Written by Mallory Strider, May 2016.<\/p>\n
Carol Gluck eloquently states in her essay \u201cOperations of Memory: \u2018Comfort Women\u2019 and the World\u201d that World War II was \u201ca total war that demanded total mobilization and a kind of total memory, from which no one was meant to be exempt.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0At its core, this \u201ctotality\u201d was plural in nature with its divisions falling along national lines, and in its great scope and intensity, the aftermath of World War II saw the rise of distinct national discourses of memory, hitherto unprecedented in the increasingly globalized community. \u00a0The emergence of these discourses arose partly as an extension of wartime exigencies; in the series of conflicts that spanned the globe, the viciousness of war placed extreme demands on countries\u2019 entire populations, whereby the need to rally support and \u201c[project an image of] national unity\u201d resulted in the appropriation and transformation of individual experiences into national symbols.<\/span><\/p>\n Stories of personal sacrifice, heroism and bravery, and the suffering of soldiers and civilians alike were used to exemplify and inculcate nationalistic values. \u00a0As countries and communities turned to face the momentous task of rebuilding after the war, instances of atrocities and travesties came to be emblematic of the victimization countries suffered at the hands of other belligerents. \u00a0As scholar C. Sarah Soh points out in her book <\/span>The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan<\/span><\/i>, discourse in Korea on the euphemistically named \u201ccomfort women\u201d saw the rise of a \u201cparadigmatic story\u201d which describes a system of sexual slavery wherein young virgin women were recruited into military sexual servitude through deception, coercion, or kidnapping. \u00a0Soh argues that this dominant narrative obscures not only the diversity of experiences of comfort women, but also the systemic structural violence that contributed both to the formation of the system as well as ongoing oppression throughout these women\u2019s lives. \u00a0\u00a0This transformational process of memory has served to further complicate an already convoluted issue, adding e issues such as reparations and diplomatic relations, and imbuing the discourse with an emotional tenor that hinders mutual understanding in favor of often nationalistic self-interests. \u00a0Addressing memory of World War II has proven especially challenging as the complexities are magnified by the intensity of the violence perpetrated during the war, as well as the dynamic nature of memory itself. \u00a0Amidst the clamor of contested histories, scholarship on memory has exploded and called attention to discourses that have historically been overshadowed by official state-sanctioned narratives. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Among the scholarship pertaining to the Asia-Pacific War, Takashi Yoshida\u2019s <\/span>The Making of the Rape of Nanking<\/span><\/i> stands out as a stunning historiographical reading of one of the most contentious events of World War II in East Asia. \u00a0Drawing from a wide variety of scholarly and non-scholarly texts, Yoshida highlights the fact that the highly contested debates over the meaning and memory of the massacre has led to \u201ca seemingly endless generation of written narratives and visual material.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0In tracing the evolution of discourse on the Nanjing Massacre, Yoshida calls attention to the influence that conservative commentators and the media have had on the discourse and understandings of the event. \u00a0\u201cHad there not been intense challenges from the revisionists,\u201d he argues, \u201cthe history and memory of the Nanjing Massacre might have remained a domestic issue rather than becoming an international symbol of Japan\u2019s wartime aggression.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0Yoshida\u2019s observations–about the proliferation of documents and the role of conservative \u201crevisionists\u201d–easily translate to the comfort women issue and bear significantly on contemporary issues of memory and redress.<\/span><\/p>\n It is within this context that the Japanese conservative newspaper <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i> published the book <\/span>History Wars: Japan–False Indictment of the Century,<\/span><\/i> under the pretense of \u201chelp[ing to] deepen understanding of the comfort women issue.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0Railing against \u201ccomfort women\u201d discourses that purportedly demean Japan, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> presents itself as a compilation of <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i>\u2019s efforts to answer how the current discourse arose, origins of false claims, and how they came to be so pervasive. \u00a0As a recent addition to the \u201ctext wars,\u201d <\/span>History Wars <\/span><\/i>stands out among conservative \u201cvernacular memory\u201d in the way that it undertakes a pseudo-historiographical approach, not unlike that of Yoshida (but to be sure, Yoshida\u2019s work is not pseudo-historiographical).<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0The short volume undertakes a broad reading of documents and events pertaining to and impacting the \u201ccomfort women\u201d discourses. \u00a0The authors of <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> demonstrate an acute awareness not only of how these texts were received and how they influenced comfort women discourses, but of the intertextual referencing that exists among the documents. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The majority of chapter 1 is devoted to an analysis and refutation of the Kono Statement, a highly contested piece of testimony released by a Japanese government official about the \u201ccomfort women\u201d nearly 50 years after the end of the war. \u00a0Issued on August 4, 1993 by Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei, the statement \u201cacknowledged the coercive nature of recruitment of comfort women\u2026 and\u2026 expressed heartfelt apology and regret to the comfort women.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0<\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i> alleges the statement \u201cspread misinformation to the world that \u2018the Japanese government had publicly acknowledged the coercive recruitment and sex slavery,\u2019 even though these allegations were groundless.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0<\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i>\u2019s refutation of the Kono Statement is central to the overall argument presented in <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0As a case study, <\/span>History Wars\u2019<\/span><\/i> discussion of the Kono Statement provides a useful example of the rhetorical style and method of argumentation used throughout the work and also touches on important and recurring themes of memory discourse. \u00a0Generally speaking, <\/span>History Wars <\/span><\/i>is inconsistently critical of sources and often partial in its critique of those documents and events. \u00a0The first chapter reflects how evidence and argument is employed in the broader scope of the book. \u00a0Analysis of the Kono Statement illustrates some of the problematic features found throughout the book: self-citation; disjointed and incomplete lines of reasoning; and inadequate partial analysis of documents and situations. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the forward, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> is described as a compilation of articles whose publication began in April 2014. \u00a0While the book actually assumes the format of an essay in four short chapters, the prefatory description nevertheless signals a self-referential tendency that recurs throughout the work. \u00a0This is particularly evident in its discussion of the Kono Statement. \u00a0In building its case against the credibility of the statement, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> focuses primarily on a series of selected interviews with former comfort women and on collaboration between the Japanese and Korean governments, both of which influenced the drafting of the Kono Statement and comprise the most developed points of refutation.<\/span><\/p>\n History Wars<\/span><\/i> takes up the issue of the comfort women interviews by citing a <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i> article published in October 2013 which reported on the interviews\u2019 contents. \u00a0A mere two paragraphs are devoted to the topic, the first of which reads as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Concerning preparation of the \u201cKono Statement,\u201d the Sankei Shimbun, in an October 2013 exclusive, reported the contents of surveys based interviews [sic] of 16 former comfort women in South Korea that had been kept secret by the government. \u00a0The article had the headlines and subtitles such as <\/span>\u201cSlipshod Survey: the former comfort women report\u201d<\/span><\/i>; <\/span>\u201cTestimonies including the names vague\u201d<\/span><\/i>; <\/span>\u201cWorked in regions that had no comfort stations\u201d<\/span><\/i>; and <\/span>\u201cThe \u2018Kono Statement\u2019: Evidence Crumbles.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the next paragraph, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> references the source that informed the article, a government document, claiming that it \u201cbrought to light the true situation surrounding the making of the \u2018Kono Statement\u2019\u201d and concludes with a second sentence that recapitulates, almost verbatim, the previously mentioned headlines.<\/span><\/p>\n The claim relies on headlines and subtitles to delegitimize the interviews, offering no concrete information from either the government report or <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i>\u2019s own articles. \u00a0It essentially gestures at documentary evidence without explaining its relevance or offering any analysis. \u00a0Ostensibly, the documents might support a legitimate argument, however <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> does not do the work of actually presenting any evidence to the reader. \u00a0Ultimately, the argument relies on <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i>\u2019s credibility. \u00a0What can only be described as a rhetorical failure is thus compounded by the fact that <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> makes no true effort to establish its own credibility. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The second line of reasoning used to discredit the Kono Statement centers on the collaboration between the Japanese and Korean governments in preparing the statement and here again, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> similarly introduces the topic through <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i> Shimbun<\/span><\/i> headlines. \u00a0In this case, however, the discussion expands beyond the summary list of findings to discuss contemporaneous responses to the articles cited in the essay. \u00a0By expanding the discussion here, the book opens itself up to critique of its arguments and lack of explanations in previous and later sections, as discussed earlier. \u00a0According to History Wars, the <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i> had conducted interviews with Former Administrative Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobuo Ishihara on three separate occasions prior to releasing its January 2014 expos\u00e9. \u00a0On these occasions, Ishihara purportedly denied the existence of objective evidence evincing government involvement in coercive recruiting tactics. \u00a0The articles of January 2014, which reported on the Japan-Korea collaboration, contested previous denials made by Kono and other officials. As a result \u00a0of the articles,<\/span> History Wars<\/span><\/i> alleges, Ishihara was summoned to testify before Lower House Budget Committee after which the Japanese government launched an investigation into the matter of collaboration.<\/span><\/p>\n The self-referential nature of the text is here accompanied by a self-congratulatory tone, which–though stylistically gauche–is bolstered by the claim that \u201cthe results of the experts\u2019 examination confirmed nearly all of the previous reporting concluded by the Sankei Shimbun up to that date.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0In corroborating <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i>\u2019s reporting with the findings of government-hired investigators, <\/span>History Wars <\/span><\/i>attempts to legitimize the articles it references; however, the effort falls short because of a recurring problem in argumentation: partial analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n History Wars<\/span><\/i> effectively undermines <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i>\u2019s credibility along with the legitimacy of their arguments by presenting incomplete and often disjointed lines of reasoning. \u00a0For instance, the discussion of Ishihara\u2019s testimony and the ensuing investigation is followed by the assertion that \u201cdue to the revelation of previously unacknowledged facts like this [e.g. that collaboration between the Japanese and Korean governments had occurred], the Japanese public became aware that the assertions by Koreans and others about the interpretation of this history turned out to be not just inaccurate, but also far from the truth.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0Not only does <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> fail to identify which specific assertions are ostensibly invalidated by the existence of collaboration, but the text does not explain the process by which the diplomatic collaboration renders the Kono Statement invalid. \u00a0The discourse instead jumps to the issue of reparations and the 1965 Japan-Korea Treaty on Basic Relations, and then turns to debates on the definition of \u201ccoercion.\u201d \u00a0It finally returns to the topic of collaboration in the next section \u201cJapan\u2019s Goodwill Betrayed,\u201d citing Ishihara\u2019s claim the Japanese officials involved in crafting the statement had believed the issue would be settled if they admitted coercion. \u00a0Ignoring the fact that this claim relies primarily on the testimony of a single individual (Ishihara), even if one were to take this as evidence that the Japanese government was coerced into issuing the statement, the discussion fails to engage at any point the opposing viewpoint. \u00a0Moreover, the disjointed structuring of the subject renders the already weak argument difficult to follow.<\/span><\/p>\n The problematic analytical style also makes itself apparent in the issue of comfort women interviews. \u00a0<\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> is limited in the variety of sources it uses and is inconsistently critical of those it does draw upon. \u00a0Where the interviews are concerned, this limited engagement with the literature serves to obscure an important fact: these interviews were but one part of a study upon which the Kono Statement was based.<\/span> \u00a0The interviews were conducted in addition to the collection of official documents revealing military involvement in the coercive recruitment of comfort women. \u00a0In <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i>\u2019s myopic focus on the interviews, the documents and indeed context fall by the wayside. \u00a0Scholar Tessa Morris-Suzuki points out that official military records, soldiers\u2019 diaries, and recorded oral testimony from soldiers are among the documentary evidence showing clear \u201cinvolvement of the military in the recruitment, transport, and organization of women.\u201d<\/span> \u00a0Morris-Suzuki cites \u00a0an official document of the Imperial Japanese Navy that evinces direct military involvement in recruitment for a comfort station in Balikpapan, Indonesia. \u00a0Amidst <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i>\u2019s assertions that \u201ctruthful\u201d histories have been unfairly suppressed, it is significant that Morris-Suzuki notes that the official Navy document has been largely ignored since it was presented before the Japanese Diet in May 2013. \u00a0While the methodology is problematic due to its tendency to ignore certain facts and favor others, it causes even more problems for the larger argumentation method used throughout the book.<\/span><\/p>\n Strategically speaking, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> utilizes the tactic of attempting to destroy the credibility of important works that have been cited as evidence in subsequent influential works on the comfort women issue–texts that espouse views contrary to those advocated by <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0In this manner, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> presents evidence to arrive at an argumentative claim, which is subsequently presented as evidence for further claims, a process which occurs on several levels. \u00a0This layering of arguments is precarious given that the foundational assumptions that form the basis of their claims are often based on questionable, simplistic, or ambiguous analyses. \u00a0Moreover, in the presentation of various subject matter, the sequencing is somewhat chaotic and occasionally disjointed. \u00a0This disjointed narrative, paired with the questionable method of argumentation, ultimately gives rise to a fairly muddled and disorienting \u201cstudy\u201d of the comfort women issue. \u00a0Whether intentional or not, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> presents the discerning reader with the monumental task of disentangling a jumble of flawed logic, incomplete analyses, and questionably relevant information that comprise numerous lines of argument which often drop off only to be taken up again at seemingly arbitrary intervals.<\/span><\/p>\n Between this method of argumentation and the inflammatory, one-sided rhetoric, it is little wonder that scholars are reticent to engage with this type of work. \u00a0<\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> reads as a history book, and a deeply flawed one at that. \u00a0It engages in similar analytical exercises and employs the same methodologies, but does so recklessly and with an agenda. \u00a0As a standalone document, it undermines the careful work being done on this topic by qualified scholars. \u00a0However, as much as <\/span>History Wars <\/span><\/i>\u00a0imitates a scholarly text and mimics historical methodologies, it is not a scholarly text. \u00a0It must be read and interpreted differently.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the most striking features of <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> is how it illustrates the interactions between the national and vernacular realms of memory and discourse. \u00a0The Japanese government\u2019s stance on the comfort women issue, as well as its position and interests within the international community inform and shape the way information is presented and arguments are deployed in <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i>. In the case of the conservative Japanese right, its \u00a0position variously overlaps with, interacts with, is influenced by, and exists independently from the state\u2019s stance and interests. \u00a0In a manner of speaking, the nationalism that was fostered during the war took on a life of its own and continues to play out in the vernacular realm of the conservative right. \u00a0The so-called \u201cfalse indictment of the century\u201d is not a denial that the military comfort women system existed and was terrible, but rather a denial of direct government involvement in the systematic oppression of these women<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0However fallacious the claim, the singular focus on proving this point operates out of a nationalist paradigm, so much so that <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> attempts to distance the Kono Statement from the official state line by pointing out that it was not approved by the cabinet at the time it was issued.<\/span><\/p>\n The malleability of this nationalist-orientation manifests throughout the text and allows <\/span>Sankei <\/span><\/i>to both use the nation-state as a source of legitimacy and to undermine\/support different interested parties as necessary. \u00a0<\/span>History Wars\u2019<\/span><\/i> discussion of the collaborative component of the Kono Statement is a case in point. \u00a0In focusing on the collaboration between the Japanese and Korean governments, it fails to account for other interested parties (former comfort women, advocacy groups, overseas activists, etc.) assuming that any agreement negotiated between the nations would adequately resolve the issue in its entirety. \u00a0Moreover, the book seems to take for granted that the comfort women issue is an issue between nations, thereby privileging the nation-states over smaller groups and validating the authority of the nation to represent its constituents. \u00a0This of course ignores the fact that many opposition groups do not fall under any single nationality. \u00a0Thus, the myth of the monolith is reinforced by way of argument for the sake of the nation state.<\/span><\/p>\n In its many manifestations, the nationalist paradigm that permeates <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> is characterized by and facilitates a sort of myopia that allows its authors to strategically navigate its terrains of discourse. \u00a0Just as the nationalist-orientation of the \u201cfalse indictment\u201d facilitates the omission of the actual victims, so too does the nationalist ideal inform <\/span>Sankei<\/span><\/i>\u2019s dismissive explanation of Japanese people who are sympathetic to the comfort women issue and redress movement. \u00a0Conjuring the trope of the victor\u2019s history, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> claims that Japanese comfort women sympathizers are the victims of forgetting and brainwashing. \u00a0<\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> does not explore any arguments that it does not deliberately attempt to dismantle, and in so doing displaces the ideological division between countrymen to give the illusion of unity through victimhood. \u00a0Even the outrage expressed about the Korean government\u2019s influence on the Kono Statement is tempered by attributing changes in attitudes to pressure from \u201canti-Japanese groups,\u201d a careful move that softens their critique of this international ally and former colony. \u00a0In a lengthy and problematic discussion on public memory in the United States, <\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> similarly attributes the passing of U.S. House Resolution 121–\u201ca nonbinding resolution condemning Japan\u201d–to the unscrupulous lobbying of anti-Japanese Chinese- and Korean-American activists.<\/span> \u00a0It is noteworthy that in virtually all its discussion of international affairs, <\/span>Sankei Shimbun<\/span><\/i> delineates alliances and enmities that closely parallel state interests. \u00a0<\/span>History Wars<\/span><\/i> demonstrates the ways in which the vernacular realm of memory and the agendas of special interest groups are subject to the influence of state rhetoric and official commemoration. These relationships express the essential features of the dynamic Carol Gluck gestured at when she muses, \u201cso it seemed that by imprisoning a world war within national borders, nations recapitulated in memory the nation-centered interests that had caused the war in the first place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Mallory Strider, May 2016. Carol Gluck eloquently states in her essay \u201cOperations of Memory: \u2018Comfort Women\u2019 and the World\u201d that World War II was \u201ca total war that demanded total mobilization and a kind of total memory, from which no one was meant to be exempt.\u201d \u00a0At its core, this \u201ctotality\u201d was plural … Continue reading The Ever-Changing Significance of World War II Memory<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/eas-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}