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Abstract

War memory haunts us always in the present. It haunts more disturbinglywhen issues of war responsibility and reconciliation remain unresolved. Asthe seventieth anniversary of the end of the War in the Pacific approached,many nervously awaited the statement scheduled for release by right-wingPrime Minister Abe Shinzo. Although Japan's close allies including theUnited States were quick to commend Abe's August 2015 statement, othersincluding feminist scholars like ourselves were disappointed. We were particularlydespondent at the fact that, apart from a blanket statement to theeffect that 'there were women behind the battlefields whose honour and dignitywere severely injured' (Abe 2015), there was no response to on-goingdemands to recognise the voices and experiences of Imperial Army sex-slaves,the so-called 'comfort women'. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that many'comfort women' came from the Korean Peninsula, unlike China, SoutheastAsia and the Pacific, South Korea was not specifically mentioned by Abe.Korea was only abstractly implied with the use of the term 'elsewhere'.

Item Type:	Book Section
Authors/Creators:	Suganuma, K and Otomo, R and Hartley, B
Keywords:	nostalgia, irony, war memory, gender, Japan
Publisher:	Routledge
Copyright Information:	Copyright 2018 The Authors
Related URLs:	UTAS Profile: Suganuma, K Google Scholar: Hartley, B UTAS Profile: Hartley, B
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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