Japanese education Minister Nariaki Nakayama, the man who makes the most reckless comments about Korea among all the members of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet, has done it again. At a gathering in Shizuoka, Nakayama said that the term "military comfort women" (jongjun wian bu) didn't used to exist, and so I thought it is good the term is no longer in textbooks." It was him who said that Japanese school lesson plans should teach that Dokdo is Japanese territory.
Before even getting angry at Nakayama's continuous irreverent comments you first feel sympathy for his shameless behavior in frequently changing what he says, because you feel he is someone with a personality defect instead of a minister in charge of something important like education. Last November he said it was a good thing that there is less mention of comfort women and forced mobilization in history textbooks, only to have to call a press conference to apologize when controversy ensued. Then in January he said "I think if have to keep from making misstatements but in fact I want to keep making them," revealing that he had made an insincere apology.
Nakayama was once the head of an organization of Japanese Diet members who have supported the history textbooks by the publishing house Fusosha, which promotes the militarist view of Japanese history. It was unreasonable from the start to expect the historical distortions to change when the review process was ultimately his responsibility as education minister. It makes you doubt Koizumi's conscience when he continues to use someone with such vulgar views of history. When there erupted serious discord between Korea, China, and Japan over the understanding of history, the Japanese government responded by telling the international community that it has expressed its self-reflection numerous times. How can neighboring nations believe that when such remarks continue to come from the lips of someone in with such important responsibilities in the Japanese government and when the prime minister continues to tolerate them? Recently there have been calls from within the Korean government suggesting that the Korea-Japan summit meeting scheduled for the middle of this month should be delayed. There might even be a worrisome situation where the claims that a summit would be useless without concrete actions by Koizumi become more influential.
The Hankyoreh, 13 June 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Does Japan Want to Have a Summit? |
