On Wednesday, July 1, 2015, Yong Yoon and I rode the Seoul subway to Anguk Station, got out and walked a few blocks, turned left at the Somerset Hotel and joined a group of about 70 people who were having a lively demonstration across the street from the Japanese embassy. This was the 1,185th consecutive weekly demonstration, the first having taken place on January 8, 1992. The reason for such sustained passion is the plight of the so-called comfort women. I refer to the approximately 140,000 women and girls (80 percent Korean) whom the Japanese military enticed or coerced into sexual slavery during World War II. It is an issue that continues to bedevil Korean-Japanese relations because of Nippon’s stubborn refusal to take ownership of these crimes. There have been apologies of sorts over the last few decades, but they fall short from the perspective of most Koreans.
This demonstration, on a blue-sky summer day, had a set agenda that included speeches and a little song-and-dance by some youngsters that provided levity to an otherwise grim matter. All of the speeches were in Korean except one, by a professor at a university in New York. I did not catch his name or that of the institution where he taught, but I can tell you this: I have never heard weaker comments. He made no reference to the fact that the Japanese had forced so many women to “service” their soldiers during the war. In fact, he did not even say the word “Japan.” Rather than offend the Japanese—heaven forbid—he went out of his way to compliment the students who did the above-mentioned musical number. Dr. New York just blandly spoke of "the situation here in east Asia." That was his perspective, and he is welcome to it.
I saw Mr. Yoon meander down near the front, hand a note to the young woman who was in charge of the gathering and direct her attention to me. A couple of minutes later, she mentioned my name, said I was from Texas and pointed to me. Most of the people turned and looked, and a few offered obligatory applause. However, I was not invited to speak. Too bad, because I would have welcomed the opportunity. My comments would have been in sharp contrast to those of the mealy-mouthed prof from New York. Here is what I might have said:
Thank you for the chance to speak. First of all, I want to acknowledge the presence of one halmoni [proper name for surviving “comfort women”]. We respect you and admire you for your beauty and resilience.
There are today fewer than 60 elderly women alive who had the experience of being forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese in those dark times. Ten years from now, there may be none so conveying our message to the Japanese is a matter of increasing urgency. Again we call on Tokyo to issue an unequivocal apology for what it did and to pay reparations. The terms of the 1965 treaty re-establishing diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan are not nearly sufficient. For one thing, the issue of the “comfort women” was well hidden at that time and stayed so until 1991 when a few of them, led by Kim Hak-Sun, courageously began to speak out.
Look across the street at the Japanese embassy. You will notice that the blinds on all the windows are down. This is indicative of the Japanese attitude toward the issue; their eyes are intentionally closed, and they do not want to see or be reminded of the criminal behavior of their military in the 1930s and 1940s. They are rightfully ashamed.
For many years, they rested on plausible deniability. There was no proof, they claimed, that Japan set up a massive sexual slavery ring to provide their soldiers with “comfort." What a euphemism! Let me tell you why the Japanese thought they would be able to escape history's condemnation. Barely a mile from here is the site of the former Government-General Building, a symbol of Japanese imperialism. This massive edifice took 10 years to build and was completed in 1926, and to allow that Gyeongbok Palace was demolished. As you all know, the Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945. But the American military did not take control of Seoul until September 9. Thus, the Japanese had 25 days to destroy incriminating evidence about the “comfort women” and other matters during their brutal 36-year colonial rule. Anything that might have been useful in, say, war crimes trials was put to the flame. Massive amounts of paper were shoved into the furnaces of the Government-General Building and elsewhere before the U.S. arrived. The burning went on 24 hours a day, non-stop. The cinders were probably still smoldering when a ceremony took place in which the detested Japanese flag was brought down in front of the building, and Emperor Hirohito’s men were told to pack their bags and get out of town.
We are fortunate that a few documents here and there survived. They have been backed by the testimony of Japanese soldiers and those they victimized. Although not as comprehensive as we might like, they clearly show that Japan was guilty of establishing and operating more than 2,000 military brothels in Shanghai, Saigon, Manila, Jakarta, Rangoon, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Borneo and elsewhere during World War II.
I will conclude by saying that it is not my intention to demonize Japan. Some of the scholars who have most vigorously sought to unearth the facts have been Japanese, like Senda Kakou, Yoshimi Yoshiaki and Wada Haruki. They are not intimidated by right-wing nationalists who deny or seek to soften the accusations about the “comfort women.” It is right and proper to have compassion for suffering caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but let us not conflate the issues. Far better it would have been for Japan to open up its archives, confess and tell the world the awful truth a long time ago.
Thank you.
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