Monday, December 28, 2015

cold comfort


South Korea and Japan reached a landmark agreement on Monday to resolve the issue of "comfort women", as those who were forced to work in Japan's wartime brothels were euphemistically known, which has long plagued ties between the neighbors.
The foreign ministers of the two countries said after a meeting in Seoul that the "comfort women" issue would be "finally and irreversibly resolved" if all conditions were met.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to take the opportunity to boost bilateral ties soon after the agreement by the foreign ministers.

 "Finally and irreversibly resolved." What fool would believe such a thing, whether slave or slave-driver? Cruelty cannot be erased. Nobility cannot cure it. Beware the noble (wo)man. "Closure" is a dream. There are awful things and that's the beginning and end of it ... awful. What is awful is not ameliorated by admission, but "awful" is better off admitted and embraced than shunned and soothed. The "past" is always only "sort of the past."



2 comments:

  1. Add a "never" and a "sometimes" to that "always, only, sort of" and you've nailed "part of" my world... "kinda".

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  2. Hello.
    Firstly, Japanese Government does not acknowledge that there was forced removal of comfort women by the Japanese military.
    Most of these women became comfort women of their own volition. Sadly, a small percentage of the women were tricked into working by Korean brokers. (Most recruitment agencies and brothels were run by Koreans. And these women were well paid from Korean brothels, not from Japanese army or Govt. Women were paid much more than Japanese soldiers and some woman bought several houses in Tokyo.)
    Some of women changed their testimonies many times after it was decided to offer pensions to comfort women.
    Prostitution was legal back then (and is still legal in some countries today) and the Japanese Government only paid the settlement because of its current values towards women.
    Please stop trying to give the impression that Japan is at fault by putting up pictures that have nothing to do with the facts.
    Please do proper research before writing.
    The second picture from the bottom is from a Chinese propaganda film, and the women with a board around her neck is a treatment for Chinese or Korean criminals, which has nothing to do with Japan.

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