment, I think we are getting
closer. The discussion is not useless.
H. Kim
“My mother and grandmother have told me that the way the Japanese Police recruited Korean comfort women in the 40s, was going up to any Korean girl of marriageable age in public, and asking if they were married or no”
I am afraid that you are confused about women’s Brigade (Teishintai)for comfort women recruiting.
Unmarried women were in fact mobilized to the factories by law.( Married women was needed for the family.) and it is true that some Koreans avoided the mobilization by pretending to be married as records shows. But that is different from recruiting women for comfort station.
As Robert admitted and some Korean historians also affirmed that there is no evidence that Japan diverted the labor as required by the law.
All there is is the record that Korean women in fact worked at factories, and some pimps deceived
women to make them prostitutes, saying they could
earn a lot of money at factories.
Thanks.
“Japan troop set up the house for the brothel, let the broker recruit women and run the brothel and regulated illegal brokers.”
“All there is is the record that Korean women in fact worked at factories, and some pimps deceived
women to make them prostitutes, saying they could
earn a lot of money at factories.”
Sounds plausable, but if it was a system authorized by the Japanese authorities for the use of their troops, even if the dirty work was, at least in part, carried out by middlemen, were they not responsible for it?
If I run a business and I authorize one of my lower managers to hire and employ – and, it would seem, abuse – illegal workers, am I somehow exempt from responsibility? I think not. I have either acquiesced to something terrible or I’ve been utterly negligent, not to mention inconceivably incompetent. By all means punish my underling too, but I wouldn’t merit a pass would I?
The Japanese authorities MUST have known where the comfort women were coming from, not to mention how they were being “mobilized”. In the best case, I suppose they didn’t want to know how they were getting their prostitutes from. Lame excuse.
H. Kim’s account indicates that the locals in his family’s village took radical measures to avoid something they must have been very afraid of. Odds are that regardless of who was carrying out the mobilization of young women, the prospective draftees’ actions suggest a possible aversion to something more than just factory work.
On a final note, Albert Speer actually tried to explain at Nurenburg – and in his subsequent books – how, while busy in his office in Berlin, he wasn’t really aware of the Final Solution being carried out at the camps. One problem, among many, with this claim is that as Minister of Armaments he must have known specific details pertaining to war materials production, including that conducted by camp – in other words, slave – labor. Where was the labor coming from? Where were the old workers going? Why were they working for free? Hmmm.
globalvillageidiot
Thanks.
I repeat, Japan was mostly to blame.
globalvillageidiot wrote
“If I run a business and I authorize one of my lower managers to hire and employ – and, it would seem, abuse – illegal workers, am I somehow exempt from responsibility”
No , that is why Japan set up the fund and apologized.
Abe just states that there is no backed up evidence that Japanese troop systematically kidnapped women. And historians and Robert agrees with him, at least on that point.
Japanese police regulated illegal pimps just as the US police is regulating illegal pimps in the US.
globalvillageidiot wrote
“The Japanese authorities MUST have known where the comfort women were coming from,”
Probably Japanese authority knew that women were from poor family that desperately in need of money to survive. That is how the brothel were running in Japan.
And I think Korean government have known that prostitutes during Korean war, around A-town come from the family that desperately in need of money to survive.
globalvillageidiot wrote
“H. Kim’s account indicates that the locals in his family’s village took radical measures to avoid something they must have been very afraid of. ”
In some cases, yes, in other cases no.
But the fact is that they were mobilized to the factories by the law.
If there are cases where people were mobilized to
the factories as H Kim described, that is illegal, and that should be blamed.
But the fact remains that the system is different from recruiting comfort women and there is no cases, no evidence, no testimonies, no diary, no whatever that Japan diverted the labor to the brothels.
And it is just that many have mistaken Teshinatai, women Brigade for comfort women system.
According to the book, “under the black umbrella”, most Korean women interviewed didn’t know comfort women. There are two testimonies in the book that mention comfort women. One is that she knew her relative was mobilized to the factory, but that was not a comfort station. Another is that she knew that women was taken to the factory. She heard the story from her husband. Her husband, Korean Japanese soldier visited the comfort station, where he met Korean prostitutes. She concluded that the women who were said to be taken to factory must have been mobilized to the brothels.
In Seju island, a historian researched if there were cases women were kidnapped to make them prostitutes, the villagers testified there was no such case.
I suggest H kim to ask her grandparents if they
knew the case women whom they know were taken to the brothels by teshintai system. If they knew, then that is a big discovery, and I think many historians, including korean historian I quoted, have to change their opinion, of course, in that case, Abe has to change his opinion and i also have to, that is okay;for I am just stating fact based on evidences.
“On a final note, Albert Speer actually tried to explain at Nurenburg – and in his subsequent books – how, while busy in his office in Berlin, he wasn’t really aware of the Final Solution being carried out at the camps. One problem, among many, with this claim is that as Minister of Armaments he must have known specific details pertaining to war materials production, including that conducted by camp – in other words, slave – labor. Where was the labor coming from? Where were the old workers going? Why were they working for free? Hmmm.”
In case of Japan druing WWⅡ , and in case of Korea during Korean war and around A-town, it is most likely the authority have known that women were from provery-stricken village.
In case of Japan, A brothel was closed for two month by Japanese military on suspicion that women were forced.
The police arrested and regulated illegal brokers.Still, it is likely that there were cases
where women were in miserable condition.
In view of that , Japan acknowledged and apologized and set up the fund.
I am not sure how Korean government have tried to
regulate the such brothels. Some argue that the police was not helpful at all, Korean has inogred the issue.
One, who acknoldge the wrongs, apologized and set
up the funds, are under bashing, another, who ignores the issue, go free, participates in bashig the other.
ponta, I agree that Japan has apologized numerous times, has paid compensation – in various forms – and that the Japanese people don’t deserve to be the targets of abuse from some Koreans and Chinese who simply delight in demonizing them. My previous comment to H.Kim mentions my belief that there were Koreans who likely weren’t mobilized by force (just as many Koreans joined the Japanese military prior to conscription) and that some Koreans were certainly traitors and acted as brokers. All I wanted to stress was that the support or acceptance of such policies by some locals, does not let the Japanese authorities of yesteryear off the hook. I see that you also understand that.
I do not completely accept the official Korean account of things by any stretch of the imagination, on this topic and most others. However, that doesn’t excuse elements in the Japanese right from trying to minimize Japan’s negative role in all things past. I would be far more sympathetic to Koreans’ views on history and a lot of other matters if many didn’t portray themselves as being 100% right – and therefore the other side 100% wrong – on many issues.
“I repeat, Japan was mostly to blame.”
I realize that many Korean nationalists would have a hard time making such a balanced statement if the situation were reversed…
‘ahhhhhhh, ponta, are you ignoring me? you know that really hoyts. i must get to you. in any case, i’m going to ask you again:
where’s the evidence sonagi asked for? where’s the proof of your statement that most of those who abducted korean women were korean pimps? i noticed you avoided that one. did you make it up or do you feel your thoughts constitute proof?
this is now the fith time you’ve been asked to back up that statement.
ponta, you’re doing a great service for the people of korea. keep up the good work!
笑石鵝
globalvillageidiot
Thanks
“However, that doesn’t excuse elements in the Japanese right from trying to minimize Japan’s negative role in all things past. ”
I agree. As I said, I think to admit the atrocity
Japanese troop had done is important for Japan and for vicims.
But I also hold Japan does not have to accept the allegation that she hadn’t done just because she had done injustice during WWⅡ
.
And I don’t think giving an appropriate picture based on evidence is wrong.
After all, Rok drop often writes about Nogri massacre, GI crimes that happened in Korea to correct the wrong pictures. I don’t think I am doing something different.
Thanks again.
Ponta’s strawman argument is nicely countered in this article by that Korean bastard Norimitsu Onishi. Occidentalism will have another fit with this guy again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/world/asia/31yoshimi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
cm
Thanks.
But nothing is new.
Yoshimi admits there is no backed up evidence to show Japan systematically kidnapped women.
As you might know, he is a leftist historian, like other leftist historians, who wants to complain of the government.
His discovery was ironical:
” the most damning was a notice written on March 4, 1938, by the adjutant to the chiefs of staff of the North China Area Army and Central China Expeditionary Force. Titled “Concerning the Recruitment of Women for Military Comfort Stations,” the notice said that “armies in the field will control the recruiting of women,” and that “this task will be performed in close cooperation with the military police or local police force of the area.”
I am not sure NYT intentionally mistranslated it again or not, but
The document reads:
“when the brokers recruit women for the comfort station in the sino-Japanese war, there were cases where
(1) the brokers used the name of Japanese military and damaged the prestige of the military,
(2) they recruited women irregularly through commissioned journalists and comforters,
(3)they recruited inadequately such as kidnapping and as a result they were investigated by the police.
There have been a lot of cases as above reported,
therefore, from now on, the dispatch force will carry out screening for the brokers carefully and
adequately and will corporate with the police and kenpei in regulating the recruitment so that it won’t cause the social problem and it won’t damage the prestige of the military.(3 March 1938)
(feel free to correct my translation
http://toron.pepper.jp/jp/syndrome/keysen/bosyu.html
I am a poor translator)
Yoshimi said this discovery of the document proved the involvement of Japanese military with comfort station. Sure, it does, but it only shows, Japanese military regulated illegal brokers.
As for the Japanese military throwing away the unfavobable documents, that is possble, but I think it is unlikely because at that time, Japanese did’t think it was bad; probably they thought it is the extention of brothel in Japan, and the insititution like that was not uncommon where the military was. After WWⅡ, they let local brokers recruite women and let them run the brothel for GIs as ever. As the US report shows, even the US thought they were just prositutes, as Korean prositutes during Korean War and around A-town have been thought to be.
As for the allegation against Abe’s history concerning this issue, I am not sure, If you want me to check, I’ll do it.
My argument is not strawman.
My perspective is to tackle this issue as
(1) restoration of women’s right
(2) a problem for the future
I think that is more constructive approach.
(1)Japan set up the fund and apologized.
(2)I am not sure how much Japan is making effort about the human trafficking, but I am sure there is a lot to do.
(1)Korea has not even faced the fact that Korean brokers were involved just as they were involved during Korean War and around A-town. She has not set up the fund for women who were recruited through the local government and abused at the brothels.
(2)
“South Korea is primarily a country of destination, but it is also a country of origin and transit for trafficking in women and children. ”
http://www.protectionproject.org/sko.doc
Korean prositutes ranks 1st in the number of the prositutes in the US.
http://www.donga.com/fbin/output?sfrm=2&n=200609250118
(For that matter, German also ignored this issue)
I don’t know why Onishi miss this point unless he just want to bash Japan like many of his articles, that is okay, that is his job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DXWOWLufuE
Scroll to 4:54.
to 5:17.
Pump up the volume if you want to hear out the original English.
Ponta #143 wrote:
It is amazing how Ponta, with absolutely no proof, evidence, witness statements, or cites whatsoever, tries to discount the veracity of my own Grandmother’s experience.
And no Ponta, I will not probe my Grandmother any further or upset her with your prurient questions just to satisfy your perverse skepticism. Despite Ponta’s baseless allegations, my Grandmother has recalled girls being kidnapped off the streets in her village in South Hamgyeong Province by Japanese police and shipped out in most cases never to be seen again. And of course the police lied and said they were being recruited for the factories.
The Koreans didn’t believe the police, however, because there were plenty of able-bodied men and older women and other Korean collaborators who were quite willing and did volunteer in droves to work in Japanese factories in Manchuria, Sakhalin Island, and Japan.
And now, despite the accusations of right-wingers like Ponta and Abe, there is now documentary proof from Japan itself that shows an Imperial system of kidnapping local women and press-ganging them into service as comfort women as a matter of policy, as per archival evidence discovered by historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi that was reported in Saturday’s NYT article linked by cm above: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/world/asia/31yoshimi.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&oref=login
From NYT’s In Japan, a Historian Stands by Proof of Wartime Sex Slavery :
H Kim
Thanks.
So your grandparents didn’t know where kidnapped person went.
Now, Japanese reseachers, including Yoshimi,whom your NYT article is citing, are sure that Koreans were confused about Teshintai and comfort women.
By the law, unmarried women were mobilized to the factories. But unmarried women meant virgin in korea, so people mistakenly thought virgin women had to be contirbuted just as scrapped iron had to be contributed.
Here is a report of government-general in 1944 cited by Yoshimi.
… Not only that, there is an absurd rumor that women would be made comfort women. Coupled with this malice rumor, it will be harder to acquire the work force.
Hence, many parents made their daughter to avoid it.
As for NYT article,
As for Yoshimi’s discovery, I have already written in respond to cm.(150)
As the US documents shows,many women were tricked, as the Japanese documets in which Japanese police arrested Korean pimps show, some were coerced but arrested.
“Unlike other militaries that have used wartime brothels, the Japanese military was the “main actor,” Mr. Yoshimi said.”
That is a little different from what he said to Japan Times.
According to Yoshimi, the government and military played a major role in operating the brothels. Although private agents were commissioned to round up the women, the military brought the women to frontline brothels and controlled their operations, he said.
(ponta: the military transfered women and regulated illegal pimps, that is what he means the military played a major role.—ponta)
Did other military forces have a similar system?
According to both Hata and Yoshimi, Nazi Germany had frontline brothels during the war, using women, even by force, in Eastern Europe.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070320i1.html
Japan Times account of Yoshimi is closer to what he said in his book.
It looks Onishi is a politician rather than a journalist.
, many parents made their daughter to avoid it
→many parents made their daughter marry to avoid it.
“It is amazing how Ponta, with absolutely no proof, evidence, witness statements, or cites whatsoever, tries to discount the veracity of my own Grandmother’s experience.”
Yes, Ponta once questioned my own family members’ experiences in Japan-controlled Korea at occidentalism. When I said that they were forced to speak Japanese outside their homes and take on Japanese names and were NOT pleased about this, he called my own family members “collaborators.” Amazing that he questions any eyewitness accounts by Koreans of what happened in Korea under Japan….yet doesn’t question writings by Japanese right-wing historical revisionists if it supports what he already has decided must be right about Japan.
I have found the statistics of the brokers of the official brothels(公娼）in Korea by Korea governor-general’s office.
the broker
year 1927 1931 1937 1941
Japanese 162 269 203 211
Korean 2598 2320 3097 3744
(page 40 慰安婦と戦場の性 秦郁彦）
This is the statistics of the licensed brokers, so I guess there were more private brokers.
Coupled with the argument I have given, I think it is not unreasonable to suppose that most of the brokers in Korea were Koreans.
Of course that does not change the fact Japan is mostly to blame, though.
BTW, when there is a law to the effect that woman
would be mobilized to the factories, and there are
records that women were in fact mobilized to the factory, the burden of proof that Japan diverted the labor required by the law is on the people who insist it.
Thanks.
What is the source, ponta? Please write it in English. I hope it’s not another right-wing Japanese source.
And why do you so easily accept sources by right-wing Japanese writers who weren’t in Korea during the colonization and dismiss eyewitness accounts by Koreans of what they experienced under the Japanese? You even dismiss claims by former Japanese soldiers of what they did to innocent Chinese and Korean women. Please explain that. Wouldn’t those KOrean and Japanese eyewitnesses know mroe about what happened than the writers of your sources who weren’t even there??
ＪＫ
Thanks.
The historian I mentioned is Hata ikuo, who was one of the two historians the UN reporter called upon when she wrote the report. You might refer to the article by Japan times I linked. Hata and Yoshimi is two representative researcher on this issue.
The title of the book is “comfort women and sex at war zone”(there might be better translation)
The statistics is the yearly statistics by Korean
government-general.
I don’t dismiss the testimonies of ex-comfort women as such. I just pointed out some of their testimonies are inconsistent.
And there is not eyewitness to prove Japanese military systematically kidnapped women to make them prostitutes.
Suppose 50 years later Korean prostitutes in the US testified she was kidnapped and made prostitutes. “The US government was involved”
Asked what kind of involvement, she answers, “the government knew there was trafficking and the government was turning an blind eye on the brothels;besides, I was kidnapped by what looked like the US police, and I had to live miserable lives.” Asked where she was working , she answer she was working at P, where there was no brothel. It is possible that painful experience distorted the memory. It is also possible she just misremember and there is still other possibilities.
There is four such testimonies out of 19 testimonies which were collected by the organization to support them. Other 15 testimonies were such that they were deceived by pimps. There are records the US police regulated illegal pimps. Should we conclude the US police systematically kidnapped Korean women to make them prostitutes though there in no other evidence to bake it up? Has the US systematically issued working visa to divert the Korean labor force to make them prostitutes in the US just because some people claims the US is a country that “segregate” AA, that must have happened?
Note I am not saying the situation is the same. Japan army’s involvement was much deeper. Japan licenced brokers, they transferred women, they set up the house for the brothels for Japanese soldiers and some women had to live unbearable lives under this system just as Korea registered comfort women, set up the brothels for the UN/US soldiers during Korean War and around A-town and some women lived unbearable lives. However you evaluate the testimonies, it is a fact such was the case.
Japan acknowledged it, apologized and set up the fund.
.
Ponta,
Among your many points that I disagree with, I will, at this time, only address two.
Japan said it was sorry that countries in Asia suffered in WWII. That is not acknowledgement that it institutionalized sexual slavery of Korean and other women and forced them to have sex with Japanese soldiers. And setting up a private fund was an insult to the former comfort women; many of them felt that to take money out of that fund is like taking money for a job well done.
What the Korean comfort women want is the Japanese prime minister to get in front of the entire Diet….and acknowledge that the government set up the system of sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers in Manchuria….and to pay restitution PUBLICLY and acknowledge that the money is being paid because Japan committed crimes against humanity against these Korean women.
You cannot say Japan apologized when even the current Japanese prime minister calls these former comfort women “prostitutes.”
“You cannot say Japan apologized when even the current Japanese prime minister calls these former comfort women “prostitutes.”
They’ve apologized numerous times, and in addition to the fund you mentioned, made rather large reparation payments in 1965, if I’m not mistaken. You might think the apologies or fund (s) were insufficient considering the severity of Japanese actions during the occupation but they did occur.
Does one politician’s actions mean apologies never happened? I don’t care much for Abe’s views on history (or at least how he plays politics with history) and I don’t believe the Japanese have atoned for their mistakes as much as the Germans for theirs, but how can you say that they haven’t apologized in the past. It is a fact that they have.
Instead of seeking to deny or minimize the apologies that have been given, why not focus on the revisionism at hand? I think Koreans and Chinese have good reason to question how history is being revised in Japan at the moment, but denying Japanese apologies – or worse, demanding apologies they are never intending to accept – makes them look insincere about the issue.
Again, I’m not denying the Japanese did terrible things during the occupation. They did. They have also not handled the past with their neighbors as well as they could/should have. However, to claim they haven’t apologized is also bad history.
globalvillageidiot, yes Japan apologized…..but for what?
Japan apologized that many people of the nations in Asia suffered in WWII in part because of the actions of the Japanese. There was no acknowledgement that the Japanese set up forced sexual slavery of Korean women to service Japanese soldiers. None that I am aware of. To be honest, I am not 100% on this and am open to acknowledge if it did happen.
When the Korean comfort women specifically WERE mentioned, the prime minister (the current one at that) said they were prostitutes.
So I still stand by what I said that as it relates to the comfort women: I have heard no apology for the specific installation by the Japanese of the sex slavery institution for the “amusement” of Japanese soldiers by innocent Korean girls who were NOT prostitutes. And certainly Abe’s comments don’t help Japan’s past claims of remorse that other countries suffered.
Abe’s comments are questionable at best and they don’t help things. Ageed.
Abe is politically damn.
But it is surprising that Koreans have been turning a blind eye on their own problem while nitpicking JPM, leaving Korean comfort women during Korean War/around A town ignored, calling these women” western whores”
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