http://www.eastwestcenter.org/events/giving-voice-the-comfort-women-issue-american-issue
Where: 1819 L St, NW, Washington, DC. Sixth Floor Conference Room
When: Sep 25 2014 - 12:00pm - Sep 25 2014 - 1:30pm
What:
Giving Voice: The “Comfort Women” Issue as an American Issue
An Asia Pacific Seminar featuring:
Dr. Mary M. McCarthy
Visiting Fellow, East-West Center in Washington
Associate Professor, Drake University
Dr. Daqing Yang (Discussant)
Associate Professor and Director, Asian Studies Program, George Washington University
Dr. Mary McCarthy discusses how the comfort women issue has been taken up by Asian Diasporas in the United States.
Despite the passage of almost seven decades since the end of World War II, the issue of sexual slavery and the Imperial Japanese armed forces remains not only unresolved, but of increasing concern in East Asia and the United States. For the US, this is due to the fact that not only does the lack of resolution disrupt national security goals through the serious challenges it poses for US-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation, but it has become a point of contention in the US domestic political sphere as well. This is clearly viewed through the 2007 passage of House Resolution 121, which called on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for the use of “comfort women” during WWII, as well as the proliferation of “comfort women” memorials throughout the US since 2010.
In this seminar, Dr. Mary M. McCarthy analyzed how and why this subject resonates with people in the US today across ethnic and generational lines. She discussed the present-day meanings attached to this issue, by a diversity of actors, as a leading cause of both its intransigence and its appeal. She further examined the domestic politics, identity formation processes, and geopolitical contexts that help to form the varied voices that seek to be heard on the “comfort women” issue.
For more images, please visit the album for this event on the East-West Center's Flickr page.
Dr. Mary M. McCarthy is a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, and an associate professor of politics and international relations at Drake University in Des Moines, IA. She received her B.A. in East Asian studies and her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. Dr. McCarthy specializes in Japan’s domestic and foreign policies. She has published on topics including the Japanese media, and cooperation and conflict between Japan and China in the East China Sea. Her current research examines the historical legacies of the Asia-Pacific War on Japan’s foreign relations. She is also a Mansfield Foundation US-Japan Network for the Future Scholar.
Primary Contact Info:
Name: Grace Ruch Clegg
Email: dcevents@eastwestcenter.org
Phone: 202-327-9762
Link: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/On1
Michael Yon
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/09/16/national/history/seoul-group-releases-comfort-women-interviews-1993-apology/#.VFTLeDSsVsh
Group releases ‘comfort women’ interviews from before 1993 apology
KYODO, STAFF REPORT
SEP 16, 2014
ARTICLE HISTORY
PRINT SHARE
SEOUL – A Seoul-based group has released footage of interviews conducted by the Japanese government with victims of forced sexual slavery in World War II to produce the 1993 apology known as the Kono Statement.
“We want the public to see that there is evidence,” a representative of the Association for the Pacific War Victims said Monday at a news conference.
The interviews took place in the association’s office in July 1993, before then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono released the statement the following month.
The statement was the first official admission of Japanese military involvement in the forced recruitment of mostly Asian females to work as “comfort women” in brothels for soldiers.
At the time the group agreed with the Japanese government not to make the videos public, but it has now decided to do so because “(Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe’s government has done severe damage to the Kono Statement,” a representative said.
In the video, two women describe being grabbed by the arms and taken away by a Japanese police officer and a Korean man, and having their arms twisted because they “didn’t cooperate.”
Though 16 women were originally interviewed, the association released only 17 minutes of footage showing the two women because some of the others have yet to speak publicly about their experiences.
In June, a Japanese government panel released a report on the circumstances surrounding the drafting of the Kono Statement. The report stated that interviews with comfort women were intended to learn what they felt and did not delve into the facts behind their testimony.
The study was welcomed by conservatives in Japan but criticized by South Korea and the United States.
In Tokyo on Tuesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga described the release of the footage as “very regrettable.”
“The interviews were conducted on the condition that they would not be made public. . . . It’s difficult to understand why (the group) released only some part (of the video), and it’s very regrettable,” Suga told a regularly scheduled press briefing.
http://www.sankei.com/column/news/141101/clm1411010007-n1.html
古森義久 慰安婦問題、米から支援の声
（1/3ページ）
マイケル・ヨン氏といえば、全米で知られたフリーのジャーナリストである。２００３年からの米軍のイラク介入で前線に長期滞在し、迫真の報道と論評で声価をあげた。０９年ごろからはアフガニスタンでも同様に活動し、米国内での知名度をさらに高めた。名前からアジア系を連想させるが、祖先は欧州系、数世代が米国市民だという。
ヨン氏のリポートは米紙ウォールストリート・ジャーナル、ニューヨーク・タイムズや雑誌多数に掲載され、大手テレビ各局でも放映された。「イラクの真実の時」といった著書なども話題を集めてきた。
そんな著名な米国のジャーナリストが日本の慰安婦問題の調査に本格的に取り組み始めた。米国、日本、韓国、タイ、シンガポールなどでの取材をすでにすませた段階で、ヨン氏は「米欧大手メディアの『日本軍が組織的に女性を強制連行して性的奴隷にした』という主張は作り話としか思えない」と明言する。
ヨン氏はこの趣旨の調査報告をまもなく米国系のメディアで公表するというが、自分自身のホームページでは「慰安婦問題での日本糾弾は特定の政治勢力の日本叩（たた）きだ」とまで断言する。慰安婦問題での世紀の冤罪（えんざい）を晴らそうとする日本の対外発信の試みにとっても、やっと一条の光が米国側から差してきたようだ。
そのヨン氏と１０月前半、２回にわたって東京で会った。慰安婦問題などの情報や意見の交換ということで、かなりの時間をかけて話し合った。日本では慰安婦問題の研究や調査の関係者多数に会い、日本側の資料にもあたったという。
米国でも、国立公文書館での資料調査やグレンデール市の慰安婦像設置の経過取材などを済ませたとのことだった。
「日本軍が組織的に２０万の女性を強制連行して性的奴隷にしたというのならば、国家犯罪となるが、そんな事実は出ていない」
「どの時代でも軍隊に売春はつきものであり、日本の慰安婦も大多数は普通の意味の売春婦だったのだろう」
「それでもなお、『日本軍の強制連行による性的奴隷』と断じる主張は政治的意図のにじむ捏造（ねつぞう）であり、日本を同盟国の米国や韓国と離反させるための日本叩きだろう」
ヨン氏のこうした主張は、米陸軍の１９４４年のビルマでの慰安婦尋問書や日本の新聞の慰安婦募集広告の検証の結果だともいう。その上で同氏は現代の日本について以下のようにも述べるのだった。
「現在の日本ほど人道主義、民主主義、平和主義に徹した国は全世界でも珍しい。米国にとっても貴重な同盟国だ。であるのに米側が慰安婦問題で日本を叩くのは敵性勢力を強め、友邦を弱めることに等しい」
ヨン氏は、オバマ政権が安倍晋三首相の靖国参拝を非難したことも日本側の慣行への干渉だからおかしいとして、「自国の戦死者の霊に弔意を捧（ささ）げることは万国共通であり、戦犯という概念もその当事者が死ねばなくなるはずだ」と語る。
ヨン氏自身も１０月中旬、靖国神社を参拝した。今度は各国の元軍人たちに呼びかけて、集団で靖国参拝をしたいともいう。米国側にこうした意見が存在することは日本側の官民も改めて認識すべきだろう。（ワシントン駐在客員特派員）
(mochi thinking)
i guess that the issue of "the victims of comfort women for japan empire" is not more than an error by historical misinterpretation, just the problem of the information warfare.
it would be the key that as the same as the reason to entry into the WW2 for US and japan,we should resolve the course of making the propaganda to start the war by mass media.
No comments:
Post a Comment