The Politics of Gendered Memory of Japanese “Comfort Women”
Sachiyo Tsukamoto BA(Nagasaki); MA(Nottingham)
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics
University of Newcastle
September 2018 Abstract
This thesis explores the role of gender in the nexus between memory construction and national identity formation in Japan, with a focus on the war memory of so-called
“comfort women”, or the sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Military. Despite the fact that Japanese women became the initial victims of the military system of sexual slavery, the majority of them have been excluded not only from scholarly research, but also from feminist transnational justice activism for victims. This research, therefore, analyses the silenced narratives of ten Japanese “comfort women” survivors who testified mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. This study innovates in political science through incorporating the popular memory approach based on the oral history method, combined with the radical feminist approach, Carole Pateman’s critical analysis of the patriarchal state as proposed by the theory of the sexual contract and the feminist activist approach, premised on the pursuit of social justice. For this puspose, this research focalises trauma and healing at the centre of our struggles for emancipation, as proposed by Sara C. Motta and Aurora
Levins Morales. This innovative and interdisciplinary study foregrounds memory, history and trauma in the analysis of contemporary politics.
Accordingly, gender and trauma are the two core concepts around which my analysis is woven. Trauma is political because it reveals gendered unequal relations between the perpetrators and the victims as a central axis in the (re)production in the modern state and nation. The Japanese survivors’ voices of trauma challenge the gendered hierarchy in remembering the war, which illustrates the hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial
Japanese Military and state. The hegemonic masculinity of Japanese soldiers is integral to understanding what “comfort women” meant to them. The Japanese survivors challenge this patriarchal militarist state by exercising their political agency through the
i creation of a counter-memory of victims of the military’s sexual slavery system. This thesis concludes that gender plays a pivotal role in the (re)construction of both war memory and national identity, because for a modern patriarchal state, the control of the former is central to the control of the latter. In this aim, the state control and manipulation of female and male sexuality for mobilisation of the nation is the key to state formation.
By exploring the memories of the Japanese victims as well as war veterans, this thesis contributes to broader discussion about the complexities of masculinised citizenship, feminised subjectivities and (political) personhood in a modern democratic society. I strongly hope that this thesis will contribute to recognising all “comfort women”, regardless of nationalities, as the victims of sexual slavery, by revealing the fierce battle of the Japanese survivors with their trauma in order to transcend the patriarchal binary of so-called “good” women and “bad” women, and to re-humanise modern Japan.
ii Statement of Originality
I hereby certify that the work embodied in the thesis is my own work, conducted under normal supervision.The thesis contains no material which has been accepted, or is being examined, for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University’s Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the
Copyright Act 1968 and any approved embargo.
Sachiyo Tsukamoto
iii Preface
The name order of all Japanese and Korean persons follows their traditional pattern; that is, the surname precedes the given name.
Translations from the original Japanese sources are my own, except where translators’ names are mentioned.
I have added my English translation to the titles of Japanese works.
iv Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge my huge debt to my supervisors, Dr Sara C. Motta (politics) and Professor Victoria Haskins (history). Without their academic support and pastoral care, this thesis would not be completed. As an interdisciplinary researcher, I went through considerable difficulties in filling the gap between politics and history. My supervisors always supported me in harmonious collaboration.
I also owe a great debt of my gratitude to some organisations and people in Japan for their support of my research. I would like to thank Nishino Rumiko, Nakahara Michiko, Igeta
Midori and other members of Violence Against Women in War Research Action Centre
(VAWW-RAC) for sharing their resources and attending interviews with me. Likewise,
I am deeply grateful for Amaha Michiko of Kanita Fujin no Mura and Ikeda Eriko and other staff of Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM), in particular, for allowing me to access the valuable primary source left by a Japanese “comfort woman” survivor, Shirota Suzuko (Pseudonym) . Without their strong support of my research,
Chapter 6 would never have been achieved. I am also deeply appreciative of the late
Hirota Kazuko, as well as Kawata Fumiko, for introducing a variety of precious stories about the Japanese “comfort women” survivors whom they interviewed. In particular,
Hirota’s critical insights helped me to analyse a Japanese survivor, Kikumaru’s life story in Chapter 7. A war veteran, Matsumoto Masayoshi, and his daughter, Mimoto Keiko, also supported my research by being interviewed. My deepest thanks goes to them, as well as to Morikawa Shizuko, who not only participated in my interview but also helped me to contact Matsumoto. My appreciation also goes to Takemi Chieko for attending my interviews.
v I am also grateful for the support I have received from other academics in the Faculty, including Associate Professor Suzanne Ryan and Professor Jim Jose. The previous and current postgraduate cohort has been a source of support and inspiration since I started my MA research on the issue of “comfort women” in Nottingham. Thanks goes to Dr
Peter S. Crittenden, Dr Philip Roberts and Dr Chrysanthi Gallou-Minopetrou and her husband, Sarantos Minopetros, who shared his beautiful poem in my thesis. In Newcastle, my thanks goes to Dr Ybiskay Gonzalez Torres, Dr Eliezer Sanchez, Dr Prapatsorn
Suetrong and Elicia Taylor. Additional thanks for help and support are due to Dr Ned
Loader, who introduced the issue of “comfort women” to me, Dr Kimura Maki
(University College London), Professor Yamashita Yeong-ae (Bunkyō University),
Professor Philip Seaton (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) and Dr Hirai Kazuko
(Hitotsubashi University) for friendship and inspiration. And thanks to Lindi Bowen for providing me with care and support whenever I need help.
My research at the university has been funded by the University of Newcastle
International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (UNIPRS) and the University of
Newcastle Postgraduate Scholarship (UNRP 50:50). I would like to thank the University of Newcastle for the financial assistance.
vi
This thesis is dedicated to Ross Hague, Hirota Kazuko and all victims of the sexual slavery system
vii Contents
Abstract ...... i
Statement of Originality ...... iii
Preface ...... iv
Acknowledgements ...... v
Contents ...... viii
Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1
1.1 Japanese “comfort women” and the prewar state-licensed prostitution system ...... 3
1.2 Transnational feminist activism and its exclusion of Japanese survivors ...... 5
1.3 The politics of war memory: Identity construction ...... 10
1.4 The politics of trauma: Subjectivity formation ...... 14
1.5 Research objectives and methodology ...... 15
1.6 Summary of chapters ...... 18
Chapter 2 Literature Review: The Concept of “Comfort Women” ...... 22
2.1 Introduction ...... 22
2.2 Historical revisionism: Positivist view of history ...... 22
2.3 Popular memory theory ...... 27
2.4 Competing discourses ...... 30
2.5 The concept of “comfort women” as prostitutes ...... 31
2.6 The concept of comfort women as sexual slavery ...... 38
2.7 Victimisation and agency ...... 40
2.8 Sexual contract ...... 47
2.9 Nationalism and militarism ...... 49
2.10 Conclusion ...... 54
Chapter 3 A theoretical and methodological approach to the politics of gendered memory: Restoring agency to Japanese “comfort women” ...... 56
3.1 Introduction ...... 56
3.2 Theoretical framework ...... 59
Trauma as the site of memory and identity contestation ...... 59
viii Telling a story of trauma: The coherence of the self ...... 64
The politics of integrity ...... 67
Political agency ...... 69
Sexual contract and the state ...... 72
Hegemonic masculinity and homosocial male bonding ...... 76
Masculinities of citizen-soldiers in the modern nation-state ...... 81
3.3 Methodological framework and research design ...... 82
Feminist activist methodology as a tool to restore political subjectivity ...... 82
Oral history as the method of counter-memory construction ...... 84
3.4 Analysis of oral history materials ...... 88
3.5 Conclusion: Seeking female victims’ political agency to rewrite history ...... 92
Chapter 4 Hegemonic Masculinity of the Japanese Imperial Military: Manhood as Humanhood ...... 95
4.1 Introduction ...... 95
4.2 The citizen-soldier masculinity in modern Japan...... 96
4.3 From “fully-fledged” citizens to “fully-fledged” soldiers ...... 100
4.4 The making of an imperial killing machine ...... 104
4.5 Masculinity as humanity ...... 108
4.6 Homosocial bond between “fully-fledged” soldiers ...... 110
4.7 Japanese “comfort women”: Gendered imperial subjects ...... 118
4.8 Conclusion ...... 121
Chapter 5 Silenced History: Narratives of Trauma ...... 124
5.1 Introduction ...... 124
5.2 The conspiracy of silence: Forced internalisation of the abusers’ shame and guilt into their victims ...... 125
5.3 Dissociation of trauma as silence ...... 134
5.4 Nationalism as conspiracy of silence ...... 138
5.5 Nationalism as militarism: Gendered national subjects ...... 146
5.6 War trauma and the state’s postwar revisionism...... 152
ix 5.7 A hidden history of the sexual contract: Japanese “comfort women” for the Allied Forces ...... 156
5.8 Conclusion ...... 162
Chapter 6 Telling a Story of Trauma: Political Agency of the Japanese Survivors ...... 165
6.1 Introduction ...... 165
6.2 Shirota Suzuko: Victim-Survivor-Activist ...... 168
6.3 Stage 1: Establishment of stability for survival ...... 172
6.4 Stage 2: Subject formation by building a coherent narrative of the self ...... 178
6.5 Stage 3: Reconnection to the external world ...... 184
6.6 Conclusion ...... 193
Chapter 7 The Politics of Integrity: Between Voice and Silence ...... 195
7.1 Introduction ...... 195
7.2 Death of a former “comfort woman” ...... 197
7.3 The divided self ...... 199
7.4 Her final effort: Breaking silence ...... 204
7.5 Conclusion ...... 208
Chapter 8 Conclusion: Restoring Human Integrity ...... 210
8.1 Modernity as the politics of dehumanisation ...... 211
8.2 Integrity as the politics of humanisation ...... 215
8.3 Research contributions ...... 218
8.4 Research implication: Beyond binaries of modernity ...... 222
Bibliography ...... 224
Primary Sources ...... 224
Secondary Sources ...... 225
Appendices ...... 240
Appendix 1 Brief Life Stories of Some Japanese “Comfort Women” ...... 240
Appendix 2 The Imperial Rescript on Surrender (Gyokuon Hōsō) ...... 251
Appendix 3 The “Oath” Read by Japanese “Comfort Women” for the Occupation Army .. 255
Appendix 4 The List of Primary Sources of Shirota Suzuko ...... 257
x Appendix 5 Kikumaru’s Suicide Note ...... 259
Appendix 6 Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhei on the result of the study on the issue of "comfort women" ...... 261
Appendix 7 Statement by Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi "On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end" ...... 263
Appendix 8 Statement by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo ...... 265
The List of Interviewees in 2016 ...... 270
xi Chapter 1
Introduction
I am sorry I was born human … I was 11 years old … I was 13 years old … I was 16 years old … I was only a pure little candle just starting to learn how to shine… Amidst the darkness of the fiercest storm cruel hands grabbed me… In gloomy cells they drove me… In barracks they stole my light … pieces from my flesh … fragments from my soul… Many little candles melted, were trampled under bestial bodies, stinky breaths and barbarous cheers… But for as long as my flame still burns I will never stop seeking justice and my lost dream… It will come one day when Fear and Silence will no longer feast in the Palace of Lethe…- Everyone will know about that storm that stole the light of so many souls… I was 11 years old… I was 13 years old… I was 16 years old… Yes! I was the light that was lost in the darkness of humanity… In the eternal night An apology is the tiniest candle for those souls that were lost in the storm of wartime…
I am sorry… “I AM SORRY” by Sarantos Minopetros
This soul-stirring poem was born on 24 June 2013, in the middle of a one-day symposium entitled Re-memory of “Comfort Women” at the University of Nottingham. I organised the symposium with the aim of providing diverse perspectives of the “comfort women” issue for its better understanding, by inviting scholars across disciplines including history, gender studies, memory studies and political science. One attendee in the audience,
Sarantos Minopetros, expressed in the form of a poem how this unresolved gendered history inspired him; his then-fiancée and current wife, Chrysanthi, translated his poem from the original Greek into English. Sarantos’ powerful poem showed that the excruciating plight of “comfort women” evoked empathetic feelings, as well as an essential question about humanity: what does it mean to be human and woman?
1 The euphemistic term “comfort women”, or “ianfu” in Japanese, refers to young women and girls who were forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese Imperial
Military at so-called “comfort stations”, or “ianjo”, during the Asia-Pacific War (1931-
45). Women with diverse nationalities fell victim to the military system of sexual slavery:
Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipinas, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Malays,
Thais, Burmese, Indians, Timorese, Chamorros, 1 and Dutch. 2 Notwithstanding the diversity of the “comfort women”, an overwhelming number of them were non-Japanese females from poor families who were mobilised into “comfort stations” by force or deception.
My encounter with the issue of “comfort women” dates back to 2007, when I had the opportunity to take a course convened by Professor Ned Loader at the Tokyo branch of Lakeland University, which is based in the US. I was deeply shocked by “comfort women” survivors’ testimonies that were introduced in his class. Until his class, I had never learned anything about those women who were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers during the war. Born in Nagasaki City as the second generation of hibakusha (a survivor of the dropping of the atomic bomb by the US in 1945), I learned and believed that Japan was a victim country of World War II (WWII). The “comfort women” issue was overwhelming and powerful enough to reverse my recognition of Japan’s national identity from war victim to a war perpetrator. This extreme transformation of my perception of Japan’s national identity was the driving force for me to start my research
1 The Chamorro people (/tʃɑˈmɔroʊ/) are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, politically divided between the US territory of Guam and the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. 2 As a young woman, Jan Ruff-O’Herne was imprisoned by the Japanese during WWII, along with her family and many other Dutch civilians in what was then the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. For 50 years, she kept silent about her ordeal. She and her British husband migrated to Australia for a new start, but the nightmares and fears that her wartime horrors would be discovered kept her quiet. In the early 1990s, she was inspired by the courage of some of the Korean women who were speaking out, demanding an apology and compensation. Summoning all her courage, she travelled to Tokyo to tell her story. (Retrieved from ABC News http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-17/jan-ruff-oherne-comfort-woman-wwii-japanese- government-apology/7174174). 2 about this forgotten history of women. This was the only way that enabled me to know more about Japan’s history of the sexual violence against women during the war. There was no other way for me to contribute to its eradication as both historical amnesia and silencing and contemporary gendered social and political inequities.
1.1 Japanese “comfort women” and the prewar state-licensed prostitution system
The “comfort women” literature is replete with information regarding non-Japanese victims. In fact, however, Japanese women were ‘the first victims’ of the Japanese military’s sexual slavery system3; therefore, ‘the full picture of their historical experience
… tells us a great deal about the military sexual slavery system and its origins and causes’
(Norma, 2016, p. 1). The first military “comfort station” was organised by the Japanese navy in Shanghai during the First Shanghai Incident in 1932, and the Japanese Army followed suit, establishing its “comfort women” system based on the navy model
(Yoshimi, 1995, p. 14; Yoshimi, 2000, p. 43; Edkins, 2003). According to the diary of
Okabe Naosaburō, a Senior Staff Officer in the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, the purpose of the installation of “comfort stations” was to prevent Japanese soldiers from raping local women (Yoshimi, 1995, p. 17; Yoshimi, 2000, p. 45). Back in Japan, government-registered prostitutes became the main target4 for recruitment into “comfort stations”, as revealed by some Japanese survivors’ testimonies (see Appendix 1).
However, testimonies and witnesses note that there were cases in which non-prostitutes were also sent to military brothels.5
3 The terminology of sexual slavery to refer to the “comfort women” was introduced by Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences in her 1994 UN Report. 4 Regarding how the state and military recruited Japanese “comfort women”, see Nishino, Onozawa, & VAWW-RAC (2015, pp. 14-22). 5 For examples, see Yoshimi (1995, pp. 91; 2000, p. 103) and Nishino, Onozawa, & VAWW-RAC (2015, pp. 22-3, 220-2). 3 Japan’s modernisation, which pursued a trajectory of becoming a western capitalist and militarist country, commenced in 1868, when the last Tokugawa Shogun returned political power to the Meiji Emperor. As a result, the western model of the state- licensed prostitution system (Fujime, 1997, p. 88), as well as the conscription system
(Fujiwara, 2000, p. 21), was introduced into Japan. The western state-licensed prostitution system was characterised by both the state registration of prostitutes and mandatory inspections of women in order to combat the spread of venereal disease (Fujime, 1997, p.
87). The Meiji government industrialised the prostitution trade by systematising female trafficking, business practices and profits through expanding forms of prostitutes from shōgi (brothel prostitutes) and geiko (geisha) to shakufu (bar maids)6 (Norma, 2016, p.
64). All three were debt-bond slaves who were sold to these enterprises by their poor families.7
As the Japanese scholar, Morita Seiya, reiterates, the fundamental link between the peace time civilian prostitution system and the wartime military prostitution system is crucial to fully understand why and how the “comfort women” system is established
(Moriya as cited in Norma, 2016, p. 10). Why were Japanese prostitutes subjected to recruitment as “comfort women” in the first place? Yoshimi Yoshiaki, the expert historian of this historical controversy, contends that this is because Japan ratified international treaties, 8 which banned trafficking of women and children (Yoshimi, 1995, p. 88;
Yoshimi, 2000, p. 100). Recent literature also argues that in order to establish the military brothel system, the state took advantage of the infrastructure and the logistics provided
6 Private actors such as traffickers and brothel owners were involved in the civilian prostitution system. However, this thesis’ focus is the state’s role in organising and facilitating this system. 7 Regarding Japan’s modern indentured slavery system, see Norma (2016, pp.68-69). 8 For example, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children (1921) stipulated that ‘(1) any woman under the age of 21 cannot be solicited to engage in prostitution even if she herself agrees and (2) any woman aged 21 or older cannot be persuaded to engage in prostitution through deceptive or compulsory means’ (Onozawa, 2015, p. 156). 4 by the civilian sex industry (Norma, 2016, p. 80). In addition to these state-sanctioned practices, the military preyed upon the vulnerability of civilian indentured prostitutes who had no hope that their families’ debts to their brothel owners would ever be satisfied
(Nishino, Onozawa, & VAWW-RAC, 2015, p. 26). Further, the government could avoid a confrontation with their soldiers’ reactions if they should recognise that ‘their own sisters or daughters had been mobilized by the state’ (Satō, 2014, p. 394). This type of conflict between the state and soldiers was likely to undermine their loyalty and morale to fight for the emperor.
In postwar Japan, many Japanese survivors concealed the fact that they were wartime “comfort women”, whereas some women testified, using pseudonyms in autobiographies or interviews mostly in the 1970s and 1980s (see Appendix 1). However, their voices and experiences were not well documented, much less a subject for scholarly research. Accordingly, as the Australian historian Tessa Morris-Suzuki wonders,
‘[s]urprisingly little is known … about the stories of the many Japanese women recruited to work in the military’s sexual empire’ (Morris-Suzuki, 2014, p. 2). Also, the “comfort women” of Japanese nationality have been excluded from transnational feminist activism for justice of “comfort women”. The following section gives a brief summary of the
“comfort women” justice movement and the position of Japanese women within this activism, in order to reveal the reproduction of the division within feminism, reflective of the patriarchal binary of virgins versus whores.
1.2 Transnational feminist activism and its exclusion of Japanese survivors
The watershed moment of this forgotten history took place in 1991, when a former Korean
“comfort woman”, Kim Hak-sun, courageously broke her almost half-century silence.
Her testimony made a paradigmatic change in the representation of “comfort women” from prostitutes to sex slaves. This was revolutionary. For the first time, a victim broke
5 the taboo of silence by exposing her name and face and speaking about the reality of sexual slavery (Interview: Nakahara; Nishino). Its impact inspired a feminist response.
They mobilised efforts across national borders in order to restore justice and dignity to the surviving “comfort women” by applying international pressure upon Tokyo to issue a formal apology and provide compensation. The constant efforts and the cooperation between survivors and activists were rewarded in the 1996 United Nations (UN) Report submitted by Special Rapporteur, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, who concluded that the
Japanese military “comfort women” system is sexual slavery (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 23).
Further, 1998 witnessed the UN Report presented by Gay McDougall (1998),9 Special
Rapporteur to the UN Sub-Commission, who argued that sexual slavery and violence against women, including rape, are crimes against humanity and must be prosecuted.
This transnational feminist activism culminated in the Women’s International
War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery,10 which was held in Tokyo from 8-12 December 2000. This people’s tribunal was organised by ‘a group of Japanese women who felt responsible for the crimes their own country committed against women, and who earnestly believed that a twenty-first century free of violence against women cannot be realized without a response to the cries of the comfort women for justice and dignity’ (Matsui, 2001, pp. 19-20). This Japanese women’s group was the Violence
Against Women in War Network, Japan (VAWW-NET Japan),11 which was founded in
1988 and in 2011, transformed into the Violence Against Women in War Research Action
Centre (VAWW-RAC).12 For the purpose of indicting criminal responsibility of Emperor
9 McDougall, G. J. (1998). Contemporary forms of slavery: Introduction 1-6 Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict (pp. 1-45). United Nations: Commission on Human Rights. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, fiftieth session. 10 See Matsui, Y. (2001). Women’s international war crimes tribunal on Japan’s military sexual slavery: Memory, identity, and society. East Asia, 19(4), 119-142. Matsui was the founder and head of VAWW- NET Japan. 11 The founder and the head of the group was Matsui Yayori; the sub-head was Nishino Rumiko. 12 VAWW-RAC is co-headed by Nishino Rumiko and Nakahara Michiko. For more about the women’s tribunal, see http://vawwrac.org/war_crimes_tribunal. 6 Hirohito and the state, the tribunal provided the testimonies of survivors with diverse nationalities and two Japanese war veterans, Kaneko Yasuji and Suzuki Yoshio. There were legal arguments presented by expert prosecutors, such as Ms Patricia Viseur-
Sellers,13 and additional testimony by expert witnesses including Yoshimi.
The indictment of Emperor Hirohito was the biggest achievement of the women’s tribunal, given the fact that the International Military Tribunal for the Far East failed to impeach the emperor, who was the head of the state as well as the commander-in-chief of the Japanese military. Further, the women’s tribunal constituted two significant achievements. The first was to include Japanese “comfort women” into victimhood status.
In doing so, Japan participated in the tribunal as the country of both the perpetrator and the victim of the military sexual slavery system. These double roles of Japan as the country of the perpetrator and the victim in the tribunal was the passion of VAWW-NET, which ‘had been so busy supporting non-Japanese survivors who had sued the Japanese government across the country since 1991 that they could not work on the case of
Japanese victims’ (Interview: Nishino). However, it was not an easy task to make non-
Japanese victims and activists understand that Japanese civilian prostitutes who were sent to “comfort stations” were also the victims of the military sexual slavery system. For example, the leading scholar/activist in Korea, Yu Chung-ok, argued that Japanese women were not as damaged as Korean survivors who were virgins at the time of their deployment (Interview: Nishino). Thus, the patriarchal binary representation of virgins versus whores constituted a formidable hurdle to overcome; a hurdle they did indeed surmount (Interview: Nishino). VAWW-NET provided the tribunal with two cases of
Japanese “comfort women”. One was the case of an Okinawan woman who worked at the Tsuji brothel before going to a “comfort station”; the other was that of a Japanese
13 Patricia Viseur-Sellers was the legal advisor for the International Criminal Tribunal the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (USA). 7 woman who worked in Taiwan (Interview: Nishino). In her role as an expert witness, the feminist historian Fujime Yuki testified that the victimisation of Japanese “comfort women” was still valid, notwithstanding the absence of Japanese survivors; and the judges concluded that ‘Japanese women were forced to become “comfort women” and, thus served as sex slaves’ (VAWW-NET, 2001, p. 70).
Another achievement of the women’s tribunal was to provide the testimonies of two Japanese war veterans in front of the victims. For the perpetrator, it is extremely difficult to confess the rape that he committed even to his family, much more in public.
Because ultimately he made the decision to rape a woman or join a gang-rape, responsibility rests with him (Interview: Ikeda). The victims applauded the testimonies of the courageous former soldiers because they proved that the victims’ testimonies were not lies (Interview: Igeta). Thus, the women’s tribunal offered a transformative platform in which the perpetrator took responsibility and became an ally to the victim so that she might transform herself into the facilitator of social and political change (Interview:
Igeta).
The tribunal closed ‘with loud applause and cheers’ in light of its findings that
Emperor Hirohito was ‘guilty of responsibility for rape and sexual slavery as a crime against humanity’ (Matsui, 2001, p. 126). The victims hailed the judgement, saying that
‘justice had been restored’ (Interview; Ikeda).
Nevertheless, the following transnational redress movement to support “comfort women” survivors has, consciously or not, excluded Japanese “comfort women”.14 For example, in 2013, a memorial for wartime “comfort women” was dedicated just outside
14 None of the Japanese survivors filed lawsuits against the Japanese government. The first and only plaintiff, who had fought in the Japanese court, was a Zainichi (living-in-Japan) Korean, Song Shin-do (1922-2017). Arriving in Japan after the end of WWII, she initiated her lawsuits in 1993, and ultimately lost in 2000. See Shin-do, S. (2007). Ore no kokoro wa maketenai [My heart never broken]. Tokyo, Japan: Juka sha. 8 Washington D.C. in Fairfax, Virginia, in order to honour their plight during WWII and to pass their memory onto the next generations. The text inscribed on the memorial states the following:
In honor of the women and girls whose basic rights and dignities were taken from them as victims of human trafficking during WWII.
Over 200,000 women and girls from Korea, China, Taiwan, The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, The Netherlands, and East Timor were enforced into sexual slavery and euphemistically called “comfort women” by Imperial Japanese Forces during WWII. We honor their pain and suffering and mourn the loss of their fundamental human rights.
May these “comfort women” find eternal peace and justice for the crimes committed against them. May the memories of these women and girls serve as a reminder of the importance of protecting the rights of women and an affirmation of basic human rights.15
Figure 1
This photo of the memorial was taken by the author in 2015.
This elimination of Japanese women from the memorial raises the following questions: Is this attributable to the small number of Japanese “comfort women” who broke their silence thus far? Is this because many of them were civilian prostitutes at the time of their recruitment into military brothels? Is there any difference in the physical and psychological damage inflicted upon virgins and/or prostitutes? Then, were Japanese
15 The memorial was established by the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues INC, which was founded in December 1992. See http://www.comfort-women.org/. 9 “comfort women” not sex slaves on the grounds that most of them were “voluntary” prostitutes, as the current Prime Minister, Abe Shinzō, and other Japanese historical revisionists have repeatedly argued? As Morris-Suzuki points out, ‘[t]he fact that some women received money, sweets or beer does not tell us that they were free agents: it does not tell us whether or not they had been forcibly recruited, or whether they were free to leave’ (Morris-Suzuki, 2015, p. 8). Nevertheless, the patriarchal binary of “good” women versus “bad” women is deeply embedded within the “comfort women” discourse, resulting in the exclusion of Japanese women from the category of victim, even among the protagonists. 16 The implication here is that Japanese women working as civilian prostitutes did not suffer as much as virgin women. This, of course, reproduces the patriarchal binary and hierarchical ordering of women. As Nishino Rumiko contends, ‘it is until the victimisation of “comfort women” who were civilian prostitutes is revealed and understood as a violation of women’s human rights that the wider communities cannot recognise the issue of “comfort women” as that of violation of human rights’
(Interview: Nishino). For this reason, this research needs to critically examine contending concepts regarding “comfort women”, based on the feminists’ unresolved debate about
“forced” prostitution or prostitution “by choice”.
1.3 The politics of war memory: Identity construction
In this section, I will focus on the interaction between war memory and national identity since it is integral for a state to control collective narratives of war memory as part of the statecraft to reproduce their legitimacy and authority.
The survivors who came forward became historical and political agents who challenged the dominant memory/history of “comfort women” by revealing their alternative narratives. Kim Hak-sun’s breaking silence in 1991 exposed the contested
16 This is also an issue for the Korean survivors, for not all were virgins; some had been sold by their families; and some had already engaged in sex work. 10 terrain of war memory in Japanese society. In another words, this gender controversy divided the nation in the debate about the construction of nationhood (Seaton, 2007, p.
5). Japan’s postwar national identity as a war victim was shaken by this courageous survivor, with substantial assistance from transnational feminist activists. Their tireless grassroots activism culminated in the 1993 Kōno Statement17 (see Appendix 6), followed by the 1995 statement of Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi18 (see Appendix 7), which constructed a “new” state narrative describing Japan as a wartime perpetrator for the first time since Japan’s surrender in 1945. Therefore, the Kōno Declaration has ever since been
‘a target of the Japanese political right, who insist that it dishonoured Japan’s dignity’19
(Morris-Suzuki, 2014, p. 2). Based on his 2007 cabinet decision (kakugi kettei), which denied the involvement of the Japanese military and government in coercive recruitment of women into “comfort stations” (Morris-Suzuki, 2014, p. 2), current Prime Minister
Abe Shinzō issued his 2015 statement (see Appendix 8). This commemorated the seventieth anniversary of the end of WWII, with no reference to Japan’s war crimes, excluding reference to the military system of sexual slavery to Asian neighbours. Before his statement was issued, on 1 July 2014, he put forth the cabinet decision allowing Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defence, which is not permissible under the constitution. In 2018, the Abe-led Jimintō (Liberal Democratic Party) is attempting to revise the Constitution of Japan, including the elimination of the ‘Renunciation of War’ article (Article 9),20 which officially declared that Japan would not return to a militaristic
17 Kōno was then chief cabinet secretary and his statement acknowledged not only the Japanese military’s involvement in the provision of women and the establishment/management of “comfort stations”, but also forced prostitution upon women. 18 The Murayama Statement recognised Japan’s wartime aggression against Asian nations. See the home page of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: https://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/press/pm/murayama/9508.html. 19 For more details of the first and second Abe administration’s stance on the issue of “comfort women”, see Morris-Suzuki (2014, p. 2). 20 See the home page of the Liberal Democratic Constitution Reform Promotion Headquarters: http://constitution.jimin.jp/draft/. The LDP draft constitution made numerous anachronistic changes of the 11 state (Junkerman, 2005). It uncovers the strong desire of the government to restore the militarist state of Japan before 1945. In the backdrop of this political crisis, this thesis is all the more significant. It is my hope that it will contribute to restoring the power into the hands of a civil society, and in particular the silenced women and their allies, by revealing and honouring the counter-dominant memory of the past war.
The state thus wields the power of historical production. This state control of the official narratives in war memory is all the more significant because the nation is what
Benedict Anderson defines as an ‘imagined community’ interwoven by a (imagined) collective national identity (Anderson, 2006). Duncan Bell explains the nexus of memory and identity as following:
It is commonly argued that group identities require a relatively widely shared understanding of history and its meaning, the construction of a narrative tracing the linkages between past and present, locating self and society in time. It is this understanding that helps to generate affective bonds, a sense of belonging, and which engenders obligations and loyalty to the “imagined community”. (Bell, 2006, p. 5)
Therefore, as Anthony Smith notes, ‘one might almost say: no memory, no identity; no identity, no nation’ (Smith, 1996, p. 383). This innate interaction between remembering
(and/or forgetting) and collective identity creation manifests an official politics of memory that reveals/reproduces unequal power relations among contested memories.
After Japan’s defeat in WWII, ‘[n]egotiations over the interpretation of the war, and the interpretation of the pre-1945 nation, continue to shape interpretations of Japan as a state and the identity of its citizens’ (Trefalt, 2002, p. 115). Further, ‘memory is the core of identity’ or ‘memory defines the core self’ (Starn & Davis, as cited in Klein, 2000, p.
135). My research is premised upon this proposition and investigates Japanese statecraft
current constitution. For example, the emperor is stipulated as Head of State, whereas people’s basic human rights, in particular, women’s, are severely restricted. 12 critically analysing the interplay between the construction of collective war memory and national identity.
In analysing Japan’s statecraft during the war and after its defeat, gender is a key concept in relation to the memory of Japanese “comfort women”. Japanese “comfort women” were subjected to state violence, which signifies a gendered and classed power relationship between the state and women. Here, I understand the state in a different way which goes beyond institutional definitions. The state is not a ‘thing’ or a static ‘fixed ideological entity’, but the state ‘embodies an ongoing dynamic, a changing set of aims, as it engages with and disengages from other social forces’21 (Migdal, 1990, p. 3 as cited in Peterson, 1992, p. 4). Therefore, states ‘must be understood in their historical context and in relation to what they are formed “against”’ (Peterson, 1992, p. 33). Within this formation of the “state”, a critical feminist-lens provides two frameworks to conceptualise states: gender hierarchy and rationality. In other words, states are defined through the deeply innate power structure of institutions, and what logic of rationality behind it. As
Peterson emphasises, ‘our study of states must … take much more seriously the direct and indirect violence by which centralizing forces attempt, often successfully, to impose hierarchical state orders’ (Peterson, 1992, p. 4). Likewise, in the analysis of the interaction between collective memory and statehood, the power relationship between the state and men is equally important because it determines the relationship between men and women.
In this vein, this study investigates the masculine hegemonic memory of Japanese soldiers, as well as the oppressed feminised counter-hegemonic memory of victimised women, in order to examine a fundamental feminist enquiry upon which my first research question, as mentioned below, is based:
21 Joel S. Migdal (1990). The State in society: Struggles and accommodations in multiple areas, States and Social Structures Newsletter, 13 (Spring), pp. 1-5.
13 1. What is the role of gender in remembering the war, particularly in relation to the
construction of national identity?
1.4 The politics of trauma: Subjectivity formation
This section foregrounds how Japanese “comfort women’ survivors were victims of trauma and how trauma is political. In my analysis, the concept of trauma is important because it serves as the nexus between memory and identity formation.
As Pierre Nora notes, ‘[t]he quest for memory is the search for one's history’
(Nora, 1989, p. 13), as well as one’s identity. However, if the memory of an event is traumatic, recovering memory is difficult because narratives of trauma are unspeakable.
Judith Herman points this out by explaining that ‘[t]he conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma’ (Herman, 1992, p. 1). This oscillating nature of trauma between silence and testimony makes it more complex to discover and identify trauma victims’ voices. Like non-Japanese victims of the Japanese military system of sexual slavery,
Japanese counterparts’ testimonies reveal that the latter are also victims of trauma; however, their positive memories at “comfort stations”, as told by some Japanese victims such as Kikumaru (geisha name: see Appendix 1) and Suzumoto Aya (pseudonym: see
Appendix 1), uncover the immense complexities of Japanese survivors’ voices. On top of that, their fragmented positive memories have been (ab)used by the “comfort women” historical revisionists in order to justify their argument that “comfort women” are not sex slaves.
As defined by Trouillot’s work about Holocaust revisionism, historical revisionists share ‘one-sided historicity’. Critical political historiography claims and demonstrates ‘[that] there is no irrefutable evidence to back any of these central “facts” of the dominant … narrative’ (Trouillot, 2015, pp. 4-12, emphasis in original). For
14 “comfort women” revisionists, the central fact is that “comfort women” were voluntary prostitutes. The “comfort women” revisionism thus corresponds to Holocaust revisionism because the former also denies any existing evidence to refute the dominant narrative.
Trauma is placed at the site of memory and identity construction, revealing power relations between individuals and collectives and/or the state. Speaking of personal narratives of trauma, therefore, signifies resistance and challenge to the state narrative of history, which has kept trauma unspeakable, thereby making trauma victims’ political and historical subjectivity impossible. Accordingly, they are stigmatised and excluded from their societies, resulting in internalising the perpetrators’ shame and guilt deeply into their inner selves. Shirota Suzuko (pseudonym; see Appendix 1), Kikumaru and several other
Japanese “comfort women” survivors (see Appendix 1) came forward in order to be recognised as victims of the military sexual slavery system. Their struggle to speak of their traumatised experiences manifests their recovery process from trauma, as modelled by Herman (1992). The analysis of their memories of trauma will explore the following second feminist enquiry:
2. In the contestation between the masculine dominant memory and the oppressed
feminised counter-dominant memory, how can we reconceptualise the agency of
victimised women in order to inscribe female experiences and alternative
narratives into official narratives?
1.5 Research objectives and methodology
This research is interdisciplinary for two purposes. The first aim is to examine the role of gender in the interaction between Japan’s war memory construction and its national identity formation. In this aim, this study seeks a new theoretical and methodological approach by merging the feminist approach and the popular memory approach in order to apply the gender-lens into historical perspectives. The Popular Memory Group at the
15 University of Birmingham in the UK (1982) created the popular memory approach, and it was further developed by Alistair Thomson (1998). This approach analyses the contestation between the dominant and the confronting memories of the oppressed, with a focus on two relationships between private and public memories, as well as past and present memories in the application of oral history. It integrates mutually exclusive paradigms: ‘a political paradigm’ and ‘a psychological paradigm’ (Ashplant, Dawson, &
Roper, 2013). The former is called ‘the state-central approach’ (Hobsbawm, 1992;
Anderson, 2006; Ranger & Hobsbawm, 1993), informing that memory is central ‘to the nation-state for binding its citizens into a collective national identity’ (Ashplant et al.,
2013, p. 7). The latter is named ‘the social agency approach’ (Winter, 1995; Winter &
Sivan, 1999), emphasising individual healing by remembering. Hence, the popular memory approach allows me to analyse the interactions between memory construction and identity formation, both from above and from below.
The problem of popular memory theory is that it does not provide particular concepts for its analysis of memory contestation. The feminist approach compensates the popular memory method for its lack of gender analysis. This is more relevant to the second purpose of this analysis―to reconceptualise the agency of victimised women in order to inscribe female experiences and counter-dominant narratives into official narratives, in the contestation between the masculine hegemonic memory and the oppressed feminised counter-hegemonic memory. Still, as mentioned above, the feminist camps split over the competing discourses between “forced” and “not-forced” prostitution, as well as victimhood versus agency. That means the polarisation between liberal feminism and radical feminism is too far to fill the gap. However, in order to conceptualise Japanese “comfort women” as victims, survivors and agents, this research needs to transcend these patriarchal dichotomies. In that regard, this study employs
16 trauma as another analytical concept, which allows me to recognise the political subjectivity of Japanese “comfort women” survivors in their postwar struggle to find a language to tell their unspeakable stories.
Trauma constitutes the intersection of memory and identity formation both on an individual and collective level (Herman, 1992; Edkins, 2003) since horrible memories, whether they are personal or communal, are not easily incorporated into coherent narratives. It means that trauma is intrinsically ‘a challenge to identity’ (Bell, 2006, p. 7).
Further, trauma is also hierarchical, in light of the aftermath of the 1980s creation of soldiers’ post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Joanna Bourke points it out as ‘a universal suffering subject outside of history’, by arguing that PTSD was ‘a mechanism that allowed those who had tortured and raped Vietnamese to be portrayed as victims’
(Bourke, 2006). As a result, soldiers’ traumatised memories are subjected to remembering, whereas their victims’ traumatic experiences are cast into oblivion, which reveals ‘a hierarchy of suffering’ (Bourke, 2006). This gendered hierarchy of trauma helps to reveal complicity in the silencing of the survivors’ voices between the state and society, and possibly by the survivors’ themselves to ensure their survival and/or as a manifestation of their shame/repressed pain.
With the analytical concepts of gender and trauma for theorising the hierarchical dichotomy of femininity and masculinity in remembering the war, this research applies the oral history methodology described by Lynn Abrams (2010). Oral history is a perfect symbiosis of the feminist approach and the popular memory approach because both commit to construct knowledge from perspectives of the oppressed. Aiming to restore justice to and dignity of Japanese victims of the military sexual slavery system, this study draws upon the feminist activist methodology, which places the oppressed voices and experiences at the centre of analysis. Its self-reflection on ontology, epistemology and
17 ethics in pursuit of social justice is demonstrated by the interaction in its research process among ‘theory, research, practice and activism’ (Knight, 2000, p. 175). Thus, the research practice informed by the feminist activist approach constitutes ‘social activism’
(Ardovini, 2015, p. 15), which, in return, is in solidarity with the silenced to restore their voices and subjectivity.
This research analyses four types of oral history materials categorised by Abrams
(2010): ‘the original oral interview’; ‘the recorded version of the interview’; ‘the written transcript’; and ‘the interpretation of the interview material’ (Abrams, 2010, pp. 2, 9). In this qualitative research, my original interviews with a Japanese war veteran and journalists who had previously interviewed Japanese “comfort women” survivors aid me in supplementing the limited sources of Japanese survivors’ interviews. Here, those oral testimonies in my interviews are used as empirical data to support my arguments. The recorded version of the interview, which comprised Shirota’s 1986 testimony, was previously aired as a radio program. Other primary source data utilised in the research comprises certain written transcripts, including Shirota’s personal records, such as diaries, and Kikumaru’s suicide note, published in a book written by journalist, Hirota
Kazuko. These primary sources allow me to listen to their inner voices, revealing their everyday struggle with trauma. I also use testimonial narratives made by both Japanese survivors and war veterans, which were edited by journalists, as the interpretation of the interview material, in order to examine the meaning of the “comfort women” system to both soldiers and the state.
1.6 Summary of chapters
This research is organised by the following chapters: the literature review; the theory and methodology; four empirical chapters; and the conclusion. Chapter 2 critically examines the literature with respect to the existing contested conceptualisation of “comfort women”
18 in order to evaluate the inclusion/exclusion of Japanese women within each conceptual category. Through this analysis, this chapter seeks to create my own theoretical and methodological framework in order to re-examine the contradictory nature of Japanese survivors’ subjectivity in the relationship with both masculinity and patriarchy.
The narrative of Japanese “comfort women” constitutes the story of the ‘sexual contract’ (Pateman, 1988), which tells us about the male domination of female bodies, as well as men’s suppression of women’s political freedom in the modern civil society.
Therefore, in Chapter 3, three theoretical and methodological frameworks are laid out for constructing both historical memory and political agency of Japanese “comfort women” survivors: the feminist abolitionist approach based on Pateman’s theory of the sexual contract; the feminist activist approach in pursuit of social justice; and the popular memory approach utilising oral history method. Gender and trauma are the major analytical concepts developed throughout this research.
The dominant memory of “comfort women” has been (re)produced, through
Japanese veterans’ remembrance of their experiences with their victims. For this reason, a critical analysis of the complex nature of the masculinities reproduced within the
Japanese military is central to investigating the integration of a modern form of militarism and Japan’s emperor-centred nationalism in relation to soldiers’ sexuality. Focusing on the formation of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell, 2005; Connell & Messerschmidt,
2005) within the Imperial Japanese Military, Chapter 4 explores multiple representations of “comfort women” invoked by Japanese soldiers, which reveal the relationships between soldiers as well as between individual servicemen and the state.
In contrast to Chapter 4, Chapter 5 examines the silenced counter-dominant memories testified by Japanese “comfort women” survivors. Individual experiences differ, according to the location where they were transported, the length for which they
19 worked as “comfort women” and the ranks of the soldiers they served. However, the fundamental similarities in their narratives of trauma uncover how the modern patriarchal state exploited female sexuality and silenced their voices for consolidation of the state power, as well as for constructing the national identity.
Chapters 6 and 7 analyse the life history of two contrasting Japanese “comfort women” survivors, respectively. One is Shirota Suzuko (1921-1993), who was allocated to numerous enlisted soldiers per day; the other is Kikumaru (1924-1972), reserved only for a few officers during the entire time at the “comfort station”. Chapter 6 explores how
Shirota fought with both her traumatised memory and social exclusion in postwar Japan, ending up to speak of her narrative of trauma in the 1958 breaking of silence at hospital and her 1986 radio interview. The purpose of this chapter is to map out her exercise of political agency in the three-stage process of recovery from trauma, as proposed by
Herman (1992). In contrast, Chapter 7 examines the complexity of trauma, oscillating between voice and silence, represented by Kikumaru’s testimony and suicide. Her tragic life story tells us what it means to be dehumanised.
Finally, Chapter 8 concludes that gender plays a pivotal role in the construction of both war memory and national identity. War memory is gendered because it is the best tool for the modern patriarchal state to impose its ideal national identity upon both men and women by manipulating public memory. Hence, the control of gender-related aspects, particularly sexuality, embedded within war memory, is central to state formation. The narratives of trauma challenge this highly gendered statecraft. Responding to Kikumaru’s message left in her suicide note, which said ‘Please write my postwar story however you want’ (Hirota, 2009, p. 16), I created her narrative of trauma. I hope that the alternative history of trauma revealed by this research will help to restore justice and dignity of not
20 only Kikumaru and Shirota, but also all other victims of the military system of sexual slavery system.22
22 Among non-Japanese victims, there seemed to be women who worked as civilian prostitutes prior to becoming military prostitutes. Imperial Japan transplanted the state-licensed prostitution system in both Korea (1916) and Taiwan (1906). This fact induces the assumption that non-Japanese prostitutes were also among the victims. 21 Chapter 2
Literature Review: The Concept of “Comfort Women”
2.1 Introduction
This literature review explores the contending concepts embedded in the issue of
“comfort women” and critically engages with these different conceptualisations and theories to build the foundation for my own theoretical and conceptual framework. This allows me to evaluate the way that the “comfort women” issue is ideologically framed, and disseminated by key agents for particular reasons. The idea of “comfort women” is itself a key concept in examining the construction of Japanese war memory and the politics of gender in creating individual/national identity through Japan’s memory of the
Asia-Pacific War. The ultimate purpose of this review is to identify which theoretical approach is useful for the conceptualisation of Japanese “comfort women”. In this aim, the inclusion/exclusion of Japanese “comfort women” within each conceptualisation will first be clarified. Then I will unpack when, how and why Japanese “comfort women” are included/excluded into/from the conceptual categories. The examinations of those unpacked arguments allow the development of my theory and conceptualisation in the analysis of Japanese “comfort women”.
2.2 Historical revisionism: Positivist view of history
The 1991 first Korean breaking of silence made a paradigmatic change in the concept of
Japanese military “comfort women” from wartime state-licensed prostitutes to sex slaves
(Yoshimi, 1995, 2000; Hicks, 1995a, 1995b; Schmidt, 2000; Tanaka, 2001; Stez & Oh,
2001; Ueno, 2004; Soh, 2008). In Japanese postwar society, the existence of “comfort women” was no secret and some of their life stories were uncovered in publication, mainly by independent journalists (Shirota, 1971; Senda, 1973; Kim, 1976; Hirota, 1975;
22 Yamatani, 1979; Kawata, 1987).23 However, none of these journalistic accounts drew much attention to the “comfort women” issue since the domestically internalised norm proclaimed that all “comfort women” were prostitutes who volunteered to work as such, in exchange for money. This monolithic representation of “comfort women” as prostitutes is problematic because there have been an extensive number of non-prostitute cases unearthed by historians, particularly in Japan’s wartime colonies. Further, recent research
(Ishida & Uchida, 2004; Qiu, 2013; Ban, 2016) has revealed that a great number of
Chinese “comfort women” were violently abducted by the Japanese military. Thus, the method of their “recruitment” varies from country to country, even from person to person.
This one-dimensional conceptualisation of “comfort women” as prostitutes has been emphasised by Japanese revisionist scholars, such as Fujioka Nobukatsu,24 who utilises a positivist ontological and epistemological approach. The expression of
‘positivist history’ was referred to by the Japanese feminist sociologist, Ueno Chizuko, in her critique of the ‘liberal’ view of a group of Japanese historical revisionists in 1998.
Here, ‘liberal’ means liberation from ‘masochistic’ or ‘self-tormenting’ history (Wöhr,
2007, p. 106). According to Ueno, the positivist approach of history25 exclusively relies on documentary evidence, while ignoring personal documents such as diaries, letters journals and survivors’ testimonies (Ueno, 2004, pp. 115, 141).
I contend that there are two problems with her critique. The first issue is that revisionist historians such as Hata Ikuhiko also use survivors’ testimonies as supplementary evidence to validate official documents. However, they only utilise those
23 Pae Pong-Gi was the subject of Yamatani’s book and documentary film around 1979. 24 Nobukatsu Fujioka, a professor at Tokyo University, founded the 'Liberal School of History' in 1995. What Fujioka means by the Jiyū-shugi shikan, or ‘Liberal School of History’, is the association for the ‘unbiased’ view of Japanese history. His logic is underpinned by the Jiyū-shugi shikan, which is regarded as ‘neo-nationalism.’ For more about Fujioka and his Liberal School of History, see Kersten, R. (1999). Neo-liberalism and the ‘Liberal School of History’, Japan Forum, 11(2), 191-203. 25 Michel-Rolph Trouillot also refers to ‘positivist views’ (2015, pp. 4-5): ‘As history solidified as a profession in the nineteenth century, scholars significantly influenced by positivist view tried to theorise the distinction between historical process and historical knowledge.’ 23 types of sources that “fit” their positivist view of history. The positivist assumption articulates that historical truth always looks “identical” to everyone (Ueno, 1999, p. 134).
It goes without saying that personal narratives testified by “comfort women” have never been used by historical revisionists. The second problem with Ueno’s argument lies in the fact that she labelled the prominent conscientious historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki as a
“positivist” historian (Nihon no Sensōsekinin Shiryō Center [Centre for Research and
Documentation on Japan War Responsibility], 2003). Her critique against him was that in order to refute the historical revisionist denial of the existence of official documents, which evidenced the state and military’s enforced recruitment of “comfort women”, he applied the same methodology as the historical revisionists. The shortcoming of Ueno’s criticism of Yoshimi is that, unlike the historical revisionists, he also listened to the silenced voices of the “comfort women” and used them in order to supplement and inform his archival sources.
Hyunah Yang also criticises the ‘positivist attitude’ in examining testimonies by
“comfort women” survivors, by pointing out that ‘the position of the women was restricted to that of “informant”’ (Yang, 2008, p. 86). She argues that in pursuit of ‘the objective truth’, those survivors are ‘treated as “informants” in clarifying an already constructed past, rather than as the main figures in this history’ (Yang, 1997, p. 53, emphasis in original). A feminist epistemology (Knight, 2000; Hardings & Norberg,
2005; Bloom & Sawin, 2009; Ardovini, 2015) challenges this positivist interpretation of history by seeking alternative truths based upon women’s experiences. The importance of utilising feminist epistemology will be discussed in the following chapter.
The 1991 silence breaking gave rise to reconstructing history, which entailed a methodological shift of sources, from focusing on male-centred institutional documents, to individual memories. This new methodology is based on Oral History Theory (Abrams,
24 2010). Abrams defines oral history as ‘recovery history’ since it can restore the past based on evidence provided by oral testimonies, which otherwise could not be recovered from archival documentation (Abrams, 2010, p. 5). Therefore, she reiterates that ‘oral history is one of the few ways by which those who have traditionally been silenced in History may be heard’ (Abram, 2010, pp. 24-5). Given that many relevant official documents were destroyed by the Japanese government/military and that the successive Japanese governments have yet to open most of the existing records to the public, oral history is one of the viable methodologies26 available to unearth the plight of individual “comfort women”. This would allow them to reformulate ‘their status as subjective agents’ (Yang,
1997, p. 58). Unlike the positivist view of history, history is plural and ‘always open to the possibility of a new rewriting’ (Ueno, 1999, p. 140). Thus, the feminist approach of history allows historically forgotten voices of Japanese “comfort women” survivors to speak.
In this vein, as Yang observes, incorporating their experiences into historical narratives demands the reconceptualisation of “comfort women” (Yang, 1997, p. 58).
This new humanitarian turn in the representation of “comfort women” through the prism of sexual slavery has created another paradigm shift in the interpretation of Japan’s past wars. Of significance here is the shift from personal issues of prostitution to the issue of violence against women and crimes against humanity. The international norms regarding the treatment and representation of “comfort women” transformed their representation from military prostitutes to rape victims. Consequently, this paradigm shift promoted the issue of “comfort women” as that of sexual violence against women and women’s human rights, whereas it revealed that Japan was the perpetrator of this brutal system of female enslavement. Until the 1990s, few Japanese had ever imagined that the “comfort women”
26 Other sources include memoirs, interrogation records from war crimes tribunals, newspaper advertisements and personal writings such as diaries. 25 system was a war crime. With the breaking of silence in 1991, the “comfort women” issue emerged as the issue of women’s human rights. Ever since, this historical controversy has been central to the remembrance of the war in Japanese society.
Since the seventieth anniversary of the end of WWII, how to remember the war has been a focus of global attention; however, the complex interaction of war memory and commemoration has yet to be articulated sufficiently (Ashplant et al., 2013, p. 3).
Ashplant et al. recognise two main paradigms in which the studies of war memory and commemoration are grounded: ‘a political paradigm’ and ‘a psychological paradigm’
(Ashplant et al., 2013, p. 7). According to Ashplant et al., a political paradigm informs that memory is ‘a practice bound up with rituals of national identification, and a key element in the symbolic repertoire available to the nation-state for binding its citizens into a collective national identity’ (Ashplant et al., 2013, p. 7). The theoretical framework of war memory based on this from-above paradigm of national identity construction is called
‘the state-central approach’ (Hobsbawm, 1992; Anderson, 1991; Ranger & Hobsbawm,
1993) because it emphasises that the state plays a central role in remembering past wars
(Ashplant et al., 2013, pp. 7-14). This approach is associated with the positivist view to history, because individual voices are reduced to only a tool for fact-finding in pursuit of the “objective” truth. In contrast to the political paradigm, a psychological paradigm draws upon the premise that ‘war memory and commemoration is held to be significant primarily for psychological reasons, as an expression of mourning, being a human response to the death and suffering that war engenders on a vast scale’ (Ashplant et al.,
2013, p. 7). This from-below paradigm of individual healing constitutes ‘the social agency approach’ (Winter, 1995; Winter & Sivan, 1999), which signifies ‘the work of remembrance performed by the agencies of civil society’ (Ashplant et al., 2013, pp. 7-
14).
26 Both approaches, which are based on mutually exclusive paradigms, are problematic because both focus solely on only one group of agents in society—the state elites or individuals. As Ashplant et al. (2013, pp. 10-11) criticise, by eliminating others, both approaches fail to conceptualise the complex interaction among ‘the individual, civil society, and the state’ in the process of the construction of a wider ‘collective memory’
(Halbwatch, 1980). Complexity in the interplay of war memory and history has been studied by Thomas Berger, who has conducted a comparative study of the impacts of historical memories of the wars on international relations. Examining the case studies of
Japan, Germany and Austria, he attempts to clarify the reasons for state’s promotion of
‘particular official historical narratives’ as well as their internal/external geopolitical/geo- economic outcomes. Berger explores three different theoretical frameworks in theorising the construction and the development of official historical narratives. Those three schools are ‘Historical Determinism’ equivalent to the state-central approach, ‘Instrumentalism’ centring on material interests of individuals, institutions and states, or ‘Cultural
Determinism’ emphasising cultural influences. His conclusion is that no single theoretical framework can conceptualise any of the three cases. Rather, he contends that more interrelated frameworks supplemented by different perspectives are necessary for understanding the politics of memory and history (Berger, 2012, p. 230). Therefore, building on his analysis, I will develop an integrated framework to theorise the complex interaction between Japan’s state narrative and public memory in the construction of national identity.
2.3 Popular memory theory
What Ashplant et al. (2013) proposes is an integrated theoretical model in order to fill the gap between the two extremes: the popular memory approach created by the Popular
Memory Group at the University of Birmingham in the UK (1982) and developed by
27 Alistair Thomson (Perks & Thomson, 1998). Popular memory theory, as developed by
Thomson, focuses on two relationships in memory construction. One is the contested relation between the dominant and the confronting memories; the other is the relationship between private and public memories in the application of oral history. In short, popular memory theory constitutes a political analysis of historical memory of the public, as Perks and Thomson claim that ‘it is about the politics of history and the historical dimensions of politics’ (Perks & Thomson, 1998, p. 47).
This integrated approach is useful, particularly in the analysis of the ‘extremely complex phenomena’ in Japan’s remembering of the wars, as Philip Seaton concludes in
Japan’s contested war memories: The ‘memory rifts’ in historical consciousness of World
War II (Seaton, 2007, p. 9). Seaton argues that remembering a past war is more controversial than recalling any other historical events, since war memory, more or less, reminds people of the moral or ethical aspect of the war and poses the following questions: Was the war just or not?27 Was the war a good war or a bad war?28 This moralising and judgemental aspect of war memory is crucial to explore Japanese war memory. In applying the theories of popular memory, media and cultural studies, he articulates how deeply Japanese society is divided in the way of remembrance of its past war. He observes that Japanese war memories are judgemental with their moral ground lying in Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility since Japan as a nation waged the war in his name.
According to Seaton, since 1991, the “comfort women” issue has emerged as what he calls ‘ideological fault lines’ and divided the nation in the debate about construction of nationhood (Seaton, 2007, p. 8). Seaton raised the “comfort women” issue as the one
27 Seaton (2007, p. 19) introduced Michael Waltzer’s Just and Unjust War (1977, 2000), which proposes the dual aspects of war: ‘justice of war, jus ad bellum’ (justice in going to war) and ‘justice in war, jus in bello’ (justice in conducting war). ‘Was the war just or not?’ is categorised in ‘justice of war, jus ad bellum’. 28 This sentence refers to ‘justice in war, jus in bello’ (Seaton, 2007, p. 19). 28 that ‘illustrates the centrality of the official narrative and policy in perception of how
Japan has addressed war responsibility issues’, and by extension, whether Japan has
‘addressed the past’ (Seaton, 2007, p. 66). Seaton (2006) also reveals how gender-related issues have become central to contemporary Japanese war discourses in analysing the
Japanese media’s role in reporting the “comfort women” issue between 1991 and 1992.
However, he does not really address the gender aspects in the formation of collective war memories in Japan. Abrams, contra Seaton, argues that popular memory theory takes on a feminist challenge against the public-private dichotomy that ‘silences or marginalizes’ women’s experiences (Abrams, 2010, p. 45). Given the historical fact that women’s voices, including surviving “comfort women”, have been silenced on a global scale, the popular memory approach is significant for restoring their experiences in history. Further,
Ashplant et al. point out that the popular memory approach ‘demonstrates how subjectivity articulates with the contestation of memory involving agents that operate both in civil society and in the state’ (Ashplant et al., 2013, p. 14). The formation of political subjectivity in history through the interaction of personal and public memory is central to the issue of “comfort women”; Jungmin Seo emphasises that ‘the formation of the female subjectivity through the development of Korean feminism enabled the writing of the history of the Comfort Women as a collective memory’ (Seo, 2008, p. 380). Thus, the history-from-below aspect, characterised by both the feminist approach and the popular memory approach, demonstrates a symbiotic relationship between the two. By benefitting from both approaches, my thesis seeks to develop the new dimension of gender in popular memory theory. In this aim, an analysis of gendered memory of
Japanese “comfort women” as subjugated history provides new theoretical frameworks to integrate both of the history-from-below approaches.
29 2.4 Competing discourses
The introduction of feminist theorising within the “comfort women” literature was an important development in the aftermath of the 1991 breakinging of silence. Within this new strain of theorising, the feminist argument about the gendered relationship between the state, sexuality and war represented by the “comfort women” issue opened up new terrain for discussion by feminist scholars such as Yamazaki Hiromi (1995) and Ahn
Yonson (1996). Of importance here is the edited collection of the 1996 conference on
“The Comfort Women of WWII: Legacy and Lessons” (Stez & Oh, 2001). The articles contained in this edited volume contributed to the development of the feminist debate revolving around the “comfort women” issuey questioning ideological concepts such as racism, sexism, classism, colonialism/imperialism, militarism and nationalism. As Stuart
Hall proposes, ideology is ‘a set of statements or beliefs which produce knowledge that serves the interests of a particular group or class’ (Hall, 2006, p. 166). The ideological implications conveyed and disseminated by the conceptualisation of “comfort women” vary depending on the way they are represented. Then, different metaphors are selectively employed by some groups to produce knowledge that serves their own interests (Soh,
2008, p. 32).
The importance of ideology in examining the “comfort women” literature cannot be over emphasised. As Foucault (1972) admits, it is not so simple to decide which ideology is true or false in real life; however, if ‘the language’ influences people’s ways of thinking and acting, what it explains is believed as ‘true’ (Hall, 2006, p. 167).
Apportioning Hall’s example and contextualising it within the “comfort women” literature, it can be described as this: if we ‘believe’ that “comfort women” were prostitutes and ‘treat them as such’, ‘they in effect become’ prostitutes (Hall, 2006, p.
167). It implies that the language of prostitutes entails a discourse that creates
30 ‘knowledge’, thereby affecting practice or vice versa (Hall, 2006, p. 165). In applying
Hall’s definition of discourse as ‘a particular way of representing’ things and ‘the relations between them’ (Hall, 2006, p. 165, emphasis in original), the contestation of portrayals embedded in the “comfort women” discourse can impact upon our understanding of the Japanese military brothel system. This is because, in Foucault’s view, ‘the knowledge’ regarding the “comfort women” issue ‘is produced by competing discourses’ (Hall, 2006, p. 167).
The competing discourses that constitute the knowledge of the “comfort women” system are manifested by the binary concepts of prostitution versus sexual slavery. As an anthropologist of discourse analysis, Chunghee Sarah Soh points out that the 1991 silence break marked the watershed in which the debate of this historical issue started to engage in ‘the identity politics of representing the comfort women as either public prostitutes or sex slaves’ (Soh, 1997, p. 141). Therefore, the analysis of the binary concept embedded in the “comfort women” discourse is central to theorising the representation of “comfort women” for the purpose of answering an essential question: Which ideological conceptualisations of “comfort women” exclude/include Japanese “comfort women” and for what reason? In this vein, the following section will examine the literature as it relates to the binary concepts of “comfort women”: prostitution and sexual slavery. In this research, feminist theories are the focus in conceptualising the “comfort women” institution, since it has been the feminist humanitarian perspectives that have promoted paradigmatic transformation in representing this historically forgotten issue.
2.5 The concept of “comfort women” as prostitutes
The controversy of the binary discourse was indicated by the first English publication addressing the issue of “comfort women”, written by George Hicks (1995), an Australian economist. Hicks sought to present the “comfort women” issue to a wider audience
31 (Moon, 1996, p. 631), and substantially relied upon the work of Kim (1976), a Korean journalist. Hicks’ quotes from Kim’s stereotypical comparison between Korean and
Japanese “comfort women” illustrate the former and the latter as ‘younger and older, amateur and professional, deceived and voluntary, sincere and jaded’ (Hicks, 1995, p.
39). The feminist international relations (IRs) scholars Katharine H. S. Moon (1996) and
Soh (1997) criticise Hicks’ seemingly careless evaluation of the binary concepts of prostitutes versus sex slaves. Moon points out that his ambivalent attitude blurs his analytical framework of male exploitation of female sexuality (Moon, 1996, p. 361).
Consequently, his ambiguity in terms of how to represent “comfort women” excludes
Japanese “comfort women” from the category of “victims”.
As the extant literature reveals, the western feminist debate over the binary of prostitutes versus sex slaves has been invoked in the discussion of prostitution: “forced” or “voluntary”. This western feminist binary has become the principal argument deployed by the Japanese government and other “comfort women” opponents. The historically controversial feminist debate surrounding prostitution has generated an unbridgeable gulf between pro-sex-work feminists and radical abolitionist feminists. The key concept in the feminist analysis of the binary discourse is agency. Within the feminist literature, there is some consensus that the term “agency” is interpreted as autonomy to make their own decision on the self and body. As pro-sex-work feminist theorists Kempadoo and
Doezema argue, once agency is acknowledged by others, a person can participate in the production of ‘social knowledge’ through their activities, whereby they can potentially transform society (Kempaddoo & Doezema, 1998, p. 9). Kempaddoo and Doezema conclude the endorsement of female “agency” is indispensable to feminist scholars and activists who are struggling with patriarchal hierarchy marginalising women as submissive objects (Kempaddoo & Doezema, 1998, p. 9).
32 With regard to the issue of female agency within the literature, sex-work feminist theory is predicated upon the premise that prostitutes are self-determining workers with free will (agency) to choose their own jobs. Therefore, the sex work proposition categorises prostitution as one form of contracted job to earn money the same way as any other form of employment (Bindman, 1997; Nagle, 1997; Kempadoo, 1999; McClintock,
1992; Kemapdoo & Doezema, 1998; Doezema, 2001; Kapur, 2002). As Spike V.
Peterson points out, what prostitutes offer in exchange for money are not their minds or bodies but ‘sexual services’ (Peterson, 2003). As Julia O'Connell Davidson claims, in pursuit of the middle ground, the sex-work feminist literature contends that ‘sexual services’ are provided through business discussion about the contract in the same way every labourer goes through (Davidson, 2014, p. 519). Ueno points out that these two aspects of prostitution—‘the involvement of business agents’ as well as ‘the giving and receiving of money’—have been utilised by historical revisionists seeking to vindicate the “comfort women” system (Ueno, 2004, p. 82). Therefore, Japanese historical revisionists follow the argument put forth by sex work advocates who insist that the prostitution contract is no different from those under which employees work in other industries (McIntosh, 1996, p. 195).
As examined above, agency is also the key concept underpinning sex-work feminist perspectives. As Judith Kegan Gardiner29 observes, if agency is detached from women, no female subjects could challenge the male-dominant structure (Gardiner, 1995, p. 9, as cited in Kempadoo & Doezema, 1998, p. 9). Thus, for sex-work feminist theorists, agency is an integral part of female solidarity, emancipation and social change. Therefore, feminists in support of free-choice prostitution emphasise that the term “sex workers” brings agency back to prostitutes and empowers them by visualising their human rights,
29 Gardiner, J. K. (1995). Provoking agents: Gender and agency in theory and practice. Urbana/Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. 33 such as freedom to choose their jobs. Kempadoo reiterates that the notion of the sex worker is beneficial to all women across national borders in creating solidarity beyond the dichotomy between “good” women and “bad” women, which has been perpetuated by the male-dominant hierarchy (Kempadoo, 1999, p. 226).
The first comprehensive research about the Japanese “comfort women”, both in
Japanese and English, was published in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Nishino Rumiko,
Onozawa Akane and other members of the Japanese “comfort women” project team of
VAWW-RAC compiled Nihonjin ‘ianfu’: aikokushin to jinshin baibai to [Japanese
'comfort women': Nationalism and Trafficking] (2015). The other major work published was by an Australian feminist scholar, Caroline Norma, in her book, The Japanese
Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery during the China and Pacific Wars (2016). Based on an abolitionist feminist approach, both studies recognise Japanese “comfort women” as the victims of the Japanese Military sexual slavery system. Norma further critiques
Soh’s analysis as similar to the pro-sex-work feminists represented by Kempadoo, who contends that “comfort women” are ‘historical proponents of transnational sex work’
(Kempadoo, 2002, p. 143, as cited by Norma, 2016, p. 44). Soh explains that ‘a fundamental difference between “comfort women” as sexual slaves and prostitutes as sex workers’ is the presence of ‘autonomy’ (Soh, 1996, p. 1239). That is, sexual slaves lack agency in the exercise of their own ‘choice’ as achieved by ‘women sex workers’ (Soh,
1996, p. 1239). This view is similar to the pro-sex work approach which allows scholars like Soh to create a hierarchy of the sufferings of “comfort women” predicated upon their nationalities and previous experiences:
[T]he degree of sexual violence and abuse the comfort women suffered varied with geographical and chronological focus as well as with the ethnicity of individual women. Some Japanese comfort women apparently led relatively secure lives as imperial “gifts,’ serving only officers and being charged with taking care of their needs, both physical and psychological. (Soh, 2008, p. 30)
34
As Norma points out, however, ‘Soh offers no explanation as to how a woman’s experience of prostitution in a comfort station might have been less intolerable as a result of prior prostitution in a brothel’ (Norma, 2016, p. 41).
Thus, the sex-work feminist theoretical literature is problematic because it represents the “comfort women” issue as an issue of a choice of labour. As Jeffreys cogently points out, by applying new “neo-liberal” concepts such as ‘entrepreneurship’, and ‘rational choice’, sex-work feminist analysis attempts to illustrate prostitution as one job opportunity available in the market (Jeffreys, 2009, p. 8). This capitalist position of sex work approach is replete with contradictions. First, as Bindel’s research indicates, the sex-work feminist defence of prostitution marginalises the issue of women’s human rights to that of workers’ rights (Bindel, 2003). The feminists’ concept of agency is mistranslated into the capitalists’ language. In reality, sex workers are far from being independent workers with self-autonomy because they are part of a giant commercial institution—the sex industry. It means that sex workers are always controlled by their managers—pimps and brothel owners. Finally, as the anti-sex-work political theorist,
Pateman, proposes, the sex-work feminist defence must logically conclude ‘that there is nothing wrong with prostitution’ in the same way with any other jobs (Pateman, 1988, p.
191). Pateman argues further that the absence of the sex-work feminist argument about universal moral judgement against prostitution allows prostitutes to be more stigmatised.
As Ueno points out, the stigmatisation of prostitutes has kept Japanese “comfort women” in silence (Ueno, 2004, p. 84). Thus, contrary to sex-work feminist assumptions, the prostitute’s “agency” is, ultimately, denied. Given the fact that the majority of prostitutes have been women thus far, this pro-sex work approach of prostitution contributes to enhance and internalise ‘the patriarchal assumption that prostitution is a problem about women’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 192). All in all, it is unlikely that the sex-work feminist
35 proposition will contribute to new knowledge production of the complex voices and subjectivities of Japanese “comfort women”, much less the restoration of their human rights and dignity.
Another problem is that the sex-work feminist approach minimises the significance of structure within the structure-agency construction. Within the interplay between structure and agency, which Kempadoo and Doezema seem to downplay in their work, Davidson argues that structure can confine the exercise of agency. For Davidson, structure refers to any institution that perpetuates the domination–subordination relationship between groups, including prostitution, which constitutes ‘an institution which allows certain powers of command over one person’s body to be exercised by another’ (Davidson, 1998, p. 9). A radical feminist philosopher, Kathy Miriam, also observes that sex-work feminist theory conceals the power structure perpetuating the
‘domination and subordination’ relationship inherent in prostitution (Miriam, 2005, p. 7).
Miriam is critical of the sex-work feminist approach, pointing out that by obscuring ‘the structure of the practice itself’, it promotes benefits of sex industries as well as victimisation of prostitutes (Miriam, 2005, p. 7). Bindel also notes that the frequency and the magnitude of the ferocity, which prostitutes are facing on a daily basis, is beyond comparison to those of other occupational workers (Bindel, 2003). Thus, as Bindel (2003) concludes in her work, prostitutes ‘are different’ from other commercial workers especially in terms of violence to which they are exposed on a daily basis. To Bindel, the sex-work feminist concept of ‘unionising prostitutes’ 30 seems to endorse pimps and brothel owners as legitimate managers, which means legitimising the structural violence against women (Bindel, 2003).
30 For instance, the International Union of Sex Workers (ISUW). 36 As Soh emphasises, the Korean survivors’ plight in the (post)wartime signifies a distinctive ‘gendered structural violence’ (Soh, 2008, p. xii). Accordingly, the impact of structural elements in the issue of “comfort women” should not be played down or ignored. However, Fujioka and other Japanese revisionists mobilise the sex-work feminist proposition in order to justify the “comfort women” system by relegating the issue to an individual’s freedom to choose a profession. The revisionist theoretical framework is based on a nationalist discourse that glorifies collective national identity. According to
Ueno, Japanese revisionists pursue restoration of Japan’s national pride, which, they believe, has been hurt by the ‘masochistic view of history’ represented by the “comfort women” issue (Ueno, 2004, p. 111). What is the most problematic about this approach is that the revisionist conceptualisation of “comfort women” denies individual voices as well as a collective voice of “comfort women” in history by exclusively including
Japanese “comfort women” into their categorical representation of prostitution. The representation of “comfort women” implies not only how to remember “comfort women”, but also how to fill a gap in Asian colonial history. As a postcolonial feminist, Hyunah
Yang observes the absence of Japanese military “comfort women” in Asian wartime history implies the absence of their categorical positioning in local and global history, such as ‘class, gender, nationality, or sexuality’ (Yang, 2008, p. 80). Thus, the sex-work feminist theorisation of “comfort women” contributes to ignoring Japanese “comfort women” as historical subjects. In conclusion, the sex-work feminist approach is not useful to conceptualise Japanese “comfort women” for the following reasons. This framework not only downplays the structural factors which exploit and then stigmatise Japanese
“comfort women”, but also naturalise the domination–subordination relationship between men and women by reducing women’s human rights issues into the issue of individual freedom to choose their jobs. Accordingly, the sex-work feminist approach fails to
37 theorise the experiences of Japanese “comfort women” as part of Japan’s historical narratives.
2.6 The concept of comfort women as sexual slavery
The comfort women of WWII: Legacy and lessons (Stez & Oh, 2001) applies the abolitionist feminism orientation in order to ‘overturn hierarchies of gender that have ranked men above women’ as a group (Stez & Oh, 2001, p. xiii). This gendered hierarchy, which can also be referred to as patriarchy, when framed within the abolitionist argument, equates both prostitutes and rape victims as victims of sexual violence against women.
This radical feminist approach is reiterated by Stez and Oh, who argue that ‘(e)ven prostitutes are raped, and when they are, the crime against them, too, must be prosecuted’
(Stez & Oh, 2001, p. 94). The abolitionist feminist argument that prostitutes are
“rapeable” implies that women cannot exercise their sexual agency in prostitution.
Kathleen Barry (1995), a leading radical feminist, in her twenty-year research, provides strong empirical support for the abolitionists’ assumption. Based on her interview with prostitutes, Barry’s research illustrates how the prostituted woman separates the self from the body. Barry’s model of the ‘self-dehumanization’ process in prostitution consists of four stages: ‘Distancing’; ‘Disengagement’; ‘Dissociation’; and ‘Disembodiment and
Dissembling’ (Barry, 1995, pp. 30-5). According to Barry, even if she [a prostitute] successfully pretended to be something/someone else, the repetition of self-segmentation blurs the line identifying the real autonomous self and leads to the worst scenario:
‘multiple personality disorders’ (Barry, 1995, pp. 317-8). As Catharine A. MacKinnon also points out, rape and prostitution rob women of personhood; further, prostitution trades the robbed personhood between clients (MacKinnon, 1993, p. 14). Thus, within the abolitionist feminist literature, there is the general conclusion that prostitution is
38 another form of rape, which constitutes sexual abuse and focuses on an insistence to eliminate every type of capitalisation on female sexuality.
However, this abolitionist conceptualisation of sex slaves as victims provoked a backlash against “comfort women” transnational activism. First, the concept of “comfort women” as sex slaves/victims incited a reactionary attitude among Japanese opponents towards the survivors (Soh, 2008, pp. 33-4). Hata (1999), Fujioka (1996, 1997) and other
Japanese nationalist scholars and activists started to disseminate research, which concluded that “comfort women” were nothing but camp followers. Accordingly, their negative campaign against “comfort women” has caused a sharp division in the pro-
“comfort women” activism, which clearly differentiates rape victims from prostitutes.
Moon (1999), in her article, “South Korean movements against militarized sexual labor” describes the schism between the two feminist camps in consideration of two Korean feminist movements: the chongsindae 31 (“comfort women”) movement and the kijich'on 32 (US military prostitutes) movement. For the chongsindae movement, the essential issue concerns the methods and practices on how the women were recruited. The majority of its leading figures, including the survivors, have reiterated the virginity of the chongsindae victims and denied any association in terms of ‘cause’ or ‘identity’ with the kijich'on women, who were regarded as ‘willing whores’ by the chongsindae survivors33
(Moon, 1999, p. 319). Moon points out:
[i]f there are chongsindae survivors who also are kijich'on survivors, they would not be in a position to step forth and demand justice and compensation for the first identity and existence because the second would compromise their moral legitimacy’. (Moon, 1999, p. 320)
31 Chongsindae (teishintai) literally means ‘volunteer corps’. See Soh’s discussion (2008, pp. 57-63) of how this term came to be used in the (South) Korean movement for redress. 32 ‘Kichijon’ actually means ‘camp town’, the term used to refer to the areas around military bases. 33 In recent moves the chongsindae and the kijich'on victims worked together and finally filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government. In 2017, a South Korean court rendered a decision that the South- Korean government violated the law by establisheding a vast prostitution network which catered to US service personnel stationed in South Korea. See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/world/asia/south- korea-court-comfort-women.html. I heard this cooporation from personal correspondence with a VAWW- RAC member. 39
The same thing can be said about the Japanese “comfort women” who were prostitutes at the time of their recruitment. Thus, the “comfort women” transnational activist movement is trapped in a moral dilemma such as whether to include or exclude prostituted women before or after becoming “comfort women”. To the extent that this schism leads to the exclusion of prostituted women from the purview of “comfort women”. It reveals the absence of the abolitionist conceptualisation of sexual slavery among those transnational feminist activists who have excluded them from the category. In this way, such activists are reproducing their silence. Hence, this thesis aligns itself with the abolitionist perspective in order to include Japanese victims as sex slaves.
2.7 Victimisation and agency
The analyses of Japanese “comfort women” conducted by both VAWW-RAC (2015) and
Norma (2016) are valuable for challenging the patriarchal dichotomy in the victimisation between virgins and prostitutes, thereby recognising the “comfort women” of Japanese nationality as victims of the Japanese military sexual slavery system. VAWW-RAC’s edited collection investigates a diversity of primary sources ranging from official documents, such as military and police records, to personal narratives including victims’ testimonies. Their archival research reveals the complexities of the recruitment and the treatment of the Japanese “comfort women”, and the connection between the state- licensed prostitution system and the “comfort women” system. It further introduces the
“comfort women’s” postwar plight of stigmatisation and social exclusion.
Norma also examines Japanese historical records and interviews, yet she draws upon Andrea Dworkin’s theory of ‘scapegoating’ 34 and challenges the ‘pimping’ of women. For Norma, the ‘pimping of women’ entails the exploitation and abandonment
34 See Dworkin, A. (2000). Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and women’s liberation, New York, NY: Free Press. 40 of prostitutes for the sake of others’ benefits (Norma, 2016, p. 31). Her work is further informed by the research of Katharine Moon and Morita Seiya.35 Expanding on these two scholars, Norma emphasises the continuity of the sexual slavery systems between peace time and wartime as a disguise for both civilian prostitution and military prostitution.
Finally, both VAWW-RAC and Norma reject ‘a hierarchy among victims of different forms of prostitution’ (Norma, 2016, p. 6). On the one hand, their valuable contributions to the “comfort women” debate with a focus on Japanese victims deserve credit; however, on the other, their abolitionist perspectives cannot transcend the victim-agency binary. In another words, they reproduce the erasure of the complexities of subjectivity by focusing only on victimhood.
The third problem with the abolitionist approach is more related to the activist feminist debate about the contestation between victimhood and agency. For transnational feminist activists and scholars, such as Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (1994), diversity of women’s agency is central to their feminist analyses (Grewal & Kaplan, 1994, as cited in Naples & Desai, 2002, p. 6). This is because the purpose of the feminist activist approach is to determine ‘sites of possibilities’ for social/political change (Bloom &
Sawin, 2009, p. 334; Knight, 2000, p. 175) and ultimately to achieve social transformation
(Ardovini, 2015; Hardings & Norberg, 2005). Female agency is the engine ‘to liberate and transform them from objects of suppression to subjects of women’s movement’
(Harding & Norberg, 2005, 2011, as cited in Bloom & Sawin, 2009, p. 338). Thus, from the activist feminists’ point of view, the abolitionist approach ignores the individual agencies of the survivors who broke their silence. As Soh notes, the singular representation of “comfort women” as sex slaves represents them as being nothing but powerless victims without any agency (Soh, 2008, p. 33). Notwithstanding Soh’s
35 Morita is a lecturer of Komazawa University, while belonging to the Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group. 41 conclusion, we should value the political agency which the survivors manifested ‘against gendered oppression in their adverse social conditions’ (Stez & Oh, 2001, p. 81).
As a poststructuralist feminist, Kimura Maki (2008) raises a fundamental inquiry about the formation of agency in the case of “comfort women”. Her research draws upon narrative research, which focuses on ‘individual personal experiences’ (Rustin, 2000, pp.
40-1; Chamberlayne et al., 2000, as cited in Kimura, 2008, p. 6) and their linguistic, cultural construction (Crossley, 2000, p. 527, as cited in Kimura, 2008, p. 6). By incorporating Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of ‘subalterns’ agency (1988, 1999) and Louis Althusser’s theory of ‘interpellation’ as expanded by Judith Butler (1997ab),36
Kimura concludes that individuals are recognised as ‘subjects’ when an individual voice synchronises with a particular ideology/discourse (Kimura, 2016, pp. 185-92). According to Kimura, ‘[t]estimonies, the representation of particular voices’ should be understood as a space where a complex process of subject-formation takes place (Kimura, 2016, p.
188). In the case of “comfort women”, as she describes, in the 1990s when the “comfort women” discourses underwent ideological changes from military prostitutes to sexual slavery, survivors’ voices were heard. At that moment, they became subjects whose agency was recognised (Kimura, 2008, p. 13). It takes the form of an ‘assertive agency as an outcast victim’ (Wakabayashi, 2003, p. 107). Kimura calls this process ‘the subject formation’. She argues that survivors’ testimonies are ‘the site of their subject-formation’ and that they are ‘not positioned as helpless victims but are actively involved in the creation of their own narratives and their own selves’ (Kimura, 2008, p. 6).
In application of the concept of subject-formation to the “comfort women” case,
Kimura aims to transcend ‘the patriarchal dichotomy’ of prostitutes/sex slaves (Kimura,
36 See Butler, J. (1997a). Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. London, UK: Routledge. Butler, J. (1997b). The psychic life of power: Theories in subjection, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 42 2008, p. 16). Given that the binary concept of prostitution/sexual slavery contributes to
‘partisan politics’ polarising Japanese revisionists and transnational feminists (Soh, 2008;
Kimura, 2008) while excluding Japanese “comfort women” from the transnational feminist activism, the concept of subject-formation will help to understand the agency construction process of Japanese “comfort women”. Subjectivity is contradictory and it is from within these contradictions that female agency can arise in this context. As the existing literature suggests, Shirota, Kikumaru and other few Japanese survivors tried to have their voices heard (Hicks, 1995a, 1995b; Yoshimi. 1995, 2000; Hirota, 1975;
Shirota, 1971; Soh, 2008; Nishino et al., 2015; Kimura, 2016; Norma, 2016).
Investigating what prevented their subject-formation is one of the purposes of this research. However, in the analysis of their agency construction, this research also seeks to play a role in representing how they articulated their voices.
Still, the prostitute–sex slave dichotomy remains in the paramount issue of
Japanese “comfort women”. Liz Kelly (2003), a researcher of female trafficking, notes that the question of the forced-or-voluntary-prostitution constitutes ‘the wrong debate’ as suggested by the title of her article. She points out that the contestation between victimisation and agency in the current feminist theorising is problematic (Kelly, 2003, p. 142). According to the contemporary feminist thought, as Kelly observes, whenever trafficked women ‘can be said to exercise any agency’, they are not recognised as
‘victims/victimized’ (Kelly, 2003, p. 142). A radical feminist, Kathy Miriam also refutes that agents and victims are ‘mutually exclusive’ categories (Miriam, 2005, p. 13). She argues that the mutual inclusive relationship between agency and victimisation is possible depending on ‘the meaning of an agency’ as well as ‘empowerment’ under the situation that is regarded as ‘inevitable’ (Miriam, 2005, p. 14). This is because sexual violence diminishes female capacity to exercise their agency and at the same time expands that of
43 the male (Lungen, 1998, as cited in Kelly, 2003, p. 143). Kelly calls the capacity to exercise agency as the ‘space for action’ and furthers Eva Lungen’s concept of agency, by asserting that ‘[a]gency is exercised in context’ (Kelly, 2003, p. 143). However, as
Lungen notes, it is unavoidable that other elements restrain contexts in which agency can be exercised (Lungen, 1998, 37 as cited in Kelly, 2003, p. 143).
What has restricted the survivors’ “space for action” is the universal myth: an uncontrollable male sexual drive. Hicks describes that male sexual exploitation of female bodies during wartime ‘is part of a long and inglorious tradition’, exemplifying the cases of the Roman Empire, the British Army in the nineteenth century, and the German and the Allied Armies during WWII (Hicks, 1995a, pp. 2-6). The historian of comparative studies, Tanaka Yuki38, also emphasises the interaction among war, sex, and power, and criticises the sexual exploitation of Asian women’s bodies by the Allied Forces (Tanaka,
2001). The Japanese leading historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki, who discovered the first official documents to prove the involvement of the Japanese government and military in recruiting “comfort women”, concludes that this patriarchal universal myth promotes male objectification of female sexuality and justification of “comfort women” as ‘a necessary evil’ (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 199). The patriarchal discourse assumes that prostitutes are necessary to prevent rape because men cannot control their sexual desire in peace time, as well as wartime. Further, the ‘phallic myth’, as Yamazaki notes, marginalises women as ‘reproductive machinery’ and polarises women into two conflicting categories: ordinary women and prostitutes (Yamazaki, 1995, p. 51). This patriarchal dichotomy is parallel to that between Japanese “comfort women” and their non-Japanese counterparts. Thus, the patriarchal universal myth prohibits transcending
37 Lungren, E. (1998). The hand that strikes and comforts: Gender construction and the tension between body and symbol, in R.R. Dobash (ed.), Rethinking violence against women (pp. 169-98), London, UK: Sage. 38 Tanaka publishes as ‘Yuki Tanaka; in English and ‘Tanaka Toshiyuki’ in Japanese. 44 the binary division of prostitutes and sex slaves in the debate of the “comfort women”. In this vein, the masculinity-focusing approach will be useful to analyse state formation and national identity in the interaction between memory and history.
In an attempt to move even further beyond the binary inherent in the “comfort women” literature, Yoshimi also extends his analysis to include those women and girls who were recruited ‘under conditions of debt slavery’ (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 29). Many of them were Japanese “comfort women”, who were sold to brothels by their impoverished parents under Japan’s state-licensed prostitution system. Yoshimi’s most important contribution to the “comfort women” literature is that he has sought to embed the military sexual slavery system into ‘the larger context of historical attitudes toward women’ in
Japan (Rechenberger, 2003, p. 314). He concludes that modernisation of Japan, which commenced with the Meiji Restoration (1868), facilitated ‘the fulfilment of male sexual desire regardless of the dignity and human rights of women’ across social classes
(Yoshimi, 2000, p. 200). He points out that the civil and legal codes in the Meiji era were based on the patriarchal ‘sexual division of labo[u]r’ in marriage (Yoshimi, 2000, pp.
200-1). As he notes, modernised Japan allocated three roles for women: wives; prostitutes; or “concubines”, who were situated between bearers of children and sex providers (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 201). Yoshimi observes that wives in modern Japan were
‘legally incompetent’ and always under the threat of losing their children’s legitimacy by their husbands’ legitimisation of their concubine’s children39 (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 200).
The Meiji Restoration was the state policy of modernisation in order to compete on an international scale with the western imperial powers by introducing, among other things, legal/political systems based upon the European model of the nation state.
According to Fujime, through enacting a series of new regulations, the Meiji government
39 After extensive debate, the Meiji Civil Code did not give legal recognition to concubines. 45 established a system of licensed prostitution based on a French model and developed from the advice of British medical doctors (Fujime, 1997, pp. 51-6, 89-90). Fujime points out three changes introduced by the European prostitution system during the Meiji
Restoration. First, medical check-ups in connection with the diagnoses for potential sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) became mandatory for prostitutes. Second, the state imposed taxes on brothel owners and prostitutes. Third, unlicensed prostitutes were punished (Fujime, 1997, pp. 90-2). Japan’s licensed prostitution system was thus imported from the West and, consequently, this western import became the driving force to promote what Yoshimi calls the patriarchal ‘sexual division of labor’, which allocated two roles for women: bearers of children or sex providers (Yoshimi, 2000, pp. 200-1). On the other hand, focusing on capitalist aspects of the sex industries, Fujime provides a thorough critique of the European model of the prostitution system as state exploitation of female bodies through human trafficking (Fujime, 1997, pp. 92-3).
Here, the interaction between patriarchy and capitalism is of a great concern for feminist theorists. Among others, the ‘dual-systems argument’, which proposes that patriarchy and capitalism are ‘two autonomous systems’, is one of ‘the most influential’ accounts within feminist debate for those scholars who seek to connect patriarchy and capitalism (Pateman, 1988, pp. 37-8). Zillah Eisenstein’s counterargument40 against the two autonomous systems reveals the ‘difficulties’ of refuting this theory (Pateman, 1988, p. 38). Pateman explains41:
The difficulties of breaking with this approach can be seen in Zillah Eisenstein’s discussion, which is unusual in arguing that “in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, patriarchy changed in relation to these economic changes, but it also set the limits and structure of their change’. Yet, she also states that we must recognize “two systems, one economic, the other sexual, which are relatively autonomous from each other”, but she adds, “they are completely intertwined”. (Pateman, 1988, p. 38)
40 See Eisenstein, Z. R. (1981). The radical future of liberal feminism, New York: Longman, pp. 18-22. 41 Because of her theorisation of the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism, she could be considered to fall under the category of a socialist-feminist. 46 If capitalism and patriarchy are interwoven to some extent, as Pateman argues that
‘prostitution is an integral part of patriarchal capitalism’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 189), how can we locate which causes a specific type of sexual violence against women? To help answer that question, this research takes the position that the best approach is through an analysis of the theory of the ‘sexual contract’, because it ‘illuminates capitalist relations within modern patriarchy’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 38).
2.8 Sexual contract
Modern Japanese gender codes are synonymous to what Pateman (1988) calls ‘the sexual contract’, which has widely been known as the “hidden” agreement of modern civil societies to legitimise male ‘patriarchal rights’ to access female bodies and control over women. She argues that within modern society, there exists a patriarchal structure that perpetuates the domination–subjugation relations between the sexes. The patriarchal hierarchy has been endorsed by the social contract in order to verify male civil rights and by the sexual contract in order to deny female citizenship by marginalising women as sexual beings. She also provides a thorough critique of the contractarian approach underpinned by liberalism since it conceals the domination–subordination relations between two sexes, as discussed with respect to prostitution. In the recent feminist literature, McRobbie and other post-feminist theorists attempt to revise the sexual contract by replacing the traditional patriarchal norms of gender hierarchy by democratic advancement of egalitarian society (McRobbie, 2007). In the post-feminist approach, individual economic life is articulated in the public sphere; the private sphere, in which male patriarchal rights to access female sexuality, is ignored. It discloses that the political significance of women’s equal citizenship implied by the sexual contract theory is still not taken for granted, even by neoliberalised feminist theorists. Following Pateman,
Miriam (2005) contends that the sexual contract theory reveals the impacts of
47 ‘contractarian liberalism’ on the conceptualisation of ‘freedom, agency and power’ because ‘[m]ale mastery and female subjection is a power relation structured into liberalism, and thus also into the organization of modern patriarchy’ (Miriam, 2005, pp.
4, 10). In conclusion, Miriam emphasises that victimisation can be situated alongside with agency if the debate about prostitution focuses on the definition of agency, and not on the ownership of agency. In other words, the conceptualisation of prostituted victims’ agency is possible in the discussion about how their agency is represented, as opposed to whether they possess agency or not. Miriam’s abolitionist approach to theorise a symbiotic relationship between victimisation and agency formulation in prostitution will help to frame the analysis of Japanese “comfort women” who were mostly state-licensed prostitutes. In practice, Japanese “comfort women” could not exercise the freedom to choose their clients, much less to leave prostitution (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 202). In this regard, Yoshimi asserts that Japan’s prewar licensed prostitution system was ‘in reality a system of sexual slavery’ (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 203). From this perspective, the Japanese state legitimised female trafficking; therefore, many Japanese people took state- sanctioned prostitution for granted. As a consequence, they accepted the prostitution discourse, which concealed the dehumanising effects of the system.
All in all, the abolitionist feminist approach provides a useful theoretical framework for this research since it produces space to include Japanese “comfort women” in the debate. First, the abolitionist feminist analysis focuses on male dominance and examines male sexual rights over female bodies. In particular, Pateman’s sexual contract theory is useful in the analysis of patriarchal structure of modern Japanese society. This approach will contribute to removing the social stigma from Japanese “comfort women”, by creating the space for them to have their own voices back in pursuit of their subject formation. Second, the abolitionist theoretical framework provides new definitions of
48 women’s agency and empowerment in a patriarchal and liberal social order. As Miriam defines agency as ‘a capacity to radically transform and/or determine the situation itself’
(Miriam, 2005, p. 14), Shirota, Kikumaru and other Japanese “comfort women” who volunteered to work as “comfort women” exercised their agencies in order to get out of the debt-bondage enslavement (Shirota, 1971; Hirota, 1975; Yoshimi, 2000, 1995). In this research, an examination of their agencies is significant to situate different individual narratives of the Japanese “comfort women” into Japanese collective war memory. In this vein, going beyond the prostitutes–sex slaves binary is both inevitable and necessary. To that end, I will develop the abolitionist theoretical perspectives with focus on the sexual contract theory in the theory chapter.
2.9 Nationalism and militarism
Another viewpoint that also examines the relationship between victimisation and agency centres on the ideologies of nationalism and militarism in an analysis of the Japanese
“comfort women”. This is because nationalism, as well as militarism, also restricts women’s “space for action” in a modern civil society. As Ueno, one of the biggest proponents of this perspective, points out in her book, Nationalism and Gender (2004,
2012), masculine models of citizenship are predominant in the modern nation-state, where women as the second-class citizens are left with only two choices to make: seeking citizenship as equal with men or accepting gendered division of labour (Ueno, 2004, p.
63). Ueno goes on to argue that either choice falls into the trap of nationalism. Females choosing to be ‘male clones’ are required to fight against enemies on the front line, while women becoming wives/mothers are confined within the home in order to support men.
Thus, women need to choose one of the gendered dichotomies: the homefront or the battlefront. However, some Japanese “comfort women” had different experiences above and beyond these gendered dichotomies. In short, they supported soldiers by providing
49 sexual services, while at the same time they were forced to follow soldiers to the battlefield. As a Japanese survivor, Kikumaru confessed in the interview with journalist
Hirota Kazuko (1975, 2009), she always felt as if she were a soldier. Thus, the social contract of the modern nation state combined with state construction and national identity building itself. As Nishino further points out, there was a hierarchical construction of citizenship by which Japanese women were deemed first-class female citizen of the colonial master state. Conversely, as those from the colonised countries, Korean women were considered as second-class citizens, whereas Taiwanese women were regarded as third-class citizens (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 139). Nishino also emphasises that this sense of imperial privilege may have become a narrative of justification and thus Japanese women could not recognise the discrimination and the victimisation that they faced at the
“comfort stations” (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 139).
During wartime Japan, okuni no tame, or for the sake of my country, was the magic phrase that mobilised both men and women into the state’s war, based on a gendered division of labour. Some civilian prostitutes were told by the recruiter at
“comfort stations” to raise soldiers’ morale for the country (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 133).
Thus, Japanese “comfort women” could transform themselves from stigmatised prostitutes to ‘a patriotic Japanese subject’ during wartime (Soh, 2008, p. 148). Yoshimi criticises this manoeuvre in the recruitment of “comfort women” as ‘manipulating their patriotism’ (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 101). As Ueno concludes, nationalism is a key driver of the process of nation-state construction, which incorporates females into the modern masculine state as ‘national subjects’ (Ueno, 2004, pp. 64-5). However, Nishino et al.
(2015) appear to jump on the conclusion from this, that along with the opportunity to pay- off of their debt to their brothel owners, the wartime slogan for the country encouraged
Japanese civilian prostitutes to become military prostitutes.
50 The feminist researcher, Kinoshita Naoko (2017), warns that this perspective is likely to fall into the trap of justifying wartime military prostitution, as she argued in the conclusion in her book 'Ianfu' mondai no gensetsu kūkan: Nihonjin 'ianfu' no fukashika to genzen [The space to create "comfort women" discourses: Invisibilisation of Japanese
"comfort women" and the present]. She points out that if Japanese “comfort women” were characterised as those who worked at “comfort stations” for the country, it could justify the logic used by the wartime Japanese military, thereby reconstructing the discourse that silences their voices (Kinoshita, 2017, p. 247). Based on both a social constructivist approach and the radical feminist approach, Kinoshita analyses how and what Japanese
“comfort women” discourses have been (de)constructed in different spheres such as in politics and feminist movements in Japan. She develops a discourse analysis of state power and social structures through the examination of official records, published interviews, NGO documents, and newspaper/magazine articles relative to the Japanese
“comfort women”. Her research is ‘the first academic research’ to investigate Shirota’s vast volumes of personal writings including her diaries and letters (Kinoshita, 2017, p.
35).
I honour Kinoshita’s solidarity with “comfort women” survivors, in particular,
Japanese victims and recognise her work as highly relevant to this research in using similar empirical sources and including feminist abolitionist perspectives presented.
Nevertheless, this research is methodologically different from her work. Kinoshita carries out a critical discourse analysis of “comfort women” discourse in postwar Japan by examining newspapers, parliamentary minutes, and newsletters or flyers disseminated by feminist activists. In order to visibilise Japanese survivors’ plights, Kinoshita interprets
Shirota’s diaries, letters, and drawings; however, her interpretation mainly focuses on how Shirota thought about her own experiences as a “comfort woman”. Unlike my
51 research, Kinoshita limits her analysis of Shirota’s experience solely to her victimhood, as opposed to my analysis focusing on the construction of her political subjectivity and agency in her fight against trauma.
With respect to the relationship between nationalism and female citizenship in modern civil society, Ueno’s feminist critique is shared by feminist scholars in the west within International Relations (IR). Citing a study conducted by one of the leading feminist IR theorists, Cynthia Enloe (2000), and Stez and Oh (2001) point out that global militarisation has constantly (re)constructed male domination over female sexuality as manifested by the “comfort women” system ‘in wartime and peacetime’ (Stez & Oh,
2001, p. 15). Here, Enloe’s definition of militarisation is the ‘step-by-step process by which a person or a thing gradually comes to be controlled by the military, or comes to depend for its well-being on militaristic ideas’ (Enloe, 2000, p. 3). She notes that in the day-to-day militarising process anything from ‘a pair of sneakers’ to ‘marriage’, or anyone can be (de)militarised (Enloe, 2000, pp. 291-2). Enloe’s definition of militarisation signifies the critique of Stez and Oh against the militarisation that prevails on a daily basis and completes itself in wartime. As Enloe observes, the global diffusion of militarisation privileges masculine citizenship and masculinises nationhood. In the militarised state, ‘masculinizing citizenship’ is always measured by participation in the state military service and young women pursue ‘first-class citizenship’ by joining the military (Enloe, 2000, pp. 238, 244). Here is the feminist dilemma that Ueno points out above. Enloe is also critical of feminist theorists such as Nira Yuval-Davis (1997), who, in Enloe’s view, advocate the masculinised model of full citizenship for both sexes.
Against this, theorisation of citizenship, Enloe warns that all females cannot escape from self-militarisation through sex (such as military prostitutes), work, or even marriage (such as “militarised motherhood”) (Enloe, 2000, pp. 244-6). Expanding upon Enloe’s critique,
52 one model of women’s self-militarisation is the Japanese “comfort women” system in which patriarchal nationalism justifies its existence.
These studies of Ueno and Enloe, with respect to the relationship between nationalism/militarism and contemporary citizenship, are inextricably related to
Pateman’s theorising of the modern patriarchal society bound by the sexual contract.
Pateman argues that the ignorance of female political rights invalidates women’s
‘political standing’ as citizens (Pateman, 1999, p. 8). Pateman concludes that the sexual contract is essentially about a story of women’s political liberation as well as the central issue of democratisation of female political rights (Pateman, 1999, p. 6). Therefore, it is indispensable to address the issue of the male sexual rights to exploit female bodies in a modern patriarchal domination. Feminist activist theorists such as Leslie Rebecca Bloom and Patricia Sawin facilitate female empowerment and, ultimately, pursue female emancipation from ‘objects of suppression’ (Bloom & Sawin, 2009, p. 338). As Joanne
Ardovini observes, a feminist activist approach uncovers many ‘truths’ because its reflexive epistemologies ‘speak to multiple truths’, and incorporate ‘all realities’ into debates (Ardovini, 2015, pp. 53-4). Thus, this feminist activism framework in theorising women’s experiences provides useful tools to address the issue of Japanese “comfort women” in the mainstream social sciences underpinned by positivist approach. This is because the complicity of the positivist approach in consolidating power and benefits of patriarchal institution has advanced social injustice (Hardings & Norberg, 2005, p. 2009).
As Sandra Harding and Kathryn Norberg emphasise, unlike the traditional ‘value-free’ methodology, feminist activist methodology retains ethical and political accountability for ‘its social consequences’ (Hardings & Norberg, 2005, p. 2010). This broader feminist epistemological framework will be developed in the next chapter.
53 2.10 Conclusion
Since the 1991 breaking of silence, the conceptualisation of “comfort women” has been constructed around the competing binary of prostitutes versus sex slaves, which has excluded Japanese “comfort women” from being theorised as both historical subjects and political subjects in Japanese war memory/history. As discussed above, the positivist view of history tends to build up male-dominant history and ignore female individual voices and experiences. Even feminist theoretical approaches seeking to restore female agency and experiences in history are dissected by the patriarchal dichotomy of prostitution versus sexual slavery. As a result, the gaps in theorising between sex work and liberal feminists on one hand, and abolitionist feminists and feminist activist theorists on the other hand, are too large to be filled. Therefore, in order to re-examine and situate the plights of Japanese “comfort women” into postwar Japan’s historical narratives, new theoretical frameworks are necessary. These new theoretical approaches should recognise the political subjectivity of Japanese “comfort women” in history by transcending the prostitute–sex slave dichotomy. Further focusing on the contradictory nature of female subjectivity in this context, this research will foreground a process-orientated view of agency and embed it within a critical engagement with processes of state and national identity formation.
The stories of Japanese “comfort women” are part of the story of the sexual contract. In other words, their social stigmas and plights are perpetuated by the domination-subordination relationship between two sexes. Therefore, stories of Japanese
“comfort women” are also part of a story of female political emancipation. As Miriam emphasises, the theory of the sexual contract is significant in conceptualising freedom as
‘women’s collective political agency’ (Miriam, 2005, p. 14). Thus, this research will seek to restore justice and dignity of Japanese “comfort women” by theorising the relationship
54 between women’s agency and both masculinity and patriarchy in constructing historical memories of Japanese “comfort women”. In this aim, popular memory theory based on oral history and the theory of the sexual contract constitute theoretical frameworks to reconceptualise Japanese “comfort women”. Since the ultimate goal of this research is to contribute to achieving social justice on behalf of all “comfort women”, feminist activist theory is the basis of the moral/ethical grounds. These three theoretical frameworks will be more fully discussed in the following chapter.
55 Chapter 3
A theoretical and methodological approach to the politics of gendered memory:
Restoring agency to Japanese “comfort women”
3.1 Introduction
This chapter seeks to merge the feminist activist approach, the feminist abolitionist approach based on the sexual contract theory, and the popular memory approach, applying oral history into a larger framework in order to establish a new theoretical and methodological approach, which enables me to examine the gendered memory of
Japanese “comfort women”. As discussed in the previous chapter, there is no single fixed truth in history. The truth through the eyes of victims is often different from the “reality” through the eyes of perpetrators. For example, the truth for a victim of the “comfort women” system is sexual violence; whereas in most cases, a soldier regards her simply as a prostitute. Accordingly, there are contestations in perspectives and narratives between the testimonies of the former and the latter. The popular memory approach investigates this memory contestation, in particular, between the dominant memory and the subordinate memory with a focus on the past–present, as well as the private–public interaction in memory construction.
However, popular memory theory does not provide a particular analytical concept to investigate this memory contestation. This research, therefore, employs trauma as the key analytical concept since the concept of trauma allows me to locate memories in contestation and to analyse the narratives through the lens of the traumatised. Trauma indicates psychological wounds (Caruth, 1996) inflicted by experiencing or witnessing extraordinary events. Since 1980, in the field of psychiatry, some symptoms of trauma has been widely diagnosed as PTSD, which refers to human responses to natural disasters, war and a diversity of violence such as a rape (Caruth, 1995, p. 3). However, the responses
56 to abnormal events do not imply that PTSD is ‘a disease’, but reveals ‘our inability to allocate meaning to the events’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 39). As a Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst, Dori Laub, points out, this is because they are ‘beyond the limits of human ability to grasp, to transmit, or to imagine’ (Laub as cited in Caruth, 1995, p. 68).
Traumatic events are, thus, impossible to be perceived when they occur due to the scale of abnormality; therefore, they cannot be recalled until they ‘return[s] to haunt the survivors later on’ (Caruth, 1996, p. 4). This ‘belated experience’ (Caruth, 1996, p. 7) is suggested by Laub, who describes what happens to the survivors who start to be aware of their extraordinary experience:
[they] live not with memories of the past, but with an event that could not and did not proceed through to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, continues into the present and is current in every respect. (Laub, 1992, p. 69)
This characteristic of trauma signifies the (im)possibility of speaking of trauma and the survivors’ struggle to find a language to speak of their trauma. The tragic consequence also reveals that traumatic events are not only real but also are ongoing for the survivors, resulting in interference with and disruption of memory and, thus, identity construction.
Memory is the ‘representation of the past’ whereas trauma is the representation of the reality of traumatic events (Alphen, 1997, p. 36) and this conflicting interplay between trauma and memory is critical to an understanding of survivors’ testimonies.
Feminist methodologies help the popular memory approach to reconstruct gender-sensitive histories by exposing how the gendered official memory reproduces gendered inequalities of power and by uncovering that there are suppressed and forgotten histories and experiences through which we can give the narrators/survivors excluded from official Histories as gendered subjects. By deconstructing42 their silences and the
42 ‘Deconstruct’ is often used by feminist political scientists such as Sara C. Motta. 57 violence to which they were subjected, this research aims to achieve the ultimate goal of the feminist activist methodology: the restoration of social justice and dignity to the silenced victims of sexual violence.
My research questions are based on two fundamental feminist enquiries initiated by the feminist critiques which contest the normalised conceptualisation of Japanese
“comfort women” as voluntary prostitutes within Japan:
1. What is the role of gender in remembering the war, particularly in relation to the
construction of national identity?
2. In the contestation between the masculine hegemonic memory and the oppressed
feminised counter-hegemonic memory, how can we reconceptualise the agency
of victimised women in order to inscribe female experiences and counter-
hegemonic narratives into official narratives?
In order to address these key questions, I have framed my research around a subsidiary set of research questions, as listed below:
1. What is the role of gender in the interaction between the construction of war
memory and national identity?
a) What relationship between the state and men is revealed by the dominant
memory of Japanese “comfort women”?
b) What relationship between the state and women is revealed by the excluded
stories of surviving Japanese “comfort women” who broke their silence?
c) What is the role of war memory in state formation?
2. How can the political agency of Japanese “comfort women” be conceptualised?
a) What encouraged some Japanese surviving “comfort women” to break their
silence?
b) What is the role of testimonies in constructing survivors’ identity?
58 3. How can we restore justice to and dignity of Japanese “comfort women”?
In this chapter, I outline a theoretical framework in order to answer these questions, with key concepts for analysis. I then lay out my methodological approach, which integrates the feminist abolitionist and the feminist activist approach into the popular memory approach based upon oral history43.
3.2 Theoretical framework
Trauma as the site of memory and identity contestation
In order to consider the overarching role of gender in the key research questions, this section provides a theoretical framework for understanding how trauma influences the construction of memory and identity on both the individual and collective level. The concept of trauma is political because it not only reveals power relations but also influences their interaction in the construction of identity and subjectivity on both the individual and collective level. Traumatic events such as wars cause the personal sense of ‘shock and fear’, which puts collective identity at stake (Alexander, 2012, p. 19).
However, individual suffering does not always construct collective trauma since ‘shared trauma depends on a collective process of cultural interpretation’ (Alexander, 2012, p.
10). In short, collective trauma is a cultural construction. Therefore, collective trauma is not the result of pains experienced as a group, but the outcome of ‘this acute discomfort entering into the core of the collectivity’s sense of its own identity’ (Alexander, 2012).
Trauma becomes a threat to both individual and collective identity since it disrupts the temporal coherence of both personal and public/official narratives due to the impossibility of language to comprehend and express traumatic experiences. Narrative is
43 Regarding feminist oral history, see Penny Summerfield (1998). Reconstructing women's wartime lives: discourse and subjectivity in oral histories of the Second World War. Manchester, UK; New York: Manchester University Press, Sherna Berger & Gluck, Daphne Patai (Eds.) (1991). Women’s words: The feminist practice of oral history, London: Routledge and Sheila rowbotham (1973). Woman’s concsciousness, man’s world, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. 59 a constituent part of identity construction because it is central to remembrance of the past individual and collective sense of identity. It is trauma that all of a sudden shatters the illusion of familial or social safety and uncovers the real face of our protectors as ‘our tormentors’ in various ways, such as child abuse or conscription (Edkins, 2003, p. 4).
Consequently, our absolute trust in our family or our society is completely broken. Jenny
Edkins calls this feeling a ‘betrayal’ of trust by ‘the social order that gives us our existence meaning and dignity’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 4). The consequence of this condition is that people cannot find a place to fit the traumatic events either in individual narratives or in the official narratives to make sense of them in their lives.
For any given state, the control of collective trauma is fundamental to perpetuating its sustained national identity. This is articulated through cultural processes of interpreting social suffering that enable the state to manipulate the collective memory of trauma for purposes of statecraft. In this aim, what Alexander calls ‘carrier groups’ connect their
‘material and ideal interests’ to particular narratives ‘about who did what to whom, and how society must respond if a collective identity is to be sustained’ (Alexander, 2012, p.
11). This is because the constant positioning of ourselves as a member of a family or a state promotes the integration of our own identity to the collective (Edkins, 2003, p. 8).
The state is the most powerful carrier group, given that the linearity of the state narratives is constantly (re)produced under day-to-day influences such as myth and belief, thereby masking and silencing individual voices against the official narratives. Edkins separates the time when a society is confronted by traumatic events (the ‘trauma’ time) from the normal time (the ‘linear’ time) when the nation-state continues ‘the standard political processes’, which have been thus far accepted (Edkins, 2003, p. xiv). When trauma tears the collective identity apart, political battles begin between the state, which intends to restore the linear time in order to maintain official narratives and groups/individuals who
60 uncover the voices of trauma in order to inscribe alternative narratives beyond official history.
Edkins’ emphasis on collective/individual trauma in relation to the construction of collective/individual memory and identity is useful to my analysis as it allows me to problematise the way individual/collective trauma and memory interact with the state narrative during Japan’s postwar transformation from a militarist state to a democracy.
To this end, this research examines the importance of Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial
Rescript on Surrender (Gyokuon Hōsō, see Appendix 2), released on 15 August 1945, since it was the basis for the state’s particular narrative that facilitated the manipulation/elision of the nation’s collective trauma, memory and identity.
How state power seeks to keep trauma unspeakable, and the victim of trauma silenced and in the shadow, is key to understanding the impossibility of her/their political subjectivity. As Judith Herman argues, ‘[s]ecrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line’ of defence to evade responsibility for his crime (Herman, 1992, p. 8). She describes the perpetrator’s strategy:
If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. …the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. (Herman, 1992, p. 8)
Yael Danieli names this state strategy as the ‘conspiracy of silence’, defining it as the
‘[p]olitically dictated or officially sanctioned silence’ (Danieli, 1998, p. 680). He further expands the concept of conspiracy of silence to the silence forced on individuals by society, which utilises ‘indifference, avoidance, repression, and denial’ (Danieli, 1998, p.
4) in order to stifle any potential individual voices of trauma. Danieli’s concept of conspiracy of silence is of value for grasping how the external world forces a traumatised
61 victim to internalise the perpetrator’s shame and guilt into her inner self by making her feel mad, shamed and invisible.
In this research, the conceptualisation of the conspiracy of silence is expanded into the battle within her internal world since trauma also silences the victim’s inner voice for survival. Herman calls this defence mechanism the ‘flight’ mode, which ‘obliterate[s] fear’ as opposed to the ‘fight’ mode, which faces danger (Herman, 1992, p. 199). One such defence strategy is what Robert Lifton calls ‘numbness’, which disconnects the traumatic experience from one’s own awareness by refusing to engage with their surroundings (Rogers, Leydesdorff, & Dawson, 1999, p. 13). Elizabeth Waites’ notion of
‘dissociation’ also explains another defence mechanism, which ‘allows the mind, in effect, to flee what the body is experiencing’ (Waites, as cited in Rose, 1999, p. 166).
Another psychic protection mechanism is the creation of a different identity, which Susan
D. Rose calls the ‘self-as-other’ (Rose, 1999, p. 170). Herman’s emphasis on the fight and flight mode in dealing with trauma is generative for informing how a victim of trauma either exercises her agency to come to terms with her traumatised experience; or, alternatively, fragments her self, reproducing the trauma. The flight mode in the form of numbness, dissociation and self-as-other is identifiable in some Japanese survivors’ testimonies, such as Shirota and Kikumaru. The former left a large number of writings including diaries and letters along with some drawings and paintings at her final home,
Kanita Fujin no Mura (Kanita Women’s Village, hereafter referred to as Kanita). The latter left a suicide note of which the contents were released in Hirota’s book. Both reveal their inner voices about how they struggled to combat the (internalised) conspiracy of silence.
However, these psychological self-defence strategies destroy the connection
‘between the body, mind and spirit’ (Rose, 1999, p. 171), resulting in ‘the divided self’,
62 a condition in which one loses her unity and is torn apart from the real self, thus creating a ‘false’ self (Laing, 1960). The disconnected self is a threat to her existence because she is likely to stop her engagement in relating to the external world and even her inner self, resulting in the loss of her self. Thus, trauma destroys the humanness of its victims. The concept of the divided self is especially useful for me to analyse the complexity of
Kikumaru’s suicide in relation to her subjectivity insofar as it explains the nature of her inner struggle to make sense of her life (and death).
A similar type of self-dehumanisation process is embedded in prostitution sex.
Based on her twenty-year research of interviewing prostituted women, the radical feminist scholar, Kathleen Barry, theorises the process of self-dehumanisation by prostitution sex, which consists of four stages: ‘Distancing’; ‘Disengagement’;
‘Dissociation’; and ‘Disembodiment and Dissembling’ (Barry, 1995, p. 29). Every stage in the self-dehumanisation in prostitution sex coincides with a dehumanisation mechanism, such as numbness and dissociation, which a victim of trauma undergoes for survival, as discussed above. In order to protect her real self, she segments her body into sex objects and pretends to be a totally different woman (Barry, 1995, pp. 30-5). This indicates that prostituted women are trauma victims of double-dehumanisation through both a simultaneous dehumanisation process during prostitution sex, as well as a belated, but endless dehumanisation mechanism embedded in the struggle with their traumatic experiences. Thus, the narrative of trauma tells two stories: ‘the story of the unbearable nature of an event; and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival’, that is, the excruciating account of a death and a life (Caruth, 1996, p. 7). Cathy Caruth calls this conflicting, but inextricable interaction between trauma and survival in the narratives of trauma as ‘double telling’ (Caruth, 1996, p. 7). The notion of double telling allows us to identify the effects of trauma on the telling of life stories of the survivors with regard to
63 what is remembered or forgotten in the oscillation between the reconstruction and the destruction of the self.
Thus, the concept of trauma is useful for me to reveal and analyse the battle of silencing the voice of victims among individuals, collectives and the state in order to answer my research question 1(c). At the same time, trauma also enables me to analyse victims’ agency in relation to my research question 2 with focus on their self-silencing.
Telling a story of trauma: The coherence of the self
The survivors’ efforts to create and tell their own life stories of trauma against the conspiracy of silence are a manifestation of the exercise of their agency. In order to provide a theoretical framework that enables me to conceptualise their agency in relation to my research question 2, this section introduces Herman’s three stages of recovery from trauma and Charlotte Linde’s theory of the self.
The strategical switch from the flight mode to the fight mode manifests survivors’ exercise of agency. The fight response to danger encourages a victim of trauma to establish ‘a degree of control over her own bodily and emotional responses that reaffirms a sense of power’ and ‘to learn how to live with it, and even how to use it as a source of energy and enlightenment’(Herman, 1992, p. 199). Hence, only the fight mode leads to recovery from trauma. Herman’s three-layer model in recovery from trauma is useful for the analysis of silence breakers’ agency since the second stage is characterised by the action of telling a trauma story: ‘In the telling, the trauma story becomes a testimony’
(Herman, 1992). In Herman’s model, the first stage of the establishment of physical and psychological sense of safety is the precondition for the second stage of telling her own story of trauma without the threat. The successful reconciliation with herself by speaking of trauma at the second stage enables her to proceed to the third stage of reconnection to her outer world (Herman, 1992). The autonomous subject of this process is the survivor.
64 In other words, the survivor is the ‘author’ of her own narrative of her life story (Herman,
1992, p. 133). Hence, I analyse Japanese survivors’ agency to come to term with trauma based on Herman’s three-stage recovery process.
Personal narrative is significant for analysis of identity construction. Charlotte
Linde, the socio-linguist and ‘the most influential theorists of the life story’ (Abrams,
2010, p. 41) describes the importance:
Narrative is among the most important social resources for creating and maintaining personal identity. Narrative is a significant resource for creating our internal, private sense of self and is all the more a major resource for conveying that self to and negotiating that self with others. (Linde, 1993, p. 98)
Based on this perspective of narrative, Linde develops the theory of self-construction through the creation of life stories. Linde contends that the goal of creating life-story narratives is ‘the creation of coherence’ (1993), that is, the establishment of temporal consistency of the self. A narrative about oneself tells not only what happened in the past but also ‘who we are and how we got that way’ (Linde, 1993, p. 3). In other words, the construction of narratives about one’s own life history is a self-formation process that deals with one’s past through one’s ‘present sense of self’ (Abrams, 2010, p. 33).
According to Linde’s theory of the self, this present understanding of her life is determined by three elements embedded within the self-formation process: ‘continuity of the self through time’; ‘relation of the self to others’; and ‘reflexivity of the self’ (Linde,
1993, p. 100).
Linde’s theory of self-construction through life stories is substantially relevant to this research since it has a symbiotic relation to the popular memory approach, as well as
Herman’s recovery model approach in that all three engage with and complexify our conceptualisation of the past–present and the public–personal relationship. The first aspect, continuity of the self through time, is important for the survivor to make sense of
65 her present identity in connection to who she was. Because traumatised experiences fragment her memory and sense of self, she constantly needs to revise and reconstruct her life-story narrative. Therefore, the process of how the chronologically consistent narrative is shaped is significant for this analysis.
The process of establishing chronological consistency in a life story is deeply determined by Linde’s second aspect, the relationship between the self and others, or the public–personal relations as framed in the popular memory approach. This is because
‘[i]n order to exist in the social world with a comfortable sense of being a good, socially proper, and stable person, an individual needs to have a coherent, acceptable, and constantly revised life story’ (Linde, 1993, p. 3). This sense of comfortability is equivalent to the notion of ‘memory composure’ proposed by popular memory scholars. A leading figure of this approach, Alistair Thomson, describes the ‘feeling of composure’ in the memory-making process in the following passage:
We remake or repress memories of experiences which are still painful and ‘unsafe’ because they do not easily accord with our present identity, or because their inherent traumas or tensions have never been resolved. We seek composure, an alignment of our past, present and future lives. (Perks & Thomson, 2006, p. 245)
This definition of composure signifies the human need of conformity with public discourses in individual memory making and of public recognition as a member of a community. As Herman also emphasises, ‘[r]ecovery [from trauma] can take place only within the context of relationships’ with others (Herman, 1992, p. 134). This perspective indicates that a life story is a significant communication tool between the internal self and the external world. In order to attain a self that is acceptable to others but also maintains our integrity, we constantly need to negotiate through self-narratives, the inner sense of self with the social world, which interfaces with norms, cultural assumptions and/or belief systems (Linde, 1993).
66 The third feature, ‘the reflexivity of the self’, mirrors how the survivor establishes
‘the moral value of the self’ (Linde, 1993, p. 123). The establishment of the coherent self in the eyes of both others and the present self requires constant self-reflection on the
‘remembered self’, or in other words, the ‘partially constructed’ self through remembrance (Abrams, 2010, p. 45). This continuous process of self-reflection and revision of a life history always imposes ethical judgements on the present sense of self- seeking in order ‘to achieve a sense of a stable and composed self’ (Abrams, 2010, p. 42).
The public–personal interaction in Linde’s theory of the self helps to locate not only ‘the moral standing of the self’ and of the social world (Linde, 1993, p. 123), but also the ethical dilemmas in the interplay between the two. This is because the reflection of the interaction provides narrators with certain grounds for the evaluation and judgement of their sense of self, based upon external moral standards (Linde, 1993, p. 3). The external moral standards are normalised in society not only through norms, myths or beliefs, but also by the state through regulations. Hence, the theory of the self allows me to analyse how the state constructs memories that seek to continue the silencing of the voices and subjects of trauma. Accordingly, Linde’s conceptualisation of the self is generative for grasping how political subjectivity in telling a story of trauma is possible or impossible in the interaction with her inner self and her external world.
By incorporating Linde’s theory of the self into Herman’s recovery model, I will analyse the struggle of Shirota and Kikumaru to develop their agency and identity through creating their coherent life stories based on self-refection of the relationship between the inner self and the social world.
The politics of integrity
In order to establish a coherent life story, a victim of trauma needs her strong moral standing against the multi-layered power to silence her. The ‘politics of integrity’,
67 theorised by Aurora Levins Morales (1998), signifies the moral principle to create a coherent self. This section explains the relevance of this concept in examining all my research questions.
Here, integrity means the state of ‘being whole’ and the politics of integrity, of
‘the full complexity of who we are’ (Morales, 1998, p. 7) being central to personhood.
The politics of integrity illuminates the significance of the integration not only between the body and soul, but also between the past self and the present self. For the traumatised, restoring her integrity is a process in which she recovers her humanness by recognising the fragmentation of the self by oppression and restoring her whole self as a victim. This process is facilitated through the telling of her story, as exemplified by Morales’ personal story:
I am a person who was sexually abused and tortured as a child. … The people who abused me consciously and deliberately manipulated me in an attempt to break down my sense of integrity so they could make me into an accomplice to my own torture and that of others. (Morales, 1998, p. 117)
The politics of integrity is a pathway that enables the practice and theorisation of the contestation and transgression of the conspiracy of silence in order to reclaim the humanness of both individuals and collectives. In this regard, the individual act of recovery from trauma is also a political act that can halt ‘the culture of victimhood’ in our society (Morales, 1998, p. 8). This political act can also nurture ‘a culture of resistance’ against oppression (Morales, 1998, p. 18).
The politics of integrity expands a personal political act of resistance to ‘a collective political act that can transform the ways in which we talk about sexual abuse’
(Morales, 1998, p. 24) since it is fundamental to restoring the fullness of humanity not only to individuals but also to collectives. As Edkins argues, national identity is not linear due to the traumatic history of human beings caused by natural disasters and/or wars. It
68 indicates that a nation as well as a state has also experienced fractures and fragmentations in its history and identity construction. ‘[O]ur specific, contradictory, historical identities in relationship to one another’ are the inheritance from our ancestors, and ‘acknowledging the precise nature of that inheritance is an act of spiritual and political integrity’ (Morales,
1998, p. 75). The politics of integrity emphasises the embracing of the complexities of who we were, whether virtuous or vicious, in pursuit of honest history underpinned by strong moral principles.
Thus, the politics of integrity as a constitutive component of the process in the construction of the coherent self/selves is a useful concept for me to answer my research questions 1(c) and 2(a) (b), by analysing the moral standing of individual survivors, society and a state in the process of identity construction. In addition, the concept of integrity is central to answering my research question 3 since it foregrounds humanity.
Political agency
As discussed in the previous chapter, the agency–victimhood dichotomy causes a tension in this research, which seeks to conceptualise the agency of female victims of sexual violence, thus restoring their human face and dignity. In this section, I will define the concept of agency with a particular focus on the difference between humans’ inherent agency and political agency.
The concept of agency as put forth by Ros Hague allows me to move beyond this tension since her formulation of agency also centres on the interaction between individual identity construction and the social world. As suggested by the arguments of Kelly and
Lungen examined in the previous chapter, the capacity to exercise agency is constrained by context. According to Hague, agency means ‘the ability of the agent to assert her own identity’ and it needs to be addressed ‘in a context of other people’ (Hague, 2011, pp. 33,
163). For Hague, because agency is the power to establish our own identity through the
69 dialogue between the inner self and between the external world, it requires both ‘self- recognition’ and ‘the recognition of others’ (Hague, 2011, pp. 33-4). Hague’s conceptualisation of agency corresponds to Linde’s theory of self and Thomson’s theory of memory composure in the construction of life history. Further, Hague’s concept of agency allows me to theorise the exercise of agency by victims of sexual violence such as raped and prostituted women. As Hague emphasises, ‘the struggle of harm against autonomy is not a zero-sum struggle’. This is because ‘we are social agents’ under the influence of ‘our society’; therefore, our social relations constrain the exercise of individual agency (Hague, 2011, p. 26). Thus, agency is inherent to human beings, whereby individuals strive to seek better conditions.
Recovery from trauma is a political act by which a trauma victim can visibilise, resist and eradicate the boundary of modernity which excludes otherness. As Sara C.
Motta argues, modernity is premised upon the logics of ‘negation of humanness’ forced upon ‘the racialized and feminised/racialized other’ (Motta, 2018, pp. 6, 56). Here, Motta emphasises that ‘[o]nly full humans (read: White European masculinized subjects) have
History, Agency and Reason’ and that ‘[o]nly these subjects have the right, duty, and ability to civilize, to develop, and to speak as (political) subjects’ (Motta, 2018, p. 8).
With modernity, non-subject others are confined inside the political boundary as irrational knowing-and-being subjects where all of their properties of humanness are denied (Motta,
2018). Motta’s critique of modernity is valuable for me to problematise Japan’s economic and military modernisation as envisaged by the 1868 Meiji Restoration, which laid the foundation for the state-licensed prostitution system as well as conscription.
It is political agency that always seeks to break the political boundary by constructing alternative narratives of trauma, thereby restoring human dignity. Therefore, as Motta contends, resisting this dichotomy even within the confined boundary manifests
70 political agency (Motta, 2017, 2014, 2009). Hague also emphasises that even a person trapped within a suppressive space can exercise agency in order to develop her self- identity by declaring herself as a victim (Hague, 2011, pp. 33, 110). Thus, this form of agency has the capacity to transform from a victim to a survivor who speaks of the unspeakable story of trauma, thereby transcending the boundary of power. This is what
Miriam calls political agency, which entails ‘a capacity to radically transform and/or determine the situation itself’ (Miriam, 2005, p. 14). In this manner, political agency emerges as a key to reconceptualise the agency of the most vulnerable victims of wartime sexual violence who cannot even identify themselves as victims. The concept of political agency reveals the dynamics of trauma as the oscillating manifestation between
‘victimhood and protest’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 9). Therefore, the potential of trauma lies in the politics of ‘witnessing’, ‘resistance’ and ‘hope’ (Husanović, 2009, 2015), which encourages non-subjects to transform themselves into victims, then survivors and, finally, activists.
As Motta notes, political agency is not a sudden rupture, rather it is an ‘everyday process of construction’ that undergoes multiple stages for the culmination of an individual’s transformation through everyday experience, social relations and reflection on subjectivity (Motta, 2014; 2009). This multi-phased process of developing political agency commences with the act of resistance to the hierarchy of power. Borrowing
Motta’s categorisation, I call this stage ‘prepolitical’ (Motta, 2009, p. 33), thereby differentiating the early stage of political agency of resistance from the fully-fledged political agency of self-transformation. The key to this everyday practice of politics is a dialogue with the external world as well as the inner self. The everyday practice of the internal and external dialogue facilitates self-reflection on subjectivity, based on Linde’s theory of the self, which focuses on both the public–personal relations and the past–
71 present interaction. In this manner, political agency emerges and grows inside the feminised oppressed as the engine for resistance to and transformation of dominant memory/history by telling their alternative stories of trauma. This everyday practice of politics is a valuable concept for analysing how Shirota reconstructed her political agency by reflecting on her inner self and outer world through keeping a diary.
All in all, informed by the theoretical framework of political agency developed by both Hague and Motta, I examine how Shirota or Kikumaru could(not) transform herself into a victim and/or a survivor by analysing their self-narratives appearing in diaries or suicide notes. The key words for this analysis, in order to answer my research question 3, are witness, resistance and hope.
Sexual contract and the state
This section expands Pateman’s (1988) sexual contract theory as the foundational narrative of female subjugation to men in order to theorise the power relations between the state and women and/or men. Combining the Japanese feminist activist Tanaka
Mitsu’s conceptualisation of the triangle relationship into Pateman’s allows me to analyse the role of gender in statecraft.
In this research, sex is central to the analysis of male domination over women as argued by Pateman. She develops the abolitionist critique of prostitution to the feminist critique of patriarchy by raising inquiries about what sex indicates in the modern patriarchal society (Pateman, 1988). The Sexual Contract (Pateman, 1988) concerns the hidden agreement of modern civil societies to legitimise male ‘patriarchal rights’ (or sex rights) to access female bodies and control over women. Consequently, the concept of patriarchy reproduces material heterosexual relationships as well as knowledge about them. Pateman describes the structure of a modern society as follows:
‘… a new civil society and a new form of political right is created through an original contract. … The new civil society created through the original
72 contract is a patriarchal social order. … Men’s domination over women, and the right of men to enjoy equal sexual access to women, is at issue in the making of the original pact. The social contract is a story of freedom; the sexual contract is a story of subjection. The original contract constitutes both freedom and domination. Men’s freedom and women’s subjection are created through the original contract ― and the character of civil freedom cannot be understood without the missing half of the story that reveals how men’s patriarchal right over women is established through contract’. (Pateman, 1988, pp. 1-2)
The notion of the ‘social’ contract was proposed by political theorists, Hobbes,
Locke, Rous-seau and Kant. The social contract theory was then reconstructed by Rawls in the mid-twentieth century (Boucher, 2009, p. 711). The classic formulation of social contract theory elucidates that “the democratic origins of modern states”, where ‘modern citizens’ are embodied as ‘self-actualized and rational political subjects’ on the agreement of ‘political rule’ (Boucher, 2009, p. 711). However, as Pateman argues, in the modern society, patriarchal structures which perpetuate the domination-subjugation relations between the sexes have been endorsed by both the social contract to verify male civil rights; and the sexual contract to deny female citizenship by marginalising women as sexual beings. In brief, the social contract is a narrative of ‘freedom’, whereas the sexual contract is a story of ‘subjection’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 2).
The story of sexual contract reveals the fiction of democracy in the modern civil society where men dominate women by exercising patriarchal sexual rights. Capitalism and patriarchy are intertwined in the modern civil society where female bodies are commodified as sexual objects and women are confined into the private sphere. It results in degrading women as second-class citizens who have no political rights. This domination-subjugation relationship between men and women as embedded in the sexual contract was expanded to include the power relationship between state power and women by the gender historian, Joan W. Scott (1986). Scott points out the construction and consolidation of state power by controlling women’s bodies and status:
73 …emergent rulers have legitimized domination, strength, central authority, and ruling power as masculine … and made that code literal in laws (forbidding women’s political participation, outlawing abortion, prohibiting wage-earning by mothers, imposing female dress code) that put women in their place. (Scott, 1986, p. 1072)
However, Scott does not fully develop the capitalism–patriarchy nexus, claiming that this control of women brought no ‘immediate or material to gain’ to the state (Scott, 1986, p.
1072).
In contrast, Gerda Lerner points out the sexual control of women by the state, which already began in Assyria from 1250 B.C. and facilitated class formation/consolidation (Lerner, 1986). During this epoch, commercial prostitution thrived at the sacrifice of female members of impoverished families. Poor famers sold their daughters to brothels in order to pay off their debts. Through an existing social structure that kept poor farmers in perpetuate poverty, the source for commercial prostitution―debt slavery was never exhausted (Lerner, 1986, p. 133). A fundamental component of this patriarchal institution thus constituted ‘the patriarchal family’ in which the male head of a family controlled the sexuality of female members in order to protect their virginity or marriage loyalty (Lerner, 1986, p. 212). On the other hand, poor patriarchal families sold their female members into debt-bond slavery ‘for the benefit of the head of the family’ (Lerner, 1986, p. 133). This enslavement of daughters from poor families supported the primitive form of commercial prostitution, while at the same time, constructing the class distinction among women as being “good” women and “bad” women (Lerner, 1986, p. 134). Lerner’s conceptualisation of the state control of female sexuality is also useful for me to explain both the trans-historical nature of the commercial system of prostitution and how some Japanese “comfort women” became civilian prostitutes in the first place.
74 Tanaka Mitsu, the standard-bearer of the 1970s Japanese women’s liberation movement (Ūman Libu in Japanese) theorises what the ruling power gained from its control over women’s bodies and sexuality in modern Japan (Tanaka, 2004, pp. 333-47).
Her 1970 manifesto for the group Tatakau Onna [Fighting Women] emphasises the political function of the patriarchal dichotomy between “good” women and “bad” women namely, ‘affectionate’ mothers who are the reproductive symbol and ‘toilets’ who represent the disposal of male sexual lust. Therefore, ‘sexual liberation’ was the goal of the movement:
…the ‘double structure of rule’ means that ‘the ruling power has been accomplishing its class will by the control and oppression by the male sex of the female sex’. In brief, ‘sex has existed as a fundamental means of human subordination’, so, recovering, with their own hands, their sexual power, which has been stolen from them and controlled by the system and by men… (Tanaka, A Short History, p. 47, as cited in Mackie, 2003, p. 155)
As the German sociologist, Ilse Lenz, notes, Tanaka’s theorising of woman ‘as an embodied sexual and political subject represents a ground-breaking departure in view of the Japanese gender order’ (Lenz, 2014, p. 219), in which the ruling patriarchal power structure utilises both types of women to control men’s sexuality and ultimately to control all people in the service of the state. Tanaka finds sadness in such society:
By forcing women to be the toilet, men end up being excrement. Given that women and men are mutually related, female sexual misery means male sexual misery, which symbolises the misery of the modern society. (Tanaka, 2004, pp. 339-40)
In modern society, a woman ‘who by nature owns both affectionate nature and sexual pleasure as a physical expression of love’, has been divided into two patriarchal dichotomies, thereby being forced to live ‘as a fragment’ rather than ‘as a whole human being’ (Tanaka, 2004, pp. 333-8). However, men who allow women’s existence to be reduced to fragmented pieces are also forced to live as a segment by supressing their own
75 sexuality (Tanaka, 2004, p. 338). This fragmentation of both men and women runs counter to the politics of integrity. Tanaka further emphasises the nature of dehumanisation embedded within modernity, which resonates with Motta’s critique.
Tanaka’s theorising of the relationship between power and male/female sexuality is of value for analysing how the state controlled males both in peace time and wartime by exploiting and sacrificing female sexuality.
Thus, Tanaka’s conceptualisation of the relationship between state power and state control over the sexuality of both men and women allows me to answer my research questions 1(a) and 1(b), thereby revealing the inhumane nature of modernity.
Hegemonic masculinity and homosocial male bonding
In order to analyse how a modern form of patriarchal structure is constructed and maintained, the concept of masculinity is central to understanding the complex relationship between men because the theory of sexual contract lacks in the theorisation of masculinities. By introducing R. W. Connell’s concept of ‘hegemonic masculinity’
(Connell, 1995), this section theorises how it is achieved through the ‘male homosocial bond’ conceptualised by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (2015).
A modern form of patriarchy is constructed through the sexual contract that legitimises men’s patriarchal right or sex-right as the male right of domination over women as well as the social contract which protects the male political right as universal human rights (Pateman, 1988). Therefore, modern patriarchy constitutes a form of
‘fraternity’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 77); however, Pateman’s concept of the sexual-social contract does not explain how the fraternal civil society is constructed within modern society. R. W. Connell’s theory of ‘hegemonic masculinity’ (Connell, 1995) helps to understand the mechanism of the patriarchal power structure. As the historian John Tosh notes, the concept of hegemonic masculinity reveals ‘how the maintenance of patriarchy
76 actually depends on unequal relations between different masculinities’ (Tosh, 2004, pp.
45-6, emphasis in original). Connell expands Gramsci’s concept of hegemony based on class relations to hegemony in gender relations, elucidating the plurality of masculinities and their competition for dominance within the hierarchy of masculinities (Connell, 2005,
1995). A particular form of masculinity that achieves the governing position in the hierarchy of masculinities is called hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity maintains its dominant position by legitimising patriarchal structures and practices
(Connell, 2005, p. 77) such as the exclusion of all that is feminised and all who are feminised from the public/political sphere as set forth in the concept of the sexual contract. The complicity between hegemonic masculinity and non-hegemonic masculinities brings ‘the patriarchal dividend’ to other marginalised masculinities 44
(Connell, 2005, p. 79). Hence, the competitive/complicit interaction between various types of masculinities is central to pecking ‘a patriarchal social order’ (Connell, 1987, p.
183). This research examines the interaction between hegemonic masculinity and non- hegemonic masculinities in the Japanese Imperial Army. It helps me analyse and answer the interaction between gender and subjectivity/identity construction with a particular focus on the relationship between the state and men, which corresponds to my research question 1(b), in particular what element of this interaction.
It is important to note that the military is an essential component of state power that institutionalises hegemonic masculinity. In the military, masculinity does not necessarily refer to gender, but, as Kronsell emphasises, masculinity is ‘a norm’
(Kronsell, 2006, p. 109). Connell also notes that in the military, both men’s bodies and a particular form of masculinity have been historically predominant and normalised
(Connell, 2005, p. 77). Hegemonic masculinity is both a historical and a cultural
44 Connell describes different types of masculinities: hegemony; subordination; marginalisation (2005, pp. 76-81), and protest masculinity (2005, pp. 109-12). 77 construction (Connell, 2005). In other words, a form of hegemonic masculinity is differentiated both in historical and cultural context. This research aims to elucidate a particular form of masculinity which was dominant in the Japanese Imperial Army, revealing how Japanese soldiers shaped their memories about “comfort women”. In the institution of hegemonic masculinity, leadership is constituted by rigid hierarchy and prowess as well as power of male figures within the higher ranks, which manifests itself in conquering, subduing and controlling other men within the lower ranks. The analysis of the construction of a hegemonic masculinity in the Japanese Imperial Army also reveals how the military hierarchy was shaped and maintained.
Within the Japanese Imperial Army, orders from officers were equal to those from the divine commander-in-chief, Emperor Hirohito, who was also the father of the nation.
In this regard, “comfort women” were considered the ‘emperor’s gift’ 45 to Japanese
Imperial soldiers. The marriage between militarised nationalism and imperial patriarchy is significant to interpret the meaning of the “comfort women” system to the state. This helps me to analyse the relationship between the state and men and/or women in empirical
Chapter 4 in order to reveal the state’s intention to establish the “comfort women” system.
Homosocial male bonding is a key concept for the analysis of the gender relations and practices within a patriarchal structure. Modern civil society is dominated by
‘heterosexual masculinity’, which subordinates women and homosexuals (Chapman,
1988, pp. 22-3; Connell, 1987, p. 186). In order to reproduce the hegemony of heterosexual masculinity, the bond between heterosexual men is more important than any others. Sedgwick calls the desire for this male bonding ‘male homosocial desire’
(Sedgwick, 2015), which is informed by René Girard’s concept of ‘triangular desire’
(Girard, 1965). Triangular desire refers to the rivalrous relationship between the ‘subject’
45 For example, it is referred in Takasaki (1990, p. 58 and p. 129) and Ikeda & Ōgoshi (2000, p. 178). 78 and the ‘mediator’ for possession of the ‘object’ (Girard, 1965). In Sedgwick’s concept of ‘erotic triangles’, the subject and the mediator are both male and compete against each other over the object who is female (Sedgwick, 2015). Here, women are marginalised as nothing more than ‘the vehicles by which men breed more men, for the gratification of other men’ (Sedgwick, 2015, p. 33).46
In this male homosocial relation, how can men ‘accomplish masculinity’
(Messerschmidt, 1993)? The leading Japanese scholar of masculinity, Itō Kimio, conceptualises three male desires that drive the male competitions: desire for superiority; possession; and power (Itō, 1996, 1993). In short, men want to be superior to other men, to own more than other men, and to control other men. In order to prove their own masculinities, men need to show off a ‘prize’, such as money, social status, or women in their control. As the notion of erotic triangles reveals, women are once again nothing but objects in order to win recognition for manliness from other men. This is because a ‘fully- fledged’ man should be intellectually, physically and psychologically superior to women, and should own and control women (Itō, 1996, p. 105). In this vein, women are the most useful resource for men to accomplish masculinity particularly in the combat situation where other resources such as money are barely available. The three desires for masculinity break the myth of rape which justifies that the perpetrator’s sexual desire is the motive for the act of rape (Itō, 2017). The real motive for the sexual violence against women is to accomplish masculinity by fulfilling the three masculine desires. The
“comfort stations” were ‘rape centres’ (McDougall, 1998, p. 28), 47 where Japanese
46 Male homosocial desire signifies the ‘continuum’ between homosocial desire and homosexual desire, that is, between ‘men promoting the interests of men’ and ‘men loving men’ (Sedgwick, 2015, p. 4). Sedgwick refers to a possible complicity between the two desires (Sedgwick, 2015, p. 57). 47 Gay J. McDougall, the Special Rapporteur, provides legal definition of sexual slavery based on the 1926 Slavery Convention, which stipulates that “slavery” refers to ‘the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the rights of ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other forms of sexual violence’ (McDougall, 1998, p. 4). 79 soldiers reinforced not only homosocial male bonding but also the hierarchy of men between them by owning and controlling women.
The relationship between homosocial male bonding and hegemonic masculinity is significant to interpret what “comfort women” meant to Japanese soldiers. Hegemonic masculinity requires the ‘asymmetrical position’ of femininities in ‘a patriarchal gender order’ because the concept of gender is recognised by the relationship between masculinities and femininities (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 848). Hegemonic femininity, which is considered asymmetrical to the concept of hegemonic masculinity, is also referred to as ‘emphasised femininity’, which is regarded as ‘compliance to patriarchy’ (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005, p. 848). The concept of emphasised femininity describes women as a good mother and wife who always supports men and sacrifices herself for the benefit of men, thereby reproducing the patriarchal structure, norms and practices. For example, the complicity of hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity re/constructs the patriarchal binary of “good” women (virgins) and “bad” women (prostitutes). In return, this fabricated binary is used as the justification of dispensing prostitutes for the protection of “good” women’s virginity as ‘sei no bōhatei’, or the sexual breakwater (Shirota, 1986). However, Japanese soldiers’ memories of “comfort women” are complex as illustrated by confrontational representations such as “public toilets” or “goddesses”.
Focusing on the interaction between Japanese soldiers’ homosocial bonding and their accomplishment of hegemonic masculinity, my analysis of their representations of
“comfort women” will reveal what form of hegemonic masculinity constituted the
Japanese Imperial Army and how it dominated the military. This analysis will also explicate the wartime relationship between the state and men with regards to the construction of national identity appearing in my research questions 1(a) and (c).
80 Masculinities of citizen-soldiers in the modern nation-state
This section aims to deal with the interaction between war memory/history construction and national identity formation. In this aim, I will introduce the concept of citizen-soldier masculinity, which is integral to examining how a modern state consolidates power by manipulating citizenship, memory and trauma of the nation.
A modern form of patriarchy, which granted privilege of equal citizenship to men, regardless of class, was a product of western modernisation, which created a new form of masculinity: the masculinity of the citizen-soldier (Guardino, 2014; Nye, 2007). Before the American and the French Revolution, ‘[m]ilitary service was not associated with political rights or participation’, since the military consisted of officers from the aristocracy and privates from the bottom of a social hierarchy (Guardino, 2014, p. 25), and/or mercenary soldiers. However, as Stefan Dudink and Karen Hagermann point out,
‘[t]he rise of political and military modernity since 1750 intersected again and again with the history of masculinity … helped to produce … new configurations of state and society’ (Dudink, 2004, p. 19). In the early modern era, the state required its citizens who were males to defend their own sovereignty ‘with their own bodies’ (Guardino, 2014, p.
25) and imposed conscription upon them. This amalgamation of ‘[u]niversal male citizenship and general conscription’ (Dudink, 2004, p. 11) enabled the modern state to combine civilian masculinity with military masculinity. The merged masculinity of the citizen-soldier was ‘elided in the equation of “man” with “human” and “universality”’
(Dudink, 2004, p. xii, emphasis in original). This is the modern civil society manifested by the sexual contract. In the modern nation-state, this citizen-soldier masculinity is the hegemonic masculinity, which Messerschmidt defines as ‘the idealised form of masculinity in a given historical setting’ (Messerschmidt, 1993, p. 82).
81 This dual masculine identity is controversial. As the civilian-soldier, he is required to be a brave warrior in battlefields, whereas after the conflict ends, he must return to society as a good citizen who never undermines ‘civic peace’ (Nye, 2007, p. 417). The smooth transition between these confrontational masculinities is critical for both the state and society to maintain the coherent collective/national history. In this vein, trauma inflicted upon individual citizen-soldiers is also a threat to the nation-state because it can fracture the linearity of time-honoured state narratives as proposed above by Edkins
(2003, p. xiv). Postwar Japan has silenced the voices of trauma not only of “comfort women” survivors, but also of Japanese veterans in order to make a smooth transition between the traumatic wartime and the linear time of the postwar state.
Hence, the concept of the citizen-soldier masculinity in modernity allows me to analyse the interaction between collective war memory and national identity construction in order to answer my research question 1(c). Here, again, the politics of integrity is central to my analysis because the coherence of the national history and identity is essential to human society.
3.3 Methodological framework and research design
Feminist activist methodology as a tool to restore political subjectivity
Multiple and continuous dehumanisation of a traumatised victim raises questions about
The Ethics of Memory (Margalit, 2002) ‘wherein important questions of ethics and epistemology seem to overlap’ (Lee, 2015, p. 5). How can we restore their human face and dignity as victims of violence against women? What kind of society should be constructed in order to incorporate their traumatised memory into official history? It is the feminist activist methodology that can answer these fundamental questions. It identifies and analyses the existing mechanism of ‘social injustice’ against women and minorities by placing their voices and experiences at the centre of ‘inquiry’ (Weis, 2004;
82 Smith, 1987). This is the focus precisely because their voices have been historically marginalised and ignored in the construction of knowledge (Haraway, 1991, as cited in
Bloom, 2009, p. 338; Hartsock, 1985). This invisibilisation means that knowledge tends to be produced for the interest of the dominant and powerful. Feminist activist research facilitates ‘a continuous interplay among theory, research, practice, and activism’
(Knight, 2000, p. 175). This self-reflection on ontology, epistemology and ethics not only constructs new knowledge for better understanding for the real world (Harding, 2005;
Hartsock, 1985; Haraway, 1991, as cited in Bloom, 2009; Ardovini, 2015), but also retains ethical and political accountability for ‘its social consequences’ (Harding &
Norberg, 2005, p. 2010).
Underpinned by the feminist activist methodology, this research employs qualitative research based on the oral history method. Therefore, in this research, gender is a key concept to theorise the hierarchical dichotomy of femininity and masculinity in remembering the war, as conceptualised above. Also, the concept of gender provides me with a useful analytical lens to examine the feminine–masculine dynamic, which is central to uncovering power relations in the construction of collective memory and identity. By revealing ‘the political nature of gender as a system of difference construction and hierarchical dichotomy’, the ‘gender-sensitive lens’ (Runyan, 2014, p. 6, emphasis in original) allows me to visibilise patriarchal norms and practices in social relations in order to denaturalise the masculinist justification of female victimisation.
The feminist activist research practice ‘social activism’ (Ardovini, 2015, p. 51).
As Rose notes, breaking of silence is an act of political protest against power because
‘survivors are not only finding their own voices; they also are collectively creating new narratives that challenge the individual and collective denial of abuse and the reproduction of violence’ (Rose, 1999, pp. 164-5). The acts of testimonies by which the
83 past is reinterpreted and the course for future is changed, also urge us to recognise survivors as historical subjects. This indicates that survivors’ testimonies constitute not only the site of their subject-formation (Kimura, 2008, p. 6), but are also acts of political and historical subject formation as well as acts of resistance against the dominant power.
Thus, the feminist activist method helps the oppressed to equip themselves with ‘tools to end their own oppression’ (Bloom & Sawin, 2009, p. 338) and ultimately to liberate and transform them from objects of oppression to subjects of women’s movement (Harding
& Norberg, 2005, Bloom & Sawin, 2009, p. 338-9). Hence, the feminist activist method allows me to restore agency and dignity to/with Japanese “comfort women” survivors by listening to their inner voice, which reveals their struggle to cope with trauma expressed in their written/oral narratives.
Oral history as the method of counter-memory construction
The purpose of this research is to interpret and analyse the narrative accounts of Japanese survivors and veterans about the past war in order to elucidate the role of gender in the interaction between war memory production and identity construction on both individual and collective level. For this end, this thesis research draws upon the oral history methodology described by Lynn Abrams (2010), who provides some theoretical and methodological frameworks including Linde’s life-story approach (1993), feminist approach and popular memory approach. Abrams also lays out some significant concepts relevant to this research such as memory, trauma, self and agency. Oral history sits comfortably with the aim of both the feminist activist approach and the popular memory approach since it shares the same ethical commitments to knowledge building from perspectives of the marginalised and excluded. Oral history has emerged as a method of
‘empowering’ the marginalised since mid-twentieth century (Abrams, 2010, p. 154). Over the past fifty years, feminist historians have substantially benefitted from oral history
84 approach (Perks & Thomson, 2016; Perks & Thomson, 2006, p. 6) in that oral history restores silenced women’s voices and histories. Recently, oral history has also been used by the grass-roots activists for the purpose of advocacy on behalf of/with/by marginalised or excluded groups (Abrams, 2010, p. 153-4). This emancipatory practice of oral history methods effectively comports with the feminist activist methodology.
Oral history constitutes a whole process from interviewing people and analysing their accounts about their past to producing ‘the narrative account of past events’ with a focus on ‘not just what is said, but also how it is said, why it is said and what it means’
(Abrams, 2010, pp. 1-2). This ontological and epistemological reflection embedded within oral history methods allows us to reflect upon ethical aspects of memory: what and who should be remembered, and how? Any interview has four different stages of processing the same interview. It results in four types of narrative accounts48 about the same event: ‘the original oral interview’; ‘the recorded version of the interview’; ‘the written transcript’; and ‘the interpretation of the interview material’ (Abrams, 2010, pp.
2, 9). Some of those oral histories offer only one part of this four-part process. At times it may be just a recorded interview; or at other times, it might be just a transcript or secondary interpretation. Accordingly, the oral history method does have some limitations. For example, the original oral interview and the recorded version of the interview are likely to include ‘inconsistent memory’ and ‘fragmented memory’ (Yang,
2008, p. 87). The written transcript cannot provide ‘the variety and richness … of verbal as well as nonverbal expressions’ (Yang, 2008, p. 90). Also, an interpretation of the interview is processed through a third-person’s perspective. With those limitations in mind, I analyse different types of oral history. The types of oral history employed by this research are listed below.
48 Hyunah Ynag mentions the translation of the written transcript into other languages (2008, p. 89). 85 The original oral interview
Since the 1991 Korean breaking of silence, Japanese survivors have kept silence, which can present certain limitations in my research. Therefore, I conducted interviews with people below in order to acquire as much information about Japanese survivors as possible from others’ narratives.
1. My interviews with a Japanese veteran, Matsumoto Masayoshi; journalists who
interviewed Japanese “comfort women” survivors; people who met or looked after
the survivors; scholars and activists who engage in the “comfort women” issue.
There are several reasons for the difficulties in interviewing both Japanese “comfort women” survivors and veterans. First, most of them have already passed away. Second, those who are alive are in their 80s and 90s and need their family’s assistance for their interviews. In this case, their daughters or sons who serve as their contact person(s) are likely to decline requests for such interviews. Last not but least, the conspiracy of silence has kept their voices silenced. Therefore, I deeply appreciate the active cooperation of a
Japanese veteran and former Christian priest, Matsumoto, and his daughter in my interview.
2. Chūkiren members’ interviews conducted by Matsui Minoru, the documentary
film director.
In his film, Riben Guizi (Matsui, 2000): 15-year Japan-China War・Testimonies by
Former Japanese Imperial Army, 14 veterans confessed what they did in China during
WWII. The film was distributed on DVD in 2014.
Chūkiren, an association of the returned war veterans from China was comprised of approximately 1,100 former prisoners of war who were confined for six years in two
Chinese prisons, one in Fushuen and the other in Taiyuan. During their imprisonment in which they were treated as individual human beings by their Chinese captors, these
86 soldiers confessed to their individual war crimes, including murder and rape. After they were freed and repatriated to Japan in 1957, they founded the association in commitment to challenge ‘the silence about Imperial Japanese war crimes’. At the 2000 Women’s
International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in Tokyo, two
Chūkiren members, Kaneko Yasujirō and Suzuki Yoshio, testified to their rape crimes in
China. While the media and the Japanese political right wing labelled Chūkiren silence breakers as being brainwashed by communist China, they had achieved their antiwar activism and attempted to construct themselves as historical subjects until 2002,49 when most members had difficulties in testifying in public due to age-related health issues.
Their oral and written testimonies are significant resources for this research in that they provides an analysis of the interaction among memory, trauma and the transition between being a soldier and being a citizen.
The recorded version of the interview
1. Shirota’s 1986 testimony appearing in a radio program.
The recorded program was provided by a women’s rehabilitation centre and her final home, Kanita.
The written transcript
1. Shirota’s personal handwritten records including diaries, novels, and letters.
Kanita preserved all her writings and drawings. In the wake of the 2015 registration of
“comfort women” documents with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s Memory of the World Register, Shirota’s materials were moved to WAM for safekeeping. With the courtesy of Kanita and WAM, I obtained access to them all.
49 After the dissolution of the veterans’ association, the Chūkiren Peace Memorial Museum was established in Saitama Prefecture, aiming to pass their memory and activism onto younger generations. The museum keeps over 20,000 books, with related videos and photographs. 87 2. Kikumaru’s personal written records, which includes her short note about her life
in Truk Island and her suicide note.
Both notes were referred to in Hirota’s book, Shōgen kiroku Jūgun ianfu/kangofu: Senjo ni ikita onna no dokoku [Testimonial Records of Military Comfort Women/Nurses:
Lamentations of the Women Who Lived at the Front] first published in 1975. Other written scripts for my analysis are Japanese soldiers’ memoirs.
3. Japanese survivors’ autobiographies (Shirota and Uehara).
The interpretation of the interview material
1. Interviews with survivors and veterans conducted and edited by others such as
journalists.
Most survivors’ testimonies quoted in this research are edited by journalists, including
Hirota and Kawata. Veterans’ testimonies published by Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū
Iinkai are contained in the collection of what the operators50 who worked for the Jūgun
Ianfu 110 Ban Call Centre received. The call centre was temporarily launched in order to collect information about “comfort women” in the wake of the 1991 silence breaking.
3.4 Analysis of oral history materials
In this research, oral history materials as listed above are used as a source for applying a particular theoretical framework as discussed in the earlier portion of this chapter. Abrams categorised this usage of oral history as the ‘analytical’ model (Abrams, 2010, p. 15). In contrast, oral testimonies appearing in my interviews are rather treated as ‘data’ for
50 Kawata was among the operators. When she received a call from a woman, she found her a Japanese survivor. Since then, Kawata has kept interviewing the survivor, Tanaka Tami (Interview: Kawata). 88 ‘evidence gathering’ in order to supplement the limited sources of the survivors’ interviews which Abrams calls the ‘evidential’ model (Abrams, 2010, p. 15).
Data collection
By utilising a qualitative research method approach, I conducted interviews with 28 people in Tokyo, Japan in 2016. The type of interviewees are categorised into the following four groups:
Group A: people who contacted, interviewed or looked after Japanese survivors
This group includes two journalists, three former Christian sisters and one scholar.
Group B: activists who have supported and researched Japanese “comfort women”
Nine out of 13 interviewees are the members of VAWW-RAC, the successor of the
VAWW-NET, Japan. This feminist NGO organised the 2000 Women’s International War
Crimes Tribunal, where they introduced Japanese “comfort women” as victims of the
Japanese military sexual slave system in the absence of Japanese survivors. The tribunal tried and found Emperor Hirohito guilty in absentia. VAWW-RAC is the group, which has carried out research about Japanese “comfort women” since 2011. The interviews conducted with the members of this feminist NGO allows me to understand the historical, political and social circumstances revolving around feminism and the “comfort women” justice activism in Japan.
Other activists interviewed were selected on their perceived ability based on their experiences in contacting, reporting or researching Japanese survivors. Key members of the feminist organisation, VAWW-RAC, were selected directly by the researcher.
Because I was a member of this organisation between 2014 and 2017, I knew who would be valuable to the project. I previously contacted most of the potential interviewees in connection with fieldwork for my MA research about the transnational feminist activism
89 for the justice of “comfort women”, and/or during my 2014 return to Japan as an independent researcher/activist. Over the course of the conducting of interviews in connection with this research, I also attempted to employ certain techniques such as
“snowballing” in order to obtain additional interviews.
Group C: those who have contacted or researched “comfort women”
This group includes four scholars, two school teachers and two documentary film directors.
Group D: Japanese military veterans
This group includes one veteran.
As a result, 26 interviews were conducted. Among them, 12 were with activists, including eight VAWW-RAC members; four were scholars; three were journalists; two were are documentary film directors, school teachers and Roman Catholic nuns; and one was a WWII Japanese military veteran.
The resources kept by feminist NGOs such as VAWW-RAC and WAM51 are valuable for listening to voices of “comfort women” survivors as well as Japanese war veterans. These resources include VAWW-RAC’s and WAM’s newsletters and publications, including the records and proceedings of the 2000 Women’s International
War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery. Also, in 2016, all written documents created by Shirota, including her diaries and letters, kept by WAM were added to the UNESCO’s Memory of World Register. During my fieldwork, I had access to those documents, which offered some valuable insight about Shirota’s inner self. As a VAWW-
RAC member, I also gained access to their collected data concerning Japanese “comfort women” such as some magazine articles in 1970s and 80s. Those articles from the
51 VAWW-RAC and WAM are sister organisations, specialising in the “comfort women” issue. VAWW- NET Japan, the forerunner of VAWW-RAC, organised the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in 2000; thereafter, WAM was established to preserve the materials collected for the tribunal. 90 magazines targeting male readers such as Asahi Geino are useful to clarify male perceptions toward “comfort women” in those times.
Analyses of key subjects
1. Analysis of the dominant memory of “comfort women”
The aim of this analysis is to reveal the complex construction of masculinities. By interpreting soldiers’ diverse representations of “comfort women”, such as ‘goddesses’,
‘lovers/mistresses’ or ‘public toilets’, I will reveal how the Japanese military constructed hegemonic masculinity through the homosocial bond between subordinate masculinities.
Drawing upon Tanaka’s conceptualisation of the power mechanism between men and women as well as between the state and men and/or women, this analysis of masculinities entails the analysis of soldiers’ subjectivities suppressed under the emperor-supremacy militarism and nationalism, whereby uncovering how the state consolidates its power through the control of both male and female sexualities.
2. Analysis of the counter memory of Japanese “comfort women”
The purpose of this analysis is to reveal some Japanese “comfort women” survivors’ stories of sexual contract with the patriarchal, capitalist and militarist state of Japan. By interpreting survivors’ narratives of trauma through the gender lens, this analysis illustrates how the state exploited them as non-subjects both in peace time and wartime as well as how the mechanism of the conspiracy of silence forced them to internalise perpetrators’ guilt and shame.
3. Analysis of the interaction between war memory and national identity
construction
The period of the US occupation of Japan which followed Japan’s defeat in the war marks the significant transition from the militarist state to the democratic state in collaboration
91 between both countries. In order to uncover the interplay between the construction of
Japan’s war memory and national identity in 1945, this analysis focuses on two official narratives: the Imperial Rescript on Surrender or Gyokuon Hōsō (see Appendix 2); and the oath for Japanese “comfort women” whom the Japanese government provided to the
Allied Forces (see Appendix 3). These two narratives complemented each other in the same way the sexual contract and the social contract complement each other to complete the original contract as theorised by Pateman (1988). By revealing the Japan–US complicity in manipulating the nation’s war memory, the analysis of the connection between the two official narratives tells us how Pateman’s concept of sexual contract
(1988) was expanded to the relationship between states.
4. Analysis of the agency of trauma victims
The analysis of the agency of trauma victims draws upon both Linde’s theory of the self
(1993) and Herman’s three stages of recovery from trauma (1992). Key narrative accounts for this analysis are scripts written by Shirota and Kikumaru. By re-interpreting their life stories through listening to their inner voices made visible in their self-narratives, this analysis reveals the complex construction of their political agency in pursuit of speaking trauma. Here, Morales’ concept of the politics of integrity (1988) is central to restoring humanness and dignity to the victims.
3.5 Conclusion: Seeking female victims’ political agency to rewrite history
This chapter has laid out a theoretical and methodological framework that allows me to integrate the feminist abolitionist approach and the feminist activist approach with the popular memory approach in analysing the interplay between war memory construction and identity formation. In order to compensate for analytical concepts, which lack in the popular memory methodology, two concepts are placed at the centre of this analysis: trauma and gender. As Herman (1992) and Edkins (2003) conceptualise, trauma serves
92 as the nexus between the production of memory and identity both on the individual and the collective level. Trauma also works as the site of contestation between the dominant memory and alternative memories. As Edkins argues, traumatic events evoke the feeling of betrayal of trust for groups and society within the individual minds. Hence, the concept of trauma allows me to investigate contested memories and the mechanism of individual and collective identity formation from perspectives of the traumatised. In this aim,
Linde’s theory of self becomes more valuable to this analysis by combining Edkins’ and
Herman’s theories of trauma. In particular, the theory of coherence corresponds to
Morales’ concept of the politics of integrity, which provides a framework for understanding of humanness.
Gender as another key analytical concept, reveals the domination–subordination relation between masculinity and femininity institutionalised by the patriarchal modern state. This research employs Tanaka’s theorisation of statehood (1970), and Pateman’s sexual contract theory (1988), whereby uncovering the state’s manipulation and exploitation of male and female sexualities. Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity
(1995) helps me to illustrate the mechanism of the power relations by and among the state, men and women. The gender lens is also of value for identifying and conceptualising Japanese survivors’ agency in revealing that trauma is gendered and hierarchical. Along with Herman’s theory of recovery from trauma, the concept of political agency proposed by Hague (2011) and Motta (2009; 2014; 2016; 2017; 2018) allows me to identify their exercise of political agency in their narratives of trauma as a form of witness, resistance and hope.
In line with this theoretical framework, I have chosen a methodological approach informed by the feminist activist methodology in which its ontological, epistemological and ethical reflection facilitate social movements for justice. For this goal, I employ oral
93 history methods described by Abrams (2010) as a tool to create the counter narrative of trauma. In this vein, this research analyses life history of Japanese survivors with a particular focus on their self-narratives, supplemented by my interviews for evidence gathering with those who contacted them. For the examination of the state’s manipulation of memory and identity at sacrifice of female sexualities, two important state announcements in 1945 are analysed. Thus, the new theoretical and methodological framework combining three different approaches ultimately aims to restore human dignity and justice to individual Japanese survivors as a “coherent” self.
94 Chapter 4
Hegemonic Masculinity of the Japanese Imperial Military: Manhood as
Humanhood
4.1 Introduction
Masculinity is not only plural but also complex, fluid and contradictory since all different constructions of masculinity compete or collaborate with one another over the hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity. This structural relationship among masculinities exists ‘in all local settings’ and ‘motivation toward a specific hegemonic version varies by local context’ (Connell & Messerschmitt, 2005, p. 847). This chapter elucidates the complexity of masculinities in wartime Japan, revealing the interaction between the construction of the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese Imperial Military and its relationship to the
“comfort women” system. As discussed in the previous chapter, the structural relations among masculinities (re)construct patriarchal hierarchy; therefore, the analysis of hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese military is key to understanding not only a specific form of patriarchy embedded within wartime Japan, but also how it is contested, resisted or refused within this complexity of masculinities itself. In this aim, exploring the emphasised femininity represented by “comfort women” is critical because of ‘the asymmetrical position of masculinities and femininities in a particular gender order’
(Connell & Messerschmitt, 2005, p. 848). By analysing contesting memories of “comfort women” invoked by Japanese soldiers, this chapter also investigates how and why the specific form of hegemonic masculinity was constructed within the Japanese military, whereby the formation of gendered domination is visibilised.52
52 For purposes of this chapter, the term "soldiers" refers to both officers and enlisted members of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy. However, in the context in which the difference of the rank is critical, the latter we referred to as enlisted soldiers. 95 4.2 The citizen-soldier masculinity in modern Japan
Hegemonic masculinity in the modern form of patriarchal Japan was articulated around the citizen-soldier masculinity. The Meiji government (1868-1912) in pursuit of western- style modernisation of the economy and the military abolished the hereditary samurai- warrior class, which was situated at the top of the Japanese social hierarchy during the
Tokugawa era (1600-1867). In 1872, the government promulgated the 1873 Conscription
Ordinance based on the French model (Fujiwara, 2000, p. 21), which universalised a male privilege of citizenship in return for their responsibility to defend the nation-state
(Tsurumi, 1970, p. 82). Over the course of several revisions to the Conscription
Ordinance, the universal male obligation of military service was established by the
Conscription Law in 1927. As a result, prewar Japan implicitly equated being male with both being a citizen and a human as explained below.
The state regulation of conscription constituted the social contract of male civil freedom; the state-licensed prostitution system as well as the modern mistress (mekake)53 system embodied the sexual contract which normalised the subjugation of females by males. Western modernisation brought monogamy to Meiji Japan;54 however, the state permitted its “citizens” to break their commitment to their wives by legalising both the mistress system and the state-licensed prostitution system. On the one hand, the state- sanctioned prostitution system allowed all men to buy women’s bodies for the sole purpose of “casual” sex for a short duration of time; on the other, the mistress system enabled an elite man to own a woman other than his wife for a certain period of her lifetime in exchange of sex for money (Yoshimi, 1995, p. 185). Therefore, husbands’
53 There was an attempt to legitimise the ‘mekake’ concubine system in the debates leading up to the promulgation of the Meiji Civil Code of 1898. In the eventual form of the Meiji Civil Code, however, concubines did not have any official status in the family. 54 Emperor Showa abolished the imperial mistress system (Hayakawa, 2005, p. 169). 96 ‘sexual relations out of wedlock’ were not regarded as ‘adultery’55 (Kumagai, 1983, p.
89). For the purpose of the continuity of the agnate family line, the mistress system was incorporated into both the Imperial Household Law and the Civil Code (Yoshimi, 1995, p. 186), permitting mistresses’ children to be legitimate heirs to the throne/head of the family at the sole discretion of the husband (Hayakawa, 2005, p. 18). Unlike concubinage, this regulation blurred the boundary between the wife and mistress. In other words, the male patriarchal right to access female bodies outside the bonds of marriage was legitimised and institutionalised by the state and the practice was normalised by the
“citizens”. Accordingly, this gendered legal status reduced women to non-subjects who were divided into merely two roles: reproduction of male offspring and men’s sexual objects.
This class-based dual system for male access to female bodies was incorporated into the “comfort women” system, constructing a hierarchy among women according to whom they served. As more fully described in the following chapters, “elite” “comfort women”, like Kikumaru, were reserved only for officers, whereas other women like
Shirota were allocated to the enlisted ranks. These “elite” women were usually Japanese; however, where Japanese women were not available, non-Japanese counterparts were reserved for officers. Because one woman was shared only by a few specific officers
(Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 53), an officer seemingly treated his
“comfort woman” like his wife/mistress. As Kikumaru testified, the “elite” women on
Truk Island were served the same meals as the officers along with being provided with furniture, daily necessities and even luxury goods such as tobacco (Hirota, 2009, pp. 33-
4, 38, 48). The practice of keeping mistresses that had been normalised among members
55 When a married man had sexual relations with the wife of another married man, this was considered to be adultery. 97 of the male elites during peace time, become a wartime sexual practice reserved for elite military officers on the battlefield.
Both the mistress system and the state-licensed prostitution system were justified by the propagation of a universal myth about male sexuality. This claims that men’s sexual appetite is out of control56 because it is a base physical function analogous to the need for food (Pateman, 1988, p. 198). This naturalisation of male sexual urge rationalises men’s sexual right to access women as a male ‘human right’ (Norma, 2016, p. 38).
Accordingly, female personhood is commodified and reduced to nothing but the outlet to discharge male sexual desires. This hegemonic masculine view of women was also naturalised and maintained in the military. Japanese soldiers called Korean “comfort women” ‘Chōsen57 pi’ and despised them (Interview: Matsumoto). Pi is a Chinese slang word for “cunt” (Soh, 2008, p. 39). Moreover, a discourse employing an obscene and degrading metaphor of “comfort women” as public toilets (kōshū-benjo), was mentioned by Asō Tetsuo (1910-1989), a military medical doctor. The architect who developed the legal and regulatory framework for the operation of the “comfort women” system made references in his reports to military “comfort stations” as hygienic public toilets (Nishino,
1992, p. 43). As Japanese veteran, Abe Hisashi, testified, Japanese soldiers waiting in a long queue at a “comfort station” not only looked like they were outside a public toilet but the ‘women inside the station seemed to be nothing more than a public toilet’ serving the bodily functions of male military men (Nishino, 1992, pp. 33-4).
56 Mori Ōgai (1862‒1922), ‘the founder’ of the modern Japanese ‘I-Novel’ (Driscoll, 2005, 198) explains Japanese male sexual urge at the section, “Male Sexual Abstinence and Control” (Otoko no seiyoku yokusei) of his book (1912), Seiiku (Education of Sexuality). Mori argues that “it is a very difficult thing for healthy men to repress their sexual desire” and that the chances to perceive “this desire are everywhere” (as cited in Driscoll, 2005, p. 201). He concludes that this “ferocious” heterosexual desire should be satisfied rather than be restricted because of ‘the negative effects of sexual repression’ (Driscoll, 2005, p. 201). 57 Chōsen referred to the Korean peninsula. 98 Along with this naturalisation of a male sexual urge, the patriarchal division of
“good” women and “bad” women was used to rationalise the institutionalisation of prostitution. In short, “bad” women were necessary in order to protect “good” women from being rape victims due to this “primordial” male sexual urge. Okabe Naosaburō, a
Senior Staff Officer in the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, made the following entry into his diary: ‘soldiers have been prowling around everywhere looking for women’ (Yoshimi,
2000, p. 45). Accordingly, for the prevention of rapes, the Japanese military established its first “comfort station” in Shanghai in March, 1932 (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 45; Yoshimi,
1995, p. 17). This masculine vindication of “comfort women” as “necessary” continues to be circulated as a justification in postwar Japan, as represented by Hashimoto Tōru’s
(1969-present) comments on 13 May 2013. The then Mayor of Ōsaka and co-head of
Nihon Ishin no Kai, the right-wing Japan Restoration Party (Kimura, 2016, p. 1) said,
‘[a]ll militaries have needed to establish mechanisms to relieve the sexual energy of troops’ (as cited in Norma, 2016, p. 37).
The state legitimation of civilian prostitution greatly contributed to releasing soldiers from any feeling of guilt about their access to military prostitution. Kondō
Hajime, the Japanese veteran who testified in public, confessed that he had regarded the
“comfort women” system as the overseas expansion of Japan’s state-licensed prostitution system (Utsumi, Ishida, & Katō, 2005, p. 88). According to public testimony by a
Chūkiren member, Yuasa Ken (1916-2010), who worked as a military surgeon in China, soldiers regarded “comfort women” as kōshō, the word for state-licensed prostitutes in that they paid those women in return for sexual services (Yuasa, 2004). More credence to the claim of the blurring of the state-sanctioned prostitution system and the “comfort women” system can be uncovered when one examines an interview with a former military police officer referred to only by his initial “I”. He explained in his interview with Nishino
99 that the soldiers’ conflation of the civilian and the military prostitution system affected their perception of women. “I” said, ‘We spent our youth under the state-licensed prostitution system. It was the era when buying women was neither a shame nor a guilt’
(Nishino, 1992, p. 60). As many soldiers testified on the phone to the Military Comfort
Women Information Call Centre, or in interviews, during wartime, the “comfort women” system was necessary but not “evil” (Nishino, 1995, p. 62; Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū
Iinkai, 1992). This indicates that the state gave credibility and legality to the military prostitution system by sanctioning the civilian prostitution system, thereby erasing a sense of guilt and shame from the perpetrators’ feelings.
4.3 From “fully-fledged” citizens to “fully-fledged” soldiers
The myth of hegemonic manhood circulating within prewar Japan played a pivotal role in the construction of soldier masculinity. This myth claimed that a man who had not had sex with a woman was not yet a man and many soldiers were already ‘obsessed’ with
‘this logic of male privilege’ (Yoshimi, 2000, p. 200; Yoshimi, 1995, p. 223). For example, Kondō and other young male virgins in their hometown, Kuwana, were told to become a “fully-fledged” man by visiting red-light districts, after receiving their induction notes or their military call-up paper called Akagami (Utsumi et al., 2005, p. 86).
Thus, losing male virginity at brothels before being conscripted into the army became normalised (Utsumi et al., 2005, p. 86). The exercise of male masculinity intertwined with sexuality in modern Japan, where a “fully-fledged” man, namely, a “fully-fledged” citizen exhibited his masculine power to put women under his control via sex with prostitutes or/and mistresses. However, not all male virgins grew to be “fully-fledged” citizens before their conscription. Kondō was still a virgin when he was drafted because his employer prohibited him from visiting prostitutes (Utsumi et al., 2005, p. 86).
100 For the most part, there was nothing but disdain exhibited publically by the
Japanese military toward the “comfort women”. This gives the impression that the representation of “comfort women” by the Japanese military was fixed. Yet, when you look below dominant or official narratives/stories/representations of hegemonic masculinity within wartime, Japan appears more fluid, nuanced and possibly contradictory. For example, there were instances that those soldiers who lost their virginity at “comfort stations” and looked at “comfort women” as sacred figures who helped them to become “fully-fledged” men. Motoyama Toshinori, who was drafted at age 21 and served with the Second Regiment in Herbin, recalled his first “comfort woman”, who was Korean, as his first love and committed himself to her at the “comfort station” (Nishino, 1992, p. 46). According to Hirota, who interviewed numerous Japanese veterans as well as Japanese “comfort women” survivors in 1970s, many soldiers regarded “comfort women” as ‘goddesses’ (Interview: Hirota). Ōyama Shōgorō, who was in charge of looking after “comfort women” in his position in the Fourteenth Division’s
Health Administration, told Hirota that “comfort women” looked like ‘Buddhist angels’ descending from heaven (Hirota, 2009, p. 54). This sacred representation of “comfort women” indicates soldiers’ highest appreciation of their women who were “dedicated” to their accomplishment of masculinities. Herein lies the ambiguity within the hegemonic masculinity representing “comfort women”, which oscillated between the sacred and the profane. This ambivalent characteristic of masculinity is explained by the scholar of masculinity, Itō, who points out in an interview with Kobayashi Akiko that ‘women are men’s property, whereas men depend on women for healing when they get hurt’
(Kobayashi, 2017). All in all, either whether as an object to rule from above or to admire from below, men are rarely conscious of women as equal subjects with individual personalities (Itō, 1996, p. 109).
101 The most egregious manifestation of hegemonic masculinity during the war is illustrated by how the Japanese Imperial Army channelled the power of the myth of manhood into the driving force to send young virgin draftees to conduct kamikaze suicide attacks upon Allied naval vessels. At the “comfort station” established near the air base in Mobara, Chiba prefecture, Tanaka Tami, a 16-year-old Japanese girl, testified that she sexually served kamikaze pilots who were as young as she was (Kawata, 2014, pp. 28,
30). The military manipulated these young soldiers’ perceptions of their manhood, which were already cultivated by state myths and representations in order to convince them to die for the emperor. For example, prior to conducting his kamikaze mission, a 19-year- old pilot was advised to visit a “comfort station” by his immediate commander. In response, he said to his commanding officer, ‘Then, there is nothing that I regret. I will be able to sacrifice my life for the emperor’ (Nishino, 1992, p. 61). Thus, the state constructed the hegemonic masculinity, which established and controlled the hierarchies not only between soldiers and women, but also between elite and non-elite soldiers in order to reproduce the imperial war machine.
However, a former kamikaze pilot, Kuwahara Keiichi (1924-present), who returned in May 1945 from two failed suicide attacks due to engine troubles, testified to the young soldiers’ inconsolable grief (Kuwahara, 2006, p. 101):
At heart, nobody wanted to participate in the suicide attacks. Nevertheless, young soldiers could not resist the absolute authority that was imposed upon them when given unilateral orders. Believing their officer’s promise to definitely follow them, they muster up their courage and fly to their place for death. (Kuwahara, 2006, p. 101)
Like other military structures, the Japanese Imperial Army maintained an absolute hierarchy based on rank, yet orders from immediate commanders were equal to those from the divine commander-in-chief, Emperor Hirohito. Further, soldiers could neither express their real feelings nor decline orders. Unlike kamikaze pilots who were ranked as
102 junior non-commissioned officers, most senior “commissioned” officers in charge of the kamikaze pilots’ fate never flew to follow them (Kuwahara, 2006, p. 334). During the war, the Imperial Japanese Military never considered human lives of uncommissioned officers, let alone those of enlisted soldiers (Hidaka, 2004, p. 151). This inequality of human life based on the military hierarchy reveals the asymmetrical nature of hegemonic masculinity. In short, some men were forced to sacrifice their lives, whereases other men profited from their sacrifice in order to maintain their power and privileged positions.
This lack of concern for human life as a manifestation of hegemonic masculinity can also be illustrated as the Japanese Imperial Army transformed a “fully-fledged” citizen to a “fully-fledged” soldier. This process was equivalent to the transformation from a human being into a killing machine. As some Chūkiren members testified in interviews with Matsui Minoru, the director of a documentary film entitled Riben Guizi,58 during their first year of military service named Shonenhei Kyōiku, enlisted soldiers were trained to stab Chinese people to death with a single bayonet thrust (Matsui, 2000). One of the members, Kaneko Yasuji, said, ‘if a new conscript could not successfully thrust his bayonet into his target, he was severely punished which entailed beating and kicking’
(Matsui, 2000). Once Kaneko successfully passed his military training, he began to compete against other soldiers in the number of people whom they killed, in which military service became synonymous with the enjoyment of killing people (Matsui,
2000). As “fully-fledged” citizens became transformed into “fully-fledged” soldiers, the hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial Japanese Military emerged. With the emergence of hegemonic masculinity as part of subjectivity of the Japanese Imperial Army, hegemonic masculinity began to be implemented as military policy. The Sankō Strategy employed in China meaning ‘kill all, burn all, loot all’ was generated by the Japanese
58 During the war, Chinese people called Japanese soldiers ‘Riben Guizi’ meaning Japanese devils. 103 military’s ‘negligence of providing a proper food supply to soldiers’ (Fujiwara, 2000, p.
29). In return, the members of the Japanese military regarded Chinese citizens as its weaker, feminised, less human adversaries. The hegemonic masculinity of the Imperial
Japanese Military was thus constructed on the disregard for human life of friend and foe alike.
In the military, soldiers’ bravery and aggressiveness were often compared to men’s sexual prowess with women (Yoshimi & Hayashi, 1995, p. 196). The “fully- fledged” soldier of the Japanese Imperial Army was required to be aggressive in both battle and sex. The ceremony to celebrate being a “fully-fledged” soldier after his completion of his first-year military training was to visit “comfort women” (Jūgun Ianfu
110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 135). Finally, enlisted virgin soldiers were acknowledged as “fully-fledged” male soldiers. Thus, the hegemonic masculinity of the
Japanese military was constructed through and in relation to masculine sexuality. Also, the hierarchical relationships within the military among soldiers were formulated through the hegemonic manhood.
4.4 The making of an imperial killing machine
The first-year training of new recruits in order to make “fully-fledged” enlisted soldiers was more brutal than any other trainings. They were repeatedly subjected to unbearable humiliation in various forms of punishments until they automatically submitted themselves to orders from their superiors, even if such military orders were wrong or irrational (Fujiwara, 2000, pp. 22, 24). Ogawa Takemitsu, who went through the first- year training in 1942, learned the military strategy, which brought out soldiers’ latent abilities of violence by relentlessly beating them until they surrendered to the authorities
(Noda, 1998, p. 70). As Ogawa witnessed, trained individual soldiers became violent in order to conceal their weakness (Noda, 1998, p. 70). As soon as those first-year privates
104 successfully proceeded to the second-year as “fully-fledged” soldiers, they reproduced the oppressive military structural hegemonic masculinity by inflicting pain and shame upon new recruits, as it had been thrust upon them (Nishino, 1995, p. 51). This chain of routine violence between the seniors and the juniors reinforced the domination– subordination relations within the Japanese military hierarchy, which stripped subjectivity from individual soldiers, reducing them to what Connell categorises,
‘subordinate’ masculinity (Connell, 2005). This is the mechanism that ‘by means of rites of passage involving envy and humiliation, increases feelings of aggression and turns those feelings into’ consolidated power that attacks enemies (Noda, 2000, p. 55).
What the state required of soldiers was to become a component of a faithful collective that never questioned dying for the emperor. Noda Masaaki, a psychiatrist who interviewed former enlisted soldiers and military surgeons, describes the mentality of the collective:
How mentally “strong” people are who live their lives confronting to the group and who possess only the weakest sense of themselves as individuals. People with no sense of self are comfortable only as long as they belong to a group. (Noda, 2000, p. 79, emphasis in original)
The previous section addressed how the process of military training stripped enlisted soldiers of their subjectivities in order to create “fully-fledged” soldiers. Once they were recognised as such, they developed their hegemonic masculinity identity. However, it is important to note that there was some level of resistance by soldiers to lose their individual subjectivities. For example, soldiers who failed to totally remove their subjectivities suffered from anorexia. Ogawa, who also served as a military doctor in
Beijing between 1943 and 1945, treated those soldiers who deserted from the Japanese
Imperial Army during the Sankō Strategy, and found that many soldiers mobilised in
China died of ‘war-related malnutrition’ caused by their bodies refusing to live (Noda,
1998, pp. 73-5). This is what Connell names as ‘protest masculinity’ (Connell, 2005).
105 These Japanese soldiers protested against the loss of their own humanity and dignity, which could tragically lead to their physical death. Believing that human beings should not be pushed to the breaking point, Ogawa kept a record of soldiers who were dying by rejecting even a drip transfusion; however, his research records were all burned to ashes after Japan’s defeat (Noda, 1998, pp. 77, 88). All in all, a “fully-fledged” soldier of the
Japanese military meant being part of an imperial war machine, which robbed soldiers of their agency in order to maintain an individual’s subjectivity by assimilating into the hegemonic masculinity.
While not falling within a definition of resistance, many other soldiers visited
“comfort women” in order to restore ‘his self’. A veteran explained that “comfort stations” were the space where he could reinstate his individuality free from military rules and hierarchical restrictions (Nishino, 1995, p. 63). Motoyama and other veterans also testified that “comfort stations’ were ‘the only place where soldiers restored their humanness’ (Nishino, 1992, pp. 22, 48). Giving consideration to how the soldiers elevated their sexual rights to their humanness, as discussed above, reconstructing the self is equivalent to reaffirming masculine subjectivity. This illustrates the dehumanising relationship between men and women in which a male sustains his humanness by removing the humanness and dignity of a feminised other. In short, women were reduced to being an object for men in order to achieve their masculinities, which were damaged within the military.
Affirmation of manhood by using female bodies on the battlefront conveys implications far different from peace time, because soldiers are constantly exposed to life- and-death situations. As some soldiers’ testimonies reveal, they went to “comfort stations” whenever they wanted to recognise that they were really “alive”. Many Japanese veterans said to Hirota, ‘In the frontline where I may be dead tomorrow, making love to
106 a woman was the only proof of being alive’ (Hirota, 2009, pp. 53-4). One of the veterans told Hirota that he continued to visit “comfort stations” in Manila as long as he could afford to because he did not feel alive until he had sex with a woman (Hirota, 2009, p.
54). These accounts indicate that for Japanese soldiers being alive meant being alive as a hegemonic masculine man, not as a gender-neutral human being. In other words, in their lives, heterosexual masculinity is more valuable and meaningful than any other masculinities. Therefore, they needed female bodies in order to reaffirm their manhood whenever their masculinity was threatened during the war. Thus, for soldiers, being alive on the battlefield was related to hegemonic masculinity.
On the same grounds, “comfort women” became ‘a vital force in life’ (Yuasa,
2004). Tamura Taijirō (1911-1983) was a veteran who published some “comfort women” novels based on his wartime experiences. Of importance here is that in his 1947 book, entitled Shunpuden [A Life of a Prostitute], he portrayed “comfort stations” as ‘the washhouse of soldiers’ souls’ (Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, 2010, p. 24).
Here again, ‘vitality’ implicates strength of masculinity. Accordingly, for soldiers,
“comfort women” were the only resource available on the battlefield in order to accomplish their manhood by fulfilling the masculine desires for ‘superiority’,
‘possession’ and ‘power’, as theorised in the previous chapter (Itō, 1993, 1996). Chūkiren member, Suzuki Yoshio, testified that rape satisfied the desire for power (Women's
Active Museum on War and Peace, 2010, p. 31). As the abolitionist feminist discussion in Chapter 2 reveals, prostitution sex is the institutionalised form of rape and the “comfort stations” were ‘rape centres’ (McDougall, 1998, p. 28). It means that the “comfort stations” provided Japanese soldiers with women who were the objects of male ownership, control and domination. In the modern patriarchy of Japan, non-elite men did not have equal access to female bodies as elite men did, as discussed above. However,
107 the combined masculinity of the citizen-soldier democratised male sex-rights, whereby non-elite men/soldiers were allowed to visit “comfort women” who were mostly from the lower socio-economic classes. This non-elite masculinity constituted the imperial killing machine at command of elite masculinity. Thus, power and domination was reproduced over both working class men and women.
We can see this articulation of manhood and masculinity in war across different cases of wartime. For example, Margot St. James (Hayton-Keeva, 1987), who sexually serviced US veterans, explains why they need prostitutes:
When a man suffers the loss of a limb, or some other part of his body, he really needs sex with somebody to feel reaffirmed and whole. It’s a heavy trip, because the guy really does appreciate a hooker a lot and can fall in love really fast. (Hayton-Keeva, 1987, p. 77)
It is vital for him to reaffirm that he is still a masculine man even after losing parts of his physical body. Therefore, his deep appreciation for a prostitute’s dedication to help him accomplish masculinity is easily channelled into love. A similar development took place with Japanese soldiers. Some soldiers fell in love with “comfort women” and decided to marry them; whereas others competed against each other over their committed “comfort woman”, ending up with bloody fights (Yoshikai, 1996, p. 121). These stories tell us that this form of relationship between men and women signifies the ownership of women by men who fulfil their masculine desires. As Itō points out, men rarely regard women as equal human beings with diverse personalities (Itō, 1996, p. 109). Yet, male strong desire for hegemonic masculinity frames their feelings toward women.
4.5 Masculinity as humanity
The mental and physical oppression of soldiers was normalised within the Japanese
Imperial Army and it was a threat to their manliness. Unconditional obedience to the emperor was forced on all soldiers through stringent military rules and cruel punishments.
Such practices continuously feminised their outer and inner manhood, thereby increasing
108 their stress and frustration level. Accordingly, they appreciated “comfort women” as the
“gift” from the emperor and utilised them as the outlet to vent their resentment at the military. This military strategy reveals a complex construction of the hegemonic masculinity, which was achieved through the negation of humanness of soldiers. At the same time, their manliness shamed by being denied subjectivites demanded women for its recovery.
Irrespective of the presence of hegemonic masculinity within the Japanese military, one of the major contradictions within this system was that there were some
Japanese soldiers who regarded “comfort women” as more important military resources than enlisted soldiers. A former enlisted soldier, Kaneko testified that “comfort women” were part of precious military procurement in contrast to ‘disposable’ soldiers who ‘were easily mobilised with a piece of paper, Akagami (Kaneko, 2006, p.33). In fact, as another
Japanese veteran testified to the “comfort women” call centre, the emperor’s “gifts” were officially categorised as ‘military supplies’ (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p.
67). Furthermore, “comfort women” were transported overseas, accompanied by the shipping documents along with military provisions and ammunition (Nishino, 1992, p.
53). However, these facts signify dehumanisation of those women and implicate that they were as disposable as soldiers. Thus, the state never hesitated to sacrifice even enlisted soldiers whom it considered less than human.
‘Sacrificeable’ soldiers should not be deemed as equal to ‘disposable’ “comfort women” because the latter were the victims of the sexual violence perpetrated by the former. However, the relationship between the perpetrator and his victim can be complicated as testified by a former Japanese military officer, Kumai Toshinori, in the
109 documentary film entitled Kataronga! Lola tachi ni Seigi wo!59 (Takemi, 2011), directed by Takemi Chieko. He took good care of Taiwanese “comfort women”, who were allocated to a “comfort station” in Panay Islands in the Philippines. During his interview, the former Japanese military officer regarded it as his duty to protect the “gifts” from the emperor (Interview: Takemi). According to Takemi, Kumai visited these Taiwanese women in order to ameliorate the stress caused by his military responsibility. Despite this predatory hegemonic masculinity embedded within the “comfort women” system, he treated them in a humane manner. For example, after the Japanese military was totally defeated by the Allied Forces, he safely guided them to an Allied detention camp for prisoners of war, where he was arrested as a war criminal (Interview: Takemi). At the detention camp, he was able to survive because the Taiwanese women shared some of their food with him. In the documentary film, Kumai recalled his experiences and even openly shed tears. Even if he never felt that the Japanese Imperial Army did anything wrong or morally reprehensible regarding those women (Interview: Takemi), he appeared to be touched by their consideration for his survival. Here, we can see a form of humane interaction, which transcends the existing power relations.
4.6 Homosocial bond between “fully-fledged” soldiers
Rivalrous relationships between Japanese soldiers over the ownership of “comfort women” can be viewed as a constitutive element of male homosocial bonding, as discussed in the previous chapter regarding Sedgwick’s concept of ‘erotic triangles’
(Sedgwick, 2015). For many rank-and-file soldiers, the “comfort stations” were the place to strengthen their homosocial bond through the relationships of rivalry or fraternity, whereby elevating the particular form of heterosexual masculinity to its hegemonic
59 Takemi’s documentary film depicting Filipino survivors of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery system was released in Japan in 2011. The Japanese title comes from Katarungan in Tagalog, meaning justice. Lola also refers to ‘grandmother’ in Tagalog. 110 position within the military. As suggested by the photo below, the soldiers’ long queue at
“comfort stations” implicitly symbolises their comrade-hood. In other words, a visit to
“comfort stations” was the ticket to the “fully-fledged” soldiers’ fraternity club.
Figure 2
Soldiers awaiting their turns at a military “comfort station” in China from Maruse Moriyasu (1987), Watashi no Jūgun Chūgoku sensen [My war experience at the China theatre], Osaka: Japan’s Bulletin Publisher’s Center (as cited in Yoshimi, 2000, p. 130).
Therefore, over the course of their first year of military training, "comfort women” were out of reach for enlisted soldiers (Utsumi et al., 2005, p. 86). If new recruits visited those women, they were subjected to beating by the seniors (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū
Iinkai, 1992, p. 136). This militarised male homosocial bond thus set up very strict eligibility requirements for participation, which reinforced the vertical relations that characterised the Japanese military hierarchy.
The heterosexual masculinity dominant within the Japanese Military became hegemonic by marginalising and excluding alternative forms of masculinity. For example, those soldiers who refused to visit “comfort stations” were labelled as strange or defective and subjected to collective ridicule or ostracism. Six Japanese veterans testified to the call centre, which was temporarily launched by volunteers for collecting the information about “comfort women” in the wake of the 1991 breaking of silence. They corroborated the existence of these homosocial bonds by pointing out, ‘Every soldier
111 went to “comfort stations”. If I had not, I would have been isolated within the army’
(Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 135). According to additional testimony to the call centre, the only soldier consistently refusing to visit “comfort women” among
450 soldiers, was thrown into a “comfort station” and subjected to humiliating voyeurism at the hands of other soldiers (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 136). These types of practices were an integral part of a process of feminising or othering those deviant masculinities. Hegemonic masculinity marginalises abnormal masculinity in collaboration with subordinate masculinity by humiliating and persecuting it. This collaboration allows hegemonic masculinity to reconstruct and reinforce the hierarchy of masculinities.
The reasons for the refusal to be serviced by “comfort women” varied. According to the testimonies provided to the call centre, these soldiers did not use “comfort women” for reasons such as: feeling too young to have sex; they could not afford the fees; they were starving or wounded; or they were scared of contracting venereal disease (Jūgun
Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 136). There were also veterans who expressed sympathetic feelings toward “comfort women” (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai,
1992, p. 136), yet whose rejection of the “comfort women” was predicated either on the need to protect their dignity by avoiding prostitution sex, or because they resented the military’s control of male sexuality (Nishino, 1992, p. 53). However, none of them questioned the existence of the “comfort women” system during wartime (Nishino, 1992, p. 53). In addition, the retired Christian priest, Matsumoto Masayoshi, who was deployed as a paramedic in 1944 to a battalion at Shanxi Yu County in China, where he helped the military doctor’s STD inspection of “comfort women”, has continuously testified in public to his war crime as a bystander. He confessed that he had not wanted to taint his virginity (by having sex with “comfort women”) (Interview: Matsumoto). While in the
112 army, as an ardent admirer of Tolstoy’s philosophy of asceticism, Matsumoto felt a strong loathing against acts of sex, yet he neither raised a question nor felt a feeling of guilt about rapes of local women committed by his comrades that he had actually witnessed
(Interview: Matsumoto).
Figure 3 and 4
The left picture was taken when Mr. Matsumoto was working as a paramedic in China. This is courtesy of Matsumoto. The right photo was also him during the interview with the author at his house in 2016. It was taken by the author.
He also confessed that he had never considered the human rights of rape victims, let alone those of “comfort women”, until after Japan’s defeat in the war (Interview:
Matsumoto). Notwithstanding the fact that Matsumoto never engaged in wartime
Japanese soldiers’ sexual practices including visiting “comfort women” and/or raping local women, bystanders like him contributed to maintaining the hegemonic masculinity, whereby allowing them to be included in homosocial bonding. After the defeat of the war, all bystanders were compelled to choose their sides, as Herman notes, ‘in the conflict between victim and perpetrators’ (Herman, 1992, p. 7). It is more ‘tempting to take the side of the perpetrator’ rather than ‘to share the burden of pain’ with the victim (Herman,
113 1992, p. 7). However, Matsumoto has taken the side of the victim and his testimony is a form of resistance to hegemonic masculinity.
In many ways, it could be argued that the “comfort women” system was the main reason that enlisted soldiers committed rape against local women. According to
Matsumoto, six to seven Korean “comfort women” were allocated to his battalion, which consisted of approximately 250 soldiers and 50 officers. However, the women were monopolised by officers since enlisted soldiers were only permitted to visit them on
Sunday afternoon (Interview: Matsumoto). As Chūkiren member, Kaneko, points out, as a consequence of this type of monopolisation by the officers of “comfort women”, rapes of local women by Japanese soldiers increased (Kawata, 2005, p. 142). Among other things, as Kondō and a veteran called Mr M testified, rape cost the soldiers no money as opposed to the visit to “comfort stations” (Utsumi et al., 2005, p. 89; Senda, 1992, p. 103).
According to Kaneko, a monthly salary of privates was two yen, whereas a visit to
“comfort stations” cost one-and-a-half yen (Kawata, 2005, p. 140). According to a
Japanese veteran, Kojima Takao, Japanese “comfort women” were beyond reach of enlisted soldiers due to their high prices (Nishino, 1992, p. 159). Therefore, there were enlisted senior soldiers who sold their loot in order to visit “comfort women”, as Kojima testified (Nishino, 1992, p. 170). “Comfort stations” were prohibitively expensive for many enlisted soldiers, yet they were expected to need to have sex to be fully masculine.
As a result, enlisted soldiers created free “comfort stations” for themselves through abduction. For example, as Mr M testified, in the Philippine city of Davao, Japanese soldiers established “comfort stations” by shooting all local men and raping local women for which they felt little or no remorse (Senda, 1992, p. 110). In China, Japanese soldiers also employed a similar way to acquire local women (Qiu, 2013). Ironically, the “comfort women” system ultimately increased the occurrence of raping local women.
114 The exhibition of hegemonic masculinity through either raping local women or visiting “comfort stations” was integral to the homosocial bond between enlisted soldiers.
As another Chūkiren member, Kobayashi Takeji, confessed, he would have suffered social exclusion from his comrades unless he had joined gang-rapes (Matsui, 2000). At the same time, the military hierarchy based on rank and length of enlistment became embedded as an integral component of sexual violence perpetrated against women. There was even a hierarchy in the order on how gang-rapes occurred, which is clearly illustrated in Kondō’s confession. He admitted that he had once participated in a gang-rape, when he was a third-year enlisted soldier. According to Kondō, the order in which the soldier raped the woman was determined by the length of military enlistment. The third-year enlisted soldier was first and the second-year enlisted soldier came last. Accordingly, the first-year soldiers were always excluded (Aoki, 2006, p. 26). Two veterans testified that it had been customary for officers to ‘taste’ new “comfort women” first before handing them down to enlisted soldiers (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 23). Thus, the Japanese Imperial Army incorporated parallel fraternities based on soldiers’ ranks and they seldom met through the “comfort women” system.
A form of ‘protest’ masculinity (Connell, 2005), which resisted the process of the stripping of their subjectivities during the military training, was manifested by soldiers who pledged themselves to the heterosexual bond with their wives/fiancées, rather than to the homosocial bond between other soldiers. For example, Gomi Tamiyoshi (1913-
1979), a former military police officer in China, told his wife in his 1939 letter60 that he fulfilled his duty towards his wife that he left behind his country by proudly maintaining his self-control over his sexuality by rejecting “comfort women” (Gomi, 1939). He
60 Gomi sent his letters mainly to his wife and younger brother between 1937 and 1940. His daughter, Hosaka Kinuko happened to find them in his house after he passed away and she contributed them to the Yamanashi Peace Museum. This specific letter was shared with me through the gracious cooperation of Asakawa Tamotsu, the director of the museum. 115 returned to Japan in 1940, and subsequently never served in the military due to an injury on his left leg. The Chūkiren member, Suzuki Yoshio, also testified to his long refusal to be serviced by “comfort women” whom he despised as ‘impure’ (Kawata, 2005, p. 143).
In that regard, this heterosexual masculinity reproduces the patriarchal dualism of the
“good” and the “bad” women, which was still part of the same hegemonic discourse. In spite of his strong commitment to his fiancée left back in Japan, Suzuki started to visit
“comfort women” in 1945, when he became devastated by his loss of hope for life
(Kawata, 2005, p. 144). Thus, losing any hope for survival led to the loss of their dignity and humanity.
The homosocial bond between officers was strengthened in a different way from the bond between enlisted soldiers because of their privileged position within the military.
Unlike the enlisted soldier, the officer could access his “comfort woman” whenever he wanted. Many women allocated to officers were Japanese women except in an area where no Japanese “comfort women” were available. To enlisted soldiers, the “comfort woman” reserved for a specific officer appeared to be his ‘mistress’ (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū
Iinkai, 1992, p. 23). The elite class thus maintained all their resources in order to illustrate their masculine power, including military status, money and women. In other words, the officers reinforced their homosocial bond by exhibiting the accomplishment of three masculine desires―‘superiority’ and ‘power’, as well as ‘possession’ of women, as discussed in the previous chapter (Itō, 1996; 1993).
The hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity had cracks within the Japanese military because the officers’ privilege of monopolising the “comfort women” system became the seeds of enlisted soldiers’ discontent. Jinchū nisshi, as translated into English as ‘official wartime military journals’, depicted a variety of irresponsible officers’ behaviours. The
Japanese scholar, Takasaki Ryūji, analysed some journals and concluded that officers
116 made the best use of “comfort stations” by even expanding their privilege beyond the military rules (Takasaki, 1994, p. 41). There were testimonies by enlisted soldiers that were filled with indignation about officers’ irresponsible sexual behaviours. According to the US Report of Psychological Warfare No.2, issued on 30 November 1944, a 23- year-old Japanese soldier testified that Colonel Maruyama enjoyed his “comfort woman” in the trench almost every day during the Battle of Mitokina (Nishino, 2003, p. 23).
Hayami Masanori, who belonged to the 113th Brigade, heard of an officer shot dead by one of his soldiers who shouted at the officer, ‘unpatriotic citizen’ (‘hikokumin’), as he had sex with his “comfort woman” at a time when his subordinates were facing a life-or- death situation while engaged in a fierce battle against enemies (Nishino, 2003, p. 91).
An enlisted soldier who witnessed an officer only in pants evacuating to an air-raid shelter with his “comfort woman”, shivering and holding her hands, said, ‘Can’t officers fight without women?’ (Jūgun Ianfu 110 Ban Henshū Iinkai, 1992, p. 144). Ironically, the complaints and anger of enlisted soldiers against officers drove more of the former to
“comfort women” as an outlet to vent their grudges. As a result, “comfort women” became the linchpin of the Japanese Imperial Army in that they were the knot of the homosocial bond within each of the parallel masculine cultures. By visiting “comfort women”, soldiers reinforced not only homosocial male bonding but also a hierarchy of men between them by owning and controlling women.
Even after Japan’s defeat in 1945, the homosocial bond between Japanese soldiers was reinforced through Japanese veteran’s associations, Sen’yūkai. Their activities, such as war commemoration and reunion parties, have been ruled by the wartime military hierarchy. Kondō was shocked by the fact that in Sen’yūkai, most veterans shared individual experiences of war atrocities, which they had never told even their own families (Utsumi et al., 2005, pp. 145-6). Kondō points out that they had fun talking about
117 acts of brutality and even boasted of their killing and rapes in China (Aoki, 2006, p. 26).
Criticism emerged against the Chūkiren member, Tsuchiya Yoshio, who testified to his war crimes as a military police officer. An anonymous contribution to the newsletter of
Tokyo’s Ken’yūkai, an association of former military policemen intimidated him by emphasising that anything undermining the association’s activities and reputations would never be allowed (Noda, 1998, p. 277). These postwar associations based on the wartime military have served as the postwar fraternity for Japanese veterans, which has perpetuated the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese Imperial Army even after the war.
At the same time, the postwar homosocial bond has ‘forced silence on veterans who exerted themselves to disseminate the meaning of recognising war guilt’ (Noda, 1998, p.
278).
4.7 Japanese “comfort women”: Gendered imperial subjects
Regardless of diversity in soldiers’ memories of “comfort women”, such as a wife/mistress, a lover or a goddess, their masculine sexism and racism never erased the fundamental boundary between Japanese and non-Japanese women. The emperor’s warriors perceived the former as the representation of gendered imperial subjects, whereas the latter as the representation of gendered racialised/colonised objects. As
Tsuchiya and other Chūkiren members testified, their racial prejudice against Chinese people never made them feel any compunction about their atrocities towards Chinese non- combatants (Matsui, 2000). Most Japanese soldiers despised Korean “comfort women” with the derogatory remark, Chōsen pi (Interview: Matsumoto). They internalised the sense of Japan’s racial superiority through public education. Yuasa still remembered what his primary school teacher taught him and other students at school. ‘The Japanese people are a superior race. They must conquer China and become masters of all of Asia’ (Noda,
2000, p. 63). The supremacy of Imperial Japan in Asia and contempt for other Asian races
118 were two sides of the same coin. There, female bodies were used as the metaphor for the power relations between states, which compounded the race-based hierarchy within the
“comfort women” system.61
Japanese women were expected to be patriotic gendered imperial subjects who sacrificed themselves for the sake of the emperor. In a collection of WWII reports/memoirs compiled by Takasaki Ryūji (1994), there was a record describing how
Japanese “comfort women” were instructed by a military officer on a ship to Manila.
According to a soldier’s memoir entitled Senjō ni mamireta seishun [War-torn Youth]
(1977), the officer yelled at the women, saying ‘We will treat all of you as Japanese and not as women; therefore, we would like you all to be aware of your responsibility as a
Japanese and behave in a disciplined manner’ (Takasaki, 1994, pp. 22-3). Thus, Japanese
“comfort women” were expected to fulfil their duty both as a Japanese and as a woman.
During wartime Japan, the responsibility of the Japanese meant that one should die for the sake of the emperor. As the Senjinkun [The Codes of Conduct in Battle] stipulated in 1941, soldiers were to choose death rather than the humiliation of being taken as a prisoner of war (Yamada, 1995, p. 212). The “honourable” death for Japanese women was to die without the shame of being raped by enemy men (Senda, 1992). This came from the imperial masculinist’s ‘nationalistic aspiration for a pure and respectable national body from within’ (Koikari, 1999, p. 326). There were Japanese “comfort women” who achieved an “honourable” death, while facing the fall of Manchukuo, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan. Harada Masamori, who had served as governmental official of Manchukuo, appreciated the mass “suicide” of Japanese “comfort women” along with Japanese soldiers. This act of mass suicide demonstrated the completion of their duties as Japanese, while at the same time he boasted that he was the one who
61 According to a Japanese veteran who was mobilised in Shanghai in 1937, at a “comfort station” in Anqing city, a Japanese woman cost 1.50 sen, while a Korean and a Chinese cost 1 sen (Senda, 1992, p. 173). 119 invoked the sense and the mission of being Japanese within them (Harada, 2004). In a precursor to the contemporary Japanese environment of social exclusion, the “comfort women” were despised by the Japanese female settlers of Manchukuo; three of whom returned to Japan during the crisis and later spoke of the mass suicide to Harada (2004).
The stigmatisation and exclusion of “bad” women from the community of “good” women
(Harada, 2004) appears to have forced them to choose “honourable” death for the sake of the emperor. However, Harada was so moved by their mass suicide, claiming that ‘they
[the “comfort women”] were nothing but Japanese Imperial soldiers’ (Harada, 2004). In reality, as many soldiers testified to Senda, the “comfort women” were part of the combat soldiers (Senda, 1985, p. 28), and certain military units that were on the brink of complete destruction incorporated Japanese women into direct combat operations against enemies.
This will be more fully discussed with a focus on the alternative memories of Japanese
“comfort women” in the following chapters.
This emphasised femininity represented by Japanese “comfort women” is the mirror of the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese Imperial Army. It reveals ultranationalist masculinity constructed upon a hyper-militarist patriarchy. However, during periods of military desperation, the Japanese military used “comfort women” as soldiers. This representation of masculinised “comfort women” by the military was an insult to the hegemonic masculinity, which was equivalent to the national identity of wartime Japan. The tension between the state hegemonic masculinity of the citizen– soldier and what actually occurred on the ground might explain why the state has kept silence on their “contribution” in combat. The former official, Harada demanded that the
Ministry of Health and Welfare provide a memorial service for the “honourable” deaths of Japanese “comfort women” in the battle of Manchukuo. He was left speechless at the response that the state never acknowledged non-combatants’ deaths in battle (Harada,
120 2004). For the state, Japanese “comfort women” were nothing but disposable non- subjects for exploitation based on gender, class and ethnicity. This point will be discussed in detail in the following chapter.
4.8 Conclusion
The hegemonic masculinity of the citizen–soldier in modernised Japan was constructed upon the divine emperor system in which Emperor Hirohito reigned over his people both as their Father and as the supreme commander-in-chief of his army. It indicates that
Emperor Hirohito was integral to amalgamating patriarchal paternalism in peace time with militarist nationalism in wartime. In the transition from citizenry to soldiery, male patriarchal rights to access female bodies were not only preserved but also utilised in order to reinforce the irreversible military hierarchy through the homosocial bond between soldiers. In this vein, “comfort women” became the most “useful” resource by which soldiers, regardless of their rank, accomplished their masculinities. Yet, there was also resistance against the hegemonic masculinity and cracks within its hierarchy.
In wartime Japan, the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese Imperial Military, in Messerschmidt’s words, was ‘the idealised form of masculinity’ (Messerschmidt,
1993, p. 82) that constructed both a cold-blooded militarist void of human nature and a self-less nationalist who died for the emperor. His individual subjectivity was subsumed within the military collective, which numbed his sense of guilt. This homosocial bond between soldiers is well described by Hikosaka Tei:
Japanese soldiers who perpetrated dreadful atrocities against other Asians in the wartime were ordinary men who used to be good fathers or brothers in the peace time. … Even when they were engaging in brutal acts during the wartime, they were not insane. They were only doing the same things as other Japanese soldiers were doing in the same way as others were doing. (Hikosaka, 2000, p. 45)
121 However, the extreme transition from the human to the killing machine through the training of killing people and brutal punishments put both manhood and humanhood of soldiers at risk. For them, to be alive as a human being meant to be alive as a masculine man. In this regard, “comfort stations” were the only place where feminised or dying soldiers restored their humanness, that is, their manliness. This was the logical extension of the hegemonic masculinity and the state took advantage of it. In short, the state was in full control of individual soldiers’ feelings and thoughts by manipulating their masculine sexualities through the “comfort women” system. In other words, in order to transform
Emperor Hirohito’s sons to his ideal soldiers, the state required “comfort women”. At the same time, there was resistance to hegemonic masculinity in the form of deserters and those who rejected sexual activity. Of equal importance, the competition for access to
“comfort women” not only reproduced hegemonic masculinity resulting in an increase in the raping of local women, but also became sites where hegemonic masculinity, nationalism and patriotism were contested within the Japanese military itself. Soldiers’ visits to “comfort stations” were regarded as the manifestation of the hegemonic masculinity, which was the engine of the emperor–worship nationalism. However, their indulgence in “comfort women” undermined their morale because their patriotism was questioned.
The militarised ultranationalist masculinity representing wartime Japan’s national identity was completely feminised by the defeat in war. In the wake of Emperor Hirohito’s effeminate transformation to the national symbol of peace, his soldiers were required to come back to society as peaceful citizens. Thus, the memories of Japan’s wartime atrocities were buried until the late 1950s, when Chūkiren members started to actively testify in public. Focusing on the silenced narratives of Japanese survivors, the following
122 chapter will explore the alternative story of sexual contract in prewar, wartime and postwar Japan.
123 Chapter 5
Silenced History: Narratives of Trauma
5.1 Introduction
The previous chapter explored the dominant narrative of Japanese “comfort women” based upon written/oral testimonies of Japanese veterans and publications, including military journals, memoirs and magazine articles. I concluded that the dominant memory of Japanese “comfort women” supported the hegemonic model of masculinity/femininity, which justified militarism as the epitome of nationalism. In this chapter, I examine the silenced narratives of Japanese surviving “comfort women” in order to reveal how, as a modern patriarchal state, Japan was constructed and consolidated state power by controlling female bodies, in particular, by exploiting poor Japanese women.
In this chapter, the key analytical concept is trauma. As discussed in Chapter 3, trauma marks the site of memory contestation insofar as traumatic events disrupt memory composure, thus, causing inconsistency and discrepancy between both individual and collective remembrance of past events. The counter-dominant memories of Japanese survivors constitute memories of trauma. Their traumatic memorieshave been silenced by the dominant state narratives, which demonstrate how the state reproduces the story of the sexual contract for the foundation of a modern patriarchal state and the concurrent militarisation of the nation. Silence is a key factor to locate trauma both on the individual and the collective levels because silence is perceived as a common reaction to and an effective defence strategy against trauma (Páez, Basabe, & Gonzalez, 1997). Silence is the ‘first line of defence’, not only for victims who wish to forget their excruciating past, but also for the perpetrators who want to eliminate responsibility for their crimes
(Herman, 1992, p. 8). Therefore, I analyse various forms of silences demonstrated by the
124 Japanese survivors with a focus on the social interaction between the victims of the sexual slavery system, and society and the state.
The purpose of this chapter is to reveal the alternative narrative of Japanese
“comfort women” by analysing their oral/written testimonies and interviews with those who contacted them. The extant literature has concluded that many Japanese “comfort women” were indentured prostitutes of private brothels at the time of their recruitment into military “comfort stations”. This, however, does not necessarily indicate that the experiences of Japanese “comfort women” were substantially homogenous. Their experiences vary according to where and how long they worked as “comfort women”, and ultimately for whom they worked. For example, Shirota (pseudonym; for her full story, see Appendix 1-6) dealt with an indeterminate number of privates per day, whereas
Kikumaru (geisha name; for her full story, see Appendix 1-2) served only a few officers over two years. Their experiences at “comfort stations” appear different as shown in
Chapter 6 and 7, respectively. However, in this chapter, the focus on fundamental similarities in their life stories, including both their prewar and postwar experiences, is integral to uncover a particular form of sexual slavery system within which to situate the specificities of their experiences.
5.2 The conspiracy of silence: Forced internalisation of the abusers’ shame and guilt into their victims
As Herman points out, ‘[s]ecrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense’ to evade responsibility for his crime (Herman, 1992, p. 8). Notwithstanding Herman’s contention about secrecy, the “comfort women” system was no secret in postwar Japan.
From her experience of interviewing numerous Japanese veterans during the 1970s,
Hirota points out that at the end of each interview, every Japanese veteran mentioned those “comfort women” whom they raped or bought, even though the issue of “comfort
125 women” was not the focus of the interview (Interview: Hirota). On the other hand, there were a great number of eyewitnesses to the “comfort women” experience, including brokers and brothel keepers. In her work Okinawa senjō no kioku to 'ianjo' [The Memory of the Battle in Okinawa and “Comfort Stations”], Hon Yunshin (2016) explores the testimonies given by Okinawan people who witnessed “comfort women” during the wartime. New testimonies have updated the estimated number of wartime “comfort stations” in Okinawa to be in excess of 130 locations (Hon, 2016, p. 420).
Given that the initial victims of the Japanese military “comfort women” system were Japanese women, a substantial number of them were supposed to be mobilised to the “comfort stations” inside and outside Japan. Yoshimi deduced the numbers of
Japanese “comfort women” in China from late 1938 to 1939 based upon the existing
Foreign Ministry documents. According to Yoshimi’s archival research, there were 107
Japanese women out of 250 “comfort women” in Jiujiang; 48 out of 70 in Wuhu; and 11 out of 111 in Nanchang (Yoshimi, 1995, p. 28; Yoshimi, 2000, pp. 53-4). Historian Sato
Shigeru agrees that the majority of “comfort women” in ‘certain’ military brothels were
Korean women; but he points out that evidence to enable generalisation across all sites is
‘insufficient’ (Sato, 2014, p. 392). According to his research, 49.8 percent of “comfort women” sent to China from 1943 through 1944 were Japanese, whereases 29.8 percent were Korean (Sato, 2014, p. 392). For the projection of the number of Japanese “comfort women,” Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s major newspaper published the testimonies of two
Japanese veterans in 1991 and 1992. Yamada Seikichi, a former official in charge of
“comfort women” at Hankou, China in 1943 testified that 130 Japanese women worked there. Moreover, a former military police officer stated that in 1945 there were almost 60
Japanese “comfort women” working in Chiba, Japan (Kinoshita, 2013, p. 45). In
Okinawa, Japan, when the Tsuji district (a collective name of approximately 300 brothels)
126 was destroyed in a US air raid, approximately 500 prostitutes were sent to “comfort stations” (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 135).
Feminist historian, Fujime Yuki, who testified on the victimisation of Japanese
“comfort women” at the 2000 Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal, applied a different method to calculate the number of Japanese “comfort women”. She estimated their number by focusing on the decrease in number of the following three categories of prostitutes: shōgi (prostitutes); geigi (geisha); and shakufu (barmaids). As explained in
Chapter 1, all of them engaged in prostitution. Fujime presumes that most of the total decline in the number of the 65,000 prostitutes during a decade after the beginning of
Japan-Sino war (1931) is accounted by those who had been forced to become military prostitutes to pay off their debts to their civilian brothel owners (Fujime, 2015, p. 68). As
Fujime also points out, during the same period, approximately 40,000 Japanese civilian prostitutes working overseas (karayuki-san) might have been targets for “comfort women” recruitment (Fujime, 2015, p. 68). Unlike Korean “comfort women”, Japanese
“comfort women” were less likely to be mobilised to the war front (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 130). Before escalating into a full-scale war against the Allied Forces, the Japanese military returned Japanese “comfort women” to Japan from overseas including islands in the western Pacific Ocean such as Palau (Shirota, 1971) or Truk Island (Hirota, 2009).
However, the majority of Japanese survivors have kept their silence until the present time.
In fact, despite such large numbers of women being involved, only a very small number spoke out. From the victims’ viewpoint, the Japanese survivors’ long and deep silence implicates, in Fresco’s terms, ‘the gaping, vertiginous black hole’ of their traumatised experiences (Fresco, 1984, as cited in Felman, 2013, p. 64). The magnitude and continuity of ‘the silenced memory’ (Felman, 2013, p. 65) of Japanese survivors signify the intensity of trauma inflicting them.
127 The fact that only a handful of surviving Japanese “comfort women” broke their silence demonstrates the effectiveness of a state conspiracy of silence to bury the individual and collective voice(s) of trauma. As discussed in Chapter 3, Danieli defines the conspiracy of silence by the state as the ‘[p]olitically dictated or officially sanctioned silence’ (Danieli, 1998, p. 680). In a patriarchal state, the patriarchal binary of “good” women and “bad” women is the most useful discourse for silencing the victim’s voice about sexual violence because the abuser can shift his shame and guilt into the victim’s body by stigmatising her as a prostitute. The gendered dichotomy of good wives and prostitutes further allows the community to force the internalisation of the perpetrator’s guilt and shame into the self of his victim. The remark of Sister Amaha, the honorary head of Kanita Women’s Village after caring for Shirota on her deathbed demonstrates the forced silence of Japanese survivors. She said, ‘[t]here is an unspoken pressure not to come forward and bring shame on the nation. I think that is why none have spoken out’
(Talmadge, 2007). The conspiracy of silence between the state and society successfully transferred the abuser’s shame and guilt onto the abused.
The state-societal complicity of silencing is historically woven into the fabric of modern Japan. Such logic of silencing the voices of prostituted women emerged when a capitalist economy was introduced into late Tokugawa Japan (1600-1868). The
Tokugawa Shogunate government adopted a status-based hierarchy consisting of samurai warriors on the top followed by peasants, artisans and merchants, as well as outcaste groups. Amy Stanley’s insightful analysis in Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan (2012) demonstrates how the emergence of a market economy promoted the stigmatisation of prostitutes in early modern Japan.
According to Stanley, during the Tokugawa period, indentured prostitutes carried no stigma because the definition of them as filial daughters fulfilling their obligation to
128 support their parents was a social norm. The community showed feelings of sympathy towards them and the government provided legal protection to safeguard them from exploitative brothel owners. Prostitutes could make a juridical claim of their abusive treatment to magistrates, thereby terminating their indenture contract. Brothel keepers even permitted prostitutes to take family-care leave in times of need (Stanley, 2012).
The purpose of the ruler’s protection of prostitutes was to establish a ‘benevolent’ patriarchal social order in a ‘benevolent’ paternalistic state (Stanley, 2012, p. 62). Here, benevolence implicates provision of security in return for loyalty from the governed to the governing. The benevolent paternalistic relationship between the state and society/families transformed women’s status from ‘the property of men’ to the property of the state (Stanley, 2012, p. xii). A ‘traditional’ form of patriarchy ruled by state paternalism (Pateman, 1988, p. 23) in the Tokugawa era thus restricted ‘men’s control over women’s bodies’ (Stanley, 2012, p. 9).
However, the emergence of a market economy in the nineteenth century altered the state’s priority from seeking ‘the benevolent patriarchal gender order’ to economic prosperity/accumulation, which promoted male domination over female sexuality through the commodification of social relations (Stanley, 2012, p. 191). Since prostitution became an integral part of the state/local economy, late Tokugawa Japan promoted prostitution as a way to earn revenue by securing the large number of prospective prostitutes from ‘communities of poor peasants and townspeople’ (Stanley, 2012, p. 191).
As Stanley points out, exploitative market forces destroyed a benevolent paternalistic structure, which had connected the state and community/families, and broke the family bond between filial daughters and their families. The elite commoners and samurai officials who were overwhelmed by the social disorder, in Norma’s expression,
‘scapegoated’ prostitutes as the source of social corruption and claimed that they were
129 egoistic women motivated by their own material interests (Norma, 2016). Consequently, the dutiful daughters were reduced to ‘shameless women’ who symbolised the sex objects/commodity, and social stigma was deeply inscribed on them (Stanley, 2012, p.
18). Ironically, the capitalist interpretation of prostitutes’ agency as being autonomous individuals was subjected to a demeaning discourse, which provided no space for their assertion of agency, which had been partly secured by the presence of a benevolent patriarchal system (Stanley, 2012, p. 192). The patriarchal binary of “good” women and
“bad” women thus became institutionalised.
For Japan’s full modernisation, local governments substantially relied on tax revenue from brothels’ so-called ‘instalment payments’ (Stanley, 2012, p. 193); the Meiji government ‘industrialized’ prostitution and developed the industry in a stratified form, that included prostitutes, geisha and barmaids (Norma, 2016, p. 64). The Taishō administration (1912-1926) further diversified indentured sexual servitudes in a variety of non-brothel venues, such as geisha houses, restaurants and traditional inns where regulations were less stringent (Norma, 2016, p. 69). As a result, the large-scale trafficking network of recruiting underage girls into the sex industry already existed in the Taishō Era (Norma, 2016, p. 69). In particular, indentured contracts with geisha venues provided a legal loophole to procure a vast amount of underage girls into the sex industries. Most of the Japanese survivors who broke their silence were sold to geisha houses by their families. By keeping poor families chronically poor, the state never exhausted the source for commercial prostitution―debt slavery (Lerner, 1986, p. 133).
The marriage between capitalism and patriarchy completes the story of the sexual contract in which the sex-right of the male head of a household in the domestic realm was universalised as the male sex-right in the public realm through prostitution (Pateman,
1988). In other words, this male sex-right expanded and finally transcended the private–
130 public division. The system of patriarchal capitalism transformed the social norm of filial daughters to an empty slogan by stigmatising prostituted women. On the other hand, the public appreciation of loyal daughters allowed the institution of the family and the state to elide and avoid their shame and guilt at the exploitation of these women, as well as at the institutionalisation of their servitude. As a result, loyal daughters such as Kikumaru were forced to carry this shame and guilt and finally internalised this paternal rhetoric.
Even at the age of ten, she made her own decision to work at a geisha house in order to feed her family when struck by a poor harvest (Hirota, 2009, p. 83). At 17, Shirota agreed to receive her first customer at a geisha house to pay off her father’s debt, even though she really did not understand what it meant (Shirota, 1971, pp. 24-5). Nominal traditional patriarchy was thus abused to justify daughter-selling in the modern patriarchal state to the point that prostitutes were transformed from filial daughters to commodities and, ultimately, to stigmatised victims of trauma.
The act of being sold by their fathers/families was a traumatising experience for young women and girls. For example, mothers like Mizuno Iku (for her full story, see
Appendix 1-4) and Takanashi Taka (for her full story, see Appendix 1-8) were forced to put their daughters up for adoption when they were sold to brothels. The loss of their children was also endured after becoming “comfort women”. Mizuno lost another daughter at a “comfort station”; Miyagi Tsuru (pseudonym; for her full story, see
Appendix 1-3) lost her baby boy due to malnutrition while they were detained at an Allied
Forces’ detention camp. For young girls such as Keiko (pseudonym; for her full story, see Appendix 1), the most painful memory in her life was ‘leaving her house [when she was sold to a geisha house]’, as mentioned in her interview with journalist, Senda Kakō
(Senda, 1985, p. 283). She meant that leaving her house was by far more painful than facing death from starvation on the war front in Burma and her lonely life after the end
131 of the war. The trauma of being sold by her family was so strong for Keiko that when she returned to Japan she never contacted them (Senda, 1985, p. 281). Another Japanese survivor, Tanaka Tami (pseudonym; for her full story, see Appendix 1-9), told Kawata that unlike Korean62 “comfort women” (who were forced to “comfort stations”), she was sold by her father (Kawata, 2014, p. 31).63 Her account shows the mixed feelings of indignation against her father and her powerlessness to contest his authority. Consistent with the views voiced by Tanaka, the Japanese survivor Suzumoto Aya (pseudonym; for her full story, see Appendix 1-7) strongly blamed her father for her predicament
(Interview: Hirota). As the above accounts demonstrate, their fathers’ betrayal of trust traumatised them; however, the patriarchal society did not provide them with any language to speak of their fathers as their abusers. Japanese survivors’ feelings of powerlessness and their silence about how their families victimised them led to their internalisation of the conspiracy of silence between patriarchal families, communities and the state.
The conspiracy of silence on familial, societal and state levels is completed by transplanting the shame and guilt of the perpetrator into the victim’s inner self. Shame is much more salient for the construction of self-identity than guilt since the former is related to ‘the integrity of the self’ whereas the latter links to ‘feelings of wrongdoing’
(Giddens, 1991, pp. 65, 67). Shame destroys the foundation of ‘trust in others’, which is integral to the establishment of the coherence of the self (Giddens, 1991, p. 66). Helen
Lynd describes what happens, once trust in the outer world is betrayed:
We experience anxiety in becoming aware that we cannot trust our answers to the questions, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Where can I belong?’ … with every recurrent violation of trust we become again children unsure of ourselves in an alien world. (Lynd, 1958, pp. 46-7, as cited in Giddens, 1991, p. 66)
62 Actually, some Korean women were ‘sold’ by their families, too. 63 After Japan transplanted the state-licensed prostitution system to its occupied Korea, a great number of Korean girls and women were sold by their impoverished parents to brothels (Rekishigakukenkyūkai & Nihonshikenkyūkai, 2014, pp. 5-7). 132
Shirota had the feeling of betrayal of trust when she was rejected by her grandmother because she was a prostitute. Even though she mentally contested this perception by insisting that ‘her father sold her to the brothel in the first place’, her grandmother’s betrayal of trust was so devastating that she accepted to work at a naval
“comfort station” in Taiwan (Shirota, 1971, pp. 28-9). When she returned to Japan after the end of the war, she seemed to have completely internalised her father’s shame into her psyche. Shirota recalled when her younger sister visited her:
I was so ashamed of myself that I didn’t know how I could see my sister. While meeting with her, I felt so miserable that we parted soon and didn’t see each other again. My sister committed suicide after she knew all of my past and said that she didn’t want to live anymore. (Shirota, 1986)
Shirota’s sister seemed to feel devastated about the possibilities of a future life with a prostitute sister. The strong rejection of Shirota by her family illustrates their fear of social exclusion. As I conceptualise in Chapter 3 following Linde’s (1993) theory of the self, public–personal relations are determined through negotiation with the social world where public recognition as a communal member is essential for private personhood. People seeking a harmonious patriarchal community and family, blame and isolate prostitutes, which forces them to internalise their fathers’ shame and to silence their victimisation.
In her work on victims of sexual abuse, Susan D. Rose points out the shame internalised by a victim of incest named Pat, who said, ‘I carry my father’s shame. I am shame’ (Rose, 1999, p. 163, emphasis in original). This public–personal interaction and the self-reflection of the social judgement in her outer manifestation are part of the process of ‘defining and redefining the connection between inner and outer realities’
(Rose, 1999, p. 163). In the case of the Japanese survivors, this self-reflection process facilitates the internalisation of deep levels of shame based on patriarchal values. The patriarchal values are institutionalised through the social unit of the family and throughout
133 society by a patriarchal state. The patriarchal state thus marginalises and isolates Japanese survivors from their own families or even themselves because their feeling of shame prevents them from establishing the coherent self.
5.3 Dissociation of trauma as silence
Dissociation is a defence strategy for victims of trauma. By separating the self from their traumatised memories, dissociation can help them to construct the consistency of their identities. However, breaks and ruptures caused by freezing their traumatised memories constitute silence in their testimonies. The life histories as testified by Okinawan survivors such as Miyagi Tsuru and Uehara Eiko (pseudonym; see Appendix 1-10) shed little light on their time, which they spent at “comfort stations”. As Kawata (1995, p. 163) points out, while both Okinawan survivors had vivid memories of their lives in Okinawan civilian brothels, they spoke very little about their experiences at “comfort stations” in
Okinawa.64 Their poor families sold them to the Tsuji brothel quarter, which was a self- sufficient community across generations run by juri, an Okinawan derogatory term for prostituted women. Individual brothel owners were called Annma which means Mother in the Okinawan language and dealt with customers only introduced by other customers.
Under this secure system, a juri cooked a meal and sexually served one customer per night (Kawata, 1995, pp. 151-72). The US air raid on 10 October 1944 burned the
Okinawa city to ashes along with all the brothels in Tsuji. This tragedy led to the overt and coercive takeover of the Tsuji brothels by the Japanese military.65 In comparison to their lives in Tsuji, their traumatic experiences at military brothels may have been too humiliating to tell (Kawata, 1995, p. 164). Another surviving juri, who also became a
64 Miyagi Tsuru told Kawata that she sexually served only officers because of her pregnancy and no debt (Kawata, 1995, p. 163). Uehara Eiko broke her silence only in her autobiography, which mentions nothing of her experiences as a “comfort woman” (Uehara, 2010, p. 129). 65 Even though many juris refused to become military “comfort women”, approximately 500 were sent to “comfort stations” (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 135). 134 “comfort woman”, states the following in an interview with a Japanese novelist Sasaki
Ryuzō:
In Tsuji, I rendered great service to only one customer as if I had been his wife per night. However, at the “comfort station,” I was forced to sexually serve dozens of soldiers per day. I felt that I was no longer juri there. (Sasaki, June 1972, p. 185)
Like her, the juris at Tsuji took great pride in their lives in which women trusted and respected each other in a peaceful female community cultivated during a long history
(Uehara, 2010, p. 6). Lives of humiliation as “comfort women” encouraged these juris to dissociate their experiences as such from their memories. Uehara’s autobiography (2010) focused solely on a life story about a successful businesswoman who overcame her predicament and ran a fancy restaurant. Even though she identified herself as a former
“comfort woman” in her book, she omitted any revelations regarding her experiences at the “comfort station”. Silencing the traumatised memory seemingly contributes to the furtherance of the self-perpetuance of the conspiracy of silence, although this is double- sided as it might, in certain conditions, also enable her survival. In applying words of
Rogers et al., Uehara’s ‘frozen memory’ about the “comfort stations” was hinged upon a big black hole by temporal adhesives of ‘before’ and ‘after’ (Rogers et al., 1999, p. 15).
In this regard, Uehara’s “silence” signifies an integral ‘part of her testimony’ (Felman,
2013, p. 62), since it indicates the ferocity of her trauma.
Dissociation can also be an effective defence strategy in prostitution sex, which is also a traumatic experience. Given the age of some Japanese survivors when they had their first customer, their experience is a form of child abuse. Keiko testified to Senda that the second most painful memory in her life was being obliged to provide a sexual service to a client for the first time at the age of 17 (Senda, 1985, p. 283). Under the state- sanctioned prostitution system, the police issued a prostitution licence to a geisha who began to menstruate (Hirota, 2009, p. 90). This state control of prostitutes allowed minors
135 to work in prostitution66. When they had their first clients, Kikumaru was around 14;
Uehara at 15; Miyagi at 16; and Shirota at 17. Thus, they were children who had little knowledge about sex. Uehara accepted her first client with little understanding about what prostitution meant (Uehara, 2010, pp. 72-5). Shirota agreed to have danna
(master/customer) without knowing what it meant. Even though she refused at the last moment and tried to escape, she was raped by the 60-something-year-old customer
(Shirota, 1971, pp. 24-6). Tanaka was raped by her brothel owner at 16 before taking her first customer (Kawata, 2014, p. 29).
Physical torment as well as mental injuries caused by prostitution sex was unbearable for those young bodies. Kikumaru aged around 16, rushed into the Salvation
Army, which promoted abolition of prostitution, and sought refuge when she was forced to serve customers even during her medical treatment by an obstetrician. After negotiations with her brothel owner, she could go back to her own house on the condition that she would pay back her family’s debt by getting “ordinary” jobs. However, she went back to being an indentured slave because she did not want to get her family into trouble
(Hirota, 2009, pp. 91-2). When Shirota was raped by her first customer, she was infected with his chronic gonorrhoea, which resulted in her hospitalisation lasting several months.
Finally, the owner of the geisha house sold her to a brothel, where she realised the reality that:
No matter how many customers I will get, I will never pay off my debt because I owe the everyday expenses including clothing and cosmetics to my brothel owner. Moreover, I am not healthy enough. It is a lie that I will pay off my debt after working at a brothel for two or three months. (Shirota, 1971, p. 28)
66 Under the state-licensed prostitution system in Japan, recruitment of children aged 17 and under for prostitution was prohibited. In reality, there were loopholes as represented by geisha apprentice systems. 136 For survivors of childhood sexual abuse, dissociation through mental escape is helpful to prevent their destruction. Rose describes the process:
The mind or spirit leaves the body and the child may come to feel no pain, may leave the scene entirely, neither experiencing the abuse at the time nor remembering it afterwards. The escape from self ― from what is being done to the self ― creates a safer space, a retreat. (Rose, 1999, p. 167)
The process suggests that dissociation ‘allows the mind, in effect, to flee what the body is experiencing’ (Waites, 1993, p. 14). Therefore, dissociation can also become a tactic of escape from prostitution sex. Barry (1995) uses ‘disengagement’ to describe how prostitutes disconnect their selves from the ongoing act of prostitution. Disengagement is intentional negation of emotional feelings in their selves. It functions as a barrier to avoid access to their real selves by numbing their senses during the sexual act, which is basically interactive. Prostitutes are consciously and intentionally convincing themselves that they are ‘not there’ in interactive acts of sex (Barry, 1995, pp. 31-2). A Japanese survivor named Mizuno Iku (see Appendix 1-4) told Miyashita Tadako, an activist writer, that she could not provide prostitution sex without killing her self (Nishino et al., 2015, p. 211).
Hirota explains selling sex as ‘an act of denying being a human’ because her interviews with many surviving “comfort women” made her feel that selling the body changed her self and that the self before selling the body would never come back again to her
(Interview: Hirota).
As Rose’s description shows, dissociation protects victims of sexual violence not only from traumatic experience of prostitution but also from their traumatised memory of prostitution. The double-layered defence mechanism of dissociation is illustrated by the remembered self, appearing in Keiko’s testimony: ‘The most painful moment was when
I left my house for a brothel and when I took the first customer there. Any other things including the starvation hell in Burma were not so painful’ (Senda, 1985, p. 283).
137 Presumably she separated her traumatised experiences of prostitution from her memory by disengagement.
However, dissociation is a dangerous tactic because continuous disconnection between the mind and the body causes a loss of the self. Rose continues:
To be ‘lost in the moment’, is one thing. To be lost for months, or years, or for a lifetime is quite another; it is to become alienated from one’s self, and less responsible to and for one’s self. (Rose, 1999, p. 170, emphasis in original)
This signifies the oscillating nature of trauma between survival and destruction. The
Japanese survivors experienced multiple dissociations throughout their lives: dissociation in prostitution sex; disconnection between the inner self as a filial daughter and the outer manifestation as a prostitute; and detachment from the memory of trauma. As Barry’s research reveals, prostitutes undergo a simultaneous process of dehumanisation during prostitution sex because their survival strategy promotes their self-segmentation and self- fragmentation. The ongoing and belated process of the self- objectification/commodification of and the self-fragmentation of prostituted women is against being human and, therefore, strips away their human dignity (Barry, 1995, pp. 31-
3). This multiple dehumanisation of prostituted women is attributed to their denigration, scapegoating and exploitation by patriarchal capitalism.
5.4 Nationalism as conspiracy of silence
In the militarist Japanese state, the patriarchal signifier a “filial” daughter was replaced by the nationalist motto, a loyal imperial subject. Accordingly, Japan’s wartime slogan
‘for the country’ was often used by “comfort women” recruiters. These tactics were intended to manipulate a sense of nationalism in the recruitment of “comfort women”
(Yoshimi, 2000, p. 101) and are discovered in the life stories of Shimada Yoshiko
(pseudonym; for her full story, see Appendix 1-5), Suzumoto and Kikumaru. Shimada was offered ‘a job for the country’ by a recruiter who said that he was connected with the
138 twenty-fourth regiment of the infantry division from Fukuoka (Shimada, 1972, p. 121).
This gendered nationalist fiction was further perpetuated in that Suzumoto and Kikumaru were each separately told by their “comfort women” recruiters that if “comfort women” died, their spirits would be enshrined at Yasukuni War Shrine along with the spirits of dead soldiers (Hirota, 2009, pp. 33, 59).67
The wartime slogan “for the country” meant to sacrifice one’s life for Emperor
Hirohito. The Meiji modernisation anchored its new emperor system to the foundation of paternalism. The modern emperor system, as Pateman explains, is one in which ‘the relationship of the loving father to his son provides the model for the relation of the citizen to the state’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 32). In peace time, the Japanese state articulated a discourse to the nation that the Emperor was the Father who protected and secured citizens’ lives. In the modern patriarchal society, however, the father’s political right was liberated to all men by the sexual contract, which defines political right as ‘sex-right, the power that men exercise over women’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 1). The emperor system, therefore, depended upon the paternal model of political order to control all legitimate citizens, namely men. This system of a quasi-traditional patriarchy allowed the divine authority of the Emperor, who was also the commander-in-chief, to coerce the entire nation to sacrifice their lives for the preservation of his life and status, to the so-called kokutai, literally meaning national polity. This sacrifice was itself classed as well as gendered.
Accordingly, during wartime, the state encouraged women to be active participants in its war efforts. The state never allowed even a single woman to neglect patriotic duty during the war (Yamada, 1995, p. 40). The narrative account of a Japanese
67 Even though both worked at the “comfort station” run by Japan’s navy in Truk Island during the same period, they never saw each other. Suzumoto served enlisted soldiers, whereas Kikumaru was reserved for officers. 139 “comfort woman” survivor, Ajisaka Miwa, was interviewed and published by Tomita
Kunihiko (1953) and offers some profound insights into a specific form of Japanese nationalism. Tomita chronicles the story of five secondary school girls, including Ajisaka who volunteered to become “comfort women”. As Tomita emphasises in the preface of his edition, the actions of the school girls are generally accepted as a manifestation of patriotic enthusiasm:
Ajisaka and her four schoolmates offered their sacred virginity to Japanese soldiers without regret in order to boost their morale. They represented an outburst of innocent patriotic pride which was completely different from many other “comfort women”. (Tomita, 1953, p. 7)
As indicated by the above testimonies given by some Japanese “comfort women” survivors, the biggest difference between these school girls and many other “comfort women” was their educational backgrounds. In short, the former continuously pursued their studies through secondary school, whereas the latter had little formal education.
From this account, one could conclude that those with higher levels of formal education were more exposed and socialised to a specific form of Japanese nationalism, which I call
‘the emperor-worship nationalism’. The main pillar underpinning wartime Japan’s school education was The Imperial Rescript on Education [Kyōiku Chokugo] promulgated by the Meiji government in 1890, which stipulated that ‘Ye, Our subjects … offer yourselves courageously to the state … and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of our imperial throne coeval with heaven and earth’ (Theodore de Bary, 2006, p. 109). In order to grow this ‘Japanese spirit’ in children’s minds ‘as a way of daily practice based on history’,
The Ministry of Education imposed The Way of Subjects of the Emperor [Shinmin no
Michi] as a school textbook in 1941 (Theodore de Bary, 2006, p. 304). This everyday practice of nationalism at school had a considerable impact upon young people. In fact, the co-representative of VAWW-RAC and laureate professor of Waseda University,
140 Nakahara Michiko, confessed that she was a strongly patriotic school girl during the war
(Interview: Nakahara).
In the case of the group of five 17-year-old girls, it was not only their patriotic education, but a patriarchal militarist complicity among adults that ultimately trapped them into a “comfort station” at the front line on an isolated island in the Pacific. The
Japanese “comfort woman” Mako, who worked with a recruiter of military prostitutes,
Mr Ogino, fuelled their fear of the war situation and manipulated their patriotism in order to convince them that the best way for women to contribute to the state was to offer their bodies to soldiers. Finally, after convincing them that they would be raped by enemy soldiers even if they did survive the war, Ajisaka and her friends started to believe that their bodily offering to Japanese soldiers would bring Japan victory (Tomita, 1953, pp.
169, 219). Without telling their families, they left Japan after school, following Ogino’s instruction. Despite the fact that they were wearing their school uniforms, at the onset of their journey, no one tried to return them back to Japan. The Japanese military hailed those teenagers as “comfort women”, even though the employment of them as “comfort women” violated various international and domestic laws. For example, Japan was a signatory to the International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and
Children (Geneva: League of Nations, 1921), which banned women under the age of 21 from engaging in prostitution. Although Japan’s state-sanctioned prostitution system permitted the recruitment of women aged 18 and older, female trafficking overseas was prohibited by Article 226 of Japan’s Penal Code (Onozawa, 2015, pp. 155-6). After losing their virginity on the first night at the “comfort station”, all of the five girls deeply regretted their naivety about sex and masculinity (Tomita, 1953, p. 217).
Ajisaka’s account demonstrates that the Japanese model of nationalism is gendered in a militarist way and places the emperor as the pinnacle of the nation. The
141 emperor-worship nationalism prescribes the patriarchal social/political order and a particular gendered division of labour as its manifestation. This condition conforms to what Enloe refers to as a form of ‘patriarchal’ nationalism (Enloe, 2000, p. 62). The
Japanese model of patriarchal nationalism endorses the patriarchal values of emphasised femininity underlining the patriarchal dichotomy of good wives/mothers and prostitutes.
Nationalism flexes its strongest muscle in collaboration with militarism. Wartime Japan integrated militarism into the extant system of capitalist patriarchy―in which military brothels charged money for prostitution sex―whereby maximising the power of the emperor-worship nationalism to impose its will upon the nation.
The imperial militarist state appeared to dichotomise women between “good” women and “bad” women. The “good” woman was represented by ‘chaste woman/virgin’ or ‘good wife and wise mother’,68 whereas the “bad” woman was illustrated by ‘fallen woman/whore’ (Kimura, 2016, p. 74). However, the militarist state ruthlessly exploited both, as implicated by the case of the school girls. On the front lines, even “good” women became “bad” women. Yamamoto Takako experienced this crucial moment in 1944 en route to her deployment in Java as an army civilian employee accompanied by Japanese soldiers and 200 other Japanese women who included military nurses and typists (Hirota,
2009, pp. 201-2). Surviving the tragedy of her ship’s sinking as a result of an attack by the Allied Forces, Yamamoto landed with other survivors at Luzon Island off the coast of the Philippines. It was there that she and other female survivors were told by surviving
Japanese soldiers that they were not going to be taken to Java because women were a burden to the military. However, the army exploiting their desperate situation offered a
68 This example of “good” women developed into the ryōsai kenbo (good wife and wise mother) ideology. See Sievers, S. L. (1983). Flowers in salt: The beginnings of feminist consciousness in modern Japan, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, p. 22; Inoue, T. (1975). ‘Meirokusha no danjo dotō’ in Tanaka, S. (ed.) Joseikaihō no shisō to kōdō: senzenhen, Tokyo, Japan: jijitsushinsha, p. 38; Hirota, M. (1995). ‘Kindai elite josei no identity to kokka’ in Wakita, H. & Hanley S. B. (eds.) Gender no nihonshi, ge, shutai to hyougen vol. 1. Tokyo, Japan: Ryokufushuppan, p. 205. See also Kimura (2016, p. 73). 142 proposal. If they agreed to become “comfort women”, the military would transport them to Java, where they would be provided for. Yamamoto instantly declined the “offer” and finally ran away with the other eight Japanese women to Manila (Hirota, 2009, p. 202).
Thus, on the front lines, the sexual contract was evident in that men would decide women’s fate, whether they were “good” women or “bad” women.
In the process of the state’s exploitation of women, the wartime propaganda “for the country” became a magic word to justify the scapegoating of all women under the name of Emperor Hirohito just as the paternal rhetoric “for the family” was used to rationalise the familial exploitation of their daughters. The wartime slogan “for the country” manifests Japan’s patriarchal militarist nationalism, which silenced the individual voices of complaints and objections to the state’s war policy, including the system of “comfort women”. Yet, there did exist a nationalist discourse in which society started to admire “comfort women” as loyal subjects who sacrificed themselves to support the country. Tanaka was thanked for her dedication to the country by a farmer living in the neighbourhood of her “comfort station” in Chiba, Japan (Kawata, 2014, p. 30).
Kikumaru’s customer at a civilian brothel, Nishiyama was impressed by her as an admirable young prostitute, who said to him that she was going to [work at a “comfort station”] at Truk Island for the country (Hirota, 2009, p. 94). However, this admiration for “comfort women” as loyal national (gendered) subjects was only temporary. As soon as Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces, the patriarchal social stigma deeply inscribed into prostitutes and prostitution was reattached to them as if the shame of the “father” emperor had been passed on his “daughters”.
However, against this conspiracy of silence in postwar Japan, some Japanese
“comfort women” raised their voices and narrated the reality of their trauma. Although
Shigeru Sato has claimed that ‘not a single Japanese woman has presented herself as a
143 victim’ of the “comfort women” system (Sato, 2014, p. 394); in fact, some Japanese survivors had previously testified to the brutality of military sexual enslavement (Nishino et al., 2015; Norma, 2016; Kinoshita, 2013; Soh, 2008). Shirota’s retrospective account in her autobiography described her inhumane life at the “comfort station” in Magong:
On week days, it would be better if I had one overnight customer. On weekends, however, soldiers were racing each other queuing up for women. The “comfort station” turned to literally a flesh market. There, ten to fifteen soldiers with no expressions of human emotions were swarming over a single woman, driven by their sexual thirst. It was like a beast war. (Shirota, 1971, p. 35)
Keiko was also overwhelmed by soldiers’ endless queues and their aggressive attitude towards sex. What astonished her most was that ‘a solder next in the queue banged the door and shouted “hurry” when her customer was not completed yet’ (Senda, 1985, p.
176). She recalled that ‘one in two soldiers joining the queue already put their military trousers down and finally dashed into the room’ (Senda, 1985, p. 176). Shirota, echoing the experiences similar to Keiko, proclaimed:
I have never anticipated how many soldiers clung to me one after another as if ants were swarming over sugar. … My body was not free from them at any moment. It was so shocking to me that I kept crying every day. (Shirota, 1986)
The radio interview introduced Shirota’s memoir, which further exposed the brutality of the sexual slavery system:
We were forced to sexually serve soldiers one after another without even cleansing our vaginas between prostituted sexes. I wonder how many times I wanted to strangle soldiers during prostitution. We were thus half insane. Dead “comfort women” were abandoned in holes in the jungle. There was no way to inform their parents of their death. I witnessed hell for these women. (Shirota, 1986)
Shirota thus felt her life of a “comfort woman” as ‘the life of slavery both in name and in reality’ (Shirota, 1971, p. 34).
144 The emperor-worship nationalism not only attempted to silence those traumatised voices of military prostitution but also deceived some “comfort women” into gaining a sense of pride about their loyalty to the country. Kikumaru, an “elite” “comfort woman” reserved only for officers, and Suzumoto, who was allocated to enlisted soldiers, were among those who rationalised their lives at “comfort stations” by convincing themselves that they were dutiful national citizens. As discussed in Chapter 3, the story of sexual contracts reveals, however, women are never allowed to become legitimate citizens equal to men. Hirota assumed that Kikumaru and Suzumoto never truly had a sense of patriotism (Interview: Hirota). For example, Kikumaru, who persuaded her parents to allow her to become a “comfort woman” “for the country” (Hirota, 2009, p. 25), testified to Hirota that she “jumped” on the opportunity to repay her debts (Hirota, 1971, p. 36).
Hirota also pointed out that they wanted something to justify their jobs as “comfort women” because they had no other option. For Japanese people, the wartime propaganda
“for the country” was nothing more than a fiction which became a tool of self-justification of their own decision or actions through its articulation through a discourse of state building (Interview: Hirota).
People tend to rely on something, when they are in desperation; and Shirota was no exception. When she was hopeless, she became easily trapped by the deception of nationalism. In her radio interview, she recalled this moment in a self-deprecating way
(Kinoshita, 2013, p. 69):
Rumour had it that the mainland would be attacked by air-raids. Then a stupid idea occurred to me: If I were to die after all, I would do some good for my country by helping Japanese soldiers. Then I heard the “comfort women” recruiters were looking for women who would work in Palau. I earned barely enough to stay alive. (Shirota, 1986)
Shirota went to Palau in order to pay off her debts. As Hirota (Interview) and Kawata
(Interview) argue, many Japanese women who were sold to brothels became “comfort
145 women” not because of a surge of patriotic dedication. Rather, they believed that the
Japanese military would pay off their families’ debts to their civilian brothel owners and would free them from their indentured enslavement when their military prostitution contracts expired.
Emperor-worship nationalism caused anger in some Okinawan “comfort women”.
Hirota was denied an interview with an Okinawan survivor who was a juri at Tsuji prior to becoming a “comfort woman” like Uehara and Miyagi. The survivor, named M-ko by
Hirota, also rejected an offer to give testimony regarding her life story as a “comfort woman”, while Hirota heard several times that she said disdainfully, ‘Yamatonchu!’
[Mainlanders!] (Hirota, 2009, p. 57). As part of Japan’s modernisation project to catch up with the western world, the indigenous kingdom of Ryukyu was colonised by the Meiji government (1872) and incorporated into Japan as Okinawa Prefecture (1879). In light of its subordinate position vis-á-vis Japan, Okinawa has historically been scapegoated and marginalised for the benefit of Japan. Hirota concludes that the mainlanders’ continuous insults at and humiliation of the Okinawan people provoked M-ko’s intense indignation
(Hirota, 2009, pp. 57-8). Of importance here is that given Okinawa’s colonial history, postcolonial accounts of Okinawan “comfort women” have similarities with Korean,
Taiwanese and other non-Japanese “comfort women” from Japan’s wartime occupied territories.69 Postcolonial accounts of Okinawan “comfort women” appear to correspond to those of Korean, Taiwanese and other non-Japanese counterparts from Japan’s wartime occupied territories.
5.5 Nationalism as militarism: Gendered national subjects
The story of Japanese women as gendered national subjects in militarist Japan constitutes the militarised version of the sexual contract. While women were invalidated in their
69 This is worthy of further research and analysis but beyond the scope of my thesis. 146 political standing, “good” women were confined to the private sphere of the home front as militarised wives/mothers who encouraged men to fight Emperor Hirohito’s war. On the other hand, “bad” women who had been continuously exploited by the state, society and families, were sent to the public sphere of the front lines as military prostitutes who helped to bolster the military morale as “presents” from Emperor Hirohito. Yet, as
Ajisaka’s case demonstrates above, the boundary between the patriarchal binary was not crystal-clear. I will explore Japan’s wartime female roles in greater depth below to add further nuance.
The breakout of the war against China (1931) required “good” Japanese women to fully support the war by playing the role of ‘the Wife of Yasukuni’ and ‘the Mother of the militarist state’ (Wakita, 1987, p. 262). In another words, the role of women in wartime Japan was to give birth to boys, raise them as Emperor Hirohito’s soldiers, and send them off to his war, encouraging them to sacrifice their lives for him. The particular emphasis on militarised motherhood was facilitated by the establishment and the development of the Women’s Association for National Defence (Wakita, 1987, p. 262).
By 1932, with the support from the War Office, the women’s association trademarked white aprons and sashes with its name on them. They developed into one of the biggest national entities, the Women’s Association for the National Defence of the Great Empire of Japan [Dai-Nippon Kokubō Fujinkai]. The organisation competed against the Greater
Japan Alliance of Women's Associations [Dai-Nippon Rengō Fujinkai], established in
1931, and The Patriotic Women’s Association [Aikoku Fujinkai], founded in 1901, in vying for women to expand their respective memberships (Wakita, 1987, pp. 262-3). In
1941, the state started to mobilise all women for the upcoming full-scale war. After attacking Pearl Harbour, the Showa government integrated the three women’s associations into The Women’s Association of Great Japan [Dai-Nippon Fujinkai] and
147 compelled all women, except single women under 20 years old, to be members (Wakita,
1987, p. 265).
In 1938, both civilian and military prostitutes were forced to register with the
Patriotic Women's Association (Senda, 1985, p. 227). A “comfort woman” who Keiko met at a “comfort station” in Java talked about her activities as a member of the female association. According to the woman, all the “comfort women” belonging to the unit led by Colonel Shouji Toshinari, in Java, attended the ceremony to send the whole unit off to the front line. In the “celebratory” ceremony, she and other “comfort women” uniformly wore the white aprons and the sashes, holding the national flags of the rising sun (Senda,
1985, p. 227). On the front lines, the military thus forced Japanese “comfort women” to play the role of “good” women; however, they were never allowed to transform themselves to the other side of the patriarchal binary in their everyday lives.
The Japanese military accompanied “comfort women” wherever they went, even to life-or-death battlefields. In her radio interview, Shirota testified the life-or-death battle that she barely survived in Palau:
When Palau was bombarded by the US forces, I stayed deep in a cave with other women on a mountain. Soon the mountain was destroyed completely by air raids, which prevented us from hiding in the cave. When the attack stopped, I went to the jungle with another ten women and witnessed real brutality. Human flesh [of killed Japanese soldiers] looked like a piece of pork; dismembered bones and heads lay scattered about. The horror was overwhelming. Picking up those scattered pieces of flesh and bones by hand and placing them into corn-made bags, I came to feel really sick. There were more than 100 bags containing all the soldiers’ bodies from one unit. At this point, I did not shed tears any more. (Shirota, 1986)
The last line indicates the immensity of her traumatic experience on the front line. This resulted in her numbing her senses in order to survive. If she had not dissociated herself from the brutality of the war by numbing the inner self, she could have gone insane and she might not have survived.
148 Starvation was one of the most formidable enemies of Emperor Hirohito’s soldiers. More than 60 percent of Japanese soldiers and army civilian employees died from hunger (Fujiwara, 2001, pp. 131-8).70 Keiko also survived the war of hunger in
Burma. After, she declared a farewell to the ‘emperor’s army’ because the soldiers whom she accompanied only cared about their own lives and utilised others for survival. She staved off her hunger by eating roaches and tadpoles (Senda, 1985, pp. 263-9).
On the front lines, the Japanese military counted Japanese “comfort women” as potential soldiers. Anti-war singer-songwriter, Miwa Akihiro71 (1935-present), tells his first-hand stories about some surviving Japanese “comfort women” who also became
“comfort women” for the Allied Forces in postwar Japan (Fujime, 2015, pp. 192-3). Their poor families sold them to the Maruyama brothel in Nagasaki, from where many “comfort women” were sent overseas. The wartime ban on recreational facilities closed brothels in the mainland. Prostitutes who lost their jobs at the Maruyama brothel were also deceived into working at “comfort stations” in China. While these “comfort women” were in China, they were ordered to practise shooting firearms and were compelled to fight against mounted bandits alongside male Japanese soldiers. However, when the “comfort women” died, they were abandoned outside the “comfort stations” after their Japanese clothing was changed to Chinese clothing by Japanese soldiers. This gruesome “subterfuge” was undertaken as the Japanese military was afraid that ‘the existence of Japanese “comfort women” allocated to the Japanese Imperial Army would bring shame to the country’
70 According to a Japanese historian, Fujiwara Akira, around 1.4 million out of 2.12 million Japanese soldiers and civilians in the service of the military, died from starvation. His research includes death from malnutrition (Fujiwara, 2001). 71 Miwa was born and grew up in Nagasaki until 1951. His house was in the vicinity of Maruyama Yūkaku brothel. After Japan’s defeat of WWII, he listened to a “comfort women” survivor who worked as a maid at the brothel. See Miwa, A. (2004). Kami eno ongaeshi [Show my gratitude to God]. In T. Kaseda (Ed.), Kataritsugu ano hachigatsu o [Passing the story about August 1945 down from generaton to generation]. Tokyo: Hokusui, pp. 47-52. 149 (Fujime, 2015, p. 193). According to Miwa, the dead bodies of these Japanese “comfort women” were weather-beaten and devoured by wild dogs (Fujime, 2015, p. 193).
Shirota testified to a similar situation regarding Korean and Okinawan “comfort women” in Palau at the peak of US air raids:
By a river, we built a “comfort station” with palm trees. There, “comfort women” led really tragic lives. Seamen, who were reduced to skin and bones, still visited the “comfort station”. It would be intolerable if you were assaulted by such a mere skeleton. Actually many “comfort women” could no longer endure life and committed suicide. Their dead bodies were left in the jungle, where wild dogs or strange animals that I had never seen before came and ate their bodies at night. Then, their bones were scattered. (Shirota, 1986)
These narrative accounts reveal the inhumane treatment of “comfort women” by the
Japanese military, regardless of women’s nationalities. Further, as disposable as the
“comfort women” were in death, they were just as disposable in life in postwar Japan.
Miwa alludes to their disposable bodies in that some surviving “comfort women”, whom he met, told him that when Japan lost the war, officers ran away with their families and left them behind. When the Japanese “comfort women” did manage to escape and went back to Japan, their families rejected them, telling them that if their jobs were known to their communities, the whole family would be shamed (Fujime, 2015, p. 193). In his book, Sensō to heiwa: ai no messēji [War and Peace: Message of Love], Miwa introduced a surviving “comfort woman” who was despised and bullied even by civilian prostitutes at the Maruyama brothel where she worked as a maid after the end of the war (Miwa,
2005, p. 39). The shame of the perpetrators was thus transferred to the victims by forcing them to internalise in the same way as the incest victim Pat did: I am shame, carrying both my family’s shame and my nation’s shame.
Miwa sings of ‘the fate and the resentment of “comfort women” who were buried in the darkness of history without any reward’ (Miwa, 2005, p. 39):
150 The Father’s Land and Women
While holding the spirits of my fellow “comfort women” who died for the country
Banzai, Banzai, Nippon Banzai [Hurray, Hurray, Japan, Hurray]
Dainippon Teikoku Banzai [For the Great Empire of Japan, Hurray]
Dainippon Teikoku Banzai
Dainippon Teikoku Banzai [How happy the life as a man would be]
How really envious I am of the male life
Men would be awarded with medals and entitled to pensions
For men are enshrined in the famous shrine after deaths
For men are mourned as honourable deaths
If I were born a man,
I would be decorated with lots of medals
Banzai, Banzai [Hurray, Hurray]
Having been defeated in the war and now coming back home
I am welcomed by the nation with spit; and not with medals
They point their fingers and criticise me behind my back
Men who once bought my body are now pretending to forget what happened
I am standing on the street again today. (Miwa, as cited in Fujime, 2015, p. 192)
The story of Japanese “comfort women” manifests a story of the sexual contract.
The state forced them to thoroughly sacrifice their bodies and minds as national subjects and as disposable non-subjects. Here is a tension between presence and absence as a subject. Their treatment at “comfort stations” was in accordance with the rank of the soldiers whom they served. While they were also assigned domestic work in which housemaids and nurses engaged, they were compelled to fight against enemies as soldiers if necessary. Even though the roles allocated to Japanese “comfort women” went beyond the gendered division of labour, they were never treated as national subjects by the state.
For the patriarchal militarist state, they were nothing more than disposable sexual beings.
Their stories of sexual contract reveal that militarism revises the sexual contract for
151 worse, not for better. Militarism and nationalism work hand in hand to mercilessly exploit women and to silence their voices of trauma as a strategy of statecraft.
5.6 War trauma and the state’s postwar revisionism
As discussed in Chapter 3, trauma is a threat to the state because it can cause a feeling of betrayal of trust against rulers among both individuals and communities, destroying social cohesion based on shared collective memories. Given that the normative nature of collective memory is inextricably linked to the construction of social identity (Páez et al.,
1997), the collective memory of trauma can undermine the legitimacy of hegemonic constructs of state and nation. Therefore, silencing collective trauma is critical for a state to maintain its established national identity and order. Particularly in cases of extraordinary political events, such as wars, the magnitude of traumatising effects upon both individuals and society as a whole is immeasurable. It means that the gap between the linear time (i.e., peace time) of the state and the trauma time (i.e., wartime) is too huge to bridge.
The unbridgeable gap between the (pre)wartime and the post wartime was engraved on the entire Japanese society, where the Asia-Pacific War left collective war trauma. This all-out war resulted in the cataclysmic destruction caused by the dropping of two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, and witnessed the deaths of over 3.1 million Japanese, including 800,000 civilians (Seaton, 2007, p. 38). The catastrophic defeat was powerful enough to destroy the temporal coherence of the official narrative, which depicted Japan as a single patriarchal family under the protection of their divine father―Emperor Hirohito. War trauma could possibly reveal the political fiction of the “benevolent” imperial myth, which legitimised and (re)produced gendered divisions of labour represented by hegemonic masculinities and femininities integral to the identity of the patriarchal militarist state. According to the Pulitzer Prize-winning
152 historian, John Dower, the ‘kyodatsu condition’ of the Japanese public caused by Japan’s defeat was more complex than ‘the state of depression and disorientation’ caused by ‘the immediate psychic numbing of defeat’ (Dower, 1999, p. 104). As Dower points out, going through the longstanding exhaustion, the Japanese public finally faced the result of the state policy, which wasted them as its imperial subjects for its impossible goals of war
(Dower, 1999, p. 104).
Because an indictment for Hirohito’s war responsibility became the centre of global attention,72 it was urgent for the state to find a way to maintain his status. General
Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) offered a way out for Emperor Hirohito, who was secretly seeking to absolve himself of his war responsibility (Bix, 2000, p. 2). Brigadier General Bonner F. Fellers, 73 MacArthur’s military secretary and the chief of his psychological-warfare operations, provided
MacArthur with the foundation for both the retention of the emperor system and Hirohito himself (Dower, 1999, pp. 280-3). Feller concluded in his report “Answer to Japan”74 that
Japan should commence a peaceful transformation from the ‘fanatical’ militarist state to a US-led democratic state (Dower, 1999, p. 282). Feller argued:
[T]o dethrone, or hang, the Emperor would cause a tremendous and violent reaction from all Japanese. Hanging of the Emperor to them would be comparable to the crucifixion of Christ to us. All would fight to die like ants. (Dower, 1999, p. 282)
Based on Filler’s rationalisation of securing both Hirohito and Japan’s emperor system,
MacArthur designed a radical transformation of Hirohito from the prewar
72 Hirohito’s war claimed the death of approximately 20 million Asians, over 3.1 million Japanese, and more than 60,000 Allied Forces (Bix, 2000, p. 4). 73 According to Dower, Filler was the most influential aide as the expert of the Japanese psyche. His research entitled “The Psychology of the Japanese Soldier” was completed in 1934-1935, when he attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth as an army captain (Dower, 1999, p. 280). 74 This was the revised report of “The Psychology of the Japanese Soldier” and became ‘an orientation guide for Allied intelligence personnel’ (Dower, 1999, p. 280). Both reports are held in Box 1 at the Hoover Institution of War and Peace at Stanford University. 153 religious/military head of the state to the postwar spiritual symbol to unite the Japanese people. This distortion of Emperor Hirohito’s identity constituted the narrative which denied the traumatised experiences of Japanese surviving “comfort women”.
Based on MacArthur’s scenario that Hirohito was manipulated by ‘the militarist clique’, the US constructed Hirohito’s historical transformation from the ‘prewar militarist’ to the ‘postwar pacifist’ (Orr, 2001, p. 15). By scapegoating wartime military leaders, the US absolved Hirohito of any war crimes, thus creating ‘a history that united him with his people as passive agents’ in the war (Orr, 2001, p. 34). Then, the portrayal of Emperor Hirohito ‘as deliverer of peace, and a victim of war’ (Kersten, 2003, p. 19) was created as the new postwar imperial myth, which allowed the SCAP to utilise the
Emperor as the engine to consolidate his people into Japan’s process of democratisation and demilitarisation (Orr, 2001; Igarashi, 2012; Dower, 1999; Seaton, 2007; Bix, 2000).
The Japan–US complicity to erase Hirohito’s war responsibility from popular memory emerged on 15 August 1945, when his recorded Imperial Rescript on Surrender
(Gyokuon Hōsō) was aired on the radio. The script (see Appendix 2) was drafted by the then-Japanese cabinet members, including the Secretary of the Cabinet, Sakomizu
Hisatsune (Sato, 2005, p. 12).
Without using the word “surrender”, Emperor Hirohito appealed to public emotion by expressing his sympathy with the desperate plight of his people as war victims and promised to establish a peaceful world for generations to come.75 More importantly, despite the devastating defeat in the war of aggression, Emperor Hirohito declared the unbroken continuity of the imperial narrative of Japan as one patriarchal family from the pre wartime, where he was the Father of the nation. Referring to the Japanese people as
75 The Imperial Rescript on Surrender is uploaded on YouTube with English subtitles: Emperor Hirohito Rescript at WWII end, English. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw90C4MpHrQ [Accessed 16 January 2017]. 154 ‘Our good and loyal subjects’, he advised them to ‘[l]et the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation’ in order to ‘enhance the innate glory of the Imperial
State’ (Hirakawa, 1945). This fabrication of the continuity of the “peaceful” imperial throne filled the gap between the (pre)wartime and the postwar Japanese society. This state revisionism—in other words, the ‘defeat revisionism’—is different from so-called revisionism, which distorts or denies what happened in the past and already became history. The defeat revisionism ‘revises what is happening in the present before it was history’ (Kersten, 2003, p. 16). While the whole nation, including surviving “comfort women”, was struggling to incorporate their own traumatic experiences of the war into memory, the memory assimilation process was shattered and the individual and collective voices of trauma were silenced by the state.
On 15 August 1945, a new collective memory of the postwar Japan was created by the state regarding what to remember and what to forget in the past. Satō Takumi calls what happened on that day ‘the myth of 15 August’ (Satō, 2005). This was part of a state strategy of amnesia about the war, directed by the US, in which Hirohito was cast as the main protagonist. The scenario imposed the new national narrative of war victimhood on the Japanese people from above, and thus released them from their sense of guilt about the aggressive war. Because Emperor Hirohito was not guilty, why should his loyal subjects consider themselves as responsible for perpetrating his war (Bix, 2000; Dower,
1999)? With the exception of certain wartime leaders, including Tōjō Hideki, this defeat revisionism “democratised” all Japanese people insofar as they were all represented as war victims. This elided and erased any distinction between the perpetrator and the victim, such as represented by the relationship between Japanese soldiers and Japanese “comfort women”. However, as the Imperial Rescript revealed, the patriarchal relationship between the emperor and his subjects was maintained. This “democratisation” concealed the
155 reproduction of deeply gendered political and social hierarchies. The Imperial Rescript thus emerged as the ‘social contract’ between the state and its subjects, whereas the hidden ‘sexual contract’ appeared only thirteen days after Emperor Hirohito’s radio broadcast.
5.7 A hidden history of the sexual contract: Japanese “comfort women” for the
Allied Forces
On 28 August 1945, in the public square in front of the Imperial Palace, an oath of allegiance to Emperor Hirohito was read out by some young Japanese women who participated in a ceremony to launch Tokushu Ian shisetsu Kyōkai, known as the
Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA). As the Japanese word ian (comfort) implicates, the RAA was Japan’s postwar “comfort women” system, which provided
Japanese women to the occupied forces stationed around Tokyo.76 As gender historian
Hirai Kazuko argues, the RAA was a product of the sexual politics implemented by the collaboration between Japan and the US government (Hirai, 2014). For the purpose of protecting Japanese women from being raped by the soldiers of the occupation army, the
Japanese government initiated and sponsored the establishment of the RAA (Koikari,
1999; Dower, 1999; Hirai, 2014). General MacArthur and the General Headquarters
(GHQ) also needed the RAA in order to prevent the spread of venereal disease among US soldiers (Hirai, 2014, p. 31). Thus, between the occupier and the occupied, there was a trade-over of “occupied” female bodies in order to protect their own national interests.
This power politics between the masculine conqueror and the feminised conquered again reproduces female subjugation to both states and invisibilises their subjectivity. It also reveals the intersection between racism, classism and gender-based inequality, where
76 According to Hirai Kazuko, the RAA ran 43 brothels around Tokyo (Hirai, 2014, p. 37). As for the details of the Japanese authority’s decision-making about the RAA, see Dower (1999, pp. 124-7); Koikari (1999, p. 321); and Hirai (2014, pp. 30-2). 156 poor women without patriarchal guardians from the “inferior” race are exploited and abandoned in the same way as Japanese “comfort women”. All in all, the US self- representation as the democratiser of Japan was fiction because the US occupation reproduced the practice of Japanese women being oppressed by their own patriarchal state as well as the US. In this way, as historian Koikari Mire points out, occupied Japan reconstructed its ‘prewar nationalist and imperialist politics’, as historian Koikari Mire points out (Koikari, 2008, p. 5).
The proclamation that was publicly read formally provided the services of
Japanese “comfort women” to the occupation army (senryōgun ianfu), and it appears in
Appendix 3. This declaration provided for Japanese “comfort women” for the US occupation army corresponds to the Imperial Rescript, as shown by the expression ‘the great rending of August 15, 1945’ in the first paragraph, which mourns ‘the end of an era’. Nevertheless, by ordering the ‘comforting of the occupation army’, the following paragraph mentions the possible survival of ‘our family’; that is, the 300-year-long patriarchal nation-state with the emperor at its pinnacle. This “real” mission of the state establishment of the RAA is explained in the last paragraph: ‘defence of the national polity’. Since the national polity, or kokutai in Japanese, refers to the emperor and a putative unity between Emperor and national subjects, in the postwar context, the ultimate goal of the RAA was to protect Emperor Hirohito’s official and patriarchal status and combine this with new forms of US intervention. This new US imperialism was characterised by the feminisation of the enemy state, which controlled enemy males by exploiting the bodies of their female fellow citizens.
This from-above proclamation reveals the continuity of the state rhetoric from prewar through postwar Japan, for the purpose of reproducing the sexual contract that underpinned the modern statecraft through the sexual exploitation of Japanese women. It
157 is signified by the expression ‘the sacrifice of several thousands of “Okichis of our era’” in the third paragraph. ‘Okichi’ refers to Tōjin Okichi, a geisha in the late Tokugawa era, who was allocated to the first American consul, Townsend Harris, as a “maidservant” and who also sexually served him. This was the Tokugawa government’s arrangement to meet his request on his arrival to Japan in 1856 in the wake of Commodore Matthew Perry’s coercive “Open Door” diplomacy. Ever since, Okichi has become the role model of female self-sacrifice “for the country”; whereas the tragedy that characterised the rest of her life has never been told. After her “mission” was completed, she was socially stigmatised, and ending up committing suicide (Leupp, 2003, p. 146). By glorifying postwar Japanese “comfort women” as Okichi of the Showa Era, the inaugural statement articulates exactly the same nationalist propaganda misused for the recruitment of
Japanese “comfort women”, as shown by the case of Kikumaru and Suzumoto. The racism and gender-based exploitation of poor women embedded in the power relationship between the state and its nation were perpetuated again through the catastrophic war in order to formulate the new national identity of war victims. This distorted history and negated the subjectivity of surviving “comfort women”.
This nationalist vow is grounded in the patriarchal binary of “good” women and
“bad” women. In the third paragraph, the state “ordered” the latter to self-sacrifice as a human ‘breakwater’ in order to maintain ‘the purity’ of the Japanese race. ‘Sexual and racial purity’ of “good” women was the embodiment of the sacred nation (Koikari, 1999, p. 321). Therefore, the protection of “good” women was an urgent national priority. To further this aim, the postwar patriarchal Japan targeted “bad” women as dispensable non- subjects who were to be ‘an invisible underground pillar at the root of the postwar social order’. Here again, the scapegoating of prostitutes was reproduced in order to protect the
158 virginity of “good” women who would be wives/mothers of Japanese men, thereby perpetuating the gendered division of labour in the patriarchal state.
The main target for the recruitment of “comfort women” for the US forces was indentured slavery under the prewar state-licensed prostitution system. In other words, the state adopted the debt-bond slavery system as it existed in the prewar “comfort women” system. In reality, however, “good” women were also subjected to the recruitment, as shown by the numerous newspaper advertisements, which recruited new inexperienced young women as well as professional prostitutes (Hirai, 2014, pp. 32-7).
For the defeated, the dire threat was not from the occupied forces but rather from hunger, as shown by a rumour circulating around Japan in 1945 that ‘millions would die of starvation over the coming fall and winter’ (Dower, 1999, p. 93). This life-or-death situation caused by the state transformed even “good” women to “bad” women for survival. This was illustrated by the case of a 19-year-old homeless girl who became a prostitute in the wake of sleeping with a man who offered her several rice balls (Dower,
1999, p. 123). Thus, the severe depression of Japan’s postwar economy blurred the patriarchal binary since even “good” women were left alone without patriarchal protection. As Kaburagi Seiichi, the manager of the RAA intelligence department, recalled in his memoir, most of the women who applied for the RAA were amateurs
(Hirai, 2014, p. 36). The government took advantage of those women’s tragedy for the recruitment of the US military prostitutes. Thus, in the conquered Japan, all Japanese women faced the danger of becoming “bad” women. For the conquerors, ‘[e]very
Japanese woman, in a word, was potentially a whore’ (Dower, 1999, p. 138).
The “comfort women” proclamation implicates a hidden contract to take an oath of allegiance to the emperor by offering their bodies to the victors, thereby completing the national goal imposed in the Imperial Rescript on Surrender. The story of Japan’s
159 postwar “comfort women” is thus the story of the sexual contract, which is, as Pateman notes, ‘about political right as patriarchal right or sex-right, the power that men exercise over women’ (Pateman, 1988, p. 1, emphasis in original). Japan’s postwar version of the sexual contract ‘democratised’ Japanese men’s sex-right to the conquerors’ right, whereas it delegitimised Japanese women’s civil freedom. The occupation authorities also shared this gender-biased perspective, reflected by the patriarchal social order. The ‘benevolent’ narrative of the US democratisation of Japan embedded the liberation of Japanese women from oppression by their own patriarchal state. However, the sexual contract of Japanese
“comfort women” for the US army revealed the gender politics agreed between the masculine occupier and the feminine occupied, where the entire society was feminised as
“powerless” victims. Both the Japanese and the occupation authorities shared the view of the patriarchal binary and agreed that prostitutes were the source of sexually transmitted diseases (Hirai, 2014, p. 86). As a countermeasure against the spread of venereal disease among the soldiers, both Japanese and occupation authorities collaborated in order to carry out the “indiscriminate” karikomi (round-up) of Japanese women and imposed humiliating internal medical examinations between January 1946 and 1 August 1948
(Hirai, 2014, p. 79). The RAA was shut down by the US Pacific Army Headquarters on
27 March 1946, allegedly because of the proliferation of venereal disease among US soldiers (Hirai, 2014, p. 73). Then the US military prostitutes re-emerged across the country as “streetwalkers”. The streetwalkers who served the Allied Forces were specifically called ‘pan pan’.77 Shirota and Kikumaru each made a living as pan pan girls in postwar Japan.
The Japan–US collaborating efforts in nurturing Japan’s official narratives of
‘Japanese victimization’ (Conrad, 2010, p. 166) and Emperor Hirohito as the peace
77 Regarding the origin of, pan pan, see Hirai (2014, p. 22). 160 deliverer, were continued until the end of the US occupation. The US-drafted constitution provided that Hirohito shall be ‘the symbol of the State and the unity of the People’.78 It marked the moment when the postwar fiction of the symbol emperor system was incorporated into official history, thereby filling the gap in the foundation of Japan between wartime and post wartime. This postwar fiction enabled Emperor Hirohito’s
‘democratic continuity’, as opposed to ‘authoritarian continuity’ (Kersten, 2003, p. 20).
The distorted history that portrayed Emperor Hirohito as the peace-loving symbol of the nation was consistently inscribed into the Japanese popular consciousness by the SCAP.
Besides the Tokyo Trials (May 1946-April 1948) and the purge of Japan’s wartime political elites, 79 the SCAP’s censorship banned discussion with respect to Emperor
Hirohito’s war responsibility, which further contributed to erasing any sense of guilt from
Japan’s collective memory (Orr, 2001, pp. 19-31). When the US occupation was completed in 1952, Hirohito’s war responsibility was neither a concern for him nor his government (Orr, 2001, p. 34). Nevertheless, the Japanese government maintained the so- called “chrysanthemum taboo”, which implied that any debate regarding Emperor
Hirohito’s war responsibility is a taboo issue within Japanese society. Takahashi Tetsuya, one of the most prominent Japanese philosophers specialising in the issue of war responsibility, concludes that the fundamental weakness of Japanese society lies in the fact that any open or public criticism against the emperor’s worlds and representations is not permissible (Takahashi, 2007, pp. 249-51). The debate would have raised questions
78 The Constitution of Japan, Ch. 1; Article 1, states that: ‘The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power.’ Compare this new status of the emperor to The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, (1889), Ch. 1; Article 4, which stated in the pertinent part: ‘The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in Himself the rights of sovereignty, and exercises them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution.’ The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, translated by Ito Miyoji, National Diet Library, http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c02.html#s1 (Accessed 31 August 2013). 79 The Cold War context facilitated what Dower calls the ‘reverse course’, applied by the US government. The US withdrew from their original policy of Japanese demilitarisation and democratisation and returned the once-purged politicians and bureaucrats to governmental positions (Dower, 1999). 161 about Emperor Hirohito’s legitimacy as the peace deliverer, resulting in questioning of
Japan’s national history and identity. The “chrysanthemum taboo” has effectively silenced the individual and collective voices of war trauma beyond Emperor Hirohito’s death in 1989. For example, the indictment of Emperor Hirohito turned quite a few
Japanese feminists away from the 2000 war tribunal (Interview: Nakahara). On 30
January 2001, the NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) broadcast its original documentary program of the women’s war tribunal in 2000 by deleting a number of important scenes including the indictment and guilty verdict of Emperor Hirohito (Interview: Nakahara).
5.8 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that the “comfort women” system amounted to the state control of women for ‘the construction and consolidation of power’ (Scott, 1986, p. 1072).
Female bodies as an important resource for the Japanese modern patriarchal capitalist state were secured through both the state-licensed prostitution system and the enforced military prostitution system. As Stanley’s gender-sensitive history of pre-modern Japan uncovers, the national policy of modernisation followed a project apportioned from the western imperialists, which allowed the sacrificing and the scapegoating of daughters from poor families for economic development. After introducing the western model of the state-licensed prostitution system from France and Britain (Fujime, 1997), as discussed in Chapter 1, the state made prostitution indispensable to the establishment of the infrastructure for modernisation. In this transition from the “benevolent” patriarchal state to the patriarchal capitalist state, “filial” daughters were deeply inscribed through social stigma and bound by the capitalist labour indentured contract.
Based on the state-sanctioned prostitution system with an extensive network of human trafficking, the militarist state widely organised the military prostitution system to mobilise men as the Emperor’s soldiers. The emperor-worship nationalism coerced by
162 the state completed the gender-based militarisation of the nation, whereby Japanese
“comfort women” were forced to play both feminine and masculine duties on the front lines and were ruthlessly abandoned after death during wartime.
The narrative accounts of some Japanese “comfort women” published in the
1970s and the 1980s testified to the intensity of their traumatic experiences as both civilian and military prostitutes. Their stories of trauma reveal how they were forced to keep silent about their plight by the conspiracy of silence between their families, society and state. The forced internalisation of shame and guilt of the perpetrator(s) into the victims through stigmatisation is central to perpetuating the story of the sexual contract since their voices of the trauma of prostitution visibilise and destabilise the dominant narrative about the modern state and nation’s construction. In the modern patriarchal state, female subjugation to men is inscribed in the social contract and a pillar upon which capitalist militarism is reproduced and legitimised.
After Japan’s defeat of the war in 1945, the Japanese militarist state made the drastic transformation into a ‘democratic’ country under the initiative of the US occupation army. In the process of the democratisation and the demilitarisation of Japan, the new official narrative of war victimhood was created in collaboration between Tokyo and Washington to silence the nation’s collective and individual war trauma. In this backdrop, the raced, classed and gendered power politics between the state and its subjects were perpetuated again through the postwar contract, which consisted of both the “imperial” social contract and the “hidden” sexual contract. The Japanese “comfort women” survivors struggled to overcome their traumatised experiences by telling their life stories against a broader context of social humiliation. Focusing on the differences of their wartime and postwar experiences, the following chapter will explore how some
163 Japanese “comfort women” survivors were able to exercise their political agency and recover their human dignity.
164 Chapter 6
Telling a Story of Trauma: Political Agency of the Japanese Survivors
6.1 Introduction
The previous chapter uncovered the traumatised experiences that some Japanese “comfort women” survivors underwent and how the conspiracy of silence involving their families, society and the state silenced their voices in prewar, wartime and postwar Japan.
Nevertheless, the Japanese survivors did break their silence in interviews with journalists or by publishing their autobiographies. The purpose of this chapter is to map out and make visible their exercise of political agency as they used their voices to break the conspiracy of silence. As argued in Chapter 3, the notion of political agency assumes the capacity of a victim to transform herself from a ‘silenced’ non-subject to a political and historical subject who creates the counter narratives to dominant memory/history, thereby challenging unequal power relationships based on gender, class and race. The gendered, classed and raced “Other” is denied the capacity of both exercising agency and formulating political subjectivity (Motta, 2017). Her silence has a complex construction because it is caused by both the conspiracy of silence and self-silencing for her survival.
Silence is, therefore, not a unidimensional sign of non-agency (Motta, 2018). Silence can be a form of agency in a situation where a victim of subjugation chooses to be silent as the only way to survive in the social world. This type of agency is indicative of agency inherent in human beings, which always seeks better conditions; however, it cannot be counted as political agency because it contributes to reconstructing dominant memory/history, which perpetuates ‘the boundary of the political’ (Motta, 2017, p. 7) as previously discussed in Chapter 3.
As Linde’s theory of the self suggests in Chapter 3, the Japanese survivors had considerable difficulties in creating their coherent life stories through the interaction
165 between individual identity construction and the social world. It is thus critical to analyse the life stories of the survivors with focus on how they struggled to speak of their trauma.
In this context, being able to tell their unspeakable stories of trauma is, per se, an act of political agency as the argument with respect to agency demonstrates in Chapter 3. This chapter deals with a particular Japanese survivor: Shirota Suzuko (1921-1993). As discussed in the previous chapter, she was initially sold to geisha venues by her father and then became a “comfort woman” in order to pay her family’s debts owed to her geisha house owners. In her postwar life, she encountered her listener/witness who assisted her to construct her respective narratives and which supported her to finally break her silence in her own name. Trauma adds different dynamics to intersubjectivity since the recovery process from trauma through narrative construction requires others to act as their listeners.
In this process, the trauma victim acts as a storyteller, who regains her own voice in order to create alternative history through the dialogue with her listener. This is a transformative process in which the oppressed non-subject transform herself into the political subject who produces knowledge and asks this question: ‘whose memory should be remembered?’ The knowledge created out of this remembering of invisibilised histories constitutes counter-dominant knowledge; that is, other readings of the past and present.
As Laub conceptualises, ‘the listener’ to trauma victims becomes ‘a party to the creation of knowledge’ (Laub, 2013, p. 57):
[T]he listener to trauma comes to be a participant and a co-owner of the traumatic event: through his very listening, he comes to partially experience trauma in himself. The relation of the victim to the event of the trauma, therefore, impacts on the relation of the listener to it, and the latter comes to feel the bewilderment, injury, confusion, dread and conflicts that the trauma victim feels. […] The listener, therefore, by definition partakes of the struggle of the victim with the memories and residues of his or her traumatic past. (Laub, 1992, pp. 57-8)
166 A storyteller of trauma needs “the” listener who can share the unbearable experience through narratives. This ‘shareability of traumatic experiences through narration’ (Peng,
2017, p. 126) indicates that storytelling is a collective process. In other words, the narrator and the listener constitute a community for the creation of alternative history. The community is thus a ‘key place of the reinvention of the political’ (Motta, 2014, p. 28) and storytelling is collective, collaborative and dialogical.80
Of the survivor Shirota analysed in this chapter, ‘the listener’ as defined above was Christian Pastor Fukatsu Fumio (1909-2000). My fieldwork interviews with those who cared for Shirota, combined with her diaries and letters to Fukatsu, uncover her individual trauma as a victim of the sexual slavery system. As introduced in Chapter 3,
Linde’s theory of the self focuses on three dimensions: the continuity of the self through time (the past–present relation), the interaction between the self and social world (the public–private relation) and the self-reflexivity (ethical judgement). By focusing on
Linde’s three aspects of the self, the following analysis addresses how Shirota strove to create her coherent life story, making visible her political agency, which manifests itself as a process of self-transformation and, at the same time, challenges the dominant memory/history of the Japanese military “comfort women” system.
The list of primary sources of Shirota, including her diaries, is in Appendix 4. By focusing on three main concepts―survival, resilience and dignity—this chapter investigates how Shirota tackled her trauma in relation to Herman’s three different stages of recovery: Stage 1, the establishment of stability for survival; Stage 2, subject formation by building a coherent narrative of the self; and Stage 3, reconnection to the external world. As will be illustrated over the course of this chapter, the analysis of each stage
80 Storytelling constitutes a dialogue between the speaker and the listener. 167 through the prism of the three concepts uncovers the complexity of recovering from trauma and of constructing political agency.
6.2 Shirota Suzuko: Victim-Survivor-Activist
Above and beyond her 1971 autobiography based on the 1958 breaking of silence and the 1986 radio interview, Shirota left a large number of writings, including diaries and letters, along with some drawings and paintings at her final home, Kanita. Shirota started to keep a diary on 12 February 1956, when she was advised by Kubushiro Ochimi81 to maintain such a diary after moving in Jiairyō, a women’s rehabilitation centre for former prostitutes. The details of Shirota’s documents are shown in Appendix 4.
Keeping a diary is a method for ‘listening’ to her inner voice. It indicates that this practice signifies a dialogue with her inner self over the meaning of her experience through the prism of the past–present and the public–personal relations. In this manner, as discussed in Chapter 3, this everyday practice of self-dialogue facilitates self-reflection on her subjectivity. Therefore, keeping a diary is an everyday practice of the political, as well as evidencing the moments and practices of her active agency. Shirota’s case implicates that the ‘listener’ in storytelling can be both external and internal. She kept a journal until 1992, a year before she passed away and wrote about how she felt about it in Volume 40 of her Diary 12, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] (see Appendix 4):
Because I have written everything about my complaints and feelings of discontentment, I suppose all the irritation and frustration that I have felt is gone. It is important to confess my honest feelings. […] It is wonderful for me to keep writing every day like this.
For Shirota, who spent most of the rest of her life either in hospital or women’s care centres due to her health issues, writing a letter is not only a way to have a dialogue with
81 Kubushiro was a leading figure in Kyōfūkai, the Japan Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which founded and ran the rehabilitation centre. She dedicated her life to abolishing prostitution and winning women’s suffrage. 168 the external world, but it has also provided her with a means of sending her voice to her social world. She wrote letters to a vast number of people, including the Christian pastor,
Fukatsu Fumio, as well as activists, politicians and journalists.
Shirota never filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government. The idea of appealing to the court never occurred to her. When she learned of Kim Hak-sun’s silence break and the subsequent lawsuit against the Japanese government filed by her and two other Korean survivors in 1991, Shirota wrote of her physical weakness in her diary in her Diary 15, Aa inochi toutoshi [How precious life is.]: ‘I have been living with this body for seventy years. I cannot control my body even if I try to stand up’ (see Appendix
4). However, this does not imply, as Japanese feminist scholar, Kinoshita Naoko, stated, that Shirota could not develop her subjectivity as a victim of a state crime (Kinoshita,
2017, p. 237). This statement assumes that political agency to facilitate her political subject formation can be traced only by visible acts of challenge to the dominant power and, therefore, implies that political agency is a zero-sum construction. This assumption is likely to ignore the complex construction of political agency since actual acts against the dominant power represent not only the culmination of the fully developed political agency, but also the tip of the iceberg of a wide range of activities exercised by the growing political agency. However, the ‘politics of knowledge’ dominated by the masculinised knower never allows the feminised other to challenge the border of the political between the ‘knowing-subject’ and the ‘known-subject’ (Motta, 2014; 2017).
For the feminised known, who is ‘subject to logics of elimination and dehumanisation’ in the terrain of the political, it is impossible to become visible in the dominant narrative; rather, she is ‘tamed and assimilated’ by the knower, whereby legitimising the knower’s logics (Motta, 2017, p. 3). This move reinscribes her as being without agency, negating the complexities of her knowing and political subjectivity.
169 As discussed in Chapter 3, the construction of political agency is a multi-phased process in which a victim of trauma develops different layers and forms of political agency at different stages. For example, Shirota countered the dominant memory/history of the Asia-Pacific War in her journals. She repeatedly chronicled the horror of the war and her anger against those who started the cruelty. Her explicit criticism directed against the Japanese government was expressed in her two letters to lobby the then-prime minister82 for the completion of the stone monument to commemorate “comfort women”
(see Appendix 4):
Knowing that in wartime women are deceived by the propaganda, ‘okuninotameni’ (for the country) and end up with their miserable deaths, are you going to deceive them again? The past textbooks glorifying loyalty to the head of the nation and families or patriotism contributed to mobilising a great many naïve youths who ended up dying for nothing. This tragedy evokes my feelings of sorrow and anger. While writing this letter, I can’t stop shedding tears. … I am wondering how many times I have wandered back and forth between life and death. Given only the painful feelings of those times, the sin committed by the Japanese government would be inexpiable.
Here, Shirota connected both impoverished young men and women as victims of state violence. As discussed in the previous chapter, she saw through the disguise of the emperor-worship nationalism as a war mobilisation apparatus. In 1979, she wrote in
Volume 8 of her Diary 12, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan], that during the war, she heard what many young soldiers said: ‘I don’t want to die’ (see Appendix 4). On the one hand, she showed her sympathetic feelings for the young and poor soldiers who were forced to sacrifice their lives for the state in the same way that she and other destitute girls were. In this regard, she demonstrates understanding through empathy of the complexities of the militarised patriarchy in that it also justified the victimisation of men, particularly
82 Her letter to the prime minister did not show the date of writing. It was presumably written between 1985 and 1986. The prime minister was Nakasone Yasuhiro. She also wrote a letter to the former prime minister, Ōhira Masayoshi (1978-80) (see Appendix 4). 170 poverty-stricken young men for the sake of the emperor. On the other hand, she never lost the feminist perspectives on female victimisation by males. Her understanding of the complex relations of the domination–subordination demonstrates her capacity to recognise intersectionality83. In 1991, Shirota grieved over what she had lost in her Diary
16, Arinomama nichijō no arinomama o kakimaseu [As it is. I will write my everyday life as it is] (see Appendix 4):
My young days were trampled by soldiers. I cannot retrieve my lost youth anymore. I don’t want money. Rather, give me back the first twenty years of life.
Her outspoken demand to reclaim her life occurred because she strongly desired to start a brand new time of youth over again if she could. Instead of seeking official compensation for her victimisation, she demanded that she be given back her life that had been stolen by the many facets of the patriarchal capitalism/militarism that characterised
Japanese society and state. With her critical reflection of the power structure in mind, the following section demonstrates the complexities of Shirota’s political agency through the political literacy that enabled her to understand the interaction between the state violence and women as well as the relationship between war memory and history. The trajectory of developing her political agency marked the two sites of her subject formation: the 1958 oral history and the 1986 radio interview. Both signify the culmination of the exercise of her political agency, which develops and declares her self-identity in public. Her journey to those culminations informs us of her life-and-death struggle to complete the continuity between the past self and the present self. To bring some coherence into her life and alternative history manifests the sign of her agency to survive, resist the dominant narrative and restore her dignity. The following sections will construct this alternative
83 Intersectionality is central both to the analysis of ‘the dynamics of structural power’ (Wilson, 2013, p. 1) and to the understanding of intra-group tension (Crenshaw, 1991, p. 1242, as cited in Wilson, 2013, p. 1). 171 reading of (her) history through an exploration of the trajectory of the process of the three stages of recovery from trauma.
6.3 Stage 1: Establishment of stability for survival
Prior to Stage 1, the trauma victim experiences the critical moment to choose either the
‘flight’ mode or the ‘fight’ mode in response to ‘danger’ (Herman, 1992, p. 199). The flight response serves as a strategy to ‘obliterate fear’ (Herman, 1992, p. 199) by numbing her senses or escaping from the unbearable reality with the abuse of drugs or alcohol.
Shirota initially adopted the flight mode, giving in to despair and abandoning herself by
‘choosing’ gambling and drugs (Shirota, 1971, pp. 89-90). She, nonetheless, demonstrated acts of resistance to the hierarchy of power within the border of the political in which there seemed no choice left except total subordination. At this prepolitical stage, her first step to challenge the patriarchal domination in her postwar life illustrates her efforts to reclaim control of her own life from male hands because she had grown tired of being men’s ‘sex toy’ during her entire life (Shirota, 1971, p. 83). It took tremendous courage for her to leave the abusers, such as her patrons and brothel owners. In return, she obtained mobility in seeking places to work. However, social stigma against former prostitutes never allowed her to have a substantive chance of social mobility. For survival, she therefore kept working as a pan pan, carefully choosing her clients, as she said, ‘I snubbed those customers whom I didn’t like, even if they wanted to sleep with me’
(Shirota, 1971, p. 115). Even trapped within the boundary of gender and class, she still exercised everyday resistance in order to reclaim some degree of control over her own life; however, elements of dignity and choice were curtailed. Nonetheless, the flight strategy kept her captured in the circle of re-traumatisation without any means of breaking the political border of patriarchal domination.
172 As discussed in Chapter 3, only the strategy of fight encourages the victim of trauma to establish ‘a degree of control over her own bodily and emotional responses that reaffirms a sense of power’ (Herman, 1992, p. 199). For Shirota, the establishment of both a physical and psychological sense of safety was fundamental to switching her strategy to the fight mode. The establishment of a sense of safety constitutes a foundation for the next stage of reconstructing her trauma story (Herman, 1992, p. 155). In order to speak the unspeakable, the trauma victim needs to be surrounded by reliable or trustworthy people in a place absent of potential abuse or violence (Herman, 1992, pp.
155-74). To establish her sense of safety, Shirota required the provision of not only basic needs, including housing, food and grounding in social/occupational skills, but also a shelter that protected her from the hostile social situation. In this regard, Jiairyō seemed to her a perfect haven because the organiser Kyōfūkai was known as one of the most active feminist groups. Since its establishment in 1886, it had sought the abolition of prostitution in Japan and developed activities that were effective in supporting the rehabilitation of prostituted women (Shirota, 1971, p. 11). In 1955, she moved into Jiairyō immediately after she found an article about the women’s rehabilitation centre in a weekly magazine,
Sandē Mainichi. Upon her arrival at Jiairyō, she burst into tears, feeling that she had finally come to a safe place.84
Even in the fight mode, trauma victims who have decided to cope with trauma are likely to fall into a trap during the initial stage of gaining stability. This trap is a form of numbing trauma, which is usually categorised as one of the flight modes. Shirota was trapped in this at the beginning of Stage 1. At Jiairyō, Shirota swore to complete her rehabilitation in order to integrate herself into the social world. As Fukatsu wrote in his essay, Atogaki [Afterword], in 1958, ‘a fully rehabilitated person’ meant a person
84 Japan’s Anti-Prostitution Law was enacted in 1956 and became effective in 1958. It allowed former prostitutes to have state protection and rehabilitation as well as punishment and guidance. 173 ‘without a past’ (see Appendix 4). On 7 March 1956, she wrote in her diary: ‘I want to forget my past. … I want to be born again with a brand new body and soul, and then start a new life’ (see Appendix 4). At this point, she refused to accept her self-identity as a former prostitute and decided to erase it by creating her new identity. This illustrates a psychological self-defence strategy called ‘self-as-other’ (Rose, 1999, p. 170), as introduced in Chapter 3. On the surface, the eradication of the traumatised memory appears to help to stabilise the victim. In reality, the outcome is the opposite and the strategy of numbness is destructive to her since it prevents her from creating her coherent life history. In another words, she will never be able to heal because she has lost the way to move onto the second stage of life-storytelling. Even though her capacity for religious faith and conversion to Christianity at Jiairyō gave Shirota the power to channel her predicament into her empowerment for recovery, repression and negation of her traumatised memory continued to restrict her survival. For recovery from trauma, it is thus significant to go beyond the binary reactions of fight or flight and to move towards different ways of being and relating and of knowing oneself in the world.
Despite her initial impression of Jiairyō as a safe place, Shirota faced institutional and individual judgement based on the patriarchal dualism of the “good” women versus the “bad” women. She was subjected to humiliation and stigmatisation as a former prostitute by other residents, who had previously committed minor crimes or who had run away from home. Shirota fought back against such acts of bullying as opposed to being silenced (Shirota, 1971, pp. 156-7). Although her great level of determination and resilience revealed her agency for a potential transformation, even her small female community still refused to listen to her story of trauma. This exclusion from her new community pushed her back again to the narrative of the betrayal of trust, which once again confused her about whom she could really trust.
174 Her lack of a sense of stability in life at Jiairyō prevented Shirota, as a former prostitute, from being completely successful in her resistance or agency as a coming to wholeness and integrity; that is, transcending the political boundaries between what was allowed and what was not. In this first stage, listening to the inner voice of the self constitutes an integral part of building stability for survival and resistance against the conspiracy of silence. When the inner listening ends up silencing her own voice of trauma, this initial stage becomes so unstable that her political agency as a survivor is jeopardised.
At Jiairyō, recognising her new self-identity as a victim and survivor of prostitution in general, Shirota started to exercise her agency of resistance. She became active in rescuing other prostituted women facing the same fate as she did by appealing to them through the media. For example, she conducted a radio interview on the 1956 NHK program entitled ‘Disappearing Pleasure Districts’ (Kinoshita, 2017, p. 239). Over the course of the interview, she explained her reason for accepting the interview in her Diary
1, Nikki [Diary] on 13 February 1956: ‘I wish even one of my old friends will come to this women’s centre for rehabilitation’ (see Appendix 4). Nearly a month later, all of a sudden, she exercised her agency as a survivor in an opposite way. She refused to grant any further interviews, writing again in her Diary 1, Nikki[Diary], on 7 March 1956, that she did not want to be used by the media for their benefit and became concerned about stigmatising her family, fearing that her real identity would be disclosed (see Appendix
4). Her dialogue with her inner self through keeping a diary altered her way to exercise her agency, resulting in self-silencing. This self-reflection reveals the complexities and complicities of her agency as a survivor. It also uncovers the fragility of Stage 1, illustrating the oscillating nature of trauma between a thin layer of resistance and multiple layers of silencing. Given that it is ‘the survivor’ who makes the choice between the two
175 (Herman, 1992, p. 174), the establishment of stability is central to nurturing her political agency.
Jiairyō finally removed her opportunity for establishing Stage 1 by refusing to re- admit Shirota after her seven-month hospitalisation, due to the multiple gynaecological diseases85 caused by her long-term prostitution (Shirota, 1971, p. 189). Given the mission and purpose of the women’s rehabilitation centre and the organiser, Kyōfūkai, it was overwhelmingly shocking for Shirota to face their betrayal of her trust because she had been thus far traumatised by the continuous betrayals of trust by both her family and society. Shirota reveals her feelings in her 1958 reflection on her past ordeals by writing them in Volume 1 of her Diary 10, Anjū no chi wo motomete [Seeking my final home], in
1965 (see Appendix 4):
Whenever I desired to be loved, I was deceived and betrayed, resulting in being sold. […] I lost everything while dangerous diseases undermined my health so severely that I finally found myself lying on a bed in a gynaecological ward. […] What is left with me is desperation, fear of the diseases, unbearable mental pains, and hatred towards the betrayer.
Jiairyō’s rejection of Shirota’s re-entry completely devastated her so much to the point that she started to think of working as a prostitute again (Shirota, 1971, p. 180). This incident in Shirota’s life demonstrates how fragile the initial stage is in that all of her previous work in order to establish a stable life began to unravel, jeopardising her chances of survival. It also plays into the dominant narrative, which shames her as a “bad” woman who deserves her pain, thereby pushing her into closure and crisis.
Reinforcing Herman’s concept of the importance of safety to the trauma recovery process, after this experience, Fukatsu literally pulled Shirota out of a dangerous situation by providing her with physical and psychological sense of safety that facilitated her
85 Shirota had all her gynaecological organs removed in her 1956 surgery. Then she was diagnosed with five diseases including syphilis, articular rheumatism and intestinal adhesion (Shirota, 1971, pp. 182-6). 176 growth. This bloomed into her political agency as the survivor of the civilian and military sexual slavery systems. First, he provided Shirota with a temporary shelter and a caregiver in Karuizawa from 16 October 1957 through 20 March 1958, and then admitted her into a newly established rehabilitation centre for former prostitutes, Izumiryō. He became the director of the centre run by the Bethesda Houshijo Haha no Ie (Mother’s House of
Schwester86). Ultimately, the pastor realised Shirota’s long-cherished dream, which was the construction of her final home, Kanita, where she spent the rest of her life (1965-
1993). Kanita was a life-long shelter for former prostituted women who were assessed as having low potential for social reintegration under the anti-prostitution law. His unwavering support and continuous encouragement of her rehabilitation not only elicited trust from her heart frozen by mistrust and confrontation, but also kept enhancing her faith and commitment to rehabilitation.
This strong bond between Shirota and Fukatsu foregrounds the significance of collectiveness in the recovering from trauma as an everyday practice of the political.
Recovery cannot take place without connecting to other people (Herman, 1992, p. 133).
In Herman’s words, Fukatsu played ‘the role of a witness and ally’ who continued to empower her to ‘confront the horrors of the past’ (Herman, 1992, p. 175). On the one hand, he was the only person she ‘trusted and respected with all her heart’, as she wrote in Volume 25 of her Diary 12, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan], in 1978 (see
Appendix 4). On the other, he considered Shirota as ‘his teacher’, as he wrote in the afterword to Shirota’s biography on 15 August 1985:
Whenever I get lost about what to do for the residents [in Kanita], she gives me suggestions. They come neither from what she has by nature or from what she has learned at school. They are based on the human wisdom possessed only by those who have risen from the quagmire. (Shirota, 1971, p. 285)
86 ‘Schwester’ is a German word meaning ‘sisters’ (Shirota, 1971, p. 202). Although Schwesters is equivalent to Christian sisters, the main purpose of Schwesters is to engage in volunteer work at church or hospital (Interview: Morikawa). 177
His faith in her experience, knowledge and recovery was central to encouraging her to exercise her political agency, as well as increasing her chance of survival. Her dialogue with him was a conversation with an ‘intimate’ sense of the external world for her reflection. His openness to listen to her voice of trauma laid the ground for the second stage of reconstructing her life story.
6.4 Stage 2: Subject formation by building a coherent narrative of the self
The establishment of safety enables a victim to restore ‘a sense of power and control’ robbed by trauma, whereby she is ready to proceed to the next stage of telling her trauma story (Herman, 1992, pp. 159-74). In the second stage, she tells her story of trauma
‘completely, in depth and in detail’ (Herman, 1992, p. 175). Yet, this stage increases the risk of her suicide as a way of rejection of a world where she confronts the horror and the despair of her life (Herman, 1992, p. 194). This vulnerability of Stage 2 foregrounds the fragility of the entire process of the complex formation of political subjectivity. Shirota faced the risk in Karuizawa, where she was constantly exposed to the oscillating threat of trauma between life and death in her fierce battle against multiple illnesses. In the late
1940s and early 1950s, she attempted suicide twice: once when she lost all hope for her future, and also when her lover’s family opposed their marriage due to her occupation as a prostitute. In both cases, she blamed the heavens and people for rescuing her life
(Shirota, 1971). However, in Karuizawa, resisting the temptation of death, she finally found the meaning of her life: ‘showing women in the prostitution industries the path for rehabilitation’ (Shirota, 1971, pp. 209-12). Her stronger commitment to the survivors’ mission evoked the energy for life and drove away thoughts of dying/suicide.
Shirota’s new identity as a survivor of civilian and military prostitution emerged from her ethical reflection of her own past. In Herman’s words, she recognised a political and historical dimension in her ‘misfortune’ and found that she could ‘transform the
178 meaning’ of her ‘personal tragedy’ by conversing it to ‘the basis for social action’
(Herman, 1992, p. 207). For Shirota, social action meant sharing her experience with others suffering the same fate, thereby encouraging them to regain hope for life. This personal action manifests ‘collective healing’ for the dehumanised under a similar form of oppression and victimisation whose dignity and hope are stripped (Morales, 1998, p.
5). This political act of collective healing empowers those fractured by abuse to reclaim the integrity of her soul and body, recovering her humanity. This ‘politics of integrity’ is central to hope for her present and future life (Morales, 1998, p. 5).
The politics of integrity is also a key to the establishment of ‘a culture of resistance’, a milieu where ‘the oppressed are able to diagnose our own ills as to the effects of oppression’ (Morales, 1998, p. 18). The diagnosis needs a body that can perceive external harms of oppression by using all five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. The integrity of her senses, thought and body compensates each other for a firm self-diagnosis and determined resistance (Motta, 2018). In this vein, Shirota’s witness to terrible deaths of “comfort women” and Japanese soldiers completed her listening to her inner self for the culture of resistance against the dominant memory/history. She became engaged in the politics of integrity when she had a narrow escape from death when her spine was broken in the shower room of Izumiryō, after she just moved into the new women’s rehabilitation centre. She confessed her fear facing death in Volume 1 of her Diary 10, Anjū no chi o motomete [Seeking my final home]: ‘I shuddered with fear. I am thinking of dying in this shower room, without being known by anybody’ (see Appendix 4). It was a shared knowledge among the staff of the centre that she could live only one more year, as she wrote in December 1978 in Volume 3 of her Diary 12, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] (see Appendix 4). Recovering from her close encounter with death, Shirota appreciated the value of being alive. In 1965, she
179 recalled the great joy she felt in 1959 and wrote it in Volume 2 of her Diary 10, Anjū no chi o motomete [Seeking my final home]: ‘Various desires such as sexual desire, materialistic desire and desire for fame disappeared. Desire for life remained.’ Shirota accepted Fukatsu’s request to publish her life story in order to ‘empower people facing predicament’, as she wrote in 1958 in Volume 1 of her Diary 10 (see Appendix 4). Then, she told her trauma story in her bedridden situation to his secretary, Schwester, Morikawa
Shizuko (1932-present).87 Fukatsu asked Morikawa to visit the hospital every day in order to look after Shirota and to transcribe her testimony (Interview: Morikawa). In my interview in 2016, Morikawa described an episode that illustrated how Shirota appreciated the fact of being alive:
When I was wiping Shirota’s body with a towel, she was excited by her finding of the grime coming out. I did not understand the reason for her excitement. Then she said to me, ‘Grime is a proof of being alive. Don’t you understand that simple thing?’ (Interview: Morikawa)
Shirota miraculously survived, transcended the boundary of the hegemonic political and constructed her subjectivity and voice as a survivor of civilian and military prostitution by breaking her silence. This was the moment when her unwavering political agency emerged and led her to resistance against the conspiracy of silence.
Shirota’s 1958 trauma story is the testimony of a Japanese “comfort woman” survivor. By connecting both personal memory and public history, a testimony transforms an individual trauma story of ‘shame and humiliation’ into a collective narrative of
‘dignity and virtue’ (Anger & Jensen, 1990, as cited in Herman, 1992, p. 181). In her testimony, recognising her past self as both a civilian and a military sex slave, rather than eliminating it from her life story, Shirota established the coherence of the self as a
87 According to a note by Fukatsu, kept in Kanita, Morikawa transcribed Shirota’s life story in accordance with Kubushiro’s request for the purpose of keeping a record of her story of rehabilitation (Kinoshita, 2017, p. 238). Kubushiro made every effort to produce a film based on her story of rehabilitation. When it was about to start shooting, it was cancelled because the board of directors regarded it as too religious (Shirota, 1971, p. 3). 180 survivor of the sexual slavery system, both in Japan’s peace time and wartime. Further, by identifying her victimhood of ‘the feudal family’ as written in Volume 4 of her Diary
12, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan], and ‘the military’s unreasonable demands’ as expressed in her Diary 15, Aa inochi toutoshi [How precious life is] (see Appendix 4), she turned her life-long shame and humiliation, which she had been forced to internalise in her outer and inner self, onto her perpetrators. Shirota’s manuscript thus constituted the intersection of her political and historical subject formation and the act of her resistance to the dominant narrative of the “comfort women” history. In this way, she became not only ‘the author and arbiter of her own recovery’ (Herman, 1992, p. 133) but also the author of her history and her life.
Women’s writing signifies ‘the invention of a new insurgent writing which, when the moment of her liberation has come, will allow her to carry out the ruptures and transformation in her history’ as opposed to men’s writing, which represents ‘a locus where the repression of women has been perpetuated’ (Cixous, 1976, pp. 660, 679, emphasis in original). For this reason, in 1971, Kanita self-published Shirota’s autobiography by the title of Maria no Sanka [Maria's Song of Praise]. In Japanese society of the 1950s and 1960s, finding a publisher for Shirota’s story of her survival, resistance and transformation proved difficult. During this period, Japanese society witnessed a nationwide movement against the Japan–US Security Treaty, whereas the
“comfort women” as prostitutes discourse was the social norm.88 Against this backdrop, some of her testimonial accounts were extracted in a women’s magazine, Fujin Kōron
[Women’s Public Opinion] under the title ‘Tenraku no Shishu’ [An Anthology of a Fallen
Woman’s Life] as opposed to ‘Kōsei no Kiroku’ [Biography of a Woman’s Rebirth] as
88 The first publication of a Japanese “comfort women” survivor’s memoir was Senjō ianfu [Battlefield Comfort Woman] by Ajisaka Miwa (Tomita, 1953). However, Ajisaka’s life story was described as a story of a patriotic high-school girl at the front line, as discussed in the previous chapter. 181 expected by Fukatsu (Shirota, 1971, p. 4). In 1962, the entire transcript was edited and published by a minor publisher, Ōtōsha. Their edition, entitled Ai to Niku no Kokuhaku
[Confession of Love and Flesh], also disappointed Fukatsu because he thought that their edited version would be nothing more than reproduction of patriarchal gender roles intended to stimulate the sexual desire of men and women (Shirota, 1971, p. 4). Here, her female writing was revised into the male writing of masculinity in order to maintain the hegemonic narratives and legitimacy of the patriarchal state and nation.
Unfortunately, Shirota’s 1971 testimonial narrative of trauma did not resonate with Japan’s postwar women’s liberation movement (Ūman Libu in Japan) in October
1970, which challenged Japan’s patriarchal power structure based on male exploitation of female sexuality. As discussed in Chapter 3, the flyer entitled ‘Benjo karano kaihō’
[Liberation from toilets] written by the organiser, Tanaka Mitsu, denounced Japanese male invasion of female sexuality by mentioning Korean “comfort women”. This was the first critique of the “comfort women” system by a Japanese feminist (Kinoshita, 2017, p.
1119). 89 Kinoshita analyses why Wōman Libu could not raise the issue of Japanese
“comfort women”:
On the one hand, Wōman Libu activists had potential sensibility to be able to understand the pains inflicted upon Japanese “comfort women” without contempt. On the other hand, the victims of the “comfort women” system were not those women to whom they had a feeling of closeness. This is because the victimised women were the symbol of sexual oppression and different from these activists in class and generation, even though both lived in the same times. Wōman Libu was the movement of self-liberation and its basic policy was not to support others. It would appear that they had little interests in the surviving victims since their priority was to establish liberated female agency. In the era when the survivor did not officially come out yet, Wōman Libu could not pose the unresolved issue of “comfort women” to the public and find the survivors. (Kinoshita, 2017, p. 144)
89 For more about the analysis of the text written by Tanaka and other Wōman Libu activists, see Kinoshita (2017, pp. 110-44). 182 Tanaka and her group launched the movement for liberating women from patriarchal dichotomy between virgins and whores; however, the patriarchal media marginalised this new women’s liberation movement by labelling it as ‘female hysteria’ (Tsukamoto, 2017, p. 189). Hysteria is a strongly gendered category implicating the feminised form of traumatic neurosis as opposed to the masculinised form of PTSD, such as shell-shock
(Mitchell, 2000, p. 128, as cited in Stewart, 2003, p. 8). The first women’s collective voice of resistance against the patriarchal imperialist state of Japan was thus banished to silence, and removed from history by the hegemonic conspiracy of silence. Accordingly,
Shirota’s life story of resistance never came to the attention of even Japanese feminists.
However, Tanaka’s argument inspired future activists who would participate in the transnational justice movement for “comfort women”, such as Ikeda Eriko, the previous director of WAM (Interview: Ikeda).
Despite the fact that Shirota’s life story was subsumed within the asphyxiating nature of Japan’s patriarchal structure, the establishment of her coherent story of trauma nonetheless empowered Shirota to move forward to the final stage for reconnection.
Herman describes the survivor at this transition step:
Time starts to move again. When the “action of telling a story” has come to its conclusion, the traumatic experience truly belongs to the past. At this point, the survivor faces the tasks of rebuilding her life in the present and pursuing her aspirations for the future. (Herman, 1992, p. 195) Shirota’s engagement with life and aspirations for her future opened up the opportunity to foster solidarity within her intimate community of Izumiryō. During her six-year hospitalisation caused by her broken spine, she suggested to Fukatsu that he establish a permanent care home for former prostitutes who had had difficulties with social reintegration. In order to realise her dream, he and Schwesters launched diverse political activities, such as lobbying the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the inclusion of funds in the state budget for the establishment, holding demonstrations in front of the parliament
183 building, and asking visitors to Izumiryō for their help and support, as Shirota wrote in
1959 in Volume 2 of her Diary 10, Anjū no chi wo motomete [Seeking my final home]
(see Appendix 4). Due to her broken spine, Shirota was paralysed from the waist down and on the left half of her body. All she could do in hospital was to keep praying for their success with determination in the face of what she called ‘persecution’ inflicted upon her by some other patients, doctors and nurses, who knew her plan of the permanent residence, as she recalled in Volume 2 of her Diary 10 (see Appendix 4). Shirota’s bed- ridden fight against what Motta calls ‘othering’, by which they deny her capacity of exercising political agency (Motta, 2017, p. 7), manifests the awakening of her political activism as a survivor. Her alliance with Fukatsu and Schwesters nurtured her trust in humanity. This development also expanded the community of everyday politics, in which all are ‘equal members and participants’ (Motta, 2009, p. 35). This intimate community nurtures the political agency of autonomy in order to reclaim dignity. Shirota’s political campaign ended up with success and Kanita was completed with state subsidies in 1965.90
Settling down in Kanita brought her a feeling of safety for the rest of her life, which enabled her to engage in day-to-day life.
6.5 Stage 3: Reconnection to the external world
In the third stage of recovery from trauma, a trauma victim who has already faced her past self by telling her story must ‘develop a new self’ by ‘reconnecting with others’
(Herman, 1992, pp. 196, 205). In this vein, the stage of reconnection signifies the political stage of Shirota’s further evolution in gaining her agency and self-identity from a survivor to the survivor of the military sexual slavery system. Her mourning of all dead “comfort women” in Kanita made the self-transformation possible and opened up the channels for
90 On 26 April 1965, Shirota described who participated in the Kanita’s inauguration ceremony in Vol. 5 of her diary, Anjū no chi o motomete [Seeking my final home] (see Appendix 4). It said that among participants were bureaucrats of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, female Members of Parliament, Kyofūkai members and Emperor Hirohito’s brother, Mikasanomiya. 184 reconnection to the external world beyond the intimate community, as well as activism for their justice and dignity. This form of mourning should be differentiated from
Herman’s model, in which a trauma victim mourns the past self because she feels that she lost ‘her moral integrity’ due to ‘the profound feelings of guilt and shame’ internalised by the perpetrator (Herman, 1992, pp. 192-3, 196). Shirota found her own way to mourn all deceased “comfort women”, which allowed her to develop new relationships beyond
Kanita. The radio program signifies the culmination of her political agency for collective resistance and dignity. Therefore, in this specific case, mourning is included into Stage 3, as opposed to Stage 2 in Herman’s analysis (1992).
In this final stage, recognition and acknowledgment of testimonies by others is central to reconnection to the wider community since they allow the survivor to feel that her subjectivity is recognised and accepted by the external world. This feeling also gives her a sense of dignity. From Stage 1, Shirota understood the social and political values of her testimony as a witness to and a survivor of sexual slavery upon raising awareness toward the issue of prostitution and venereal diseases. For example, in 1956, an abolitionist activist told Shirota that her reflective narrative of rehabilitation published in the women’s magazine, Hataraku Fujin no Koe [Voices of Working Women]91 could facilitate the passage of the Anti-Prostitution Law, as she explained in Volume 3 of her
Diary 12, Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] (see Appendix 4). The law was passed on 24 May of that year and, accordingly, the country’s red-light districts were abolished, which marked the end of the state-licensed prostitution system. The law also changed
Shirota’s situation, in which she became a subject to the relief project of former prostitutes. In Stage 3, Shirota became increasingly more active in testifying in interviews with the media or in personal letters to politicians, activists and reporters. In 1978, she
91 The name of the magazine came from Kinoshita Naoko’s assumption (Kinoshita, 2017, p. 239). 185 was excited while watching a program broadcast by the Japanese counterpart of BBC,
NHK, because it focused on the issue of juvenile delinquents and prostitution, which she had already raised in her letter to the broadcasting company, as she described in Volume
6 of her Diary 12 (see Appendix 4). Although it is unknown as to whether either the parliament or NHK actually listened to her voice, these incidents convinced her that her testimony was gaining public recognition. The self-acknowledgement of acceptance by others encouraged her to promote more connection to the social world through testifying.
In 1978, she wrote in Volume 6 of her Diary 12: ‘after writing letters to Asahi Shimbun and NHK, something solid uncomfortably stuck in my throat disappeared’ (see Appendix
4). This indicates both the embodiment of the nature of trauma and the process of healing.
By reconnecting with the wider society, she healed her psychological scars and regained the basic human capacities for trust, autonomy and dignity.
Shirota further developed her capacity of inner listening, which facilitated her profound transformation of her self-identity from a survivor to the survivor of the military sexual slavery system. Having witnessed numerous brutal deaths of her colleagues at
“comfort stations”, Shirota considered the meaning of her ‘luck’ to survive from the brink of countless deaths, including her two suicide attempts. Her conclusion was that the spirits of many “comfort women” who died in foreign countries protected her because they wanted her to ‘clamour for their plights on their behalf’, which was written in her 1986 letter to the then prime minister (see Appendix 4). This “clamour” is the voice of resistance against the hegemonic boundary of the political. By bringing in other temporalities and subjects from the past, the collective voice disrupts the present politics as normal. This collective resistance manifests ‘the struggle over who has the authority to tell the stories that define us’ (Morales, 1998, p. 5). The connection between silence
186 and death of the victimised is the key to the legitimate authority. As Fresco92 emphasises, the site of ‘concentration of death’ marks the site of silence (as cited in Felman, 1992, p.
65). This notion of silence indicates how significant it is to imagine the whole picture of countless deaths behind much fewer survivals. Further, silenced survivors are not visible; however, as the Japanese psychologist, Miyaji, notes, we can imagine their inner voices by listening to the personal stories spoken by survivors who raised their voice (Miyaji,
2007, p. 214). Shirota recognised that she was among the survivors who could speak for all “comfort women”, saying ‘I assume that many of those women could not survive.
Even if some of them do, none of them will come forward because they may feel the act as shameful’ as she said in her letter to Fukatsu on 10 March 1984 (see Appendix 4). Her new identity emerged as the survivor who represented the silenced voices of both dead and surviving “comfort women” for resistance against their collective victimisation and for their collective reclamation of their dignity. This is a political movement that connects victims and witnesses for empowerment as well as collective recovery from trauma
(Morales, 1998; Herman, 1992; Motta, 2018), where testimony serves as a vehicle of activism for social justice.
The role of spirituality is integral to Stage 3 in that bringing the dead from the past disrupts the status quo as granted. Different from religious beliefs, spirituality is political in that it prescribes individual and collective ‘peacefulness’ and ‘compassion’ for others in pursuit of a just society (Gottlieb, 2013). This moral and psychological dimension of spirituality is essential to ‘promote a better society by promoting better individuals’
(Gottlieb, 2013, p. 170). Since 1983, Shirota was haunted by a different type of traumatised memory as a witness to the brutal end of her former “comfort women”
92 Nadine Fresco (1984). Remembering the unknown, International Analysis, 11, pp. 417-427. 187 colleagues. Suffering from nightmares, she finally wrote about them in a letter to Fukatsu in 1984 (see Appendix 4):
My former [“comfort women”] colleagues show up in various appearances. Those images were very vivid. Then they begin to sob as if they were appealing to me. I cannot stop them by myself. I want you to establish the monument to soothe the spirits of military “comfort women” in Kanita.
For the most part, this haunting by ghosts can be a threat to her political agency in that it can inhibit the completion of her subject formation. As the case study of shell-shock soldiers reveals, ‘repetitive nightmares’ affect ‘the formation of subjectivity in the face of assaults on its coherence’ (Stewart, 2003, p. 9). Conversely, Shirota further developed her political agency as the survivor by recognising her long-time indignation that had been accumulating over the past 40 years. Shirota criticised the state and society in that they had repeatedly consoled the spirits of dead soldiers and war victims while totally ignoring those women who were forced to provide soldiers with sexual service:
No matter how many “comfort women” or sex providers died, there has been nothing to console their tormented souls. Now, looking back on the past forty years, I wonder how stupid it was. (Shirota, 1986)
Of importance here is that, she believed in a form of traditional Japanese spirituality, that she thought, the souls of those dead ‘sex providers’ (Shirota, 1986) were far from resting in peace and were actually haunting Japanese society. For her, the establishment of the monument for consoling those haunting spirits from the past manifested the collective resistance against the collective violence, combined with the collective healing with respect to both victimhood and the inhumane society through the official recognition of their traumatised experiences. This was her activism for justice and dignity of the victims who were forced into, what Morales calls, ‘the most individual and the most collective places of violence’ (Morales, 1998, p. 5).
188 Shirota launched her own activism by urging Fukatsu to lobby the Health and
Welfare Ministry as well as the media for action and promised him that she would testify if he needed her assistance in these efforts. This was written in her 1984 letter to Fukatsu
(see Appendix 4). After seriously considering this issue for a year, Fukatsu decided to erect a wooden memorial because he thought that it might be his best way to make an apology to those victimised women.93 A wooden monument inscribed Chinkon no Hi
[Monument for soothing the spirit] was established on the hill in Kanita on the fortieth anniversary of Japan’s defeat, which ended WWII (15 August 1985). As pictured below,
Shirota returned thanks to him in tears, in her wheelchair.
Figure 4
The source of this photo is Kanita Dayori (Kanita Newsletter, Vol. 42, p. 4205), published on 1 May 1986.
The wooden monument emerged as the engine to empower her political agency as ‘the survivor’ who engaged in and appealed to a wider society for the purpose of fundraising to replace the wooden monument with a far more permanent stone monument.
The stone monument might be a gift to younger and future generations in that it bestowed an official vow to never repeat the same mistake again. Reflecting on Japan’s future, she wrote in her Diary 15, Aa inochi toutoshi [How precious life is] (see Appendix 4):
If the militarist era comes back, Japanese citizens will suffer. It is obvious that young lives will be lost in the war. Never give up, Japanese citizens. The Self-Defence Forces is a military. It scares me because I feel as if the dark period will come back again.
93 Fukatsu confessed that it would be sad if the establishment of the monument justifies victimisation of “comfort women”, whereby acquitting their perpetrators (Fukatsu, 1985). 189 As a survivor, Shirota understood that ‘those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it’ (Herman, 1992, p. 208). She expanded connection with the larger world by testifying about her life as a “comfort woman” survivor in interviews with the media and in letters to politicians or activists for lobbying. Asahi Shimbun posted an article based on Shirota’s interview about Kanita’s private ceremony for the erection of the wooden monument.
Moreover, TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) launched the Kangaroo campaign coinciding with her radio interview in an effort to facilitate her fundraising activities.
Figure 6
This photo of the stone monument was taken by the author at Kanita in 2014.
The successful establishment of the stone monument in Kanita was the material manifestation of the victory of Shirota’s activism as well as her reconnection to the external world. The money contributed to its establishment embodied the public recognition of her activism and restoration of her personal dignity. She received both the prize that the TBS radio interview won along with the monetary donations from 166 people94 who listened to her interview or read the article in Asahi Shimbun. Given the considerable social pressure to silence the survivors within Japanese society, Shirota’s courageous exercise of her political agency without any collective support organised by
94 Fukatsu referred to the figure of donors (Fukatsu, 1985, No. 20, Vol. 46, p. 4604). Given that all letters in response to the article by Asahi Shimbun posting to Kanita were written by Japanese veterans (Fukatsu, 1985, No.20, Vol. 41, p. 4104), most of the financial donors were also supposed to be former Japanese soldiers. 190 feminist or other groups deserves great admiration. None of the politicians, either from the ruling or the opposition parties,95 journalists or feminist activists96 who visited or contacted Shirota ever raised the issue of Japanese “comfort women”. Until she passed away at Kanita in 1993, she continued to grant interviews as far as her health condition permitted. She never gave up her solitary activism in the pursuit for social justice, which
‘connects the fate of others to her own’ (Herman, 1992, p. 209).
Shirota’s ‘feeling of solidarity with survivors of military sexual slavery from other countries’ (Norma, 2016, p. 2) was demonstrated by her commitment to the establishment of the stone monument for ‘a hundred of thousands of Japanese and two hundreds of thousands of Korean comfort women’ as she wrote in her letter to the then-prime minister
(see Appendix 4). Her solidarity beyond national borders was also indicated by ‘her expression of happiness with Kim Hak-sun’s breaking of silence’ (Interview: Amaha).
After watching the NHK program featuring the upcoming lawsuit against the Japanese government by Korean “comfort women” survivors, Shirota wrote in her Diary 16,
Arinomama nichijō no arinomama wo kakimaseu [As it is. I will write my everyday life as it is], on 29 November 1991 (see Appendix 4):
Get compensation or whatever [from the Japanese government]. Some Japanese veterans finally came to testify. As many as fifty years have already passed [since Japan’s defeat of the war]. Come forward, more and more.
95 Shirota wrote letters to members of the parliament, such as Tanaka Sumiko and Yashiro Eita as she wrote in Vol. 9 of her diary Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] in 1979 (see Appendix 4). In the inauguration ceremony of Kanita, those who participated included bureaucrats from The Health and Welfare Ministry, female members of the parliament, some members of Kyōfūkai and Emperor Hirohito’s younger brother, Mikasanomiya. She described it in Vol. 5 of her diary Anjū no chi w o motomete [Seeking my final home] in 1965 (see Appendix 4). 96 Among others, Shirota appreciated advice and support from Kubushiro Ochimi and Ichikawa Fusae. The former was a leading figure in Kyōfūkai and dedicated her life to abolishing prostitution and winning women’s suffrage. The latter was a pioneer in Japan’s women’s suffrage movement and was elected to the parliament. 191 Both Shirota and Kim highly understood the significance of the interaction between memory and history, as Shirota said in her Diary 15, Aa inochi toutoshi [How precious life is], ‘history will repeat itself unless witnesses testify’ (see Appendix 4). Therefore, their strong desire to pass historical facts about the sexual slavery system onto younger generations constituted their driving force to come forward. By testifying their own plights, both Shirota and Kim broke the boundary of the political and established their political and historical subjectivity as the survivor of and the activist against military sexual slavery.
In the end, Shirota seems to have come to terms with her traumatised memory by establishing the coherent self as the survivor. However, recovery from trauma is ‘never complete’, since a traumatised memory continues to influence the survivor throughout her life (Herman, 1992, p. 211). In the last period of Stage 3, Shirota suffered a haunted memory as the flashbacks of graphic images depicting the scattered pieces of dismembered Japanese soldiers’ bodies, which she experienced at the front line, as she confessed in her Diary 16, Arinomama nichijō no arinomama o kakimaseu [As it is. I will write my everyday life as it is] on 6 January 1992 (see Appendix 4). The flashback memory indicates the complexity of the conditions for possible healing. Even if the survivor resolved her trauma sufficiently at one stage of recovery, she may suffer its return at a developed stage (Herman, 1992, p. 21). The sufficient resolution depends on what indicator is employed in order to evaluate it. The best one is ‘the survivor’s restored capacity to take pleasure in her life and to engage fully in relationship with others’
(Herman, 1992, p. 212). Overcoming both the fear of death and the desire for suicide,
Shirota finally celebrated life. Her appreciation of being alive was her driving force to develop and exercise the political agency for survival, resistance and dignity.
192 6.6 Conclusion
Based on Herman’s three-stage model, this chapter has analysed Shirota’s recovery stage from trauma in order to conceptualise her political agency as a victim of sexual state- sponsored violence. As Shirota’s case reveals, trauma has a complex construction with multiple psychological wounds deeply embedded within different layers. Therefore, a victim of trauma needs to construct her political agency through a multi-phased process in which she can develop different forms and layers of political agency according to the stages of recovery she inhabits.
The self-identification as a victim is essential to the development of her political agency at the prepolitical stage, where she can nurture and exercise it through the everyday practice of resistance even within the political border of otherness by developing her subjectivity and identity as such. For a trauma victim, the establishment of her physical and psychological safety is the foundation for developing her political agency by which she takes up the fight mode to cope with her trauma, as opposed to the flight. Given the nature of trauma, which oscillates between resistance and surrender complicated by the presence of the conspiracy and the complicity of silence that continuously threatens to silence her voice, the creation of her intimate community where people share her traumatic experience as “the” listeners allows her to enter the next stage: speaking of her trauma story.
Telling her story of trauma is a manifestation of the exercise of political agency for the following reasons. First, it resists the dominant narrative of patriarchal domination, thereby visibilising and breaking the political boundary of patriarchy. Second, the establishment of her coherent story of trauma in constant reflection of both the past– present self and the public–personal interaction demonstrates the politics of integrity. It is through the politics of integrity, which encourages her to recognise the full complexity
193 of her whole self as a survivor, whereby she can transfer shame and guilt inflicted upon her to the perpetrator. Third, this individual act of recovery from trauma can nurture the culture of resistance against oppression, thus eradicating the culture of victimhood. In another words, a personal act of rehabilitation from trauma leads to a collective political act as part of the process for the collective healing of dehumanised society.
The re-connection to the external world beyond the intimate community opens a door for the expansion of the political act from the personal to the collective level. As
Shirota’s case demonstrates, the moral dimension of spirituality is integral to this re- connecting stage, where an act of mourning plays a pivotal role in reflecting the moral integrity of individuals and society about past collective oppression. Through this mourning process, a survivor establishes her political and historical subjectivity as an activist against sexual violence. Her testimony constitutes the site of collective resistance against collective structural violence. Therefore, in this research, unlike Herma’s model, mourning is incorporated into the third recovery stage. Shirota’s fully developed political agency as a victim-survivor-activist finally allowed her to restore human dignity and integrity, transcending national borders in order to “spiritually” connect to the Korean silence breaker.
Like Shirota, another Japanese “comfort woman” survivor, Kikumaru was initially sold to a geisha venue by her father and then became a “comfort woman” in order to pay her family’s debts to the geisha house owners. However, during the war, Shirota served numerous enlisted soldiers, whereas Kikumaru served a few military officers. The next chapter will analyse Kikumaru’s struggle to cope with trauma.
194 Chapter 7
The Politics of Integrity: Between Voice and Silence
7.1 Introduction
This chapter analyses Kikumaru’s life story (geisha name; for her full story, see Appendix
1-2). Her narrative, in particular, about her experience as a “comfort woman” has significanc in considering her victimhood as it relates to both to trauma and ‘the politics of integrity’ (Morales, 1998). Of importance here is that her positive memory of her past as a “privileged” woman reserved only for a few military officers marked a stark contrast to the majority of women allocated to numerous enlisted soldiers, such as Shirota.
Therefore, Kikumaru’s fragmented narrative as a “comfort woman” survivor has been
(ab)used by Japanese denialists who have insisted that “comfort women” were prostitutes not sex slaves. For this reason, it is critical to reveal her sufferings as a “comfort woman” survivor, in order to problematize the hierarchical dichotomy between the “privileged” women and the “unprivileged” women that was present at the “comfort women” stations and also mirrored the very same dichotomies in broader patriarchal political discourse. In contrast to Shirota, who continued the dialogue with her inner voice in various ways, including her diaries and letters to the (intimate) external world, we are left with a paucity of information about Kikumara’s life. The only known sources to draw upon Kikumaru’s narrative are elements of her edited life story, which appeared in magazines directed at a male readership (Hirota, 1971, 1998) and the first half of Hirota’s book (1975).
Accordingly, this is the major reason that accounts for the variance in length between this chapter and Shirota’s chapter. However, notwithstanding the absence of research materials on Kikumaru, her narrative and attempts to overcome the manifestations of the patriarchal structures of postwar Japan in order to situate herself within the politics of integrity deserves attention and study.
195 The politics of integrity, of ‘the full complexity of who we are’ (Morales, 1998, p. 7), is central to personhood. The integration of the body and soul enables a trauma victim to tell her coherent life story, which manifests consistent identity formation in alignment with the past–present frame, as discussed in Chapter 3. In order to acknowledge the coherent self, a trauma victim needs ‘to re-member the connections between the body, mind, and spirit and to re-integrate knowing and feeling’ (Rose, 1999, p. 171) as well as to re-establish the unity between the past self and the present self. This re-associated self needs ‘memory composure’, which is provided through public recognition as a member of society (Perks & Thomson, 2016). The past–present and the public–personal relations embedded in the politics of integrity constitute the complexity of the presence of voice within trauma as an integral component in telling her coherent story. As discussed thus far, silence as part of testimonies reveals the victim’s true feeling and knowing, whereas self-silencing works as a self-defence strategy for survival in her community. Therefore, it is often the case that a trauma victim who once came forward is again withdrawn to the confinement of silence during the course of recovery from trauma, as shown by Shirota’s case in the previous chapter.
Kikumaru’s postwar plight illustrates this complexity of trauma oscillating between voice and silence represented by both her breaking of silence and her suicide. As discussed thus far, silence is as important as raised voice since it can be a message from the inner voice of a trauma victim. In this vein, silence represents a form of traumatised voice. This chapter seeks to listen to Kikumaru’s silenced inner voice that was buried in her suicide note. The suicide note becomes a departure point for the analysis of her struggle to restore her integrity and dignity. Based on the reading of both her life story and suicide note published by Hirota (2009), this chapter explores the interaction between
Kikumaru’s internal self and her external world. In addition, this chapter examines her
196 self-reflection with respect to the interplay between her personal sense of morality and the public sense of Japanese societal morality. These reciprocal relations uncover her ethical dilemma about whether to fulfil the coherent sense of self for composure or to accept the publicly recognised self
Kikumaru’s life story published by Hirota (1975) emerged as “women’s writing”, which, through a gender-sensitive lens, uncovered the complexities of the issue of
Japanese “comfort women”. It was a challenge to Hirota because Kikumaru never allowed her to delve into her inner voice of trauma (Hirota, 2009, p. 160). The gulf that separated them was the patriarchal dichotomy between “good” women and “bad” women (Hirota,
2009, p. 161). This binary even kept Kikumaru from telling her traumatic life to her close female friend, Komiyama Sawako, who said to Hirota after Kikumaru’s suicide: ‘Despite a five-year-long connection, Kikumaru did not tell me anything about herself’ (Hirota,
2009, p. 19). Hirota was shocked by Kikumaru’s suicide note, which revealed to her a face that Hirota had never seen. After Kikumaru’s death, Hirota strove to understand
Kikumaru’s suffering beyond the patriarchal dissection of women.
7.2 Death of a former “comfort woman”
On 26 April 1972, Kikumaru was found dead in her small apartment in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo.97 Her death was attributable to self-induced carbon monoxide asphyxiation.
She left behind only 870 yen (equivalent to US$2.8 at the exchange rate in 1972) and two suicide notes. One note was addressed to her close female friend, Konuma Sawako98. The other note was addressed to Hiratsuka Masao, a male editor of a publisher, Tokuma
97 A prefecture is an administrative district located inside Japan, which is analogous to a county in the United States. The prefecture system was instituted in Japan during the early years of the Meiji Restoration. 98 Konuma was a close friend of Kikumaru’s for five years after having worked together at a cabaret in Ginza. During their friendship, Kikumaru would visit Konuma at the small pub that she owned. Even two days before her suicide, Kikumaru visited Konuma with her self-made squid guts pickled in salt (ika no shiokara) (Hirota, 2009, pp. 19-20).
197 Shoten, who instructed Hirota to interview Kikumaru. Hirota’s book includes Kikumaru’s note addressed to Hiratsuka. Her suicide note appears in its entirety in Appendix 5.
Kikumaru’s suicide note reveals her postwar struggle to restore the integrity of her personhood. She was losing connections both between her body and soul, and between the past self and the present self. The disconnection between the body and the soul was present in the interaction with the external world represented by her patron and her neighbours, who were also her abusers. Until she became surrounded by the abusers,
Kikumaru had demonstrated her active agency in surviving postwar destitution. By frequently changing jobs, such as a factory worker, a dancer, a manager of a pan pan house and a dealer in the black market (Hirota, 2009), and she strove to reclaim the control over her own life. Her agency of survival, therefore, became an act of resistance against the patriarchal domination within the confines of patriarchy or the border of the political.
Ironically, her active agency to build a life for herself prevented her rise to potential stardom. After she passed an audition by a film company and was provided acting classes, she was arrested for selling stolen goods. She was placed on three years’ probation, resulting in losing her dream job (Hirota, 2009, pp. 142-6). In the depth of despair, she went back to her family in Kushiro, Hokkaido, where she worked for a Japanese restaurant as a high-ranking geisha who entertained customers solely by singing and dancing. The cook in the restaurant paid her debt back to her employer and started to live with her, even though they were not officially married. Then he quit his job and started seeing other women, which prompted her to leave him (Hirota, 2009, pp. 151-2). For
Kikumaru, the cook was a first “intimate” abuser in postwar Japan who exploited her as if she were his property. The way he enslaved her was parallel to the way wartime Japan commodified her. That is, by legalising prostitution, the state allowed poor women to be robbed of their personhood and legitimised predatory sexual practices by men who bought
198 them from their previous owners in order to satisfy the repayment of theirdebts. This complicity between the patriarchal state and society based on the tacit sexual contract has perpetuated female enslavement across time and space.
Her second abuser was her patron, who she described in her suicide note as ‘the worthless man’. As explained through Barry’s theory of the dehumanisation process in prostitution in Chapter 5, sex with the abuser accelerates the dissociation between the body and soul of the abused. As Kikumaru’s note describes, ‘it’s disgusting’, referring to the fact that she hated the sex with the patron so much that she chose to disengage by dissociating her consciousness from her body. By ‘thinking about other things’ as she wrote, she repeatedly fragmented herself through the disengagement and the dissociation process for the survival of her real self. This survival strategy in prostitution sex destroys human integrity and dignity by facilitating self-segmentation. This divided self carries the risk of losing the self. As Susan D. Rose points out, losing one’s self for a long time causes alienation from the self and irresponsibility ‘to and for one’s self’ (Rose, 1999, p.
170, emphasis in original). The second line of Kikumaru’s note states: ‘Since I decided to commit suicide, there have been times that I have felt like I cannot work anymore.’
This implies her sense of resignation from her efforts to establish integrity because of the long separation between her body, mind and spirit caused by the multiple-dissociation that she went through until her suicide. Finally, she gave up on the reconnection with both society and herself, saying to the male editor in her suicide note, ‘Please write my postwar story however you want’.
7.3 The divided self
Kikumaru was in the condition of the divided self, as represented by the split between her outer manifestations as a ‘nuisance’ in her community; and her inner self as ‘good- natured’, as she expressed in her suicide note. Her body was subjected to social
199 humiliation and exclusion by her neighbours, owing to her dire poverty. After ‘his failure in business’ her patron stopped providing her with ‘a monthly allowance of fifty thousand yen’; however, he dissuaded her from working because he was afraid that she might leave him. Accordingly, she always suffered poverty, struggling to find a job. Eventually she could not afford to pay her rent by herself. This resulted in her experience of exclusion from her community, expressed in her suicide note as an experience of ‘social scorn’ in the eyes of others. Her ‘curse’ against her community inflicting the insult upon her body due to her dire poverty implicates her confrontation with the external world, which was also an on-going traumatised experience (see Appendix 5).
In her own eyes, Kikumaru was a better person than her neighbours, describing herself in her note as ‘better than greedy’. This moral standing of her inner self was in conflict with the external moral standards, which posed an insoluble dilemma for her.
Unlike her stigmatised body, Kikumaru was a proud human being who valued equal human relationships beyond social status. Whenever she encountered former military officers whom she served on Truk Island, she was on as equal a footing with them as before, although many of them were promoted in various fields of the postwar society
(Hirota, 2009). Further, she never financially relied on them because of her pride
(Interview: Hirota). Her sense of pride was also evidenced by her openness, humour, friendliness and consideration in her efforts to make her interview with Hirota neither sad nor depressed (Hirota, 2009, pp. 14-5).
At the same time, as a proud human being, Kikumaru was not comfortable with the idea of concealing her past as a “comfort woman” (Hirota, 2009, p. 160). According to Kikumaru’s personal note given to Hirota, she was going to write her memory on Truk
Island, even though her former colleagues hid their past there owing to a sense of humiliation (Hirota, 2009, p. 36). She also allowed Hirota to show her photographs in the
200 magazine article, saying ‘it’s OK because I haven’t done anything wrong (Hirota, 2009, p. 14). She consistently exerted herself to fulfil expectations of the social world that forced her to sacrifice herself for the family and the country. Her inner self was thus consistent throughout her life, whereas the external world suddenly changed its attitude toward her in postwar Japan. This coherence of her internal self, however, disallowed her to recognise and accept her outer manifestation that was stigmatised and excluded by society. In other words, her sense of pride as a self-sacrificial dutiful daughter and as a loyal national subject caused her to reject the social stigmatisation that characterised her postwar life.
The disunity between her outer self and inner self intertwines with the inconsistency between her past self and her present self. On the one hand, she gradually became aware that the two years of her life on Truk Island as a military prostitute completely ruined the rest of her life, which continued on for more than 20 years. On the other, she refused to admit it because her life on Truk Island was the only time during which she thought could bring meaning to her life for both herself and the social world.
This separation between the positively remembered past self and the publicly humiliated present self is likely to have evoked a feeling of nostalgia for the past. This might be a reason why she was looking forward to Hirota’s visit. During the interview with Hirota,
Kikumaru might have felt as if she had been reproducing the best time in her life (Hirota,
2009, p. 160). In addition, she might have felt happy that her life story was listened to and recognised by others. The construction of the inner sense of self is relational and, thus, dependent upon relationships with others. Therefore, we need constant negotiation with the outside world for recognition, as discussed in Chapter 3. This relational nature of self- identity construction causes tension in the moral standards between the inner self and the outer world, as shown by Kikumaru’s case. Her outer manifestation carrying a social
201 stigma reflected the ethical judgement imposed upon her life and inner self by the social world.
Kikumaru felt a sense of nostalgia for her days on Truk Island, not only because of her privileges attached to her “elite” status embedded within the “comfort women” hierarchy, but also because of human relations created under a particular social structure during wartime (Interview: Hirota; Hirota, 2009). She felt as if ‘all of a sudden she had been elevated into a high position’ because she was provided with the same meals and treatment as the officers whom she served (Hirota, 2009, p. 38). In reality, the privileges were attached only to the officers, whereas she was still a sex slave. The military thus manipulated the feelings of Kikumaru and some other Japanese “comfort women” who had previously suffered as civilian prostitutes. More importantly, the wartime life-and- death situation provided an opportunity to develop human attachments that could have otherwise never been evoked (Interview: Hirota). For example, another Japanese survivor, Suzumoto Aya, also cherished the memory of her life on Truk Island exactly the same way Kikumaru did, even though she was allocated for Japanese privates as opposed to a few officers (Hirota, 2009, pp. 58-68). As Hirota concludes, when a Japanese
“comfort woman” sexually served a soldier who was ordered to fight in the front line, she forgot that her body was bought by him (Hirota, 2009, p. 46). Her sympathy with the soldier released her from her long-standing sense of humiliation as a captive within the sexual slavery system and allowed her to share feelings with him. These human attachments enable the dehumanised victim in peace time to feel that she was treated as a human during wartime. As Kikumaru said she ‘fell in love with all of the officers’ to whom she was allocated, while sexually serving one by one (Hirota, 2009, p. 46), she felt sympathy for the soldiers, which marked the first time in her life when she appreciated
“equal” human relationships with others.
202 However, this type of human relation is a fiction since war is not a natural human condition. War creates a particular situation in which people are divided into two sides: the abuser and the abused. This abusive relationship ‘does not make sense in the context of humanity’; therefore, we need an explanation in order to restore ‘our dignity’ (Morales,
1998, p. 4). Japan’s past war was started by the state, which manipulated human emotions of the nation including nationalism in order to mobilise all women and men into it. This state manipulation of human feelings concealed the victim situation from Kikumaru’s consciousness and encouraged her to engage in her “mission” for the sake of the country.
She said in her personal note, ‘With a surge of patriotism and youthful ebullience, I did my best for Japan and the emperor’ (Hirota, 2009, p. 36).
With Japan’s defeat, however, the state removed its righteous cause for the war from her past and instead placed a social stigma back upon her body by stating that
“comfort women” were prostitutes. This is the usual trick that the perpetrator utilises in order to silence the victim. By destroying her ‘credibility’, the perpetrator silences her voice and/or manipulates people into not listening to her voice (Herman, 1992, p. 8). The perpetrator’s illusion and devaluation of his victim results in her doubting her own self as well as her internalising the sense of shame and guilt that, in reality, the perpetrator deserves. As Herman emphasises, ‘[t]he more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail’
(Herman, 1992, p. 8). The state can be the most powerful perpetrator that manifests and reproduces the silencing of its victims’ voices. Resisting the forced internalisation of the state’s shame and guilt, Kikumaru fragmented herself, oscillating between her opposing inner voices. One was whispering that she was not worthy; the other inner voice was insisting that she was worthy and urged her to fight for survival. Ultimately, she listened to the latter voice and decided to restore her integrity by breaking her silence. This is
203 Herman’s second stage of recovery from trauma (Herman, 1992). Kikumaru jumped on the second stage without establishing her sense of safety in the first stage.
7.4 Her final effort: Breaking silence
Kikumaru’s final effort to restore her human integrity and dignity fractured by social humiliation and political silencing was to break her silence, acquiring the public acknowledgement that she was a patriotic national subject on the same footing as soldiers.
Her breaking of silence was thus an act of resistance against the abusive social and political world. Until then, she had hidden the past for more than 25 years, for fear of social stigmatisation, by changing her name whenever she switched jobs (Hirota, 2009, p. 19). However, she could no longer endure the deeply traumatic experiences, social stigmatisation and exclusion. As the above discussion shows, at that point, she went through multiple dissociations in the abusive surroundings, which destroyed her personhood. Her silenced voice heard from her suicide note signified her desperate cry as a victim of trauma. ‘After serious consideration’, she, therefore, came forward, as she described in her suicide note: ‘I wanted to remove this endless feeling of agony from the bottom of my heart.’
On 12 August 1971, Kikumaru’s testimonial narrative came out in an unsigned article in a weekly male magazine, Asahi Geinō (1971). The five-page article was edited by a male ankāman,99 based on Hirota’s interview with Kikumaru (Interview: Hirota).
Kikumaru’s life story emerged as men’s writing, which perpetuates the male domination of female sexuality, as opposed to women’s writing, which contributes to women’s liberation from their oppression (Cixous, 1976). The article entitled ‘Senjō no geisha
Kikumaru ga 26 nen meni akasu haran no jinsei’ [The sensational life that Kikumaru, geisha at a battlefield reveals on the 26th anniversary of the end of WWII] (1971) referred
99 The ankārman writes magazine articles based on what his/her reporters collect. Hirota was among the reporters (Interview: Hirota). 204 to little of Kikumaru’s plight as a civilian prostitute and a surviving “comfort woman”.
Instead, most of the story reproduced her happy memory of her life on Truk Island, which portrayed her as a patriotic wartime “comfort woman”. Further, her postwar predicament was offset by her nostalgia for her life on Truk Island. The male writing based on the female victim’s testimony thus contributed to reproducing the patriarchal subordination of women to both men and the state, as illustrated by Shirota’s first autobiography (1962) introduced in the previous chapter. This reveals how this gendered dynamic is used to perpetuate the patriarchal nationalist history since ‘[h]istory is the story we tell ourselves about how the past explains our present, and how the way in which we tell it are shaped by contemporary needs’ (Morales, 1998, p. 24). The male writing of Kikumaru’s life story reveals what postwar Japan wants. It is the ‘emphasized femininity’ (Connell, 2005, p.
848) that represents Kikumaru as a self-sacrificial woman for the benefits of the patriarchal militarist state and, thus, perpetuates the hegemonic masculinity of the
Japanese Imperial Army. In other words, the state’s desire is to transform the postwar national identity as the ‘feminised’ war victimhood to the masculinised patriarchal militarist. The second Abe government (2013-present) wants Japan to return to being a militarist/imperialist state and hence retransforming Japan’s national identity back to what it was in prewar/warimte Japan. The Abe regime has been seeking to revise the
Peace Constitution for this transition of Japan’s national identity. This past–present interaction in remembering is thus central to the politics of history, and how history and identity are constructed.
Soon after the magazine article came out in 1971, Kikumaru’s rent fell into arrears. Accordingly, she ‘could not raise even the smallest of cries’ as she described in her suicide note (see Appendix 5). As she also said in the note, ‘constantly hiding from my neighbours’, she felt that she could not ‘work anymore’ (see Appendix 5). Then, she
205 encountered an even crueller reality, which made Kikumaru regret her silence break. In her suicide note, she blamed herself as ‘stupid’, confessing that ‘other [surviving
“comfort”] women were clever’ (see Appendix 5).
She finally raised her long-standing silenced voice in desperation to Hirota for the first time, when Japanese former sergeant, Yokoi Shōichi (1915-1997),100 was discovered in the jungle of Guam in 24 January 1972, only three months before her suicide. Given that he was hailed as a national hero by both the Japanese government and the nation,
Yokoi was a controversial figure when one considers Japan’s wartime notion of heroism.
When framed within Japan’s wartime policy of duty, he was not typical of Japanese war heroes who sacrificed their lives for the divine emperor insofar as he had hidden for 28 years in the jungle since he survived the US attack on the island. As stipulated by Code
2, Article 8 of the Senjinkun (Codes of Conduct in Battle) issued by the War Ministry on
8 January 1941, ‘No one shall remain alive to incur the shame of becoming a prisoner of war’ (Pulvers, 2009). Ironically, Yokoi had fully complied with the wartime code of conduct until he was discovered, while the rest of the Japanese people shared ‘their collective amnesia regarding their support for the war’ (Pulvers, 2009). Japan’s forgetting of their war guilt was reconstructed and reinforced by their collective identity as war victimhood, which elevated Yokoi to the national hero because of his resilience and survival after Japan’s surrender. Kikumaru vented her indignation at this national frenzy by saying to Hirota:
If Yokoi-san were a victim of war, I would be the same as well. There is no reason that the health and welfare minister granted money 101 and clothing only to him. The minister said that they did it for the emperor. For
100 Yokoi had been hiding in an underground cave for 27 years until he was discovered by two local hunters. He explained the reason in 1972: ‘We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive’ (Corporal Shōichi Yokoi, retrieved from http://www.wanpela.com/holdouts/profiles/yokoi.html on 29 October 2017). 101 According to The Japan Times, ‘[a]ll 20 members of the Cabinet pledged to give him ¥100,000 each; and every member of both houses of the Diet, 736 in all, promised ¥50,000 each. (In fact, the only politician who paid up was Prime Minister Eisaku Sato—and Yokoi received only ¥100,000 in the end.)’ (Pulvers, 2009). 206 the emperor? We went all the way to Truk Island because we were also told ‘for the emperor’. It’s regrettable. I want to go to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and tell them that because of my past as a “comfort woman”, I can’t get married, living like this. … I will tell them that there is a person who lives a more miserable life than living in the jungle. (Hirota, 2009, pp. 105-6)
Kikumaru’s strong criticism against the Japanese government and society appears to have centred on their double standard of war heroism. Even though the same oath of loyalty to the emperor was forced during wartime, soldiers’ war efforts are always remembered with praise, whereas those of military prostitutes are forgotten with a social stigma engraved in their bodies. The national fever about Yokoi’s comeback awoke
Kikumaru from the wartime fiction in which Japanese “comfort women” were appreciated as patriotic national subjects by both the state and society. She also faced another harsh truth that postwar Japanese society excluded surviving “comfort women” even from its new collective identity as the victim of war. As shown by the Imperial
Rescript on Surrender in Chapter 5, the new national narrative of war victimhood was imposed from above, whereby releasing the nation from their sense of war guilt.
However, this defeat revisionism did not evenly “democratise” all Japanese people as war victims. As Kikumaru found out, “comfort women” survivors were never allowed to be part of the victimhood society. The abuser takes refuge in the guilt-free category as
“victims” while excluding the abused who were literally victims. This societal hypocrisy devastated Kikumaru and forced her to admit not only that her present miserable self was caused by her past self as a “comfort woman”, but also that her real sense of self could never be recognised by the external world. Finally, she abandoned the reconstruction of both her sense of the coherent self and the meaning of her life, as she said in her suicide note: ‘Please write my postwar story however you want.’
Kikumaru’s final effort to be publicly recognised as a human being with integrity and dignity through her silence break was rejected by an inhumane patriarchal militaristic
207 society. She was initially exploited as a filial daughter by her family, then as a civilian prostitute by her society and, finally, as a military prostitute by the state. What postwar
Japanese society brought her as a surviving “comfort woman” was an endless and excruciating struggle against poverty and social humiliation, which continuously traumatised her. ‘The threshold of the human’ is reached ‘by rendering an individual
"non-human" [victim] through the infliction of pain’ (Bourke, 2006). By afflicting
Kikumaru through her entire life, the Japanese society reached the threshold of the human society. As trauma theorist, Cathy Caruth, notes, Kikumaru’s narrative of trauma tells two stories: ‘the story of the unbearable nature of an event; and the story of the unbearable nature of its survival’ (Caruth, 1996, p. 7). The oscillating nature of trauma between life and death is signified by Kikumaru’s voice and silence in the struggle to connect with the inhuman society, which permanently silenced her voice. She was cremated on 29 April
1972, which coincided with Emperor Hirohito’s birthday.
7.5 Conclusion
Kikumaru’s oscillation between voice and silence discloses the complexity of the politics of integrity in telling a story of trauma. Recovery from trauma requires a trauma victim to construct a coherent life story, which connects the present self to the past self, thereby creating her new identity, such as a “survivor” implicated in the previous chapter.
However, this new self-identity needs public recognition through the presence of individual listeners to her narrative. This intimate community, composed of both the narrator and the listener, is integral to her reconnection to society, which enables the reconstruction of her coherent self. Kikumaru’s voice reveals how significant societal acknowledgement of her sense of self is for regaining human integrity and dignity. At the same time, her silenced voice raised fundamental questions about Japanese society.
Borrowing from a Japanese feminist philosopher, Igeta Midori, those questions are: ‘Are
208 you a human who acknowledges inhumane acts inflicted upon “comfort women” survivors and then responds to their voices?’ and ‘Can I trust this society consisting of you, humans?’ (Ōgoshi & Igeta, 2010, p. 82). This inhuman relationship based on deafness and blindness to the ‘feminised’ others (Motta, 2018) is deeply connected to the patriarchal militarist state-society relationships that are embedded in Japan. Here are profound issues concerning the politics of integrity of Japan as a nation-state. As discussed above in this chapter, the Japanese society and state exploited and dehumanised
Kikumaru throughout her life; however, when she tried to trust the abusive society through her breaking of silence, it rejected listening to her voice. This indicates rejection of individual and collective reflection within the government and society about the relationships between the war and the present Japan. This serious lack of the sense of integrity in the postwar construction of individual and collective social and political identities mark a stark contrast to Kikumaru’s efforts to restore her sense of integrity.
Individual Japanese, who shared victimhood consciousness and appreciated the democracy imposed from above, as discussed in Chapter 5, were assimilated into the self- less collectiveness that never raised, or raises, the issue of integrity.
209 Chapter 8
Conclusion: Restoring Human Integrity
This thesis has developed a critical analysis of the axis between memory and identity in remembering past war, through an innovative methodology combining the popular memory approach using the oral history method, the radical feminist approach, Carole
Pateman’s critical analysis of the patriarchal state as proposed by the theory of the sexual contract, and the feminist activist approach seeking social justice, particularly that which foregrounds trauma in our understanding of gendered history and politics. Adopting gender and trauma as the central concepts for this analysis, I looked into the silenced narratives of Japanese “comfort women” survivors that were available mainly in the
1950s and 1960s, in order to answer the following questions: (1) What is the role of gender in the interaction between the construction of war memory and national identity?;
(2) How can the political agency of Japanese “comfort women” be conceptualised?; and
(3) How can we restore justice to and dignity of Japanese “comfort women”?
This research has concluded that in a modern nation-state, trauma constitutes the nexus of war memory construction and identity formation. Speaking and politicising trauma in this particular context reveals the ‘betrayal of trust’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 4) by the state and society and resists official narratives of memory and history, which are central to national identity formation. Therefore, the modern patriarchal state silences individual voices of trauma by (re)constructing the state-selected national identity, which imposes the state’s ideal form of masculinity and femininity upon the nation. In this way, trauma becomes a gender-oriented hierarchy, which leads to the gendering of public memory and, ultimately, collective identity. Thus, gender plays the pivotal role in determining national identity through selective war memories. It is the political agency of the oppressed victims that challenges this gender hierarchy in remembering or forgetting the
210 war by overcoming the ‘conspiracy of silence’ (Danieli, 1998, p. 680), which manifests the complicity between the state and society in the attempt to internalise the perpetrator’s shame and guilt into the victim’s inner self by shaming her and silencing her voice. The survivors’ constant efforts to create their own life stories with coherence between the past self and the present self, as well as between the private sense of self and the publicly recognised self, are the manifestations of their aspiration for both dignity and integrity as women with human faces.
This concluding chapter first discusses some significant findings in the case study of Japanese war memory, with a particular focus on modernity and integrity in relation to humanness. Then the chapter provides an overview of the contribution of this research to scholarship, as well as transnational feminist activism and, finally, concludes with some of its implications.
8.1 Modernity as the politics of dehumanisation
In this section, I will discuss the implication of a critical reading of Japanese modernity as the dehumanisation of women; in particular, poor women. As Chapter 5 concluded, the
1868 Meiji modernisation totally altered the social system and values of the “benevolent”
Japan (Stanley, 2012, p. 62) by scapegoating (Norma, 2016), othering, and confining civilian prostitutes as feminised disposable non-subjects inside the political boundary, which draws the line between humans and non-humans (Motta, 2018). However, what the modern state sacrificed was not only poor females, but also non-elite males who were granted a franchise for political participation. Therefore, the following section will explain how modernity is premised upon the logics of ‘negation of humanness’ (Motta,
2018, p. 6) with a focus on the relationships between the state, women and men; in particular, from poor families.
211 The 1868 modernisation of Japan as a new nation-state was characterised by the introduction of both capitalism and militarism, as discussed in Chapter 5. On the one hand, the emergence of the market economy in nineteenth-century Japan allowed the state to exploit the daughters of poor families who were the property of the head of the patriarchal family through the legalised prostitution system as a lucrative source for national income. On the other hand, the advent of capitalism thoroughly demoted those indentured sex slaves through a process of social stigmatisation by commodifying and objectifying their sexualities as well as their personhood (Stanley, 2012, p. 18). This commercialisation and enslavement of poor females promoted the patriarchal dichotomy of “good” women and “bad” women, and the state legitimised the binary by institutionalising commercial prostitution. Accordingly, the former were marginalised to reproductive objects, whereas the latter were reduced to disposable non-subjects. The capitalist state also fragmented male sexuality, by taking advantage of women’s sexuality that was divided into mothers/wives and whores as a means of its control of male sexuality
(Tanaka, 2004, p. 338). The state legitimation of civilian prostitution in the form of the mistress system and the licensed prostitution system legalised the ‘sexual contract’
(Pateman, 1988) of the male patriarchal right to access the female body, as argued in
Chapter 4. This segmentation of female sexuality also divided male sexuality into that for reproduction and the other for pleasure, suppressing men into fragmented pieces (Tanaka,
2004, p. 338).
The two different prostitution systems in peace time divided male fraternity into elite males and non-elite males. That is, elite men enjoyed the monopoly of a mistress whereas non-elite men shared prostituted women. This class-based hierarchy was embedded within the military, which seemingly democratised male access to female bodies among all soldiers through the “comfort women” system. Accordingly, officers
212 owned their personal “comfort women” like mistresses, whereas enlisted soldiers were strictly restricted to visit “comfort stations”, which were few and far between on the front line. Thus, the parallel fraternities were preserved from peace time through wartime.
Modernity transformed the relationship between the state and women, which expanded in particular ways, logics and rationalities the ‘sexual contract’ that solely proposes the male domination of female sexuality. The modern capitalist state used the patriarchal binary of women for economic prosperity. However, as Chapter 5 demonstrated with the gendered relations between the US and Japan after 1945, the boundary between “good” and “bad” women is not fixed but redrawn and/or removed by the state for its own benefits, based upon social circumstances and political relations with other states. It implicates what Edkins calls the state ‘prerogative’ to use violence whereby ‘the modern nation-state works by processes of enforced exclusion, and it can change the definition of who precisely will be excluded at any time’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 6).
All in all, capitalism allows women to be the property of the state as a tool to consolidate power. This statecraft also divides women and men through dehumanising the former, and undermining the possibilities of humanised and liberated relationships. By failing to construct human relationships with women, men also dehumanise themselves. This dehumanisation process of both men and women through capitalist statecraft is further institutionalised by militarism.
The militarisation of the nation-state is another process of dehumanisation in modern society. The modern militarist state made women hostile to each other through the patriarchal binary and took advantage of this divide in order to accomplish statecraft.
As Chapter 4 and 5 argued, the state always forced “bad” women to sacrifice themselves as a human ‘breakwater’ in order to save “good” women (see Appendix 3). However, as pointed out above, there is no division between “good” women and “bad” women for the
213 state because the state has always regarded all women as disposable. The most powerful tool for militarisation of a whole nation is conscription, which imposes upon poor men a representation and practice of becoming the self-sacrificing soldier who never hesitates to kill enemies to protect the country. In the Imperial Japanese Military, however, the lives of enlisted soldiers were totally ignored without even ‘a proper food supply’
(Fujiwara, 2000, p. 29) so that a great number of them died from starvation (Fujiwara,
2001, pp. 131-8). What western modernisation introduced was ‘citizen–soldier masculinity’ (Guardino, 2014; Nye, 2007). This transformation of masculinity is part of the ‘social contract’ (Pateman, 1998) between the state and men, which democratises male citizenship with equal political participation and rights, regardless of class, in exchange for military service. The transformation of a peaceful citizen into a killing machine is the key to the militarist state. Given that modernity is also characterised by liberation from a feudal society, ‘self-motivated soldiers who were committed to protecting their own country’, as represented by French draftees after the French
Revolution102 (Fujiwara, 2000, p. 21), could be the driving force to make the extreme transformation possible. However, the Japanese modernisation process ironically introduced an anachronistic feudal relationship between the emperor and the nation, which was central to the emperor-worship nationalism. This example illustrates the cultural particularities in the universal representation of modern citizen–soldier masculinity.
Modern militarism collaborates with nationalism because the modern nation is the
‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 2006), which gives rise to the necessity for people to feel a sense of belonging to ensure state legitimacy and consent to be ruled/governed. My
102 According to the research conducted by Fujiwara Akira, most soldiers in the French Army of the revolutionary regime were independent farmers who were liberated from villeinage by the French Revolution. Therefore, they knew that to protect their own country meant to secure their social status and lands (Fujiwara, 2001, p. 21). 214 analysis of modernised Japan demonstrates the emergence of an imagined community, which transformed itself from a decentralised feudal country to a unified modern nation- state under the patriarchal symbol of the emperor. The emperor-worship nationalism was the vehicle to mobilise the state’s war in which both men and women played roles based on a gendered division of labour. The “comfort women” system was the device by which the state not only controlled soldiers’ sexualities, but also deceived and manipulated their manhood and humanhood in order to create the hegemonic masculinity of the Japanese
Imperial Army. The emperor-worship as well as the “comfort women” system worked together in order to conceal the dehumanisation of soldiers brought by the modern masculinity of citizen–soldier. Thus, in a modern era, ‘[s]tates are founded on violence’ and ‘physical violence remains a tool that only the state is allowed to use’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 6).
Modernity thus strips humanity/humanisation from both women and men.
Fragmentation and segmentation of their sexuality and personhood becomes the politics of binaries embedded within this particular organisation of social and economic relations and political power. Therefore, the binaries such as the feminised and the masculinised,
“good” women and “bad” women, or elite and non-elite men, eliminate humanised relationships from the nation. In the next section, I will discuss the significance of integrity in order to restore human society by reflecting on the construction of their agency and subjectivity demonstrated by both Shirota and Kikumaru in the argument of
Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, respectively.
8.2 Integrity as the politics of humanisation
The politics of modernity continues to strip human elements from both personhood and nationhood beyond wartime, because modernity is situated at the opposite pole from integrity in the continuum of humanity. In this section, I will focus on the modernity-
215 memory nexus in individual and group identity construction because, as Michael Roth notes, ‘[i]n modernity memory is the key to personal and collective identity … the core of the psychological self’ (Roth, 1991, pp. 8-9, as cited in Klein, 2000). As discussed in
Chapter 3, the definition of the concept of integrity is to embrace the complexities of humanness (Morales, 1998), and the sense of integrity is achieved by the creation of the
‘coherence of the self’ (Linde, 1993). As Chapter 3 also discussed, the consistency in a self-narrative of personal history is established by integrating the past sense of self into the present sense of self. This process demonstrates the significance of integrity, which seeks to restore the complexity of humanness.
The dual identity of the citizen–soldier in a modern nation-state is inconsistent with integrity. Further, this dualism of ‘citizenship and soldiering’ is ‘gendered’
(Guardino, 2014, p. 24). In other words, the dual identity is ‘a form of masculinity peculiar to the modern nation-state’ (Nye, 2007, p. 417). The contestation of selfhood in two-layered masculinity inhibits former combatants from creating coherent life histories because the modern democratic state forces them to forget their war experiences as victimisers in order to sustain the state narrative. Traumatic war memories tear apart the time-honoured national narrative, which has been integral to perpetuating the national identity. Therefore, the establishment of the connection between the ‘trauma’ time when the nation-state is confronted by traumatic events, and the ‘linear’ time when it continues the normal time, is essential to statecraft (Edkins, 2005). For this purpose, the new democratic state of postwar Japan maintained the “modern” form of the emperor system, which was created by the Meiji government in 1868. Since then, the emperor has been at the centre of the state narrative as the nation’s Father. In order to acquit the emperor of war crimes, Japan’s national identity was fabricated by the state, which declared Japan a
216 war victim. This ‘defeat revisionism’ (Dower, 1999) even included war veterans into the category of victims.
This “democratisation” of victimhood among the victimiser constructs a new power relation between the victimised and the victimiser, which allows the (re)production of a particular gendered hierarchy between trauma and memory. The victimisers’ memories of trauma as represented by returning combatants’ PTSD are listened to and remembered, whereas the traumatised memories of their victims are silenced and forgotten. Accordingly, we never raise any questions about ‘the forms of individuality or personhood on which it [the democratic state] is based’ (Edkins, 2003, p. 10), nor the forms of statehood. This deception and dishonesty of personal, public and official narratives of memory and history violates the politics of integrity, which embraces both positive and negative sides of history in order to achieve the wholeness of being human.
Recognition of responsibility for war crimes and provision of a sincere apology as well as reparation to victims are the products of the politics of integrity.
Yet, as my analysis demonstrates, the political agency of silenced trauma victims resisted and challenged the nation-state of modernity, which thoroughly dehumanised them through continuous exploitation. As demonstrated by Shirota and Kikumaru, in
Chapter 6 and 7, respectively, their life-and/or-death battle for recovery from trauma signified their strong aspiration for the public recognition of them as human and not as a disposable non-subject. Their political subjectivities represented by the resistance to the inhumanness of the modern patriarchal nation-state give us guidance to understanding and conceptualising the path to the restoration of a sense of integrity in our traumatic modern world. This is the key to answer my third research question: How can we restore justice to and dignity of Japanese “comfort women”? First of all, we should listen to their voices of trauma characterised as ‘unspeakable’ (Herman, 1992) and ‘double-telling’
217 (Caruth, 1996). This means ‘not only to listen for the event, but to hear in the testimony the survivor’s departure from it’, where our challenge is how we can listen to their
‘departure’ (Caruth, 1995, p. 10). The survivor’s departure from her traumatic experience is demonstrated by the moment when she has switched her strategy to cope with trauma from the ‘flight’ mode to the ‘fight’ mode (Herman, 1992, p. 199), as shown by Shirota in Chapter 6 and Kikumaru in Chapter 7. Their departure was the manifestation of their strong aspiration for recognition as human. We need to listen to the survivors’ departure in order to help them speak of their trauma narratives. When we are able to inscribe their memories of trauma into history, as victims/survivors of the patriarchal militarist and capitalist nation-state, their victimhood will be officially recognised, and their justice and dignity will be restored. This is the only way that we also reclaim a sense of integrity to the modern nation-state and society, which has transcended what Bourke (2006) calls the
‘threshold of the human’ by repeatedly inflicting and dehumanising the victims for capitalist and militarist statecraft.
8.3 Research contributions
This thesis builds on and contributes to work in the field of war-related sexual violence against women, with a particular focus on the issue of the Japanese military system of sexual slavery. Although a number of studies about non-Japanese victims of the military prostitution system from its colonies and occupied territories have examined their victimhood, there has been only a handful with a strong focus on former Japanese
“comfort women”. Informed by previous studies by Nishino et al. (2015), as well as
Norma (2016), which reveal the invisibility and the victimisation of Japanese “comfort women” in the patriarchal militarist state, this study provides additional insights about the power relation between the state, and women and/or men. As such, this research differs from them by identifying the complexities of masculinised citizenship, feminised
218 subjectivities and humanhood in a modern society. In doing this, this research draws strongly upon the work by Pateman (1988), Linde (1993) and Tanaka (2004).
As the first contribution, the thesis research developed the traditional perspectives of trauma into the politics of trauma by introducing gender for its analysis. This builds upon decolonial feminist work where trauma and gender are always at the centre for analysis. The gender-lens revealed the power relations between individual trauma, collective trauma and/or the state, which perpetuated the gendered hierarchy of trauma and memory through the state’s manipulation of national identity. The politicisation of trauma becomes represented in ‘feminised resistance’ (Motta, 2013, 2014, 2016) and subjectivities of the trauma victims who challenge this political hierarchy. In this analysis, the old feminist framework of victimhood, which elides agency, is transformed into a new form of political agency that reveals the complexities of subject formation. This is the second contribution of my research to critical feminist arguments. This complex connection between victimhood and political agency as demonstrated by trauma victims will facilitate broader discussion about trauma and memory in political science. Also, by transcending the divisive victim–agency binary, this thesis will contribute to promoting feminist solidarity in order to support victimised women in a way that does not
(re)produce their silencing.
The third contribution of my study is to uncover the complexities of masculinities and develop it into the politics of integrity through the analysis of the citizen–soldier masculinity in modernity. The hierarchy of masculinities and male ‘homosocial bond’
(Sedgwick, 2015) in the Japanese Imperial Army revealed individual soldiers’ diverse aspirations for hegemonic masculinity and/or personhood. Their different masculine desires were demonstrated by different attitudes toward “comfort women”, such as resistant masculinity. However, most of them equated manhood with humanhood on the
219 battlefields because of the state’s subjectification of human emotions for its control of men. The citizen–soldier masculinity enabled the state to dominate men, even in peace time, by silencing their trauma as the killing machine. Thus, the hegemonic masculinity of citizen–soldier in modernity never allows men to establish their coherent life histories.
This finding contributes to and furthers Morales’ argument of the politics of integrity
(1998) by revealing the complexities of modern masculinities, which are central to determining gender relations, as well as the relationship with the state through construction of war memory and, finally, self and national identity.
The fourth contribution of this thesis is to the politics of memory and history in
Japan. This study adds gender-sensitive insights to the study of the modernised Japan since 1868. On the one hand, it reveals how the western-style modernisation introduced by the Meiji government ranging from conscription to the state-licensed prostitution system contributed to the state control and exploitation of women and men; in particular, from poor families. On the other, this research points out the particularity of Japan’s modernisation characterised by the emperor system, which has been central to national cohesion. In postwar Japan, Emperor Hirohito became what Nora (1989) called the ‘site of memory’. In other words, he functioned to impose a hierarchy of memory, by prioritising some memories over others. In short, soldiers are remembered and commemorated as war heroes, whereas their sex slaves are stigmatised and forgotten.
This state manipulation and representation of collective memories and national identity demonstrates the politics of memory and history; that is, the power relations between the state and the nation.
As Chapter 2 argued, under the second Abe government, the positivist view of history based upon the state narrative has prevailed through historical revisionist propaganda. In this political crisis, the state is seeking to return to its militaristic modern
220 origins by changing the Peace Constitution to a version similar to the Meiji
Constitution103. It appears that Japan has forgotten even its postwar national identity as war victims and is on a trajectory to revise itself yet again as a military power. The state historical revisionism in remembering and forgetting the war allows collective memory to be deceived and national history to be distorted through scapegoating feminised others.
In order to stop ‘the culture of victimhood’ (Morales, 1998, p. 8), it is urgent to listen to the traumatised voice of women such as Shirota, Kikumaru and other victims. This research provides gender-sensitive insights for listening to their voices and their speaking from the silence of trauma, helping to understand the politics of gender and trauma as well as the politics of integrity in personhood, nationhood and statehood in Japan.
My thesis draws upon the feminist activist methodology seeking to restore social justice and dignity to socially marginalised and historically silenced voices in political communities. As a form of ‘social activism’ (Ardovini, 2015, p. 51) committed to ethical and political accountability, this research will be able to contribute to the transnational feminist activism for justice of the victims of the Japanese military sexual slavery system particularly in two ways. First, it will help activists to locate and examine historically
(re)constructed power relations between a state, women and men, thereby identifying victimised women in order to help them to speak of their narratives of trauma. As discussed in Chapter 2, Japanese “comfort women” have been excluded from the transnational activism and scholarly debate about the “comfort women” issue. Given that
Imperial Japan transplanted the state-licensed prostitution system to both Korea and
Taiwan, among the victims from both countries were supposed to be civilian prostitutes at the time of their recruitment into “comfort stations”. Yet only a few of them came forward probably because the patriarchal binary of “good’ women and “bad” women
103 See the LDP’s draft constitution on their website: http://constitution.jimin.jp/document/draft/(Retrieved on 19/03/2019). 221 silenced their voices, like those of the Japanese survivors. I hope this study will help “all” victims of the Japanese military sexual slavery system to be included into the transnational activism, regardless of nationality and virginity. Second, my analysis of trauma, with a focus on the three-stage recovery from trauma informed by Herman
(1992), is insightful in understanding the psychology of traumatised victims, the significance of each process for healing them, and the role of a listener throughout the entire course. The oscillating nature of trauma between voice and silence or between life and death is integral to recognising dissociation and fragmentation of victims’ selfhood.
In order to avoid the tragedy inflicted upon Kikumaru, the establishment of psychological and physical safety should come first before telling a story of trauma. After constructing the secure foundation of an intimate community, we can help a victim of trauma as her
“listener” to tell her unspeakable story and finally to support her connection to her community (Motta, 2018).
8.4 Research implication: Beyond binaries of modernity
As this thesis has concluded, the modern patriarchal state has divided its nation between binaries, such as virgins-whores and victims-perpetrators, for the consolidation of the state’s power. These dichotomies in modernity allow historical revisionists to spread the one-dimensional prostitution representation of “comfort women” throughout the world.
In order to resist their positivist view of history, the transnational feminist activism has represented the “comfort women” as rape victims. However, this has resulted in the exclusion from the feminist activism of Japanese and other nationalities who were civilian prostitutes before and after they became military prostitutes. If the binaries are ruptured or broken, the space for their inclusion will open up. My thesis contests the historical revisionists’ view of history and challenges the dissecting discourse of modernity ontologically, epistemologically and ethically, by building upon the works by Motta
222 (2009, 2014, 2017, 2018) and Morales (1998). In applying the feminist activist approach, which facilitates self-reflection on the ‘interplay among theory, research, practice, and activism’ (Knight, 2000, p. 175), as well as the relationships between the researcher and the researched, this study retains ethical responsibility for ‘its social consequences’
(Harding & Norberg, 2005, p. 2010). Hence, this research promotes social justice for victims of the sexual slavery system by listening to and disseminating the silenced voices of their trauma.
Historical revisionism has distorted the identity of Kikumaru by using fragmented pieces of her life story. In other words, Kikumaru’s narrative was intentionally selected,
(mis)represented and disseminated in order to justify the revisionist argument that
“comfort women” were prostitutes who earned a lot of money during the war. She said in her suicide note to the male editor, ‘Please write my postwar story however you want’
(Hirota, 2009, p. 16). Responding to her voice, I interpreted her accounts of trauma in order to prevent historical revisionists from abusing her fragmented narrative for their benefit. I hope this thesis will help a wider community beyond academics to better understand, and listen in solidarity and with reflexivity to the unspeakable stories of trauma experienced by Shirota, Kikumaru and other victims of sexual slavery. I believe that if we can transcend the binaries of modernity that divide us between humans and non-humans, through our recognition of the pains inflicted upon the “other”, we will be able to restore human dignity and integrity to individual victims, ourselves, and to broader society in Japan and beyond.
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239 Appendices
Appendix 1
Brief Life Stories of Some Japanese “Comfort Women”
This section introduces the life stories of 10 Japanese “comfort women” survivors, which are mentioned mainly in Chapter 5 of this thesis. Its purpose is to allow the reader to see their narratives of trauma as coherent life stories instead of fragmented pieces. Their personal stories show us both similarities and differences in their experiences as “comfort women” survivors. Chapter 5 analyses some fundamental similarities and Chapter 6 and
7 focus on the differences.
1. Keiko (Sasakuri Fuji) (1937-45 serving privates in China, Borneo, Luzon,
Mindanao, Rabaul, Burma )104
Keiko was born as the first child of eleven to a poor famer family in Fukuoka. At the age of 17, she was sold to a private (unlicensed) brothel to reduce the number of mouths to feed in her family. Her father was indebted to the brothel owner for the sum of only 20 yen because he wished to promptly liberate her from the brothel. However, by the third year of Keiko’s bondage, the debt had accumulated more than triple to nearly 70 yen.
When she almost gave up on her freedom, she encountered a Japanese soldier, Kuramitsu
Takeo. He paid off her debt in his appreciation of her rescuing him from being sent to the war front due to the STD he contracted from Keiko. However, Keiko could not return home to her family because she sold her body. While still working at the brothel, she met a procurer of “comfort women” for the military and accepted an offer to work at a
Shanghai “comfort station” in the hope of finding Kuramitsu, who was heard to be deployed there.
104 See Senda (1985). 240 In reality, Keiko was among the first deployment of the “comfort women”. She followed the military from China to Borneo, Luzon, Mindanao, Rabaul and Burma. At the end of the war, she was put into a concentration camp for Japanese POWs. When she returned to Japan in 1947, the Japanese yen she earned during the war had no value due to the switch to new currencies. She thought that all she could do for survival was to work at a brothel. After 1958, when the Prostitution Prevention Law was enacted, she made her living by working as a maid at Japanese inns and restaurants. She always felt that she was despised and discriminated against, even by her colleagues who knew that she used to work as a prostitute.
2. Kikumaru (Yamauchi Keiko) (1942-1943 serving officers at a naval “comfort
station” in Truk)105
Kikumaru was born in 1925 in Hakodate, Hokkaido, where her father was employed as a marine engineer on a state-run shuttle ship between Hakodate and the Japanese mainland.
In the wake of the 1934 Great Fire in Hakodate, her family moved to Aomori in the mainland since Kikumaru and her mother were concerned about her father’s safety at sea.
As a result of his failed enterprise coupled with a strong sense of the first child’s responsibility to the family, Kikumaru, aged 10, voluntarily became an apprentice at a geisha house in Tokyo for a 10-year contract. When she was 14, she sexually served her first customer, who was prominent in the world of politics. She took great pride in his high profile. A few years later, overwhelmed by the cruel experience at the geisha house, she fled from there. It turned out that she returned to being a geisha to complete indenture.
Hearing that the army could pay off her accumulating debt to the geisha house owner, Kikumaru decided to work at a naval “comfort station” in the Truk Islands. She persuaded her father, who opposed her decision, by appealing to patriotic sentiments and
105 See Hirota (2009). 241 insisting that ‘I would go for the country’. In 1942, when she turned eighteen, she went to the Truk Islands as a ‘special nurse’, whose status, according to Kikumaru, was a civilian military employee. She was designated to serve Japanese military officers and became popular among them because of her beauty. She recalled that ‘she had the best time of her life in the Truk Islands’.
When she returned to Japan in 1944, she faced harsh life in wartime Japan. After the end of the war, she found employment as a dancer, then as an owner of a brothel catering to US soldiers, an employee of the black market or a café, and a hostess of a night club. However, she lived in persistent and abject poverty. In 1972, she committed suicide with only 870 yen left to her name. Her suicide note said, ‘Scatter her ashes after cremation in the Truk Islands’.
3. Miyagi Tsuru (Pseudonym) (1944-1945 serving officers in Okinawa)106
Miyagi was born in Okinawa. When she was four years old, her father passed away. A few years later, her grandmother, who became the breadwinner after her father’s death, also died. When Miyagi entered the fourth year of primary school, she started to work as a live-in babysitter in order to help her mother financially. However, Miyagi’s brother suffered from pneumonia. In order to save his life, her mother asked her to work at a factory in Saipan. Because Miyagi did not want to separate from her family, she chose to be juri at the Tsuji brothels. She was sold to Shōkarō, one of the best in Tsuji, and sexually served her first customer at around 16 years of age. Most of the customers of the fancy brothel were mainlanders. After the total destruction of the brothels by the US air raids on 10 October 1944, her regular customer, sergeant Miyake Subrō, rented a room for
Miyagi, who was already free from her family’s debt. He said to her, ‘Let’s get married and live together, when the war is over’. Then, she became pregnant. However, she left
106 See Kawata (1995, pp.151-72). 242 the room and joined the “comfort station” established at Murayā in Okinawa by the
Japanese military, because she felt it bad to let the Japanese soldier into the private citizen’s house every day.
What she said about the life at the “comfort station” was that she served only officers. When the US air raids began on 23 March 1945, she moved to an air-raid shelter with the Japanese military, where dozens of juri, including Uehata Eiko, were staying.
On 1 April 1945, the US military landed at Okinawa and their attack intensified. Miyagi finally surrendered to the US army with 12 other juri and a family, and three of them were raped by three US soldiers. Along with others, Miyagi was taken to a detention camp, where she gave a birth to a boy. Because of malnutrition, she could not breastfeed him.
He lived for 40 days and died. Soon after that, she heard of the death of his father, sergeant
Miyake.
After Japan’s defeat, Miyagi married a roof-tile workman and had five children.
Due to the increase of concrete houses, her husband lost his job. She brought up her children in poverty. Her brothers despised her as a prostitute, even the one whose life was saved by her decision to work at the brothel.
4. Mizuno Iku (1943-45 serving officers at a Japanese restaurant in Palau and
moved to Tinian in 1944)107
Mizuno was raised by Mizuno Choji, who found her abandoned by her parents shortly after she was born in Iwate in 1920. After his death, she was moved from one place to another to live with his relatives. Finally, when she was eight, they indentured her as a nursemaid at 20 yen to reduce the mouths to feed. At the age of 11, she was sold to a
Japanese inn to pay off the debts of her foster-father’s sister and her husband. When she was 14, she was raped by one of the inn’s customers. Three years later, she was raped by
107 See Nishino, R., Onozawa, A., & VAWW-RAC (2015, pp. 150-1). 243 her new employer while working as a maid at his wholesale store. She left the employ of the storekeeper and started to work in a pub, where she met her future husband. During her marriage, she experienced not only the humiliation of infidelity, but also poverty resulting from an unemployed husband, which ultimately forced her into prostitution.
After putting up her daughter for adoption, she began working as a prostitute at a brothel in Kawasaki.
In 1943, in order to pay off her debt to the brothel master, she decided to work as a “comfort woman” in Palau. She recalled that the life in Palau as a “comfort woman” serving officers was ‘full of good memories’. After leaving Palau, she moved to Tinian, where she gave birth to a daughter. Unfortunately, the baby had a sudden death. While she became a prisoner of war, she gave birth to a girl whose father was a Japanese soldier.
After Mizuno returned to Japan with her daughter in 1946, she left her daughter at a children’s nursing centre and became a street prostitute.
5. Shimada Yoshiko (Pseudonym) (1939-1941 serving privates in Manchuria)108
Shimada was born in 1931 to a poor farmer family in Fukuoka. At the age of 21, she was sold to the owner of a sake liquor shop, which operated restaurants providing prostitution services to their customers. When she was 26, she was attracted by a job offer from a civilian military agent. She thought that she would be able to pay off her debt by working as a “comfort woman”. She worked at a “comfort station” in China and paid off her debt in 18 months. She wanted to follow the army, but the army left her and other “comfort women” behind in order to prevent them from facing situations involving direct combat.
After her return from China, Shimada never went back to prostitution. Since 1949, she regularly attended annual reunion parties held by members of the brigade of soldiers that
108 See Shimada (1972). 244 she had served as a “comfort woman”. She ultimately married a divorced man while the soldiers kept secret her wartime job as a “comfort woman”.
6. Shirota Suzuko (Pseudonym) (1938-1945 serving privates in Taiwan and Saipan
and in Palau working as a receptionist of a naval “comfort station”)109
Shirota was born into a relatively wealthy family as the first child/daughter. After her mother’s death, the family business failed and her father sold her to a geisha house when she was aged 17. There, she was inflicted with syphilis by her first customer and became seriously ill. Faced with amounted debts, she had no choice but to work at a navy brothel in Taiwan, where she was overwhelmed by the sexual enslavement of women.
Fortunately, she was released from the brutal situation after her debts were paid off by an
Okinawan seaman who made her promise to marry him. However, breaking her promise, she was obliged to return to the “comfort stations” to pay the hospital bills for her brother, who was suffering from tuberculosis. She was sued for repayment by the seaman, who agreed her monthly repayment. In Truk, she was redeemed by Niijima, a factory owner, who sent his wife and children back to Tokyo. When the war was approaching to Truk,
Niijima returned Shirota to Tokyo, where she would not have any viable employment options other than prostitution. Finally, she found a job as a receptionist/accountant at a naval “comfort station” in Palau, where she witnessed brutal ends of Korean “comfort women”.
After the end of the war, Shirota became a prostitute for the US occupation forces in Japan. She became addicted to drugs and gambling. One day, she read an article about a Christian rehabilitation centre for women and decided to start her new life there.
Suffering from multiple diseases due to her long-term prostitution, she confessed her wartime experience as a “comfort woman” to a Christian reverend, Fukatsu Fumio. She
109 See Shirota (1971). 245 asked him to complete two things. One thing was to construct a home where former prostitutes could stay until their death; and the other was to establish a monument to console the dead souls of “comfort women”. In 1965, the Japanese government founded the Kanita Women’s Village, where Shirota would spend the rest of her life. Fukatsu erected a wooden monument on a hill in the village. The wooden memorial was replaced by a stone one thanks to money donated by those who read or listened to Shirota’s testimony. In 1993, she died peacefully with all of her wishes answered.
7. Suzumoto Aya (Pseudonym) (1942-1943 serving privates at a naval “comfort
station” in Truk)110
In 1924, Suzumoto was born into a fisherman’s family as the first child of nine. In order to pay off the debt of her father, who was a drinker, a gambler and a playboy, she had been repeatedly sold as an apprentice to geisha houses since the age of seven years old.
At the age of 15, she was sold to a geisha venue, where she had the first sexual customer.
Because she had always found the geisha training unbearable since seven years old, she decided to leave there before turning 20. In 1942, at the age of 18, she became a “comfort woman” for enlisted soldiers in the Truk Islands to complete her indenture to the geisha house. She was told that if she worked as a military “comfort woman”, she would be enshrined at the Yasukumi war shrine after her death. Therefore, at the time, she did not have an inferiority complex about her job.
By 1942, when she returned to Japan, she had completely repaid her debt to the military, leaving her with approximately 10,000 yen left. Facing her father’s insistence, she finally gave up half of her savings to him. At the age of 32, she became a mistress of a man who was 29 years older. Then she married a widower with two teenage daughters.
110 See Hirota (2009). 246 He was divorced from three prior marriages. Like Kikumaru, she recalled the memories in the Truk Islands as the best in her life.
Suzumoto and Kikumaru never met each other even though they boarded the same ship going to and returning from the Truk Islands.
8. Takanashi Taka (1939-1940 serving officers in Saipan and privates in Makasarr
of Celebes)111
In 1904, during the height of the Russo-Japanese War, Takanashi was born into a wealthy family. Her father, who was a gambler employed by a casino, was apprehended in a police raid shortly after the Japanese government enacted a new law that banned gambling. This incident forced her father to seek legitimate employment. However, being unfamiliar with physical labour, the rigours of legitimate employment ruined his health. In order to provide help for the family, Takanashi started to work at a local factory at the age of nine.
Ultimately her father suffering mental health issues attributable to syphilis, and died when she was 10 years old. One year later, she worked as a live-in maid, and at the age of 14, she was sold to a geisha house. When she turned 16, she married a tailor and gave birth to a daughter. Until her marriage, she did not recognise that her husband was addicted to gambling. She and her daughter fell upon financially difficult times. After her husband’s death at the age of 19, Takanashi was sold to a brothel by her mother while her daughter was adopted by her uncle.
Takanashi married a man who paid off her debt to the brothel, but she divorced him several years later. When she was 24, she moved to her uncle’s house, where her daughter was looked after. She promptly sold herself to a brothel in order to alleviate her uncle’s poverty and to provide a better life of her daughter. While she endured another failed marriage, Takanashi successfully ran away from her brothel without repayment of
111 See Tamai (1984). 247 her debts to the brothel owner. However, she was also addicted to gambling. During this time, she grew to be disgusted with her futile life and decided to work as a prostitute in
Saipan in order to earn money. She was 28 when she arrived in Saipan.
Returning to Japan in 1939, she took her saving of 2,000 yen and went to China in order to profit from Japan’s war effort and occupation. While stationed in Nanjing, she was designated to service Japanese military officers. Takanashi’s humour and engaging personality boosted her popularity among the officers. One of the military officers served by her forced her to return to Japan in order to protect her safety. While she was back in
Japan, she was asked by a broker for local brothels to find several prostitutes in Korea.
After she returned from Korea in 1942, when she was 39 years old, Takanashi followed a military brothel owner to Makasarr of Celebes in Indonesia, where the Japanese were expanding their military presence. While in Indonesia, Takanashi was designated to provide sexual services to enlisted soldiers.
A civilian military man, Takanashi, paid off her debts and married her when they returned to Japan in 1943. However, in 1944, her husband was transferred to Medan in
South Sea Islands and she went to Co Tara Well. Her husband was returning to Japan by a Japanese naval vessel, which was attacked by the Allied Forces. After her husband’s death, Takanashi earned her living by lending money and gambling.
9. Tanaka Tami (Pseudonym) (1944 working at a military brothel for air forces in
Shigehara, Japan)112
Tanaka was born in 1928 but when her parents divorced at the age of five, she and her younger brother were taken care of by their father, who was a coal miner. In attempts to start his numerous business ventures, her father kept her working as a nursemaid and then he finally sold her to a geisha house owner when she was 13. Then he resold her to a
112 See Kawata (2014). 248 brothel owner in Chiba in order to secure money to set out on new business venture.
Shortly after her arrival at the brothel, she was raped by the owner. A few months later in
1944, this same brothel owner took her to a “comfort station” at a Japanese air force base in Shigehara. Because she wanted to be free from the military “comfort woman” job as soon as possible, she spent for repayment all the money left after deducting the loan and everyday expenses from her salary.
Tanaka and other “comfort girls” drew a parallel between their own lives and destinies and those of young solders designated for Kamikaze suicide attack missions and actually fell in love with them. The residents in the neighbourhood appreciated “comfort girls”, telling them that they were making great efforts for the country. After the end of the war, Takana became a mistress of a resident in Shigehara but she left him when his wife and children returned to him. After ceasing to be this man’s mistress, Tanaka went back to her hometown, where she was disappointed by her affluent father who was spending lots of money for his new wife and their children. After leaving her father’s house, Tanaka became a popular geisha entertainer, which precluded her from engagement in prostitution. While at the geisha house, she encountered Fusa, who worked with Tanaka at the Shigehara “comfort station”. However, in public, they pretended not to know each other.
Between 14-16 January 1992, one month after the first group lawsuit was filed against the Japanese government by Kim Hak-sun and two other Korean surviving
“comfort women’, a “comfort women” hotline was established in Japan. Kawata Fumiko, a Japanese journalist working the hotline, received a call made by Tanaka, who wanted to let people know about the existence of domestic “comfort stations”. Kawata’s journalist instinct led her to conclude that the caller might be a former “comfort woman”.
This chance encounter gave Kawata an opportunity to interview Tanaka. Currently,
249 Tanaka is 86 and runs a clothing shop. Since the end of the war, Tanaka has been overcoming the feelings of shame and humiliation as a former “comfort woman”, by engaging in ‘legitimate’ occupations.
10. Uehara Eiko (Pseudonym) (1944-1945 in Okinawa)113
Born in 1915 and raised in Okinawa, at age four, Uehara was sold by her poor parents to the Tsuji brothel that provided a fancy restaurant. When she was 15, she serviced her first customer without knowing what it meant to her. After the US air raids totally destroyed the fancy restaurant brothel in 1944, the Japanese military incorporated the brothel prostitutes into the military “comfort stations”. In 1945, while Uehara was hiding herself with other “comfort women” in a cave, they were caught and raped by US soldiers. Then, they were temporarily held as US prisoners of war. While working as a housemaid for several US military families, she was able to learn English and immersed herself in
American culture. Then she opened a café in the US base, where she met and married
Richard Rose, a discharged public servant. She also reconstructed a fancy restaurant where the Tsuji brothel used to be situated. Her Okinawan restaurant, Matsu no Shita, was the basis for the bestselling novel, the Teahouse of August Moon by Vern J. Sneider.
Through hardships such as a civil lawsuit against her, and her husband’s death in 1971, she never lost a strong sense of pride as an Okinawan. She wrote an autobiography, in which she kept her silence on her experiences at the military “comfort station”.
113 See Uehara (2010). 250 Appendix 2
The Imperial Rescript on Surrender (Gyokuon Hōsō)
This script is the Imperial Rescript on Surrender (Gyokuon Hōsō), which was recorded by Emperor Hirohito and aired on the radio on 15 August 1945. This was Hirohito’s direct announcement to his subjects and its purpose was to maintain his status by silencing their criticism of his handling of the war as the commander-in-chief. For this end, he represented himself as the saviour of the nation who made the painful decision to surrender for the sake of his subjects. The Imperial Rescript is discussed in Chapter 5.
The original script was difficult for the general public to understand because it was written in the old language style with Chinese origins. Therefore, the interpretation of the announced rescript into the colloquial Japanese language was followed. This is the original script:
『大東亜戦争終結ノ詔書』原文 (昭和 20 年 8 月 14 日)114
朕深ク世界ノ大勢ト帝国ノ現状トニ鑑ミ非常ノ措置ヲ以テ時局ヲ収拾セムト欲
シ茲ニ忠良ナル爾臣民ニ告ク
朕ハ帝国政府ヲシテ米英支蘇四国ニ対シ其ノ共同宣言ヲ受諾スル旨通告セシメ
タリ
抑々帝国臣民ノ康寧ヲ図リ万邦共栄ノ楽ヲ偕ニスルハ皇祖皇宗ノ遣範ニシテ朕 ノ拳々措カサル所 曩ニ米英二国ニ宣戦セル所以モ亦実ニ帝国ノ自存ト東亜ノ 安定トヲ庶幾スルニ出テ他国ノ主権ヲ排シ領土ヲ侵スカ如キハ固ヨリ朕カ志ニ
アラス
然ルニ交戦已ニ四歳ヲ閲シ朕カ陸海将兵ノ勇戦朕カ百僚有司ノ励精朕カ一億衆 庶ノ奉公各々最善ヲ尽セルニ拘ラス戦局必スシモ好転セス世界ノ大勢亦我ニ利 アラス 加之敵ハ新ニ残虐ナル爆弾ヲ使用シテ無辜ヲ殺傷シ惨害ノ及フ所真ニ
114 This original script is mentioned in Sato (2005, p. 8). 251 測ルヘカラサルニ至ル而モ尚交戦ヲ継続セムカ終ニ我カ民族ノ滅亡ヲ招来スル ノミナラス延テ人類ノ文明ヲモ破却スヘシ斯ノ如クムハ朕何ヲ以テカ億兆ノ赤 子ヲ保シ皇祖皇宗ノ神霊ニ謝セムヤ是レ朕カ帝国政府ヲシテ共同宣言ニ応セシ
ムルニ至レル所以ナリ
朕ハ帝国ト共ニ終始東亜ノ解放ニ協力セル諸盟邦ニ対シ遺憾ノ意ヲ表セサルヲ 得ス帝国臣民ニシテ戦陣ニ死シ職域ニ殉シ非命ニ斃レタル者及其ノ遺族ニ想ヲ 致セハ五内為ニ裂ク且戦傷ヲ負ヒ災禍ヲ蒙リ家業ヲ失ヒタル者ノ厚生ニ至リテ
ハ朕ノ深ク軫念スル所ナリ 惟フニ今後帝国ノ受クヘキ困難ハ固ヨリ尋常ニアラス爾臣民ノ衷情モ朕善ク之 ヲ知ル 然レトモ朕ハ時運ノ趨ク所耐ヘ難キヲ耐ヘ忍ヒ難キヲ忍ヒ以テ万世ノ
為ニ太平ヲ開カムト欲ス
朕ハ茲ニ国体ヲ護持シ得テ忠良ナル爾臣民ノ赤誠ニ信倚シ常ニ爾臣民ト共ニ在 リ若シ夫レ情ノ激スル所濫ニ事端ヲ滋クシ或ハ同胞排擠互ニ時局ヲ乱リ為ニ大 道ヲ誤リ信義ヲ世界ニ失フカ如キハ朕最モ之ヲ戒ム宜シク挙国一家子孫相伝ヘ 確ク神州ノ不滅ヲ信シ任重クシテ道遠キヲ念ヒ総力ヲ将来ノ建設ニ傾ケ道義ヲ 篤クシ志操ヲ鞏クシ誓テ国体ノ精華ヲ発揚シ世界ノ進運ニ後レサラムコトヲ期
スヘシ爾臣民其レ克く朕カ意ヲ体セヨ
御名御璽
Our Good and Loyal Subjects (14 August 1945)115
After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in Our Empire today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.
115 At the request of the then-Japanese government, this transcript was translated into English by Tadaichi Hirakawa, the host of the Japanese radio show, “Come, Come English”. This English version was broadcast overseas (Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Imperial_Rescript_on_Surrender, accessed on 21 April 2017). 252 We have ordered Our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United
States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that Our Empire accepts the provisions of their Joint Declaration.
To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-being of Our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by
Our Imperial Ancestors, and which We lay close to heart. Indeed, We declared war on
America and Britain out of Our sincere desire to secure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from Our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandisement. But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone -- the gallant fighting of military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest. Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.
Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are We to save the millions of Our subjects; or to atone Ourselves before the hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors? This is the reason why We have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the Joint Declaration of the
Powers.
253 We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to Our Allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire towards the emancipation of East Asia. The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met with untimely death and all their bereaved families, pains Our heart night and day. The welfare of the wounded and the war-sufferers, and of those who have lost their home and livelihood, are the objects of
Our profound solicitude. The hardships and sufferings to which Our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great. We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all ye, Our subjects. However, it is according to the dictate of time and fate that We have resolved to pave the way for grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable.
Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the Imperial State, We are always with ye, Our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity.
Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may endanger needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strife which may create confusion, lead ye astray and cause ye to lose the confidence of the world. Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its divine land and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibilities, and the long road before it. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future.
Cultivate the ways of rectitudes; foster nobility of spirit; and work with resolution so as ye may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State and keep place which the progress of the world.
254 Appendix 3
The “Oath” Read by Japanese “Comfort Women” for the Occupation Army
The following statement is the proclamation that was publicly read on 28 August 1945 by Japanese “comfort women”, who were formally provided to the occupation army. The then-Japanese government initiated and sponsored the establishment of the postwar
“comfort women” system for the occupied forces, RAA (Recreation and Amusement
Association). This declaration providing for the Japanese “comfort women” for the US occupation army corresponds to the Imperial Rescript as the “oath” of allegiance to
Emperor Hirohito, as discussed in Chapter 5.
Here is the excerpt from the original Japanese script116:
邦家三千年山容河相河むるなしと雖も、昭和二十年八月十五日の慟哭を一期とし、極 まりなき悲痛と涯しまき憂苦とに縛られ危くも救い難き絶望のどん底に沈淪せんとす。
（中略）
時ありて、命くだりて、予て我等が職域を通じ、戦後処理の国家的緊急施設の一端と して、駐屯軍慰安の難事業を課せられる。命重く且大なり。而も成功は難中の難なり。
（中略）
只同志結盟して信念の命ずる処に直往し、“昭和のお吉”幾千人かの人柱の上に、狂 瀾 を阻む防波堤を築き、民族の純潔を百年の彼方に護持培養すると共に、戦後社会秩序
の根本に見へざる地下の柱たらんとす。（中略）
声明を結ぶに当り一言す。我らは断じて進駐軍に媚びるものに非ず、節を枉げ心を売 るものに非ず、止むべからざる儀礼を払ひ、条約の一端の履行にも貢献し、社会の安
116 The original Japanese script was partly quoted by Makabe Hiroshi (1978, pp. 200-1). According to Makabe, this declaration was drafted by the executive director of RAA, Tsuji Minoru (Makabe, 1978, p. 201). 255 寧に寄与し、以て大にして之を言へば国体護持に挺身せむとするに他ならざることを、
重ねて直言し、以て声明となす。
John Dower’s Translation of the Japanese Statement into English117
Although our family has endured for 3,000 years, unchanging as the mountains and valleys, the rivers and grasses, since the great rending of August 15, 1945, which marked the end of an era, we have been wracked with infinite, piercing grief and endless sorrow, and are about to sink to the bottom of perilous, bondless desperation.
The time has come, an order has been given, and by virtue of our realm of business we have been assigned the difficult task of comforting the occupation army as part of the urgent national facilities of postwar management. This order is heavy and immense. And success will be extremely difficult.
And so we unite and go forward to where our beliefs lead us, and through the sacrifice of several thousands of “Okichis of our era” [we] build a breakwater to hold back the raging waves and defend and nurture the purity of our race, becoming as well an invisible underground pillar at the roof of the postwar social order.
A word as we conclude this proclamation, we are absolutely not flattering the occupation force. We are not compromising our integrity or selling our souls. We are paying an inescapable courtesy, and a service to fulfil one part of our obligations and contribute to the security of our society. We dare say it loudly: we are but offering ourselves for the defence of the national polity. We reaffirm this. This is our proclamation.
117 See Dower(1999, pp. 127-8). 256 Appendix 4
The List of Primary Sources of Shirota Suzuko
Shirota’s handwritten materials, as shown in the following list, had been preserved by
Kanita Fujin no Mura [Kanita Women’s Village] until 2015, when they were moved to the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM) for the registration of “comfort women” documents with The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO)’s Memory of the World Register. The private museum permitted me to access to her personal records for my research. My analysis of Shirota’s primary sources appear in Chapter 6.
No. Category Year Title Total Vols 1 Diary 1956 Nikki [Diary] 1 2 Diary 1957 Arekara Ninen [Two years have passed since I moved to 1 Jiairyō] 3 Periodical 1958- Genseki [Gemstone] (It was published by Izumiryō and 11 63 included articles contributed by Shirota.) 4 Essay 1960 Byōin de kaita [I wrote this in my hospital] 1 5 Novel 1960- Yashi no tsuki [The Moon of coconut] 4 61 6 Diary 1961- Subarashiki tatakai [My wonderful battle] 1 62 7 Essay 1963 Aruhito no shi ni omou [My thought about someone’s 1 death] 8 Essay 1963 Q fujin no shōten [The death of Mrs. Q] 1 9 Essay 1964 Awarena musuko [A miserable son] 1 10 Diary 1965 Anjū no chi o motomete [Seeking my final home] 5 11 Diary 1965- Shakunetsu no on’ai omotte megumitamau [Blessing 1 66 with burning love] 12 Diary 1978- Kamisama no gokeikaku [God’s plan] 74* 82 13 Diary 1982- Omoitsukumama [Something coming into my mind] 1 83
257 14 Diary 1986- Watashi no okkanai taikenki [My scary experience] 2 88 15 Diary 1988 Aa inochi tōtoshi [How precious life is.] 1 16 Diary 1991- Arinomama nichijō no arinomama o kakimasyō [As it 1 92 is. I will write my everyday life as it is] 17 Letters To Fukatsu and others including Japanese prime ministers *Volume no. 65-69 were missing.
Primary sources written by the staff members of Kanita
18 Diary 1957-58 Karuisawa nisshi [Journal in Karuisawa] written by 1 Shcwester Shinobu who looked after Shirota in Karuisawa 19 Essay 1958 Atogaki [Afterword] written by Fukatsu 1
258 Appendix 5
Kikumaru’s Suicide Note
Kikumaru’s suicide note addressed to Hiratsuka Masao, a male editor of a publisher,
Tokuma Shoten, was included by Hirota Kazuko in her book.118 This is her entire note translated by the author:
Dear Mr Hiratsuka,
Who on earth could anticipate my death? Everybody would laugh at the last 19 months of my life. Since I decided to commit suicide, there have been times that I have felt like I cannot work anymore. I could not raise even the smallest of cries. Because I have not been able to pay the house rent since last September, I could not even put my head outside of the window of my room. Even in my room, I have been constantly hiding from my neighbours, by shrinking less than my height, which is nearly 150 centimetres tall. I failed to resist the worthless man who gave me a monthly allowance of 50,000 yen [equivalent to US$165 at the exchange rate in 1972] little by little. When I told him that I was going to work, he asked me to wait for a moment. Then from his worry about whether I would leave him, he came to see me at five in the morning or midnight. He was not even a learned man. When I recognised it, he lost everything due to his failure in business. This is why his ex-wife left him. His current wife doesn’t know anything about him. She is 50 years old, which would be okay, but the age of his ex-wife plus that of his current wife equals 100 [sic].
It may be my destiny to die right before turning 48 years old. After serious consideration, I wrote everything about my youth because I wanted to remove this endless feeling of agony from the bottom of my heart. You might think that many [surviving “comfort”] women would respond to the article. However, other women were clever. They were not as stupid as I was. Please write my postwar story how ever you want.
I have one thing to ask you. After my cremation, please sprinkle some of my ash into the ocean surrounding Truk Island. I will give my memorable ‘Abai’ to you, so please cherish it. Please send my photos kept at your office to my sister.
118 See Hirota (2009, pp. 16-8). 259 It is okay for you and Mr Inō119 to pay women for fun. But please don’t own those women because they feel so miserable that they will curse you for the rest of your life.
As I live in grinding poverty, people stay away from me. When I come across other residents of my apartment outside, they look at me like a nuisance.
I am despised by my young neighbours. As long as they are alive, I will curse them. They are glib talkers. It might be better if I would be among them. But I am too good-natured and it would be better than being greedy. It is getting dark today.
The man who deceived me was 59 years old. Dribbling on, he had sex that outshone young people while I was thinking about other things. He hardly takes a bath so that sometimes his grime remains. Who can have a smile and have sex with him? He swallows the dribble from his false teeth. It’s disgusting to think about it. I am sorry to cause trouble to someone. My husband’s address is at Y industry, OO Town, OO Ward, Tokyo.
When I visited him, his toes looked like a crab due to neuralgia. When we slept together for the first time, he was sleeping in socks. His fingers looked like a crab. Good to match his toes. He is a dull man with a big penis. I want to see the wife who has been together with him for 10 years.
I would like to thank the staff of your publisher for everything.
I am very happy with my friend who allowed me to work at her restaurant without asking me any questions.
Goodbye.
119 He was a writer who interviewed Kikumaru (Hirota, 2009, p. 17). 260 Appendix 6
Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhei on the result of the study on the issue of "comfort women"120
August 4, 1993
The Government of Japan has been conducting a study on the issue of wartime "comfort women" since December 1991. I wish to announce the findings as a result of that study.
As a result of the study which indicates that comfort stations were operated in extensive areas for long periods, it is apparent that there existed a great number of comfort women. Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military authorities of the day. The then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women. The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military. The Government study has revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.
As to the origin of those comfort women who were transferred to the war areas, excluding those from Japan, those from the Korean Peninsula accounted for a large part. The Korean Peninsula was under Japanese rule in those days, and their recruitment, transfer, control, etc., were conducted generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, etc.
Undeniably, this was an act, with the involvement of the military authorities of the day that severely injured the honor and dignity of many women. The Government of Japan would like to take this opportunity once again to extend its sincere apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.
120 Retrieved from the home page of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/women/fund/state9308.html. (Accessed on 17 August 2018). 261 It is incumbent upon us, the Government of Japan, to continue to consider seriously, while listening to the views of learned circles, how best we can express this sentiment.
We shall face squarely the historical facts as described above instead of evading them, and take them to heart as lessons of history. We hereby reiterate our firm determination never to repeat the same mistake by forever engraving such issues in our memories through the study and teaching of history.
As actions have been brought to court in Japan and interests have been shown in this issue outside Japan, the Government of Japan shall continue to pay full attention to this matter, including private researched related thereto.
262 Appendix 7
Statement by Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi "On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end"121
15 August 1995
The world has seen fifty years elapse since the war came to an end. Now, when I remember the many people both at home and abroad who fell victim to war, my heart is overwhelmed by a flood of emotions.
The peace and prosperity of today were built as Japan overcame great difficulty to arise from a devastated land after defeat in the war. That achievement is something of which we are proud, and let me herein express my heartfelt admiration for the wisdom and untiring effort of each and every one of our citizens. Let me also express once again my profound gratitude for the indispensable support and assistance extended to Japan by the countries of the world, beginning with the United States of America. I am also delighted that we have been able to build the friendly relations which we enjoy today with the neighboring countries of the Asia-Pacific region, the United States and the countries of Europe.
Now that Japan has come to enjoy peace and abundance, we tend to overlook the pricelessness and blessings of peace. Our task is to convey to younger generations the horrors of war, so that we never repeat the errors in our history. I believe that, as we join hands, especially with the peoples of neighboring countries, to ensure true peace in the Asia-Pacific region -indeed, in the entire world- it is necessary, more than anything else, that we foster relations with all countries based on deep understanding and trust. Guided by this conviction, the Government has launched the Peace, Friendship and Exchange Initiative, which consists of two parts promoting: support for historical research into relations in the modern era between Japan and the neighboring countries of Asia and elsewhere; and rapid expansion of exchanges with those countries. Furthermore, I will continue in all sincerity to do my utmost in efforts being made on the issues arisen from
121 Retrieved from the home page of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: https://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/press/pm/murayama/9508.html. (Accessed on 17 August 2018). 263 the war, in order to further strengthen the relations of trust between Japan and those countries.
Now, upon this historic occasion of the 50th anniversary of the war's end, we should bear in mind that we must look into the past to learn from the lessons of history, and ensure that we do not stray from the path to the peace and prosperity of human society in the future.
During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. Allow me also to express my feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, of that history.
Building from our deep remorse on this occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, Japan must eliminate self-righteous nationalism, promote international coordination as a responsible member of the international community and, thereby, advance the principles of peace and democracy. At the same time, as the only country to have experienced the devastation of atomic bombing, Japan, with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, must actively strive to further global disarmament in areas such as the strengthening of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It is my conviction that in this way alone can Japan atone for its past and lay to rest the spirits of those who perished.
It is said that one can rely on good faith. And so, at this time of remembrance, I declare to the people of Japan and abroad my intention to make good faith the foundation of our Government policy, and this is my vow.
264 Appendix 8
Statement by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo122
On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, we must calmly reflect upon the road to war, the path we have taken since it ended, and the era of the 20th century. We must learn from the lessons of history the wisdom for our future.
More than one hundred years ago, vast colonies possessed mainly by the Western powers stretched out across the world. With their overwhelming supremacy in technology, waves of colonial rule surged toward Asia in the 19th century. There is no doubt that the resultant sense of crisis drove Japan forward to achieve modernization. Japan built a constitutional government earlier than any other nation in Asia. The country preserved its independence throughout. The Japan-Russia War gave encouragement to many people under colonial rule from Asia to Africa.
After World War I, which embroiled the world, the movement for self-determination gained momentum and put brakes on colonization that had been underway. It was a horrible war that claimed as many as ten million lives. With a strong desire for peace stirred in them, people founded the League of Nations and brought forth the General Treaty for Renunciation of War. There emerged in the international community a new tide of outlawing war itself.
At the beginning, Japan, too, kept steps with other nations. However, with the Great Depression setting in and the Western countries launching economic blocs by involving colonial economies, Japan's economy suffered a major blow. In such circumstances, Japan's sense of isolation deepened and it attempted to overcome its diplomatic and economic deadlock through the use of force. Its domestic political system could not serve as a brake to stop such attempts. In this way, Japan lost sight of the overall trends in the world.
With the Manchurian Incident, followed by the withdrawal from the League of Nations, Japan gradually transformed itself into a challenger to the new international order that the
122 Retrieved from the home page of the Prime Minister of Japan and his Cabinet: https://japan.kantei.go.jp/97_abe/statement/201508/0814statement.html. (Accessed on 17 August 2018). 265 international community sought to establish after tremendous sacrifices. Japan took the wrong course and advanced along the road to war.
And, seventy years ago, Japan was defeated.
On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, I bow my head deeply before the souls of all those who perished both at home and abroad. I express my feelings of profound grief and my eternal, sincere condolences.
More than three million of our compatriots lost their lives during the war: on the battlefields worrying about the future of their homeland and wishing for the happiness of their families; in remote foreign countries after the war, in extreme cold or heat, suffering from starvation and disease. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the air raids on Tokyo and other cities, and the ground battles in Okinawa, among others, took a heavy toll among ordinary citizens without mercy.
Also in countries that fought against Japan, countless lives were lost among young people with promising futures. In China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands and elsewhere that became the battlefields, numerous innocent citizens suffered and fell victim to battles as well as hardships such as severe deprivation of food. We must never forget that there were women behind the battlefields whose honour and dignity were severely injured.
Upon the innocent people did our country inflict immeasurable damage and suffering. History is harsh. What is done cannot be undone. Each and every one of them had his or her life, dream, and beloved family. When I squarely contemplate this obvious fact, even now, I find myself speechless and my heart is rent with the utmost grief.
The peace we enjoy today exists only upon such precious sacrifices. And therein lies the origin of postwar Japan.
We must never again repeat the devastation of war.
Incident, aggression, war -- we shall never again resort to any form of the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. We shall abandon colonial rule forever and respect the right of self-determination of all peoples throughout the world.
266 With deep repentance for the war, Japan made that pledge. Upon it, we have created a free and democratic country, abided by the rule of law, and consistently upheld that pledge never to wage a war again. While taking silent pride in the path we have walked as a peace-loving nation for as long as seventy years, we remain determined never to deviate from this steadfast course.
Japan has repeatedly expressed the feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for its actions during the war. In order to manifest such feelings through concrete actions, we have engraved in our hearts the histories of suffering of the people in Asia as our neighbours: those in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, and Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and China, among others; and we have consistently devoted ourselves to the peace and prosperity of the region since the end of the war.
Such position articulated by the previous cabinets will remain unshakable into the future.
However, no matter what kind of efforts we may make, the sorrows of those who lost their family members and the painful memories of those who underwent immense sufferings by the destruction of war will never be healed. Thus, we must take to heart the following.
The fact that more than six million Japanese repatriates managed to come home safely after the war from various parts of the Asia-Pacific and became the driving force behind Japan’s postwar reconstruction; the fact that nearly three thousand Japanese children left behind in China were able to grow up there and set foot on the soil of their homeland again; and the fact that former POWs of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and other nations have visited Japan for many years to continue praying for the souls of the war dead on both sides.
How much emotional struggle must have existed and what great efforts must have been necessary for the Chinese people who underwent all the sufferings of the war and for the former POWs who experienced unbearable sufferings caused by the Japanese military in order for them to be so tolerant nevertheless?
That is what we must turn our thoughts to reflect upon.
Thanks to such manifestation of tolerance, Japan was able to return to the international community in the postwar era. Taking this opportunity of the 70th anniversary of the end
267 of the war, Japan would like to express its heartfelt gratitude to all the nations and all the people who made every effort for reconciliation.
In Japan, the postwar generations now exceed eighty per cent of its population. We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize. Still, even so, we Japanese, across generations, must squarely face the history of the past. We have the responsibility to inherit the past, in all humbleness, and pass it on to the future.
Our parents’ and grandparents’ generations were able to survive in a devastated land in sheer poverty after the war. The future they brought about is the one our current generation inherited and the one we will hand down to the next generation. Together with the tireless efforts of our predecessors, this has only been possible through the goodwill and assistance extended to us that transcended hatred by a truly large number of countries, such as the United States, Australia, and European nations, which Japan had fiercely fought against as enemies.
We must pass this down from generation to generation into the future. We have the great responsibility to take the lessons of history deeply into our hearts, to carve out a better future, and to make all possible efforts for the peace and prosperity of Asia and the world.
We will engrave in our hearts the past, when Japan attempted to break its deadlock with force. Upon this reflection, Japan will continue to firmly uphold the principle that any disputes must be settled peacefully and diplomatically based on the respect for the rule of law and not through the use of force, and to reach out to other countries in the world to do the same. As the only country to have ever suffered the devastation of atomic bombings during war, Japan will fulfil its responsibility in the international community, aiming at the non-proliferation and ultimate abolition of nuclear weapons.
We will engrave in our hearts the past, when the dignity and honour of many women were severely injured during wars in the 20th century. Upon this reflection, Japan wishes to be a country always at the side of such women’s injured hearts. Japan will lead the world in making the 21st century an era in which women’s human rights are not infringed upon.
We will engrave in our hearts the past, when forming economic blocs made the seeds of conflict thrive. Upon this reflection, Japan will continue to develop a free, fair and open
268 international economic system that will not be influenced by the arbitrary intentions of any nation. We will strengthen assistance for developing countries, and lead the world toward further prosperity. Prosperity is the very foundation for peace. Japan will make even greater efforts to fight against poverty, which also serves as a hotbed of violence, and to provide opportunities for medical services, education, and self-reliance to all the people in the world.
We will engrave in our hearts the past, when Japan ended up becoming a challenger to the international order. Upon this reflection, Japan will firmly uphold basic values such as freedom, democracy, and human rights as unyielding values and, by working hand in hand with countries that share such values, hoist the flag of “Proactive Contribution to Peace,” and contribute to the peace and prosperity of the world more than ever before.
Heading toward the 80th, the 90th and the centennial anniversary of the end of the war, we are determined to create such a Japan together with the Japanese people.
August 14, 2015 Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan
269 The List of Interviewees in 2016
1. Amaha Michiko (the honorary head of Kanita Women’s Village) 11 May, Chiba
2. Hirota, Kazuko (former journalist) 5 June, Tokyo
3. Igeta Midori (member of the VAWW-RAC Executive Board) 6 June, Tokyo
4. Ikeda Eriko (The director of WAM) 26 May, Tokyo
5. Kawata, Fumiko (journalist) 13 May, Tokyo
6. Matsumoto Masayoshi (war veteran/former Christian priest) 15 June, Tokyo
7. Nakahara Michiko (The co-head of VAWW-RAC/ laureate professor of Waseda University) 7 June, Tokyo
8. Nishino Rumiko (The co-head of VAWW-RAC / journalist) 23 June, Tokyo
9. Morikawa Shizuko (former Schwester/activist) 26 April, Saitama
10. Takemi Chieko (documentary film director) (on the phone) 13 July, Tokyo
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