A comment from the
translator:
The following translation
is based on an interview with WAN director and Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo Chizuko Ueno on her book Ianfu o
meguru kioku no seijigaku (literal
translation: The Political Science of Recollections Surrounding Comfort
Women) published in Korea in July 2014.
Translation of the Japanese
word ianfu into English has been an
issue in itself. The word, mainly used in Japan, literally means “comfort women.”
However, this expression has been criticized as being euphemistic by those who
insist that “sex slaves” better portrays the tragedy of women being forced to have
sex with men in the Japanese military during World War II.
In the following English
translation, I will use the original Japanese word ianfu, and the English “sex slaves” where
appropriate.
(The following translation is an excerpt
from the Japanese article http://wan.or.jp/book/?p=8158. Because Ueno asserts that
the original Korean language interview article had small inaccuracies, this
Japanese article was edited to better reflect Ueno’s thoughts.)
***
Interviewer:
You stated in your book that the Japanese government has blundered
repeatedly in dealing with this issue. When Prime Minister Abe recently denied Yohei
Kono’s 1993 statement[i]
acknowledging that women in Korea and other parts of the world were in fact forced
to have sex with Japanese soldiers, resolution of the ianfu controversy seemed ever more distant. What do you think of this
attitude of today’s Japanese government?
Ueno:
Just one word: frustrating.
To add to the mistakes of the past, (the Japanese government) made
errors in dealing with those mistakes. And they have repeatedly erred in their handling
of the ianfu issue. When things
appear to move towards reconciliation, the true feelings of the conservative
politicians surface, destroying the hard-earned progress.
Mainichi Shimbun recently ran an interview article on Yohei
Kono (published July 13), in which the former chief cabinet secretary broke his
silence.
“I don’t know why, but there are
people who apparently do not want the Japan-Korea friendship to progress, and
those people pushed through a motion demanding verification of my statement (from
1993).
“Reconciliation is hard to achieve
and maintain, but it is quite easy to destroy. The painstaking efforts of the previous
generation of Japanese and Korean politicians have gone up in smoke. I’ve gone
past surprised — to disbelief.”
Asked how this situation could be improved, he offers the
following view.
“In the end, it is the voters who have
to change the politics. Never forget your frustrations and your distrust towards
the present government. Keep sending the message that they are out of touch and
that they will be in trouble come next election. A plunge in approval rating will
give them a jolt. That just about sums it up.”
This is a former Chief Cabinet Secretary of the Liberal Democratic
Party urging us to change the administration. Even within the LDP, there are members
who fear that the Abe administration is out of control, not just on the ianfu issue but also on the creation of the state secrecy law, establishment of the National
Security Council, and alterations of the weapons export rules and anti-war constitutional
clause interpretation. Our sense of urgency just keeps getting stronger.
Interviewer:
Koreans are generally shocked by statements made by young
politicians such as Toru Hashimoto claiming that the ianfu were not recruited against their will. We are increasingly concerned
that even the younger politicians of Japan have been unable to adopt a
forward-looking attitude. How do you view this situation?
Ueno:
There are many
conservative thinkers in Hashimoto’s generation. They are trying to protect what
remaining pride they have based on their arrogant delusion of a powerful Japan.
And their Achilles’ heel is the ianfu
issue. Even among the young people of Japan, there has been a regeneration of this
kind of (far right-wing) thinking.
It is said that those
who do not learn history will suffer its retaliation. By not taking up modern
history, it appears the history education in post-war Japan has perfectly served
the purpose of the education ministry. But history education is always a battlefield.
Debates continue in various parts of Japan over which history textbooks to use.
So far, use of The New History Textbook
(Atarashii rekishi kyoukasho)[ii] has
been limited to only a few municipalities, and residents have been pushing back
on this (far right-wing) movement. I think Korea, China, and Japan need to cooperate
on history education.
Interviewer:
Even today, the ianfu issue of the Japanese army is voiced
all too much as an issue of ethnicity in Korea. And there appears to be little
change in the approach of the
Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.
Do you have a message for the people of Korea?
Ueno:
Ethnicity has most
certainly been a powerful ground for argument in instituting national movements
around the issue of the ianfu. But we
must take a long, hard look at both the good and bad of adopting that position.
Neither a nation nor an ethnic group should stake a claim to the victims of sex
slavery. Restoring the dignity of the victims is not the same as restoring the dignity
of the Korean people. It is my hope that the people of Korea return to basics and
revisit the question of what is really beneficial to the victimized women.
Interviewer:
What would you like
the Korean people to take away from your book?
Ueno:
The Japanese government
used the victims of the North Korean abduction to promote Japanese nationalism.
The ianfu issue is also used as a ground
for Korean nationalism by the Korean government. Nationalism is a way of
thinking that sets “us” against “them”. I would like to take this opportunity
to reiterate that you don’t have to be a nationalist to empathize with the victims
and fulfill your responsibility.
Adapted and
translated by Naoko Hirose.
[i] According
to Wikipedia, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono “acknowledged that the
Japanese Imperial Army had been involved, either directly or indirectly, in the
establishment of comfort
facilities. On top of that, the comfort women were recruited against
their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc., at times, administrative or
military personnel directly taking part in the recruitments and lived in misery
at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kono_Statement,
October 16, 2014)
[ii]
According to Wikipedia, the Japanese Society for History
Textbook Reform (新しい歴史教科書をつくる会 Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru Kai) is a group founded in December 1996[1] to promote a nationalistic view of Japanese history. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Society_for_History_Textbook_Reform,
October 24, 2014)
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