Well did he, or didn’t he?
Some were reporting yesterday that PM Abe issued an official apology in parliament for Japan’s wartime use of sex slaves. A lot of other news sources flatly ignored it.
On the BBC, he was reported as saying
I apologise here and now as prime minister. As I frequently say, I feel sympathy for the people who underwent hardships, and I apologise for the fact that they were placed in this situation at the time.
It’s not what you’d call ‘heartfelt’, really, is it. To the extent that most Japanese online news sources haven’t reported it at all. While I gather it was on at least one channel’s evening news, it wasn’t on the FNN bulletin that I saw.
This of course follows the announcement on Sunday by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura in an interview on Radio Nippon denying “that the Japanese military directly recruited women to work in brothels providing sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.”
There were military nurses and embedded journalists but no ‘embedded comfort women.’ It is true that there were ‘comfort women.’ I believe some parents may have sold their daughters. But it does not mean the Japanese army was involved.
So, confused? No idea what the official policy is? You’re not the only one. No wonder the US State department came out yesterday and saying that they would welcome “a more forthright and responsible manner that acknowledges the gravity of the crimes that were committed.”
On Australia’s Channel 10 last night there was an announcement of “Japan’s shock apology”. I thought it was a bit strange and searched everywhere online. Nothing.
A little while later they showed the full report: Japan has finally made the apology that the world has been waiting for. Then they had some “ex-sex slave” talking about how wonderful and relieved she was. This was what she’d been fighting for all this time etc. etc.
Then they just quoted Abe’s statement. The same deep regret as usual. I yawned and turned off the tv.
Sympathy, I mean.
[…] confused… and I’m not the only one here and […]
I think Marie had a good point when she posted the article about ‘The Problems with apologies’.
Its difficult to ask “Ok is this enough? Can we let this go now?” because the only people who can answer that are truthfully the women this happened to. The rest of us can really only posture and give opinions.
But I commend Abe on taking this step forward. I hope this concludes this topic, though somehow I know it won’t.
“it is obvious that he is saying that the women were not 従軍慰安婦 (army commissioned comfort woman) just 慰安婦 (comfort woman). A 従軍慰安婦 would be a commissioned staff member of the army, like a 従軍看護婦 (commissioned nurse), or 従軍記者 (commissioned reporter) that carries an army insignia, ect.
In fact, comfort women were never referred to as従軍慰安婦 in contemporary times, just as 慰安婦….He uses the term 従軍慰安婦 only to say they did not exist, and uses the term 慰安婦 to acknowledged their existence. ”
-Source
“But I commend Abe on taking this step forward. I hope this concludes this topic, though somehow I know it won’t.”
This will resurface if Abe’s successor is stupid enough to bring it up by either denying or downplaying it or responding to a country’s decision to bring up the subject in an idiotic manner.
I’m surprised it took Abe this long to give his blanket acknowledgment and apology to the unpleasantness in WW2.
I still find it sad that a good number of Japanese nationalists and their fanboys would continue to defend Abe’s remarks as either a gross mistranslation by the racist mass media or justify it based on historical phenomena or with wording of terms.
How long before he screws up and says it never happened again
1 week…
2 weeks…
a month tops
best start a betting pool now
Well, he didn’t really apologize in any kind of international or even Asian forum. He was just answering a question put to him by a politican during an interpellation session in the Diet. And then the news media picked it up as if he was making a big announcement. He wasn’t. He was merely answering a question in the Diet, perhaps even a set up question so he could answer it that way.
Q: So Mr Prime Minister, do you or do not apologize for the past?
ABE: Yes, I am apologizing right now.
Q: Thank you, Prime Minister, for answering my interpellation question, and now the international, er, foreign, media can pick up your statement today in this chamber and send it around the world and put the entire matter to rest, thank God.
ABE: Yes, thank God for your timely question, sir.
Q: I think it should all be settled now.
ABE: Yes, if the news media does its job and puts headline around the world that Japan has finally, repeat, finallement, finalimenti, it’s over, this is the killer AP you were all waiting for.
Q: Done deal, sir.
ABE: Exactly.
yes I see..no genuine remorse Danny.
[…] Did or didn’t Abe apologize for Japan’s wartime use of sex slaves? Oftenover from Japundit comments on the news about Prime Minister Abe’s recent apology on sex slaves issue. Oiwan Lam […]
But that’s my point, Danny. Barely anyone did pick it up. It was largely ignored (even though the BBC made a loud song and dance about it - maybe expecting it was a scoop that everyone would eventually pick up). Doesn’t seem to have been set up for international release, for that very reason.
Oi! GVO, I beg your pardon?
The nerve!
Everyone here knows you are Overoftenest
yes thats right old chum..Oftenover from Japundit…forever..and ever..
(diabolic laughter rings out from JP rubbing his hands together in demonic glee….He’s mine!! all Mine!!..Forever!!…HA HA HA).
overoften wrote: But that’s my point, Danny. Barely anyone did pick it up. It was largely ignored (even though the BBC made a loud song and dance about it - maybe expecting it was a scoop that everyone would eventually pick up). Doesn’t seem to have been set up for international release, for that very reason.
But overoften, this story made big news in Taiwan English and Chinsese newspapers the next day, front page coverage. I assume the story appeared all over the world, since it was an AP and Reuters wire story. Google it again, you will see….
I guess is worse to deny such an atrocity than the Yasukuni visits by Koizumi. And yes, the story has finally appeared in foreign media…
Maybe next week he will again say it didn’t happen, as the new right-wing probe on the issue thinks how to back Abe.
They’re disgusting…