Japan Focus

Post from Mr. Jonathan Lewis of Hitotsubashi University

1. Japan’s ‘Comfort Women’: It's time for the truth (in the
ordinary, everyday sense of the word)

By Tessa Morris-Suzuki

2. Abe’s Violent Denial: Japan’s Prime Minister and the ‘Comfort Women'
By Alexis Dudden and Kozo MIZOGUCHI

3. Government, the Military and Business in Japan’s Wartime Comfort Woman System
By Hayashi Hirofumi

4. The Courts, Japan's 'Military Comfort Women,' and the Conscience of Humanity: The Ruling in VAWW-Net Japan v. NHK
By Norma Field

5. Free Speech – Silenced Voices: The Japanese Media, the Comfort Women Tribunal, and the NHK Affair
By Tessa Morris-Suzuki

6. Cold Comfort: The Japan Lobby Blocks Congressional Resolution on World War II Sex Slaves
By Ken Silverstein

Comments

Nightwind said…
IHT/Asahi,Mar.13 / The Asahi Shimbun,Mar.10:EDITORIAL/ Comfort women issue
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200703130040.html
http://megalodon.jp/?url=http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200703130040.html&date=20070314013341 (cache)

IHT/Asahi,Mar.7 / The Asahi Shimbun,Mar.6:EDITORIAL/ 'Comfort women' issue
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200703070051.html
http://megalodon.jp/?url=http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200703070051.html&date=20070314013800 (cache)
Ichiro said…
The following blog is written by a Japanese who is fluent in English. Perhaps this is the kind of message Ikeda sensei wanted to disseminate?

http://son-of-gadfly-on-the-wall.blogspot.com/
ikedanobuo said…
These articles are typical "chinichi-ha", scholars specialized in Japan. They are mostly liberal and paternalistic to Japan. They believe they know Japan more than Japanese people and want to teach the common sense of the world. In fact, as they depend on liberal journals such as Asahi Shimbun and Iwanami shoten, their factual knowledge is seriously flawed.

For example, the article by Morris-Suzuki starts with comparing Ianfu with German government's compensation of the slave labour enforced by Nazi. She doesn't know (or ignore) the difference: no evidence of government coercion by the Army for Ianfu. She says the Ianfu was "forced labourer" without evidence. Is she truly historian?

Even more laughable is her admiration of the resolution of the U.S. congress. She says "its wording carefully describes the Japanese government ...". Is the following sentence careful wording for her standard?

"Whereas the `comfort women' system of forced military prostitution by the Government of Japan, considered unprecedented in its cruelty and magnitude, included gang rape, forced abortions, humiliation, and sexual violence resulting in mutilation, death, or eventual suicide in one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century"

It is almost a libel for Japanese government without providing any evidence, apart from irrelevant and contradictory testimony of alleged ex-Ianfu. These biased comments are quoted as "historan's consensus" by NYT and other reporters.
buvery said…
I am perfectly comfortable with the PM's stance as long as he meant that there was no "organized" women trafficking by the IJA authority in Korean Peninsula.

However, he should be cautious because the one of the person testified at the Congress, Jan O'Herne, is probably the real victim of Sumalan incident in Java. I know that it is not by the order of the authority, and the brothel was closed within 2 months. However, it is important to note that the perpetrators were not punished by IJA, but by the Dutch after the war. The MOF should be very careful so as not to hurt this person. She has already spoken out since 1992.

www.awf.or.jp/program/pdf/p107_141.pdf

or Hata Ikuhiko ISBN4-10-600565-4
pp216-222

I could not identify the Koreans who testified in Congress. Has anybody know the identities of the Koreans?
buvery said…
"Semarang" is the correct spelling of Shirouma incident in 1944, in Indonesia (Java).
ikedanobuo said…
Semarang incident is very important, because it is only one legal evidence of coercion by the Army officials and it involves Caucasian. O'Hearn is the most enthusiastic witness who impressed the congress member of the U.S.

However, it is an exceptional accident of sexual abuse. The Army shut down the sites in response to the complaint of her father. Even Yoshimi doesn't identify it as abduction.

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