If an apology is not followed by contrition and self-reflection, but instead by gloating--“we apologized, so that ought to shut'em up”--does that apology mean anything? That is the core question that the Korean public is facing with respect to the recent agreement regarding Comfort Women between Korea and Japan.
On December 29, 2015, South Korea and Japan reached an agreement under which the Comfort Women issue was considered "finally and irreversibly" resolved. Under the agreement, the Japanese government issued a statement that read:
The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women, and the Government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities from this perspective.
As Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister Abe expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.
In addition to this statement, the Japanese government pledged to contribute one billion yen (~USD 8.3 million), out of the Japanese government's budget, to a foundation established by the Korean government, whose funding will go toward assisting the surviving Comfort Women.
This agreement sounds fairly good on its face. But the Korean public is generally unhappy with it, with many good reasons. First among the reasons is that the actual victims, namely the surviving Comfort Women, were completely shut out from the negotiation of the agreement. The 46 surviving Comfort Women were not even aware that the Korean government is negotiating for this agreement; they did not learn of this agreement until the media reported it. In a cruel irony, the surviving Comfort Women were initially confused by a sudden flood of congratulatory messages from international organizations, which mistakenly believed that the surviving Comfort Women managed to reach an accord with the Japanese government.
Ultimately, the surviving Comfort Women are unhappy with the agreement for the same reason as the Korean public's: the obvious phoniness of the apology. Normally, an apology is a recognition of past wrongdoing, followed by a period of contrition and self-reflection. In this instance, however, neither the Japanese government nor Prime Minister Shinzo Abe showed any self-reflection about how Imperial Japan brutally kidnapped, raped and murdered hundreds of thousands of women under the vile euphemism of "Comfort Women." Instead, Abe followed up the agreement with triumphant gloating,
as he stated: "there will be no future reference at all to this issue [the Comfort Women issue]. We will not raise it in the next Japan-Korea summit meeting. This is the end. There will be no more apology."
Only an idiot would believe that Shinzo Abe, son of a suspected Class A war criminal in the post-WWII Tokyo Tribunal, would feel sorry about Comfort Women. Yet the length that his administration traveled to display the hollowness of this apology is nonetheless impressive in a twisted way. Even as it was issuing an apology, the Japanese government demanded that Korea remove a Comfort Women memorial statue in front if the Japanese embassy in Seoul. Although this demand was not formalized into an agreement,
Japanese officials are already telling the media that the Japanese government would not pay the fund in the agreement unless the memorial statue was removed.
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Comfort Women memorial statue, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
(source) |
Speaking of the payment:
the Japanese government strenuously denies that the money is a legal reparation for the damages that the Comfort Women suffered. This is consistent with Japan's position on Comfort Women thus far: that it did not violate any law in conscripting Korean women into forced sex slavery. Because Japan does not think it committed any crime, there is no damage to recompense as far as it is concerned.
(If you were curious: the surviving Comfort Women receive a pension from the Korean government, and they do not need the money. One of the points that the Comfort Women have consistently made is that any money paid by Japan should be an expression of its legal responsibility.)
So this is what we have: a statement of apology, followed by gloating. An acceptance of responsibility, followed by denial of legal responsibility. A pledge to pay money as an apologia, followed by the demand to erase the crime from the public memory.
This is another rendition of Japan's playbook with respect to its war crimes. In its heart of hearts, Japan steadfastly believes that it did nothing wrong leading up to and during World War II. Was Imperial Japan wrong to colonize Korea and China? No--Japan was only trying to protect Asia from European powers. Was Imperial Japan wrong to bomb Pearl Harbor? No--the United States forced Japan's hand by setting up a trade embargo. Was Imperial Japan wrong to kidnap hundred of thousands of women--many of whom were no more than 13, 14 years old--and force them into sexual slavery, to be raped by dozens of soldiers every day? No--war is bad for everyone, and at any rate, Comfort Women are lying whores who volunteered to join the war effort.
This sick and disgusting worldview is so deeply rooted into the Japanese consciousness that any Japanese statement to the contrary is no more than a cynical bargaining chip, tossed in order to lower the heat of international outrage directed at the worldview's heinousness. Because Japan (and in particular, Japan's conservatives led by the current prime minister) cannot bring itself to mean what it says, Japan must always follow up its statements with a series of attempts to run away from them as quickly as possible.
Question, then, is: what should Korea and Koreans do about this?
(More after the jump)
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