---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
sato
@poem.ocn.ne.jp
Date: Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 5:41 PM
Subject: a letter to "The Japan Times" in memory of Iris Chang, a woman I so
greatly admire!
To: info@irischang.net
If love means never having to say your "sorry", then Toru Hashimoto obviously
has a great deal of affection for himself ("San Francisco hits sex slave remarks;
Hashimoto defiant"). The co-moron of the 'Dai' Nippon Ishin no Kai is refusing
to retract his offensive and historically inaccurate remarks about Japan's wartime
sex slaves. This reader wonders if it's really necessary for the revisionist
minded Osaka mayor to pursue his career in politics any further?! He should
quit his job while Japan still has a few friends left in places like San Francisco
and New York City. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is asking Hashimoto
to "man up" and offer his sincere apologies for his egregious sex slave remarks
and, in all humility, retract everything he said. I doubt if a nationalistic
fire-eater like Hashimoto could even begin to understand the concept of ‘humility’
and its inherent strength. He's all about arrogant defiance. Please Mr. Hashimoto,
please understand that the historical veracity of Japan's WWII era involvement
of cruel sexual slavery is very well documented. Many of the aging victims of
this horrible wartime crime have given solemn testimony to the sexual and psychological
abuse that was inflicted upon them over half-a-century ago. The horrors they
experienced in Japan’s frontline ‘comfort stations’ continue to shatter their
peace of mind even now. Such dark memories are a waking nightmare. How dare
you insult the thousands upon thousands of sex slaves Japan so brutally coerced
into harsh sexual servitude during WWII, Mr. Hashimoto? How dare you? Your ignorant
and biased remarks are almost as reprehensible and vile as the repeated sexual
assaults that these once young and innocent victims had had to endure during
the war. Even former Japanese PM Yasuhiro Nakasone has given unwitting witness
to the veracity of this dark chapter in Japan's wartime militarism. As for PM
Shinzo Abe's recent full page advertisement in the "New Jersey Star Ledger"
denying that Japan ever forced Asian (and European and Australian) females into
sexual slavery, it deeply offends the intelligence and sensibilities of the
global community. Abe has again brought shame on Japan. 'Dai' Nippon Ishin no
kai and the LDP might claim that they’re trying to defend the dignity of the
Japanese people and the honor of Japan, but their continued defiance and denial
of Japan’s involvement in wartime sex slavery is having just the opposite affect
on international opinion. How horrid that Shintaro Ishihara would not fault
Toru Hashimoto for his ill considered remarks. Instead he says that Hashimoto
should simply have kept such revisionist remarks to himself! This is the very
attitude that the city of San Francisco heartily condemns.
It's understable that 'Dai' Nippon Ishin no kai's approval rating now stands
at 2% in Japan!! Hashimoto's political ambitions might be finished, but why
not Ishihara's as well? He's been the Osaka mayor's revisionist mentor all along.
Toru Hashimoto's continued defiance is the biggest mistake he could possibly
make. If he continues to win elections in Osaka, this will only confirm the
worst fears of many political leaders and concerned citizens in places like
California, New York, and New Jersey about Japan's sham remorse for its many
gruesome wartime crimes. Very likely Japan’s remorse will become more "sincere"
only when American consumers begin to boycott Japanese imports, perhaps as a
sign of solidarity with the people of China and Korea. It's time for Hashimoto
and his political ilk to be given the boot. Kick them out. Kick them down the
stairs and out the door.
About five or six year ago a group of revisionist
minded Japanese citizens placed a full page advertisement in “The New York Times”
denying Japan’s involvement in wartime sexual slavery. Since then there’s
been a great deal more sympathy expressed towards all the victims of Japan’s
“Comfort Women” slavery across the northeast United States, and now such sympathy
is growing in California. If these Japanese morons can’t recognize historical
fact, they should at least have the good sense to keep their mouths shut, keep
their revisionist opinions to themselves. The world doesn’t want to know.
Don’t try to air your ‘whitewashed’ dirty laundry on the world’s stage.
I wish Iris Chang had lived long enough to see the growing global support for
those who oppose Japan’s revisionist historians and amnesiac politicians.
She felt so lonely at the end of her life, rightfully fearing that no one cared
about the “forgotten Holocaust”, the rape of Nanking. Don’t worry Iris,
the world does care and cares very deeply. Your heroic efforts to fight
Japan’s revisionist were not in vain.
from Robert McKinney
(Otaru, Japan) I’m a former English teacher at Indiana State U.
and at Waseda U. in Tokyo, Japan. The most popular of English language newspapers
in Japan has published over 100 of my letters in the past thirteen years. Many
of these letters voiced outrage towards Japan’s rightwing amnesiac revisionists
who would deny their nation’s past atrocities and war crimes. As Ernest
Hemingway would have said, Iris fought the good fight and she will always be
honored for her courage and devotion to the truth.
Here’s my most recent letter published in “The Japan Times” just last Sunday:
Mysogynists’ hijacking
Japan
Jun 16, 2013
Online:
Jun 16, 2013
Print:
Jun 16, 2013
Last Modified:
Jun 16, 2013
Regarding
the June 8 Kyodo article “Forcibly recruited Korean sex slaves a myth:
lawmaker“: Swarms of Japanese misogynistic morons seem to inhabit the
Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party). Is there something in the
water?
How can so many Japanese leaders sound so amnesiac and heartless on the
sex-slave issue? Is Lower House lawmaker Nariaki Nakayama trying to
provoke economic and political hostility from South Korea, Taiwan, China,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the United States? And why would
any Japanese woman want to participate in such an extreme right-wing
political organization?
As America pivots toward Asia, Japan seems to be pivoting toward its most
inglorious past. Japan might very well pivot right off the world stage,
becoming very isolated internationally.
Please, Japan, don’t let these guys hijack your country. It’s a myth that
anyone in the Nippon Ishin has any knowledge of history or Asian culture
beyond the shores of Japan. Japan really does have first-class industries,
second-class housing and third-class politicians. Did Nakayama actually
refer to Korean parents who lost their young daughters to Japan’s wartime
military brothels as “cowards”? Has he no knowledge of Japan’s brutal
colonial rule of Korea? Is such speech itself not the words of a coward?
ROBERT MCKINNEY
Otaru, Hokkaido
The opinions
expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer’s own and do not necessarily
reflect the policies of The Japan Times.
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