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'Comfort women' film back in Kawasaki festival

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'Comfort women' film back in Kawasaki festival

Good

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Kawasaki City, which provided nearly half of the festival's budget,

should have the right to say what gets shown and what does not.

They may or may not have the right (depends on what it says on the contract), but doing so will only damage the reputation of the film festival.

A film festival is only as good as its reputation after all (that's why Chinese film festivals are not well-regarded since the Chinese government severely limits the artistic expressions allowed).

2 ( +2 / -0 )

"Yoshimi Yoshiaki"

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Some people seem to think being a comfort woman was some kind of busman's holiday when in fact whether they were sold by their families or agreed they were mostly certainly abused physically beyond normal human limits and mentally and emotionally scared for the remaining lives. They were victims of poverty and physical sexual abuse.

And modern CW in SK often protest and demonstrate on the streets for the rights to earn money as prostitutes since it's been prohibited in 2004. Victims of poverty, maybe

4 ( +11 / -7 )

You need both a brain & life experience to actually know the S.Korean stories are mostly lies. I was born & grew up in a super poor country (Vietnam)-it's much better now though. I think most people here have much more "privileges" so your thinking are different; and logical thinking is not enough to judge this situation.

-Prostitutes are everywhere (rich/poor countries) and they probably would never go away. For many, it's either being starved to death or sell your bodies; for many others, it's an easy way to make lots of money. I believe many people in S.Korea were starving during the war and had to make that decision of selling themselves or their daughters. Many young girls probably kidnapped by other Koreans to sell. It's still very common in poor countries.

-Poor Vietnamese parents have been marrying off their daughters in exchange for little bit of cheap money to South Korean, Chinese & Taiwanese men. Although the women are legally married, the majority of those women end up being abused and are forced to have sex with many male relatives of their own husbands. They can't leave because their parents already spent the money. Being in the modern world with women/human rights, their fates are even worse than those war time S.Korean women. Many Korean women are still selling themselves for money now. So why do you think the past was different.

The war time Japanese may have made it difficult for those women, but they are not entirely to blame. And being a sex worker is not fun anywhere, anytime. The women have their own parents to blame as well; or their Korean kidnappers/pimps; and I'm sure many of them made the decision to sell themselves. I was born & grew up poor but my parents would never do anything like that to me. In fact, my parents sent us all to good universities in the US. The Vietnamese war was more devastated than the Korean war. My grandpa went to jail & my grandma had 10 kids to feed. My mom & my aunts grew up during the war. They had nothing to eat but they went into the jungle when they were teens to dug up and pick up wild vegetables & grow their own veggies for food.

-It may have been horrible for them to work as "comfort women" in Japan during the war. But It's quite naive to believe everything that the Korean side has to say. Many Koreans themselves have doubts about the "comfort women" stories but are afraid to speak up due to their fellow Korean bullying.

10 ( +17 / -7 )

@alwaysspeakingwisdom

Yes and I am sure the Professor in Korea who agreed with the Japanese position should also be heard, right?

Are you still going on about that blog ?

It is a deciept : it mix stuff believed by the author and the name of the researcher in the lot to make it look like it was the statement of the researcher.

The researcher do not agree with Japanese position. The researcher even claim that the Japanese own compensation to the people which in the research are called "comfort women" (which include only a fraction of the comfort women but do not deny the existence and claim of the other women just that they should be called something else).

The court ruled in favor of the researcher as it was not voluntary defamation. Which is pretty understandable when you get the picture that the researcher seems like did to start the research with a "blank state" then tried to fit the reality (neither present nor past) in the expected group. It what made these group unsteady in the research itself and giving the research a feeling of messyness.

-8 ( +5 / -13 )

Please note: "The film's screening was cancelled last week after concerns over the safety of volunteers and objections from local officials." This is referring to the violence threatening Japanese nationalists and right-wing local politicians who ipso facto support those hoodlums. Thus, it is quite a feat that this necessary film will be shown at all.

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

Alwaysspeakingwisdom* yep, that’s the point. And you just made it perfectly for me. Thanks always!

-9 ( +5 / -14 )

"yes and the freedom of expression won out, until the Japanese starting waving the Run Sun Flag and visiting Yasukuni Shrine."

you must dont know that the ones who passionately asked the event organiser to bring the film back and ones offered volunteers to work as a security staff are Japanese.

https://www.kanaloco.jp/article/entry-206193.html

→check it out.dont say "omg its not written in English〜!!!"

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

A representative example reflects accurately the conditions of the larger group. Thugs, for example are not a representative example of the peaceful protesters in Hong Kong. They are a biased example. The question is: are the women recruited to serve the Japanese army in Burma in the report cited representative examples?

"In the latter part of 1943 the Army issued orders that certain girls who had paid their debt could return home. Some of the girls were thus allowed to return to Korea."

Some of the girls were allowed to return. It stands to reason then that some were not allowed to return if not most. Some is not a representative example.

In the report cited, there was schedule congestion and soldiers waiting in line for the services. This indicates the women had to serve many soldiers. Their earnings were turned over to their “Masters” and many made life very difficult for the women by charging them high prices for food and other articles. Many could be a representative example.

Being in debt and under conditions and the control of their Masters, many could not terminate their contracts and had to continue. Such conditions indicate they had little freedom and were forced to work.

That comfort women were just willing prostitutes earning an honest wage exchanging services for payment hangs on the premise that these women were among an apparently privileged minority of people in Japan’s Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere who weren’t being forced to do things against their will as part of the war effort.

And the ones who were forced?

Even if that was true in every single instance that they were paid, so what? Even allied POWs forced to work in brutal conditions at gunpoint were theoretically being paid for their labors — that was a requirement of the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which Japan did not ratify.

Payment doesn’t make it any less accurate to characterize them as having been used as “slave labor” or subjected to “torture” comprising war crimes.

To continue to deny shows a degree of ignorance as to how human trafficking — and thus a lot of prostitution — works even in peacetime, with either some form of coercion or, at the very least, calculated deceit being used to get women on trains, planes or boats “voluntarily” to wherever the brothel is located. 

In the report cited, the Korean women were recruited for “comfort service.” The nature of this "service" was not specified but it was assumed to be work “connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy.” So they were not forced but deceived, is that better? Deceived is not the same as volunteered.

Does human trafficking sound any better than slave labor? Never mind the suffering the women went through. The choice of words used to describe the suffering us must important.

Back to the representative sample. Some were allowed to return. Most were not. The Burmese example may or may not have been representative of all comfort women situations, but either way, it does not support the fact that the women were willing workers working an honest wage in exchange for pay.

-11 ( +4 / -15 )

Koreans don't seem to care about multides of events of actual mass murder cultural clensing and mass rape of their ancestors as in the 13th century when the Mongols killed most of their men (the ones they couldn't enslave) and raped ALL of their women. They could care less about 3 million dead in their civil war caused by Stalin and Mao ––during which a couple of rapes might have also taken place..

What matters to them is trying to force a pacifist Japan three generations removed from their prostitution in WW2.

Then again there is nothing to gain from present day Mongolia and there is lots to extort from Japan.

Don't even mention what would happen if they as much as opened their mouth complaining to Russia or China!

8 ( +16 / -8 )

The contents of the festival should be decided by the festival selection committee not by any government interference.

But the government is paying for it.

as the report said:

"Kawasaki City, which provided nearly half of the festival's budget, "

7 ( +15 / -8 )

"Some people simply can’t handle and refuse to face the truth, blinded by hatred, Calmer, more solemn minds must prevail. "

Yes and I am sure the Professor in Korea who agreed with the Japanese position should also be heard, right?

11 ( +19 / -8 )

[ Congratulations on those making a stand against thuggery and intimidation. Some people simply can’t handle and refuse to face the truth, blinded by hatred, Calmer, more solemn minds must prevail. Shutting down speech is a bad idea on any front. It has to be all out there, warts an all. ]

Well said.

-1 ( +13 / -14 )

The more these ultra nationalists ghouls try and shut things down the more attention they bring to the show and the more reasonable people will be inclined to have another look at the issue. Fools alway end up sabotaging themselves. If the film is a propaganda piece then do what any civilized person does and present the individual facts that need to be considered in a calm, scholarly way.

Congratulations on those making a stand against thuggery and intimidation. Some people simply can’t handle and refuse to face the truth, blinded by hatred, Calmer, more solemn minds must prevail. Shutting down speech is a bad idea on any front. It has to be all out there, warts an all.

-5 ( +15 / -20 )

Kawasaki City, which provided nearly half of the festival's budget,

should have the right to say what gets shown and what does not.

4 ( +15 / -11 )

"The truth and free speech "

yes and the freedom of expression won out, until the Japanese starting waving the Run Sun Flag and visiting Yasukuni Shrine.

10 ( +19 / -9 )

quercetumToday  08:32 am JST

Could these “prostitutes” have quit and walked away from their decisions or were they forced to continue?

"The majority of the girls were ignorant and uneducated, although a few had been connected with "oldest profession on earth" before. The contract they signed bound them to Army regulations and to war for the "house master " for a period of from six months to a year depending on the family debt for which they were advanced ..."

"In the latter part of 1943 the Army issued orders that certain girls who had paid their debt could return home. Some of the girls were thus allowed to return to Korea."

https://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html

7 ( +18 / -11 )

But some nationalists insist the women were prostitutes, claiming there is no documented evidence that the Japanese military was ordered to recruit women against their will.

Could these “prostitutes” have quit and walked away from their decisions or were they forced to continue?

3 ( +14 / -11 )

Good for them, once again showing that, contrary to public opinion around the world, there are plenty of Japanese citizens that do care about highlighting and understanding the true history of their country.

2 ( +15 / -13 )

Great news. The truth and free speech win out over ignorant rightists and historical revisionists.

-2 ( +19 / -21 )

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