[Desk Column] Distorted History Is Bound to Repeat Itself

[Asia Economy Senior Reporter Jinsoo Lee] The controversy over the paper "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War" by Mark Ramseyer, a professor at Harvard Law School who distorted the history of Japanese military comfort women, is spreading internationally, yet we remain silent.

Global media outlets have begun reporting on the circumstances of Ramseyer's historical distortion and the criticisms against it one after another. The uproar he caused is becoming a topic of public discussion in the international community. On the 4th (local time), a resolution condemning his paper was adopted by the Philadelphia City Council in the United States. However, there is little movement from our government and academia, who are directly involved in the comfort women issue.

We want to ask whether our government is effectively standing by due to the 2015 Korea-Japan Foreign Ministers' Agreement on the Japanese military comfort women issue, or if it is trying not to escalate conflicts after the Japanese government reacted negatively to our court rulings ordering compensation to the victims.

Professor Ramseyer directly challenged our efforts to uncover the truth and resolve the comfort women issue by defining the Japanese military comfort women victims as "voluntary prostitutes." In the process of writing his paper, he even manipulated quotations to reach conclusions that lead to historical distortion. This is not something that can be protected under the name of "academic freedom." It is not just one of many academic opinions but false information.

Can a paper denying the Holocaust (the genocide of Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany during World War II) be protected under the name of academic freedom? Fabricating facts or distorting historical facts based on extremely limited evidence does not fall within the scope of academic freedom.

The United Nations concluded in a 1996 report that Japanese military comfort women were sex slaves who were taken by "violent and explicit coercion." Japan also acknowledged in the 1993 "Kono Statement" that comfort women were taken against their will, but since then, Japanese leaders such as former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have persistently denied this.

Professor Youngchae Lee of Keisen Jogakuen University in Japan stated that Ramseyer's recent paper made it possible to specifically identify a trend in which Japanese right-wing groups distort the comfort women issue based on historical revisionism through English-speaking networks such as the United States. He explained that Ramseyer's paper is not an isolated act by an individual but part of a strategy by Japanese right-wingers and historical revisionists.

We must actively guard against and block this. Historical revisionism contributes to denying Japan's past responsibilities and justifying Japan's movement to return to militarism and a war-capable state.

So far, our government has not been adequately prepared to respond to historical distortion. Our government and academia should make greater efforts to translate and publish research results on the comfort women issue and victims' testimonies into English or to have them published in international academic journals. By meticulously and systematically supporting overseas academic conferences and building friendly forces, we must respond to historical revisionism. Research on the comfort women issue should also be further encouraged in the future.

We must act persistently and strategically to ensure that concealment and minimization of Japan's historical atrocities are not attempted again. When history is concealed or distorted, it is bound to be repeated.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.