At Japanese Right-Wing Symposium, 'Upside-Down Taegeukgi'... Ramseyer Claims "Attempted Academic Assassination"

Professor Mark Ramseyer of Harvard Law School in the U.S. claimed in a video message sent to a symposium hosted by the Japan International Institute for Historical Studies and others on the 24th that he wrote the controversial paper to correct prejudices against Japan. [YouTube broadcast screen]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seoyoung Kwon] Mark Ramseyer, a professor at Harvard Law School, who faced criticism for distorting history by defining Japanese military comfort women as prostitutes in his paper, claimed that the criticism directed at him was an 'attempted assassination.'

On the 24th, the International Institute for Historical Disputes, a Japanese right-wing organization, and Nadeshiko Action, with the sponsorship of the Sankei Shimbun, held a symposium in Tokyo on the theme of 'International Historical Debate Surrounding Ramseyer's Paper.' The stage was decorated with the Japanese flag flanked by the Taegukgi and the Stars and Stripes, but notably, only the Taegukgi was hung upside down. After an attendee pointed this out, the Taegukgi was corrected, and the symposium was able to begin.

On that day, Professor Ramseyer expressed his opinion through a roughly 10-minute video message in Japanese. Regarding the criticism surrounding his paper, he opened by saying, "I think this is not simply a matter of harassment against one professor but a more serious and grave issue."

Professor Ramseyer claimed about the controversial paper, "I wrote it simply because I read English literature and found many things that I thought were really inaccurate regarding the comfort women issue," stating that he wrote the paper to correct historical prejudice. He mentioned that he expected some backlash to his paper but never anticipated it to be this intense.

He went on to condemn the actions of scholars critical of his paper as an 'academic assassination attempt.' He also said, "It seems important to them to provoke backlash and force me to withdraw my 8-page paper to maintain the illusion that there is complete consensus within the academic community," and added, "This is a Stalinist method," among other remarks.

Meanwhile, Professor Ramseyer caused a stir with his paper 'Contracts of Sex in the Pacific War,' which argued that Japanese military comfort women were engaged in prostitution based on contracts. In response, historians from Japan and the United States have continuously issued rebuttals, and the San Francisco City Council in the United States even adopted a resolution condemning the contents of the paper.

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