1000th Wednesday Protest, and a Comfort Woman's Story

[the_gabih]

First, a little bit of background. As many of the readers know, although the Japanese government recognized its responsibility for Imperial Japan's hand in forcibly recruiting Comfort Women, the Japanese government has not yet made any compensation out of government funds.

Some of the surviving Comfort Women in Korea -- there are only 63 of them,

Comments

[chaya]

These stories always make me want to cry. When I first heard about these stories in the Vagina Monologues I nearly fell apart.

[imnotasquirrel]

Japan's just biding its time until all of the survivors die, I'm sure.

I saw this on aramatheydidnt and, against my better judgment, clicked on the post. NEVER AGAIN.

[poddleduck]

Wow, I really shouldn't have gone and looked that post up! So many people using my least favorite defense, which is "Well, Country X hasn't fully apologized for their horrible actions, but Country Y hasn't fully apologized for their shit either!" Yo, if you can see why Country Y ought to apologize then you should be able to understand why Country X needs to.

[imnotasquirrel]

Yeah, like the person who put up the long-ass comparison between South Korea and Vietnam.

[tifa]

ohgod...i shouldn't have. i did but i shouldn't have. i'll just chime in on how stupid commenters can be.

[pommedeterre]

This makes my heart hurt.

[aiffe]

I teared up reading this.

Seriously, how hard is an apology? I can't imagine being so cold-hearted to these women after what they've been through.

[the_gabih]

They have apologised for what happened to the woman, technically speaking. But basically the apology was more 'we're sorry these terrible things happened to you' rather than 'we're sorry our state did these things to you'- they've worded them in such a way as to imply no legal obligation to make amends on their behalf, which, as you can imagine, the survivors aren't happy with.

There's technically a fund, too, but again, it's comprised of funds from private donors rather than the government, so very few women have accepted it. It's Japan's way of saying 'well we tried to help, you just wouldn't accept it!'

[aiffe]

*nod* So basically, they just need to admit they were wrong. [The Japanese government.]

When it's as clear-cut as this, again, I can't see how that is hard. I don't see how any person with a conscience could look at this and say the Japanese government wasn't at fault. And it should actually be easier to apologize now, since they're basically apologizing for the actions of those who came before them--I doubt anyone in public office in 2011 was also serving back in WWII. How hard is it to say, "They were wrong, but we're going to try to make amends now"?

[homasse]

They still have their fingers in their ears about Nanking, Unit 731, the Bataan Death March, human vivisection experiments performed on POWs in Japan. Why would this be different? As far as the government is concerned, this was all officially handled in 1965, so they're in the clear and have done everything they were required to do.

[mrasaki]

Thank you for posting this. I feel like many people handwave Japan's atrocities because of the current ~omg everything Japan so so awesome~ trend, and this is something that must never, ever be forgotten.