A formal apology must come before alliance with Japan

Posted on : 2012-06-26 11:23 KST Modified on : 2012-06-26 11:23 KST
[Editorial]

Nobuyuki Suzuki, the man who drove a stake into the ground by the statue of a young comfort woman in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, has reportedly declared plans to visit South Korea again. This is possible because the reaction from the South Korean government has been so tepid. Suzuki was traveling with lawmakers from the National Diet of Japan who were turned away at Gimpo Airport last August. The politicians had been planning to visit Dokdo.
We do not dispute the government's claims that this business is a bit of “noise marketing” on the part of ultra-right wing Japanese groups. The more ink this sort of thing gets, the more political weight these people will gain back home. But this is not the sort of thing Seoul should be turning a blind eye to, as it is doing now. For the past year or so, these right-wingers have been consistently ramping up their attacks against comfort women survivors. It is now to the point where they are coming onto our territory and pounding a nail into Korean pride, or attempting to repudiate our very sovereignty. The stake was a symbol of this.
Suzuki is head of an extreme right-wing political group in Japan called the New Wind Restoration Party. Him and his cronies have been claiming Dokdo for Japan or saying that the "East Asia War was a war of liberation." This time around, he called comfort women "prostitutes." This can never be forgotten so long as we have a nation and we have morality.
The drafting of women for sexual slavery is an example of Japan’s brutality during the colonial occupation of Korea. More than that, it is an unpardonable crime against humanity. Hundreds of thousands of girls between the ages of 13 and 16 were taken off to serve as sexual playthings for Japanese soldiers.
Even if he is a disturbed individual, this is not an insult that can simply be ignored. Not only that, but the targets of his outrageous acts have been the War & Women's Human Rights Museum and a statue that symbolizes the suffering of these women. Last year, Japanese right-wingers shocked members of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan by mailing them a photograph of a woman's genitals. While we have been pretending not to pay attention, they have been launching a serious attack on the pride and spirit of all Koreans. As upsetting as it is to witness these assaults, the most distressing thing is the government's feigned ignorance.
Yet the South Korean government is now developing a military partnership, an alliance even, with Japan, which has refused to acknowledge the truth of its crimes. Seoul is supporting the overseas deployment of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the proliferation of armaments. In doing so, it is fulfilling a longstanding dream of the same Japanese right-wingers who called for the subjugation of Korea. This inevitably makes us look like pushovers, and it's the reason we're seeing more of these atrocious acts against comfort women.
The way to stop this from happening again is to get an official apology from the Japanese government on the comfort women issue. The time has passed for talk of "noise marketing." Our government has been insulted enough. It needs to demand a formal apology, even if it has to put our relationship with Tokyo on the line. Maybe the government doesn't mind being toyed with by Japan's far right, but we cannot allow this fate to befall the South Korean people and surviving comfort women.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]


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