by Vic

Created on: November 14, 2007

Absolutely. Japan should choose to take the "high-road" in this situation and work to end decades of taught hatred and racism. It is fair to say that to some extent, modern Japanese should not have to apologize for the sins of their fathers and grandfathers, but the sad truth is that, at least between China and Japan, this issue has created a serious barrier to any exchange of cultural knowledge or respect.

As an English teacher in China, it breaks my heart every time the subject of Japan comes up. General responses include biases such as "all Japanese men look like monsters" and "Japan is the most evil country in the world," "Japanese men all beat their women." Saddening and sobering statements on their own, given the fact that these are among the inevitable responses in every class no matter the occupations, age level, wealth status or gender of the students, I am teaching on that particular day. I know from talking to English teachers in Japan that they can often expect very similar attitudes about the Chinese. This is not to say that every student or everyone in China feels this way, but the wounds are still very real, very open and the hatred caused by them is being passed from generation to generation. This is a terrible tragedy.
What happened in the past should be kept in the past, but until that past has actually been recognized and is kept and shared with the current generation, the crimes committed towards the "comfort women" cannot move into their rightful place as "history." Until Japan fully acknowledges that this behavior towards Chinese and Korean women was unacceptable, the biases have no hope of being resolved. They are doomed to remain in the arena of current affairs until the issues is dealt with and resolved to the satisfaction of all those involved. Time is running out, the "comfort women" are old and many have already died. The issue however will not disappear, but will only become a more intractable one as those actually capable of accepting an apology disappear, leaving behind them generations taught blind hatred, rather than a reasoned realization that terrible things happened in the past, but that such things do not need to impede a modern relationship between three powerful countries in Asia.

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