Ministry does about-face on textbooks regarding Okinawa

The Yomiuri reported:

The Education, Science and Technology Ministry approved Wednesday the reintroduction of wording in high school history textbooks referring to the role played by the Japanese military in the 1945 mass suicides in the Battle of Okinawa after the books' publishers filed correction applications.

The approval of corrections to textbooks that had already been approved is unprecedented.

While the Textbook Authorization Council, an advisory panel to the education, science and technology minister, recommended the corrections be approved, it also came to the conclusion that there were no direct orders from the military to carry out the mass suicides, and it therefore refused to allow the reinsertion of wording such as "coercion by the military" that the council had objected to before the books were authorized. This marked the first time the council expressed this view of what it believes happened.

According to this opinion, "From the viewpoint of residents, they were driven to commit suicide due to various circumstances and factors," adding that involvement of the Japanese military was a major factor in the mass suicides.

However, on the point of whether direct orders were issued by the military to commit suicide en masse, the council concluded that "it cannot be confirmed at this point."

This basic view was conveyed to the six textbook publishers. As a result, the publishers revised the phrasing they used in their correction applications.

To sum up, it's historian's consensus that there is no Army's order for suicide. The demonstration organized by Okinawa's left party was in vain.

Mass suicide in Okinawa

Two years ago, a novelist Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Laureate, was sued by ex-Army officials that he falsely accused them as they ordered mass suicide that had resulted 600 people killed themselves in Okinawa at the end of WW2 in his book Okinawa Note.

It turned out in the court that Oe never visited the island in which he alleged the Army killed hundreds of people. He learned it from a book written by journalists who indirectly heard the story. Ayako Sono, a novelist, visited the island and found that many people testified that lieutenant Akamatsu, who Oe called "a slaughter", never ordered suicide.

Probably affected by the suit, the government demanded to delete the description about "Army order" from school textbooks to their authors. Tens of thousands of Okinawa people protested the revision and organized demonstrations against it. As a result, the government admitted the authors to rewrite the story.

However, historians agree that there has never been orders of mass suicide. Nevertheless they insist that there was "coercion" of suicide. This ambiguous use of coercion is similar to that of comfort women. Indeed soldiers handed people hand grenades, but it was the Okinawa people who wanted to kill the U.S. Army and themselves, Sono wrote.

It is exceptional that government "censors" textbooks in an advanced country like Japan. But history should never rewritten by political demonstrations and somebody should never be attacked as a slaughter without factual grounds. Indeed the mass suicide was a tragedy, but it was not by the organized crime like the Holocaust. History and politics should be separated and discussed based on the facts.

A troubling position on 'comfort women'

The Yomiuri Shimbun's editorial criticizes the EU Parliament's resolution:

The Japanese government must lobby other governments to persuade them not to follow in the footsteps of the European Parliament in adopting a resolution that sullies Japan's standing.

The European Parliament has adopted a resolution condemning Japan over the "comfort women" issue. The resolution calls for the government to apologize, saying the Imperial armed forces coerced young women in Asia to work as "sex slaves" before and during World War II.

The latest development resembles the resolution adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives over the comfort women issue in July. This matter has now spilled over to Europe. The parliaments of Canada and the Netherlands also have adopted similar resolutions.

However, interest in the comfort women issue has not necessarily been high in Europe. The European Parliament's resolution was advocated by the minor Green Party and fewer than 10 percent of the members of the parliament were present for the vote.

===

Moves behind the scenes

However, Amnesty International, an international human rights organization, has organized hearings of former comfort women, including Dutch women, at various places, and is lobbying many governments to adopt resolutions on the issue. Anti-Japanese organizations with ties to China and South Korea are orchestrating such moves behind the scenes.

When Japan controlled Indonesia during World War II after ousting the Dutch military, detained Dutch women were taken by Japanese soldiers and forced to become comfort women against their will. However, Japanese military headquarters in Jakarta closed down the comfort station immediately after learning of the incident, and released the women.

This was indeed an unfortunate incident, but the story provides "counterevidence" that refutes allegations that the Japanese military systematically coercively recruited women into sexual service.

Officers and soldiers involved in the incident were sentenced as Class-B and Class-C war criminals by a war tribunal in the Netherlands after the war.

The German military had more than 500 "comfort stations" in East Europe and other occupied areas, yet we rarely hear a peep about this. A number of documents verify this fact, including a report by an official of the Catholic Church to the pope, saying Nazis took Jewish women to serve as prostitutes for German soldiers.

===

Kono statement to blame

The Green Party that advocated the adoption of the latest resolution has many German members. We wonder if they intend to keep silent over what happened in their own country many years ago.

One reason why Japan has been repeatedly dragged over the coals regarding the comfort women issue is the 1993 statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono. The statement suggested that Japanese officials systematically and coercively recruited women to be comfort women.

However, there is not one single document or a shred of evidence that substantiates this. Nobuo Ishihara, deputy chief cabinet secretary at that time, later said the Kono statement was issued to deflect pressure from South Korea, which had been pressing Japan to acknowledge it had carted off comfort women.

The government must review the Kono statement, which has become a source of misunderstanding in the international community.

EU Parliament passes resolution on "Comfort Women"

The European Parliament (EP) approved on Thursday a resolution on Justice for the "Comfort Women," women forced into sex slavery in Asia before and during World War II by Japanese Imperial Army, urging the Japanese government to formally apologize and compensate for the victims and their families.

Author of the resolution Raul Romeva, a member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the EP, urged the Japanese government to comply with international law to do justice for the victims. "We are talking about 200,000 women who were forced into sex slavery before and during the World War II by the Japanese Imperial Army," Romeva told the parliament.

This is another false accusation that blindly copied the Honda resolution. It has no legal enforcement and no media except South Korea reported the news. So let's ignore it.

A parliamentary hearing's big flaw

Canada's parliament passed a motion this week calling on Japan to apologize to the brothel prostitutes that served for the benefit of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. It is not difficult to understand the concerns of this motion if you think of the gravity of tragedy and suffering these women endured, and continued existence of “human trafficking”, prostitution (sex slavery), and human right abuse prevalent today in Korea and the rest of world.

Nevertheless I am incensed about the carelessness and unfairness of the motion passed by the Canadian government. My concern and objection are three-fold: unfair procedure, biased evidence, and its negative implication for the current and subsequent generations of people and government of Japan. What I mean by "procedural concern" is that it failed to consider the full range of evidence to prove or disprove its conclusion. They clearly failed to consider a set of evidence that negates or questions the validity of this motion. Thus, this omission of due process made this motion fundamentally "biased and unfair." I am aware that it was not a legal proceeding nor an academic exercise that would have called for close examination of facts with interest over the pursuit of truth. The motion was a political action that serves the political expediency for certain groups of people with passion and desire to gain political control to punish those who were castigated as “evil” aggressors. It was meant to exonerate those women who had been wrongly treated and looked down on as prostitutes in the Korean society. Despite the political nature of proceedings and motion, we cannot remain silent about the unfairness and harmfulness of this motion based on half-truths and lies. The gravity of accusation and resulting negative implication for the people and nation of Japan are too great to ignore.

The unfair proceedings thus resulted in Parliament’s acceptance of false information and misunderstanding on the issues studied. I am not a scholar on history but I will mention one or two clear false information, which this motion were based on. The majority of the prostitutes came from Japan and not from the Korean-region of Imperial Japan (Korea was one of the Japanese territories at that time, not a colony) as alleged. Series of formal, “sincere” apologies have already been given by the government officials in the past, and the Asian Women's Fund was created for the purpose of compensating for the suffering endured by the brothel prostitutes.

Thirdly, there was a "structural(contextual)" bias in its motion, namely it failed to present historical, social context in which the Japanese government instituted the Licensed Brothel(Camp) Prostitutes attached to the Japanese Army for the benefit of the soldiers. Discussion of this issue without relevant historical context, especially with no reference to the conducts of other nations in the similar historical/social context creates a false impression of peculiarity, singularity about the people and government of Japan, whether or not it is intended. The comparisons are not to justify (or vilify) the actions studied but to give common ground and understanding of the issue(unless the comparisons truly shows its peculiarity, singularity) under consideration. This will help people to make rational, informed judgment rather than irrational, emotional generalization, and also prevents false impression and prejudice against the people and government of Japan.

Finally, this motion exploits the goodness of the Canadian people who naturally sympathize with the victims of crimes and are resolute to confront the aggressors. But here I must appeal again to the fairness of Canadian people. It must be reminded that this motion is directed against the Japanese people and nation today and possibly in the future. Another point is that one should not apply "double-standard" to understand and judge people, including the victims and aggressors alike. I am not to defend the aggression and criminal acts committed by the people or any nation but I am simply asking for "fair hearing" with interest over the pursuit of truth. It seem obvious that unless the motion is based on the “truth” derived from “fair” proceedings, it will not benefit anyone. It will not bring about any sense of closure for the people of Japan and Korea, and it will rather create increased animosity toward each other as well as instilling distrust and anger especially among Japanese against the people of Canada, which we would certainly like to avoid.