Make Imperial Japan Great Again - an exclusive (fake) tell-all interview with Shinzo ABE

(NB - this interview is part of our Agence Fausse Presse series which already featured, among other extremists, KIM Jong-un* and Donald Trump**)

Seoul Village - "Prime Minister ABE, thank you for accepting this interview. To start with, do you prefer Westerners to call you Shinzo ABE, or ABE Shinzo?"

Shinzo ABE: "I don't care, as long as you don't confuse me with Kan ABE: I'm so ashamed by my paternal grandfather, who ruined the reputation of my family. This man was a dangerous peacemonger who dared oppose Hideki TOJO and Imperial Japan militarism. All my life is about clearing my name, the reputation of that side of my family. When you think that his eldest son, my father, had to become a kamikaze to prove to everybody that he was on the (extreme) right side of Japan's history."

SV - 'Your maternal grandfather, on the other hand..."

SA - "Needless to say, Nobusuke KISHI was my hero: a genuine war criminal I could be proud of, and relate to. My visits to Yasukuni, or my congratulations to war criminal memorials pale in comparison to the headstone he dedicated to TOJO and the other fallen war criminals***... what an inspiration for us."

War criminal Kishi would be proud of his Rising GrandSon

SV - "By 'us', you mean Nippon Kaigi."

SA - "Of course. I'm very proud of my brainchild Nippon Kaigi. Nobody thought that a maze of exotic extremist groupuscules could be merged into Japan's dominant political lobby, reuniting hardcore neofascists with Shinto fundamentalists. But in order to achieve that incredible feat, I needed Korea's help."

SV - "Pardon me....?"

SA - "We love it when Korean nationalists hijack history issues. As fellow extremists, we need each other to play a naughty ping pong game and make moderates inaudible. And these guys are very successful at fueling anger from the Korean people, and not anger at us, but anger at Japan in general, which makes it easier for us to say 'look, these people are radicals, they can't see reason, we are the victims in this story. Korean nationalists helped us revive our ailing fascist movements, but at the beginning in 1992, we felt really scared: for the first time, Korean Comfort Women spoke up about what they came through under Imperial Japan rule, for the first time in decades, the less pretty side of our history was exposed to the Western world, and back then, nationalism was kept at bay in Korea so the victims could be heard without any distortion. We really feared that our grip on Japanese society could be loosened. We had to react in order to defend the memory of our beloved war criminals."

SV - "Well you still controlled the political system. The only embryos of apologies were issued by lame duck officials, in personal statements that were not really binding for the nation."

SA - "Yeah. We keep deleting records, and rewriting history in textbooks, but even with our propaganda machine and our control of the local media, it's hard to get rid of the 1993-1994 statements of Yohei Kono and Tomiichi Murayama. At least, we've successfully destroyed press freedom at home, and even made it almost impossible for foreign journalists to expose my ABEIGNomics, or even to mention Nippon Kaigi, but this takes a lot of time and money."

SV - "Money?"

SA - "Do you know how much money we spend every year in advertising and advertorials on CNN and Co? Almost as much as we invest in soft power in South East Asian countries. But these foreign media never cover stories about us, and these countries have yet to seek apologies or reparations for their Comfort Women."

SV - "Well Western audiences certainly know a lot more about judo and Japanese food than about your Moritomo Gakuen scandal, corruption around Tokyo 2020, or the role of yakuzas in the olympics and in the highly controversial Fukushima cleanup..."

SA - "... you can stop here: I get your point, and I don't want foreign or for that matter Japanese audiences to be enlightened about our ABEIGNomics."

SV - "You don't risk much. It's not like in Korea when everybody's on the street as soon as a new scandal pops up."

SA - "Of course, otherwise we would have been kicked out of power decades ago. We're very lucky that Japanese people are not interested in politics, in defending their democracy and their constitution. We're also very lucky that the US didn't purge our political dynasties at the end of WWII, because they needed people like my 'good' granddad Kishi to secure Japan's support during the Cold War."

SV - "Unlike Germany with Nazism, Japan has never been liberated from Imperial Japan".

SA - "Yes, and we want that situation to continue forever. As you well know, Nippon Kaigi's official goal is to restore Imperial Japan as a whole, including militarism and State Shinto, to repel peace treaties and human rights laws, to recenter education around nationalism, to deny war crimes and to reject postwar pacifism by changing the constitution. This can only happen if the Japanese people, who is overwhelmingly pacifist, is kept unaware of the past, and of our agenda for the future."

SV - "Undoing your democracy should be even easier with a man like Donald Trump in the White House."

SA - "Definitely, and not just because Putin is also very pleased if Japan joins his collection of failed democracies. The difference is that we don't need any meddling in our elections."

SV - "Still, Trump is much more powerful than you."

SA - "Don't misread my losing rounds of golf against Donald. If I spend 200% of my time with him flattering his ego, that's way cheaper than spending millions in foreign media. Plus I receive preferred treatments compared to other traditional US allies."


SV - "That's right. Trump asked you only 4 times more money to pay for the US military umbrella, compared to 5 for South Korea."

"#Trump asked #Japan to multiply by 4 its financial contribution to US defense. #ShinzoAbe's (losing) rounds of #golf with #POTUS paid off (#Korea was asked x 5)." (20191116 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/1195566482677059584)

SA - "Well Donald learned business from his mobster friends, so I expected this kind of racketing from him. Besides, MOON Jae-in is too weak. He's out of sync in the region because has nothing to do with strongmen like Vladimir, Narendra, Rodrigo, Jong-un, Jinping or me. Still, I see some hope: lately, MOON seems to have learned more than a few tricks from Donald, judging by the way he's handling justice****..."

SV - "Anyway, there is at least one strong Korean leader these days. Will you meet KIM Jong-un?"

SA - "Maybe. I really want to thank him, to tell him to keep up the good job, to keep shooting missiles over our heads. I badly need enemies at the gate, a boogeyman to justify our return to militarism and our destruction of Japan's postwar pacifism. To make fascism relevant in Japan, to Make Imperial Japan Great Again."


Seoul Village 2019
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter, follow me on Instagram.

* see "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un - Season III" (2018), "EXCLUSIVE-Second interview with KIM Jong-un" (2017), "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un" (2013)
** see "Trump: The Art of the Dealapidation (Exclusive Interview)" (2018)
*** see "The Elusive Independence Day - When will Japan officially proclaim its Independence from Imperial Japan?"
**** see "Moon Landing - The Cheong Wa Dae Curse"

2015, 1965, 1945... how about 1915?

Korea's logically talking a lot about the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII (and of Korea's Liberation), and the 50th anniversary of the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea, particularly in the light of persisting denials of Imperial Japan war crimes and sexual slavery system ('Comfort women')*. It could be interesting for the Koreans as well as for the Japanese to learn more about the 100th anniversary of another yet to be resolved historical issue: the Armenian Genocide.

I pause here to make things clear to my - dear and many - Turkish friends and readers: 
. I love Turkey as much as I love Korea, Japan, or my native country France (and had this Summer, as always, a fantastic time in the great city of Istanbul)
. I believe that each nation grows stronger when it faces all sides of its history (and I keep repeating that Korea must set its own record straight to show a positive example to the world and its neighbors, instead of using the rise of revisionism overseas as an excuse to do the same at home)
. Denying the Armenian Genocide is as unacceptable as denying the Holocaust. 1,5 M died in the Armenian Genocide, which was fueled by an abject ideology, and involved concentration camps, mass deportations and murders (not to mention the destruction of whole neighborhoods and of thousands of cultural landmarks)...

For atrocities perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire a century ago, the Turkish government still refuses to officially accept the term 'genocide', in spite of mounting international pressure. Citizens who dare speak up in favor of a resolution are exposed to harassment, even when they are famous (one more reason to respect the great Ohran Pamuk). And nowadays, the soul of this great nation is threatened by its own leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is regularly accused of undermining democracy, fueling nationalism and international crisis, and trying to roll-back history - he even got rid of the usual local euphemisms to refer to the Genocide, rewording "the so-called Armenian Genocide" into "the Events of 1915"!

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? 

My first message is to the Japanese people: don't expect international outrage to abate with time; the worst thing to do is to do nothing, and to let corrupt leaders add further disgrace to your great nation; the only solution is to restore Japan's honor by doing the right thing.

Memo to #Japan: #Turkey still shamed for negationism 100 y after #ArmenianGenocide. Reject now #ShinzoAbe's #ImperialJapan revival (twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/591198372117098496)

My second message is to the Korean people: I wish you could have visited this most efficient 'Armenie 1915' expo in the Paris City Hall (April-July 2015). It was much more convincing than anything I've seen anywhere and particularly in Korea because it was on a purely factual, fair, and descriptive mode. If the visitor is moved, he is never manipulated, never played any emotional, nationalist, us-vs-them tune.

I don't have new messages for Shinzo Abe, who as usual will try his best to do his worst. 

He is under growing scrutiny regarding the content of his Abe Statement, and this time, Japanese audiences may pay closer attention, particularly after his controversial speeches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If he ends up conceding such  key terms as 'aggression' or 'apology', they're bound to be surrounded by his usual smokescreens, double entendres, asterisks and footnotes**.

Regardless of the content, Abe decided to deliver his Statement on August 14th instead of August 15th, which fundamentally undermines its significance (that day, the world will more talk about the reopening of the US embassy in Cuba), and confirms to his base that in his mind, the Empire never surrendered. Furthermore, August 15th is the day Abe usually pays tribute to War Criminals by either visiting Yasukuni, or sending his best wishes...

Anyway, que sera sera, whatever will be will be...

Now I bet Abe is more than a bit jealous of Erdogan: not just because all survivors of the Genocide have already passed away (while our last, dear Halmonis keep demonstrating every week - see "One Thousand Weednesdays"), but also because unlike his dear JSDF, the Turkish military is already free to strike beyond its borders without declaring a war***.

#Erdogan provokes #Kurds on 100th anniv. of #ArmenianGenocide
#ShinzoAbe restores #militarism on 70th anniv. of #WWII
... #Peace please (twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/630935725043613696)

Seoul Village 2015
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites

*let's not go all the way to the 120th anniversary of the assassination of Empress Myeongsong (1895)
** if you want to revisit Japan history with pink glasses, read the report tailor-made for him ahead of the event ("Report of the Advisory Panel on the History of the 20th Century, on Japan's Role and the World Order in 21th Century"). Not fully Nippon Kaigi-friendly, but biased enough.
*** and with the benediction of the States (even if said strikes seem to target less ISIS than the Kurds who fight it, conveniently fueling in Turkey, weeks after a major electoral upset, both nationalism and tensions against Kurds)

The USA And Shinzo Abe: From Ostrich Policy To Complicity?

Undersecretary of State Windy Sherman caused an uproar in Korea because of the way she presented East Asia tensions in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last Friday (see full transcript*). 

I'd like to add my two cents on the issue but first, know that in spite of her name, Sherman is not much of a panzer on foreign issues, and that typically, she was blamed by hawks for advocating diplomacy towards Kim Jong-il at the turn of the millennium. She also seems to be very much aware of the mine-fieldness of East Asian issues, that 'there are disagreements about the content of history books and even the names given to various bodies of water'. She even started with remarks on how, 'in addition to humility, it’s also necessary to approach Asia with an appreciation of the past', a past that 'affects the temperatures of relations between countries and helps determine how every gesture is interpreted'. This should mean that every word she read had been carefully weighed before.

The part of Windy Sherman's speech that most infuriated Koreans was: "Of course, nationalist feelings can still be exploited, and it’s not hard for a political leader anywhere to earn cheap applause by vilifying a former enemy. But such provocations produce paralysis, not progress."
 
I fully agree with the core message against nationalism, but as far as 'provocations' in East Asia are concerned, the first 'political leaders' that come to mind are Kim Jong-un, Shinzo Abe and his Nippon Kaigi friends, and here, China and South Korea appear as the main culprits (even if it could theoretically be any of the nations listed right before - "There can be no question that the world would be safer, richer, and more stable if the United States, Japan, China, and South Korea were consistently pulling in the same direction, and that’s definitely what the majority of the people in the region want").

Korean medias didn't distinguish Chinese/Korean nationalists from Chinese/Koreans and missed the core message. But they got something right: Sherman seems to have sided with Japan.

For instance, the sentence "The Koreans and Chinese have quarreled with Tokyo over so-called comfort women from World War II" not only poses victims as aggressors, but suggests that the issue, which only became a public one in the early 1990s, has long been settled.

By saying "Japan as a nation is working to reconcile modern demands with hard-won lessons from the past", she not only supports collective self defense, but gives an A+ in History to Revisionist In Chief Shinzo Abe. Again, I understand that the US is willing to share military costs in Asia with Japan, but as I wrote in the Asia Pacific Bulletin, "the United States must reassure Asia that it will not condone Japanese historical revisionism, nor will it support an expanded Japanese military without providing wider safeguards to the region".

The Undersecretary of State also completely bought into Abe's imposture around the tragic murders of Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto by Daesh. Apparently oblivious of the fact that the PM had been accused of shamelessly promoting his militarist agenda by instrumentalizing the crisis and undermining efforts to save the hostages, she concluded that "the horror of the executions was deeply felt, and the threat to Japanese citizens worldwide has fed an internal discussion that has been ongoing about the appropriate role of the country’s self-defense force".

In no instance does Wendy Sherman counterbalance any of Abe's controversial positions. Which explains why the US' usual 'ostrich policy' regarding this outspoken neofascist revisionist seemed to have drifted all the way to 'pure complicity'.

At one stage, I had the short-lived hope that she could redeem herself when she said "we don’t have to look far for a cautionary tale of a country that has allowed itself to be trapped by its own history"..., but she was referring to North Korea.

*

So I'll repeat the 3 parts of my latest focus "Comfort Women': No Resolution Without Resoluteness. From Everyone, Please."
1) more than ever, justice must win, not nationalism 2) undeterred by an evasive US, Shinzo Abe's pushing his revisionist agenda harder than ever 3) South Korea at long last forced to give up its own inaction

And I'll repeat my tiple call:
- to the US government: stop dodging the 'Comfort Women' issue, don't let Abe get his collective self defense without a clear rejection of Imperial Japan crimes (and please prevent an outrageous Abe Statement on August 15, 2015)
- to the South Korean government: stop feeding Abe and Nippon Kaigi by fueling nationalist feelings, show the world the right example by facing your own past.
- to both: this is not about standing against Japan but about standing for post-war, pacifist Japan against Imperial Japan

Seoul Village 2015
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites
.

* Wendy R. Sherman, Under Secretary for Political Affairs - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC - February 27, 2015 (see full transcript, which of course also covers China, North Korea, the TPP,...)

'Comfort Women': No Resolution Without Resoluteness. From Everyone, Please.

Time for an update on the 'Comfort Women' issue (the last mention was in my focus on "Abductors talking abductions - Revisionists talking revisions" - 20140618). Today, I'm using the euphemism instead of 'sexual slavery system for the Japanese Imperial Military' for a good reason.

What you should remember:
1) more than ever, justice must win, not nationalism
2) undeterred by an evasive US, Shinzo Abe's pushing his revisionist agenda harder than ever
3) South Korea at long last forced to give up its own inaction

*

1) More than ever, Justice must win, not nationalism:

To avoid any confusion, let's start with a reminder of where I stand. I wrote the following lines in December 2011, after attending the 1,000th "Wednesday demonstration" in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul (see "One Thousand Wednesdays"):

"This is not about nationalism, and this is certainly not about Korea vs Japan, but about Japan vs Justice, and about Japan vs its own future. Crimes were committed and victims simply expect justice. Japan must face history in order to face the future, and its leaders cannot hide the truth to Japanese citizens any longer.

I've said the same thing about other issues: this is also about saving Japan. And if I joined the protesters, it's also because I love Japan and because I can't accept to see a minority of die hard ultra-conservatives setting a corrupt agenda and betraying the Japanese people.

And to Korean ultra-nationalists who try to hijack this case for their own corrupt agenda, I say: clean your own mess first, and restore the Truth and Reconciliation Commission."

More than ever, Justice must win, not nationalism. And if Korea plays the nationalist card on Imperial Japan sexual slavery issues, Justice will never prevail for the victims.


2) Undeterred by an evasive US, Shinzo Abe's pushing his revisionist agenda harder than ever:

We've already seen how short-lived were the hopes of seeing the USA, at long last, act as a leader true to its ideals. If at the local level the multiplication across the US of memorials for the victims of sexual slavery under Japanese rule keeps building pressure, it will take much more to make the Japanese people demand change from their political leaders.

Now confident that the US administration won't pose any problem, Shinzo Abe has shifted gears to go even faster and further. The time was ripe for more changes: as expected, the Abenomics illusion is showing its limits, and he needs a boost to remain in power and push his main agenda, ABEIGNomics. The smokescreen, this time? "Womenomics": a sure bet for Japan, where enabling more women would immediately fuel economic growth.

Abe's recent cabinet reshuffle speaks volumes about his priorities: a record number of women for show (5/18), and a record number of Nippon Kaigi members for action (15/18).

80% of Shinzo Abe's cabinet belong to right wing Japan Conference (advocate history revisionism)
Nippon Kaigi supports Yasukuni visits, opposes Japan's human rights protection law...
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/507693615737352192
see also "Abe's reshuffle promotes right-wingers" (Korea JoongAng Daily 20140905)

If you don't know Nippon Kaigi, also known as 'Japan Conference', that's the official vehicle of Imperial Japan revival and history revisionism*. Joining Nippon Kaigi is pledging allegiance to the worst of the worst: rewriting history, glorifying war crimes, promoting ultra-nationalism at school, repudiating Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, peace treaties, and apologies, restoring militarism in and removing pacifism from the Constitution, abolishing the human rights law... and of course finishing with democracy by restoring the Emperor as the supreme Shinto leader.

Becoming a Nippon Kaigi member also means securing a career in an overwhelmingly peaceful country where the political system remains controlled by a tiny but unassailable fascist minority.

Nippon Kaigi claims 30,000 members, mainly from Abe's conservative LDP, but also from opposition parties. Of course, they control the key Ministry of Education, held by none other than the Secretary General of the Nippon Kaigi discussion group at the Diet, Hakubun Shimomura. This outspoken revisionist never hid his agenda. Florilege:

• "the 67 years since the end of World War II have been a history of Japan’s destruction", 
• "the “departure from the postwar regime” slogan that the previous Abe administration put forward means revising all aspects of Japan’s modern history, including the Tokyo War Tribunal view of history, the Kono Statement, and the Murayama Statement"...

Again, for these guys, the 'Comfort Women' issue is the most damning one, the one they're spending the most energy on when it comes to rewriting history. And they love to see their messages carried by women. Abenomics served as a smokescreen to push ABEIGNomics? Womenomics will help cover up one of the most outrageous attacks on women's rights (WomenIGNomics, then).

Significantly, the two main women promoted during the cabinet reshuffle happen to be among the most vocal Japanese women denying Imperial Japan sexual slavery. As if Nippon Kaigi was not 'right' enough, both the new Internal Affairs Minister Sanae Takaichi and the new LDP policy chief** Tomomi Inada pal around with the head of Japan's neo-nazi party, Kazunari Yamada:

"Neo-Nazi photos pose headache for Shinzo Abe" (The Guardian - 20140909)

I don't know how to make it clearer: there is simply no difference between the neo-Nazi Kazunari Yamada, who denies the Holocaust and regrets that Germany made illegal the Nazi salute, and Shinzo Abe, who not only denies Imperial Japan war crimes but openly supports war criminals (and who, by the way, also happens to be the Secretary General of the Diet Members' Caucus for the "Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership", the Imperialist (hard)core of the right-wing movement including Nippon Kaigi***).

facebook.com/seoulvillage/posts/685069914903824
If you had any doubt regarding Shinzo Abe's support for Imperial Japan war crimes, read this: "Abe praised Class-A war criminals for being 'foundation' of Japan's prosperity" (The Asahi Shimbun 20140827)

Again, this unapologetic and indefensible fascist is Japan's worst enemy, and voting for Shinzo Abe and his friends is voting in favor of war criminals and Imperial Japan, and against peaceful, postwar Japan.

The choice is simple for the Japanese people: if you don't subscribe to the Nippon Kaigi agenda, vote for people who are not members. And if you want Japan to declare its long overdue independence from Imperial Japan, demand every politician to denounce it.

Needless to say, neither the US nor the rest of the international community can support Abe's agenda and let Japan sink.

Just like it's time for Japan to declare its independence from Imperial Japan, it's time for the US to declare its independence from Japanese hardliners.

That's possible. It's happening right now with Israel, where hawks have pushed so far that they are losing key supports in D.C.: Americans are starting to understand that there's a J Street alternative to the AIPAC, and that the only way of truly supporting Israel is to denounce its government when it's wrong (see "Thank you, Bibi, for shooting yourself in the foot").

Meet the New Russia: same as the old USSR.
Meet the New Japan: same as the old Imperial Japan.
#Novorossiya - #ABEIGNomics
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/508417978224758784

I understand that the US is willing to share military costs in Asia with Japan, but as I wrote in the Asia Pacific Bulletin, "the United States must reassure Asia that it will not condone Japanese historical revisionism, nor will it support an expanded Japanese military without providing wider safeguards to the region".

More than ever, the surest and quickest way of saving Japan is to stand for a universal cause that reaches beyond borders and nationalism, to stand for human rights and women's rights, and to demand Japan to resolve the issue of sexual slavery for the Imperial Japan military.


3) South Korea at long last forced to give up its own inaction:


Park Geun-hye and her government are often criticized for not engaging with Shinzo Abe, but that wouldn't change Japan's most radical PM since WWII. Regardless of its relations with Japan, what South Korea must do is show the right example by better facing its own troubled past.

For the moment, Park Geun-hye isn't in a position to give history lessons to Shinzo Abe. I often said that she has the potential and the historical duty to change things across East Asia. If she, of all people, showcases a willingness to set the record straight on the troubled decades that followed the Japanese colonial rule, including the ones when her father Park Chung-hee was in charge, she can not only spur national reconciliation, but also send very powerful messages to the Japanese people and to other nations.

What does she risk? She's already a lame duck not running for any mandate, and losing popular support. Such a courageous move would also make more credible her claims to see the Sewol mess fully and fairly investigated.

Furthermore, current events provide the most perfect alibi to dig into Korea's darkest moments.

And guess what: it has something to do with 'Comfort Women'.

Important reminders:

• 'Comfort Women' (Wianbu in Korean) is the euphemism used to refer to Imperial Japan's international sexual slavery system for the military.
• In the years that followed the occupation, the term was also often used to refer to the Camp Town prostitutes for the American and U.N. military in Korea, including by Korean media and officials:

Registration campaign of 'Wianbu' for U.N. forces

• In dirt poor, post-war Korea, many women living near U.S. bases would turn to prostitution as last resort, a phenomenon well depicted through Myung-suk's character in Yu Hyun-mok's Obaltan (and well discussed the other day at Barry's Seoul Film Society, following the screening of the 1961 movie adaptation of Yi Beom-seon's short story).
• The Korean government played an active role, providing structures, registering women, monitoring the spread of STDs... Park Chung-hee even institutionalized the system, sex trade representing a very important source of foreign currencies, and generating directly and indirectly up to a quarter of Korea's GNP (in very deed, a Gross National Product).

In this scene of Obaltan (1961), two men mock at a 'Western Princess' while Cheol-ho (Kim Jin-kyu) observes. His own sister sells her body to U.S. servicemen.

• The need to distinguish actual 'Comfort Women' (sex slaves for the Imperial Japan military) and Camp Town prostitutes (more and more often called 'Yanggongju' or 'Yankee Princess') became even more evident in the early 1990s, when surviving sex slaves came out and brought international attention to this side of Imperial Japan war crimes. That's also when the two women's rights associations split: former 'Comfort Women' on one side, former prostitutes on the other.
• If sex slavery survivors have become national hero 'Halmoni' waiting for a resolution from Japan, the former sex laborers face their own struggles (e.g. "At US base, S. Korean ex-prostitutes face eviction" - AP 20140906), and are still seeking from the Korean government some recognition, and in certain cases reparation for mistreatment, forced labor, or other human rights violations (even teaming with actual 'Comfort Women' for the occasion - e.g. "Former Korean 'comfort women' for U.S. troops sue own government" - Reuters 20140711).
• In ever the politically divided Korea, right-wing factions keep trying to hijack 'Comfort Women' issues, tainting it with anti-Japanism, and undermining the cause by bringing the Japanese population behind its revisionist leaders, while left-wing factions try to use 'American Comfort Women' (Miguk Wianbu) to promote their anti-American crusades.
• In a disturbing contrast, as South Korea started to embrace the cause of its 'Halmoni' in the early 90s, it also opened its gates to immigration, and the cases of sex trafficking and slavery multiplied, particularly those involving victims from the Philippines. 
• By not facing reality and by sweeping problems under the rug, the nation keeps blurring the lines and courting criticism from Japanese revisionists, who love to paint 'Comfort Women' as willing prostitutes, and to say that what Imperial Japan did happen everywhere else. As if Germans said that the Holocaust didn't exist, or that 'Holocaust' should be a generic term referring to common abuses that are inherent to war times.
• Even if the epithet has been used to refer to 'prostitutes for the U.S. / U.N. military', 'Comfort Women' should remain the euphemism referring to sex slaves for the Imperial Japan military. And if cases of forced labor or sex slavery happened after that, they should be resolved immediately and completely, become national causes if needed, just like abuses in the army (a recurring tragedy that's only nowadays starting to be considered a priority).

*

If you want Justice, you cannot hide inconvenient truths. Yes, you may face critics, like the Asahi Shimbun: they recently apologized for the publication in 1992 of the questionable testimony of Seiji Yoshida regarding the 'Comfort Women' issue, and of course conservative newspapers seized the opportunity to slam their progressive competitor and renew their revisionist mantras (e.g. " EDITORIAL / Asahi Shimbun makes long-overdue corrections over ‘comfort women’" - The Yomiuri Shimbun 20140908). But you can't take a stand without a minimum of consistency.

South Korea will much better defend the victims of Imperial Japan sex slavery if at home, it truly stand for human rights, for women's rights, and against history revisionism.

---ADDENDUM 20140912---

If you still give Shinzo Abe and Nippon Kagai the benefit of the doubt, and if still you believe that Sanae Takaichi didn't know what she was doing when she posed with a neo-Nazi leader, know that she also praised Adolf Hitler in her book: "Japan: Adolf Hitler Book Haunts Interior Minister Sanae Takaichi" (IB Times 20140911

Seoul Village 2014
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites

* see for instance "What's the 'Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi)'?" (Akahata Sunday edition, July 9, 2006 via Japan Press Weekly
** NB: Inada is not part of the cabinet (my mistake on these tweets):

When Shinzo Abe picks a woman in government...: the ultra-nationalist Tomomi Inada, a negationist of Imperial Japan sex slavery. twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/507048157595713538
And that outrageous Tomomi Inada is supposed to promote "Cool Japan"!! Who said Shinzo Abe had no sense of humor? twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/507048749420384256
Japan's new ministers Tomomi Inada and Sanae Takaichi: 2 women negating Imperial Japan sex slaver! ("Japan's Abe reshuffle cabinet: WSJ live blog" 20140903) twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/507050640036478976
Tomomi Inada and Sanae Takaichi also posed with neo-nazi chief Kazunari Yamada ("Abe Cabinet Members in Neo-Nazi Photo-Op Fail" The Diplomat 20140909) twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/509350411451387904

*** e.g. "News Analysis: Abe unifies far-right ideology in upper echelons of Japanese politics" (Xinhua 20140908), "Abe Shinzo, a Far-Right Denier of History" (Narusawa Mune, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 1, No. 1, January 14, 2013)

Abductors talking abductions - Revisionists talking revisions

Will Shinzo Abe and Kim Jong-un meet some day? Last year, the project seemed a quick fix for both to pose as diplomacy-friendly leaders following impressive streaks of provocations (see "ABE forced to back down a bit. For the moment. Next PR stunt: KIM Jong-un").

It resurfaced a couple of weeks ago, under the perfect alibi: the case of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea, which Pyongyang agreed to discuss in exchange for lifted sanctions. A welcomed bribe for a regime that can't raise its human rights record anyway, and a welcomed 'evidence' that Abe is a man of peace even as he tries to sell the return to militarism in Japan.

As a sad remainder of the true nature of both leaders, the talks were overshadowed by the news that North Korea decided to detain yet another US citizen, and that yet another survivor of Imperial Japan's sexual slavery system (Halmoni Bae Chun-hee) passed away without receiving any official apology from the Japanese government. Of course, Shinzo Abe is right to demand answers for the fate of tens of citizens abducted by North Korea, but wrong to deny the abduction of tens of thousands of girls and women for the Japanese military.

The tiny hopes raised by Barack Obama's remarks on 'Comfort Women' in Seoul (see "So, did Obama visit his own Yeswecan Shrine?") proved short-lived: soon after issuing the embryo of the beginning of the erzatz of proto-pseudo contrite remarks the next day, Japan's 'Prime Sinister' confirmed that apologies were not on his agenda - in yet another outrageous historical reference of his and of all places, in Germany! -, before exposing, as scheduled, his latest sales pitch for the highly controversial 'Collective Self Defense'.

Shinzo Abe: to compensate wrongs of WWII, Germany chose apologies, Japan "set its own standards"! english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/05/01/2014050101075.html
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/461701020892942336

All that matters now to Shinzo Abe is not the 'third arrow' of Abenomics, but the two pilars of "ABEIGNomics": historic and constitutional revisionism. Significantly, his government is spending most of its energy during the last sessions of the Diet to present the findings of its controversial 'probe' on the Kono Statement, and to negotiate with New Komeito an agreement a minima on CSD.

In case you missed the previous episodes*, a few useful reminders:

• "Abenomics" are only a short-term illusion to bribe voters at their own expense, a sleight of hand the time to pass "ABEIGNomics", that in turn shall change Japan forever. 
• "ABEIGNomics" covers historical revisionism, the end of Japan's post-war pacifism and democracy,  anything that could contribute to a sick Imperial Japan revival (if not geographically, at least politically)... A lifetime obsession for Shinzo Abe, who has the most consistent record to prove it.
• Shinzo Abe is not an enemy of Korea or China, but the worst enemy of Japan. Provoking Japan's neighbors is only a means for him to reach his ultimate goal: undermining Japan's democracy.
• Beyond the Article 9 of the Constitution and the 'Collective Self-Defense' fallacy (the concept revives the specter of the 1876 Ganghwa-do Treaty and these days resonates in the most Putinesque way), this man targets the Article 96 that protects the Constitution by setting high requirements for any modification***. 
• Promulgated in 1946, this Constitution has - mercifully - never been amended ever since: one can only guess how far these extremists would go if they were given free rein, but be certain that they wouldn't stop at Article 9 (even if the said article was recently nominated for Nobel Peace Prize!).
• As Katsumasa Suzuku (Tomorrow Party of Japan / Japan Future Party) put it****, "Lifting the limits on the right for self-defense will bring us right back to the concept before the last war that led us to destruction".
• And in a May 8 editorial, The New York Times clearly confirmed the threat: "Japan is facing a genuine test of its democracy".

On Shinzo Abe's constitution push: "Japan is facing a genuine test of its democracy" (NY Times)
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/464585151981572097

• At home, popular support for Abe would not survive a failure of Abenomics:
• The core supporters of Abe are fellow fans of Imperial Japan willing to make sure that the darkest sides of Japan's history remains hidden, and sometimes the darkest sides of their own family's history, like Shinzo Abe's with his own grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, a former PM who at least honored more discretely his fellow war criminals. The minority of ultra-conservative bureaucrats who control Japanese politics support him because they share the same concern.
• Japan Inc. keeps supporting Shinzo Abe for his illusory Abenomics in spite of their worries about ABEIGNomics, and many 'true' nationalists, who despise this disgraceful impostor, still prefer him to liberals. Some even make a parallel between 2014 Japan and 1933 Germany: we know this Hitler is crazy, but don't worry, we have him under control... 
• But the Japanese people who want to save Japan and to say no to "ABEIGNomics" (Japan's worst enemies, the ones from within) cannot reform national politics from the outside, and the international community must not only oppose Abe's pseudo-nationalist imposture, but support them. 
• Again, the US must at long last act as a responsible leader and take a moral stand (bonus: they'll save the trilateral alliance, and counterbalance the growing influence of China in Korea and across the region). Of course, the US should under no circumstance consider outsourcing security in Asia to such a bad cop, and Japan shouldn't be allowed to return to militarism without unequivocally and irrevocably denouncing Imperial Japan's wrongdoings and renouncing revisionism. The US can no longer swallow bitter pills from this provoking extremist just because they'd like Japan to invest more in the alliance's defense spending in the region; that's this very same old "he is a S.O.B., but he is our S.O.B." mantra that led post-war Japan to this moral dead-end**. And you don't want Shinzo Abe to inspire his pal Narendra Modi...
• Tomorrow, Abe will probably paint the Kono Statement as null and void, because he knows that the cause of the victims of sexual slavery for the Japanese military (known under the 'Comfort women' euphemism) is of the utmost importance and emergency. Not only for the last surviving victims, but for the very soul of Japan and its future. Again, it's about universal human rights and justice, and it's not about Japan vs Korea, but about Imperial Japan vs post-war, peaceful Japan. Here too, the US must lead. Not only at the local level (e.g. memorials in NJ, VA, CA, US, Korean and Japanese American lawyers defending Glendale memorial) or in Congress (e.g. Resolution 121, congress members like Mike Honda or, more recently, Loretta Sanchez - see "U.S. Lawmaker Urges Resolution of Sex Slavery Issue"), but also and foremost from the White House.

Last month, a group of Japanese women came up with an original way of exposing Shinzo Abe and his friends: a sex strike by women who refuse to sleep with warmongers (i.e. men supporting attacks on the constitution and its Article 9).

Women who refuse to sleep with warmongering men, a sex strike movement denouncing Abe's attacks on Article 9
"戦争ラブな男を叱る/Hしない女の会"

So the old 'make love, not war' slogan became a safer 'don't have sex with warniks'.

In an ideal world: Make Love And Democracy, Not War And Fascism.

Seoul Village 2014
Welcome to our Korean Errlines! Follow Seoul Village on Facebook and Twitter

Add this page to your favorites

* see all posts related to Shinzo Abe on Seoul Village, for instance "Saving Japan - Let's fall the Indecision Tree", "The Elusive Independence Day - When will Japan officially proclaim its Independence from Imperial Japan?", "Dear Japan, Please Say No To Abeignomics"... 
** see "To better bridge the gap between Japan, Korea, and China, let's measure the gap within Japan"
*** more reminders:

• To change the Constitution, you need not only a vote by two-thirds of each House of the National Diet, but also a popular vote / referendum. 
• Shinzo Abe doesn't even have a full support from his own extremist base regarding the Article 9. Typically, within his coalition, the New Komeito party remains to be convinced, most notably within Soka Gakkai, a 'fascist buddhist' movement. 
• For the moment, Abe is forced to play "three-cushion billiards" (as we Frogs put it) and indirect attacks, most notably by trying to reinterpret the Constitution as it is, or by lowering the age for voters for the referendum.
• Abe's own rubber stamp panel issued recommendations on 'Collective Self-Defense', detailing the six conditions that would - according to them - allow the right to exercise CSD in spite of the ban (see "Abe panel proposing 6 conditions on exercising collective self-defense" - The Asahi Shimbun - 20140510):
• 3 conditional requirements: "a close ally of Japan is under attack / a grave threat to the nation’s security exists if force is not used / another country under attack clearly asks Japan to counterattack"
• 3 procedural requirements are: "the Prime Minister decides to use force / the Diet approves the PM's decision / the government obtains permission from a third country if Japanese troops must pass through its territory en route to the conflict zone"
• A couple of days earlier, the lower house of the Diet, the House of Representatives, had passed a bill that changed the rules for Act on Procedures for Amendment of the Constitution of Japan (see "Lower House OKs referendum bill"). 
• Abe wants to change Japan for good, starting from education, at the root of democracy. He has long been pushing for revisionist textbooks and the teaching of more nationalistic values for the younger generations, always multiplying the provocations to fuel anger and extreme reactions from China and Korea to pose as a victim and boost nationalism (territorial disputes an ideal playground). He is also pushing reforms that shall make illegal the criticism of nationalism or revisionism.

**** "Japan's Abe Takes Step to Enhance Military's Role" (WSJ 20140514)

On Shinzo Abe's constitution push: "Japan is facing a genuine test of its democracy"
twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/464585151981572097