Sunday, April 01, 2007

The Japanese' Incredible Ability to Forget Their Past - Update 3

The process for publishing a textbook in Japan is the following: first, publishers write a draft of a textbook. Then the textbook has to be "approved" by the Ministry of Education. MoE may outright refuse to approve the book, or approve the book subject to modification.

Out of the 16 new history textbooks for Japanese high school students, not one of them says that Comfort Women were forcibly drafted by the Japanese military. Also, modification requirement was added on to 5 Japanese History textbooks with respect to the number of deaths in the Rape of Nanking, with the MoE opinion that states "the number did not take various different theories as to casualties into enough consideration."

10 comments:

  1. yeah the nips havent really faced up to their past (and probably never will) but South Koreans can't really say too much either

    The Korean brotherhoods/gangsters/mafia were instrumental in helping to smuggle war materiel (esp iron ore) from Korea to Japan during WW2

    Lots and lots of Koreans served in the Japanese armed forces during the war

    Even after the war, Koreans used to march in downtown Seoul in their old japanese army uniforms

    basically what I'm sayin is that the occupation of the Korean peninsula wouldn't have been possible without the co-operation of a sizable chunk of the Korean population

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  2. No shit genius. Are you also the type who tells a rape victim, "well, you probably should not have hung out in that neighborhood with that dress on"?

    Simply put, you can't blame a country for having its common people acting in a common way. Only the most inspired, most heroic people can stand up against injustice at the risk of torture and killing. Being in the army during the war often is the only job that a man can get, and common people need jobs to live.

    And you certainly can't blame the country for its lowly people acting in a lowly way. Please don't try to grace the dumb thugs by calling them "brotherhoods" or whatever glorified name. The Korean would not even be surprised if there were some Korean thugs who were involved in conscripting Comfort Women. Does that somehow diminish the fact that Comfort Women were kidnapped against their will to serve as sex slaves to the Japanese army?

    Bottom line is this. Was Japan wrong invading and annexing other countries? Yes. Was Japan responsible for committing various heinous war crimes? Certainly. Unless you can dispute that bottom line, please shut the fuck up and let the non-dumb people do the talking.

    ReplyDelete
  3. listen kid

    chill out

    I am not trying to minimize nip culpability

    but South Koreans have this tendency to forget all about their own involvement in the matter

    read this: http://news.naver.com/hotissue/ranking_read.php?section_id=102&ranking_type=popular_day&office_id=052&article_id=0000147851&date=20070407&seq=8

    as for the "lowly" gangsters, you have to remember that a lot of the organizations started out as secret pro-Korean patriotic organizations during the occupation

    you seem to not understand that a lot of South Koreans had a vested interest in supporting the japanese occupation eg Koreans that worked for the japanese police, which hunted down and executed Korean patriots

    the relationship between Korea and japan is at best ambiguous

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  5. ur comment page cuts off the url so:

    "위안부 가해성 책임 한국에도 있다"
    [YTN TV 2007-04-06 20:36]

    [앵커멘트]

    한 한국인 대학 교수가 일제의 위안부 동원 과정에서 한국인도 관여한 사실이 있다며 가해성에 대한 책임은 한국에도 있다고 주장해 파문이 일고 있습니다.

    이 교수는 특히 한국 사회가 위안부 문제의 진실과 그에 대한 일본의 태도에 대해 제대로 이해하지 못하고 있다고 지적했습니다.

    도쿄에서 윤경민 특파원입니다.

    [리포트]

    지난 달 말로 해산된 일본의 아시아 여성기금과 관련해 도쿄 주재 외국 특파원 클럽에 초청된 박유하 세종대 교수는 먼저 이 기금의 성격에 대해 한국인들이 잘 모르고 있다고 지적했습니다.

    [녹취:박유하, 세종대 교수]

    "(일본)정부가 관련했고 수상의 편지가 붙어 있는 단순하지만 상당히 상징적인 것인데, 그조차 일반적으로 알려져 있지 않습니다."

    박 교수는 그러면서 한국에서는 위안부의 실상이 제대로 이해되지 않은 채 오해를 사고 있다고 주장했습니다.

    [녹취:박유하, 세종대 교수]

    "(위안부) 동원 과정에서 한국인도 관여한 사실이 있습니다. 그런 가해성에 대한 책임은 확실히 한국에도 있다고 생각합니다."

    특히 자신이 인터뷰한 한 한국인 위안부 피해 여성은 당시 의붓 아버지에 의해 팔려갔고 일본군보다 아버지가 더 밉다고 말했다고 소개하기도 했습니다.



    또 위안부 문제는 일본군만의 전용물이 아니었다는 시각도 드러냈습니다.

    [녹취:박유하, 세종대 교수]

    "한국전쟁 때 한국군도 위안대를 운영했다는 사실, 연구가 나왔습니다."

    박 교수는 이어 위안부 동원에 있어 좁은 의미의 강제성은 없었다는 아베 총리의 발언을 충분히 이해한다면서 마치 그것이 위안부가 전혀 없었다는 것처럼 받아들여지는 것에 대해 유감스럽다고 말했습니다.

    박 교수는 자신이 한국의 책임 등을 이야기한다고 해서 일본의 가해 사실이 엷어지는 것은 아니라면서 그렇지만 그런 사실을 앎으로써 한국 내 일본 비판의 내용이 바뀌어 갈 것이라고 밝혔습니다.

    회견에 함께 한 와다 하루키 도쿄대 명예교수는 지난 95년 창설된 아시아 여성기금은 일본 정부와 국민이 50년 만에 상처 입은 아시아 여성에 대한 사죄와 보상의 길에 나선 것이라고 평가하고 그러나 사업이 중도에서 끝나 한일 간 화해는 충분히 이뤄지지 않았다고 지적했습니다.

    도쿄에서 YTN 윤경민입니다.

    [저작권자(c) YTN & Digital YTN. 무단 전재-재배포 금지]

    ReplyDelete
  6. what did I just tell you about letting only non-dumb people talk by shutting up? With people like you the Korean has to explain over and over again, and the Korean has no time for this.

    Do you want to talk about Korean people's own culpability? Fine, here is an example. Have you ever picked on a weaker person by grabbing his arm, smacking him with his own arm, while asking "why are you hitting yourself? why are you hitting yourself?"

    Korean people who collaborated with the Japanese are about as culpable as that arm. Imperial Japan took over Korea wrongfully, and they were the rulers. And generally, except for the most heroic people, people will follow whatever the ruler tells them. The Korean has no delusion about that fact. Not everyone can be Yoo Guan-soon. Is Japanese Occupation partially Korean people's fault because not every single Korean rose up against Imperial Japan, risking their lives all throughout the 36 years of occupation?

    Put it in a different situation, and you will quickly see why your statement is completely stupid. Are black slaves responsible for their own fate because some of them helped slave owners manage other slaves? Are Aztecs responsible for their own fate because some of them copped out and helped the conquistadores?

    In all of the cases above, THE WRONGFUL DEED SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE. You are still blaming the rape victim about her choice of clothes. You can say all you want about "not trying to minimize nips culpability", but when you say anything about the victim's fault of the crime, you in fact minimize the perpetrator's culpability by taking the focus of the discussion away from where it should be.

    ReplyDelete
  7. kid... stop being emotional

    my point is that a lot of Koreans are just as culpable as the japanese when it comes to these issues

    its a facet of Korean history that has yet to be honestly faced by the South Korean people (the North Koreans on the other hand shot all of the collaborators they could find)

    a matter that complicates the issue is that many sons and daughters of the collaborators in SK ended up with a lot of cash and thus political influence

    so u have this weird political dynamic in SK

    where a lot of the poor are truly pro-Korean and the wealthy have very strong ties to japan (ever looked under the hood of a Samsung car? yup! thats a nissan engine and drive train you see)

    ReplyDelete
  8. shit, the Korean forgot this train of comments because he's been busy, but here is a final rejoinder. (Because it's my site and I can do whatever I damn well please.)

    My point is that colonial Korean collaborators, except for a few people, are not culpable at all. And the fact that you are pushing culpability is really pissing me off.

    Your talk about NK is one of the biggest delusions that left-leaning Korean history scholars have. It was people who got in the way of Kim Il-Sung who got shot, not the collaborators. Sure, often they were one and the same. But wiping off collaborators hardly put NK on a morally superior ground.

    History is a complicated thing, and blindly assigning fault without looking at the whole picture is irresponsible and dangerous. The very same sons and daughters of the collaborators are often the ones who gave their lives protecting the nascent democracy in SK. Without then, neither me, you, or any Korean has a luxury of sitting on our computers and idly chatting away like this.

    So here is my last word - SHUT THE FUCK UP. The most dangerous person in the world is the person who only read one book, and you are personifying it right now.

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  9. Re the comments above: I admit I initially had some doubts, but yep, you're Korean alright.

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  10. above comments by Johnny are perfect examples of "minimizing the perpetrator's culpability" (usually they are whites) Example: (LA Riot, white vs blacks) American News channels started to show in media of Korean store owners with assault rifles stating "Koreans showing off their guns in LA riots"

    ReplyDelete

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