Statue symbolizing comfort women to be erected in U.S. state of Georgia

And cue the historical revisionists claiming Japan never forced Korean women into sexual slavery.

A common justification is it wasn't sexual slavery because the victims were compensated. This is akin to saying that holding a gun to a person's head and raping them isn't rape if you leave them a dollar when you have finished.

I understand having statues in Korea. I sympathize with the comfort women and find the revisionists in Japan repellent. That said, an Atlanta suburb has no business getting involved in this debate. I don't see memorials to the victims of the Vietnam war in Himeji or to those tortured under Pinochet in Wakayama. I don't wants Turks and Kurds residing in Japan putting up competing memorials. It's no concern of the Japanese, just like what the Imperial Army did to Korean women during the war should be of no concern to Georgians.

Amazing how the state of Goergia can remove both the statue of Stalin and Tom Watson, yet erect a statue of of comfort women? This type of bandwagoning only spreads fear and ignorance and hurts tourism. Next thing you know, you'll have little kids walking around accusing the Japanese of slavery in the south. The comfort women statue will never mention the compensation or the apology, unlike in America where slaves never received any compensation, not even a state level apology.

The erecting of monuments in memory of the Japanese-American citizens who despite being US citizens were rounded up, lost their property and held in concentration camps during WWII, by the United States government would be a far more sensible memorial to stand in the United States, These "Comfort Women" monuments have no place outside of South Korea. And even there, South Korea risks wrecking their landmark 2015 agreement.

How about the US put up statues in every major US city to symbolize the 200,000+ innocent victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who were either vaporized, burned to death or died hours, days, weeks, months and years later from the effects of radiation poisoning? The hypocrisy is sickening.

I'm impressed. The city of Brookhaven must be paradise, for its town lawmakers to have the time to worry about an atrocity that happened 75 years ago, half a planet away....

...or perhaps they are just doing a nice round of virtue signalling. Trying to make themselves feel better with an empty gesture rather than face the genuine, but difficult, concerns that face their community.

Never mind that the Korean government resolved the issue back in the 1960s, when it agreed to accept compensation on behalf of the victims. What importance are facts when feelings are in play?

taking US historical confederate statues down, putting up a S korean one. i think it is good to have both, so people can remember history and hopefully learn from it, not deny it happened.

marcelito

My point exactly. Where does it end if we start doing it? The earth would be covered in statues.....

" Reckless Today 11:15 am JST maybe this wouldn't be an issue if every 3 months a senior Japanese politician didn't deny that it happened."

Please name these Japanese politicians who claim that the military prostitution system known as the "Comfort Women" system "never happened". Bet you can't.

They were not forced.  News must be at least neutral if they are not interested in studying.

" marcelito June 5 07:30 pm JST

Ossan - it is not US federal govt. But a local city council doing this as you well know."

Yes I am well aware that the Chong Daehyup backed anti-Japan activists have found a loophole for influencing US-JPN-SK relations which are entirely within the jurisdiction of the US Federal Govt, and are able to affect US public opinion counter to US foreign policy.

Interesting article from a few years back

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1435294/japanese-politicians-say-korean-comfort-women-claims-fabricated

If you read the article, despite the attention grabbing headline title, nobody is denying the existence of the military prostitution system known as the Comfort Women System. The "claims" that are fabricated (200,000 kindnapped by IJA troops, etc) are being denied, as they are by some South Korean scholars as well.