Comfort Women Issue
One hundred eighty-seven historians from around the world made a group statement on May 6 to urge Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to admit to and be responsible for Japan’s faults regarding comfort women.
Back in February, 20 American historians had issued a similar statement. This time, however, a larger number of leading scholars have gathered together from around the world to stand against the Prime Minister’s distortion of history. Under the circumstances, the Japanese government is likely to feel greater pressure.
The 187 historians include Pulitzer Prize-winning professor Herbert Bix from Binghamton University, William Paterson University professor Theodore F. Cook, John Dower from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ezra Vogel from Harvard University, and Bruce Cummings from the University of Chicago, who is well known for his book “The Origins of the Korean War.”
“We waited to hear what Prime Minister Abe would say during his speeches in the United States last week, and unfortunately his one brief aside comment about this issue further brushed away Japanese state responsibility for this awful history,” said University of Connecticut professor Alexis Dudden, continuing, “This statement is a direct appeal to the Japanese government to address this history squarely, accept responsibility for it ... and to desist from further distortions and politicization.” Professor Alexis Dudden is one of those who led the announcement of both of the statements.