On the very day that the full Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives voted to endorse a recommendation that Japan apologize for one of its war crimes, the Poles were breaking ground for a new museum to remember the consequences of one of their war crimes. On June 26, the cornerstone was laid for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the ruins of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto. Sixty-odd years after the end of World War II, Poland is rebuilding what was destroyed by its Nazi history, whereas Japan is busy rewriting the “story” of its Imperial past.
In the US, members of the House Foreign Relations Committee voted “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as `comfort women', during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II.” This nonbinding resolution, H. Res. 121 was approved by the Committee 39-2. No one disputed the facts that Japan had never officially apologized to the women (and men) that Imperial Japan enslaved to work in its frontline brothels. The few congressional objections centered on whether it was a job of the US Congress to question of policies of another country. Japan’s massive, multi-million dollar lobbying to defeat the resolution’s passage focused on an interpretation of the “facts.” H. Res. 121 is expected to reach the House floor by mid to late July. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has already signaled her support.
In both efforts toward historical reconciliation, outside forces were necessary. British and American Polish Jews were the impetus behind establishing a museum remembering their past in Poland. Americans of all ethnic backgrounds were involved in formulating and promoting a congressional effort to resolve a long-standing Asian regional injustice. Japan's suppression of the Comfort Women tragedy is one of the many historical issues undermining closer security ties in Asia. In Poland, Poles and others understood that the disappearance of the history of Poland’s Jews would finalize this minority’s near physical elimination.
Uniting these two unrelated events is an acknowledgement that confronting history is necessary for reconciliation. Maybe more important, a sense of peace and human dignity is central to both efforts. This appears to have been forgotten by those who oppose the museum and the resolution. History is not merely an arrangement of facts.
As Committee Chair Tom Lantos (D-CA) said in opening the 121 mark up hearing, “The true strength of a nation is tested when it is forced to confront the darkest chapters in its history. Will it have the courage to face up to the truth of its past, or will it hide from those truths in the desperate and foolish hope they will fade with time?”
>Details of the June 26th Hearing can be found here. A webcast is available as will be soon a transcript.
>As of July 5, there are 151 co-sponsors of the resolution and growing. Both Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Lantos and Ranking Minority Chair Ros-Lehtinen are co-sponsors.
I agree, of course, with the idea that Japan must forthrightly apologize. What I think also needs saying is that governments and political leaders, most certainly including the US, should not be self-righteous about condemning others when they too have much to apologize about. Where is Mr. Lantos's or Ms. Pelosi's demand that the US apologize to the Vietnamese,the Guatemalans, the Cubans, and now the Iraqi and Afghan peoples (among others) for outrageous behavior in violation of international norms and conventions? We (scholars) should frame the issue in terms of global citizenship, not nationality.
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