{"id":5256,"date":"2005-07-15T21:17:32","date_gmt":"2005-07-16T02:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.froginawell.net\/japan\/?p=98"},"modified":"2005-07-15T21:17:32","modified_gmt":"2005-07-16T02:17:32","slug":"new-museum-to-focus-on-sexual-slavery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/2005\/07\/new-museum-to-focus-on-sexual-slavery\/","title":{"rendered":"New Museum to Focus on Sexual Slavery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Japan Times reports<\/a> that there is to be a new museum, opening next month, which will focus on wartime sexual slavery. The museum is called “The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace” (Anyone have links to Japanese news reports on this?) and will display materials and videos related to the issue in time for the 60th anniversary of the end of the war.<\/p>\n

This comes on the heels of the latest embarrassing contribution to the controversy by \u4e2d\u5c71\u6210\u5f6c<\/a> (Nakayama, Nariaki). He is the current Minister of Education and famous for a number of disturbing statements and his support for the removal of discussion of the issue in Japanese textbooks. In his most recent speech on the issue to make news, he spent some nine minutes reading out an email he received from a female Japanese graduate student studying in Canada. It seems that he wanted to emphasize that she agrees that the word now commonly used for comfort women, or \u5f93\u8ecd\u6170\u5b89\u5a66 didn’t exist at the time. Even the minister is not stupid enough to deny that there were comfort women at all, but to claim that this term didn’t exist is perhaps somehow supposed to support his crusade against teaching about sexual slavery during the war. You can find articles on this in the Japanese media online: Asahi<\/a>, Yomiuri<\/a>, Sankei<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Notice the different emphases in each article reporting on this. Asahi includes, and is the only one of the three newspapers to include this somewhat disturbing quote from the email:<\/p>\n

\u300c\u5f7c\u5973\u3089\u306b\u306f\u5927\u3044\u306b\u540c\u60c5\u3059\u3079\u304d\u3060\u304c\u3001\uff08\u610f\u306b\u53cd\u3057\u3066\u58f2\u6625\u3055\u305b\u3089\u308c\u305f\u306e\u306f\uff09\u53e4\u3044\u6642\u4ee3\u306e\u65e5\u672c\u306e\u8fb2\u6751\u3067\u898b\u3089\u308c\u305f\u60c5\u666f\u3068\u305d\u3046\u5909\u308f\u3089\u306a\u3044\u300d\u300c\u6226\u5730\u306b\u3042\u308b\u4e0d\u5b89\u5b9a\u306a\u7537\u306e\u5fc3\u3092\u306a\u3060\u3081\u3001\u4e00\u5b9a\u306e\u4f11\u606f\u3068\u79e9\u5e8f\u3092\u3082\u305f\u3089\u3057\u305f\u5b58\u5728\u3068\u8003\u3048\u308c\u3070\u3001\u30d7\u30e9\u30a4\u30c9\u3092\u6301\u3063\u3066\u53d6\u308a\u7d44\u3080\u3053\u3068\u304c\u51fa\u6765\u308b\u8077\u696d\u3060\u3063\u305f\u3068\u3044\u3046\u8a00\u3044\u65b9\u3082\u51fa\u6765\u308b\u300d\u3068\u3082\u8ff0\u3079\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3068\u3044\u3046\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The student apparently wants the comfort women, and thus presumably also the sexual slaves (\u610f\u306b\u53cd\u3057\u3066\u58f2\u6625\u3055\u305b\u3089\u308c\u305f) among them, to take pride in their work providing “comfort” for the unsettled hearts of the soldiers on the battlefield. Yomiuri notes her denial that the term now common existed at the time and adds this quote:<\/p>\n

\u300c\uff08\u5f93\u8ecd\u6170\u5b89\u5a66\u3068\u3044\u3046\u8a00\u8449\u306f\uff09\u4e00\u90e8\u306e\u65e5\u672c\u4eba\u304c\u81ea\u8650\u7684\u306b\u3082\u6226\u5f8c\u306b\u4f5c\u3063\u305f\u3002\u308f\u3056\u308f\u3056\u30a4\u30e1\u30fc\u30b8\u306e\u60aa\u3044\u8a00\u8449\u3092\u4f5c\u3063\u3066\u3001\u3053\u3068\u3055\u3089\u60aa\u4e8b\u306e\u3088\u3046\u306b\u9a12\u3050\u306e\u306f\u4e0d\u601d\u8b70\u3060\u300d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am not entirely clear on how exactly having some other name for massive institutionalized prostitution which included sexual slavery will somehow create a less evil image. True to form, Sankei dwells on this issue a little more, including the aforementioned quote and adding a few more, including:<\/p>\n

\u4e2d\u56fd\u3084\u97d3\u56fd\u306e\u53cd\u767a\u306b\u5bfe\u3057\u300c\u56fd\u76ca\u306b\u6cbf\u3063\u3066\u53cd\u65e5\u3092\u5229\u7528\u3057\u3001\u56fd\u5185\u3092\u306a\u3060\u3081\u3064\u3064\u3001\u3068\u308a\u3042\u3048\u305a\u3054\u306d\u3066\u307f\u308b\u4f5c\u6226\u3002\uff08\u4e2d\u56fd\u3084\u97d3\u56fd\u306b\uff09\u305f\u3060\u982d\u3092\u4e0b\u3052\u308b\u306e\u3067\u306f\u653f\u6cbb\u5bb6\u3068\u3057\u3066\u4e8c\u6d41\u3001\u4e09\u6d41\u300d\u3068\u3057\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002
\n\u3000\u4e2d\u5c71\u6587\u79d1\u76f8\u306f\uff16\u6708\u3001\u9759\u5ca1\u5e02\u3067\u958b\u304b\u308c\u305f\u30bf\u30a6\u30f3\u30df\u30fc\u30c6\u30a3\u30f3\u30b0\u3067\u300c\u5f93\u8ecd\u6170\u5b89\u5a66\u3068\u3044\u3046\u8a00\u8449\u306f\u5f53\u6642\u306a\u304b\u3063\u305f\u3002\u9593\u9055\u3063\u305f\u8a18\u8ff0\u304c\u6559\u79d1\u66f8\u304b\u3089\u306a\u304f\u306a\u3063\u3066\u3088\u304b\u3063\u305f\u300d\u3068\u8ff0\u3079\u305f\u304c\u3001\u6170\u5b89\u5a66\u306e\u5b58\u5728\u3084\u82e6\u75db\u306f\u5426\u5b9a\u3057\u3066\u3044\u306a\u3044\u3002<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here Sankei is adding her thoughts on the reaction of China and Korea, playing the history card to serve their own national interests, and criticizing Japanese politicians who refuse to be defiant. Providing some additional context, Sankei adds that Nakayama said in June that he was glad that comfort women had been removed from the textbooks since the word didn’t exist at the time. While I’m not sure what terms were or were not used during the war, note the connection being made between a squabble about the term – and discussion in textbooks of the important issue to which this term refers (according to various reports, the issue has made a mass disappearance from many if not all the major textbooks that are coming out this year).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Japan Times reports that there is to be a new museum, opening next month, which will focus on wartime sexual slavery. The museum is called “The Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace” (Anyone have links to Japanese news reports on this?) and will display materials and videos related to the issue in time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[119,181,187,194,84,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-japanese","category-memory","category-politics","category-war","category-206"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9yoH3-1mM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}