By So I wonder if these educators were taught anything about Korean World War II war criminals?:
A group of Canadian and a pair of Australian educators invited by an NGO based out of Toronto visited Korea Tuesday as their final stop on the “Peace and Reconciliation Tour for Educators 2009.”
Hoping to build further awareness of atrocities committed by imperial Japan during World War II, the volunteer organization Toronto ALPHA (Association for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia) invited a group of educators and volunteers on a study tour that began on July 2 and will go on until the 18th.
The tour has thus far taken the group to Shanghai, Nanjing, Harbin and Beijing over a two-week period and this is the second year that Seoul has been included on the itinerary.
A major portion of the Seoul program has been sponsored by the Northeast Asia History Foundation for the first time.
The tour has focused on four major topics: The Nanking Massacre, Military Sexual Slavery, Forced Labor and Biochemical Warfare (Unit 731).
Initiated in 2004, the organization hopes to inform Canadian educators of war crimes perpetrated by the Japanese military during its World War II campaign in China and other parts of Asia from 1931-1945.
On Tuesday, the 35-member strong delegation were given a tour of the on-site museum at the residence of former “comfort women” by a volunteer Japanese national and curator before they were guided to meet the eight survivors in the Gwangju city of Gyeonggi Province. [Korea Herald]
11:55 pm on July 22nd, 2009 1
Wonder if they’ll touch on comfort woman having been sold off by Koreans in the first place?
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12:49 am on July 23rd, 2009 2
It is important to spread awarness on this because many japanese still don’t acknowledge there crimes.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 am
Matt, important to spread awareness? What would the point of making it an everlasting issue accomplish? Do you really think spreading the message of continuing the hate is going to make old Japanese men admit they committed crimes against humanity? Highly unlikely.
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2:11 am on July 23rd, 2009 3
Whenever people talk about this subject, this is what I say.
1) This is normally what happens when you get your butt kicked by a country other than the United States (who will surprisingly rebuild, feed, and protect you).
2) There were far more collaborators than anyone wishes to acknowledge.
3) There were a lot fewer independence fighters than people like to acknowledge, and most of them ended up being on North Korea’s side during the partition.
4) I am pissed off at the level of BS and propaganda involved in the whole Japan thing.
Not only that, I grew up with a lot of Japanese folks and you know what? I never pressed this whole World War II thing on them and eventually they came around and said that they were actually sorry about what had happened back then. I told them it’s alright because it wasn’t them personally. If we STOP pushing them all the time about it, try to get past our differences and work together they will eventually come around and admit it themselves.
Our anti-Japanese hate only fuels the extremists in Japan with more power.
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4:45 am on July 23rd, 2009 4
This is a tricky one. The Japanese government admitted in 1993 that many women had been forced into sexual slavery and even offered an apology, but it was carefully worded so that it can reject legal responsibility.
In any case:
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/7fba5363523b20cdc12565a800312a4b/3d25270b5fa3ea998025665f0032f220?OpenDocument#Appendix
In other words, they are legally responsible.
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8:23 am on July 23rd, 2009 5
I’m so tired of poor pitiful Koreans always telling me how they hate Japan because “they did this to us” and “they did that to us”. GET OVER IT!!! The Japanese have forgiven the atomic bombs the US dropped on them and the US has forgiven the Japanese for Pearl Harbor. Koreans need to MOVE ON. In my opinion, Korea has a weak society. They want the world to know how they are just as good as Japan but all they do is whine about how bad they were treated by Japan over 70 years ago. Yea, so Japan did some f’ed up stuff during their wars. Koreans weren’t the only ones Japan were abusive to and Japan isn’t the only country that has been abusive. We all do it! War is human and humans are f’ed up. Of course war/ambition is going to bring out the worst in humankind. “Boo hoo! Japan took us over and tried to force their ways upon us.” Yea, that’s what happens when you are the weaker country. Korea was, is, and will always be secondary to Japan. Koreans need to accept their rank in the asian hierarchy. Heck, Samsung’s tvs ranked highest on Consumer Reports last year yet Sony remains the number one seller.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 am
Interesting point of view.
Now funny is how Jews uses Hollywood to bug the world about how they were treated during the WWII by the Nazis, but no one complains about it. Americans are so passive to the Jews propaganda but are so critical to Korea ….
BTY, I wonder how a small country like Israel can control a powerful nation like the USA.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am
Well, Danger Mouse does have it down quite well.
There’s a massive inferiority complex here and it fuels a very destructive kind of nationalism.
And like I mentioned before, the things that happened to Koreans is the reason why there’s a military. And considering the sort of attitude Koreans have towards the military, I’m not surprised at what happened. This Confucian idea that soldiering is a very low rate profession is flawed beyond belief.
Actually the situation with Israel, Jews and the United States is more complicated than that. All sides are constantly at conflict. A lot of Israelis in Israel think the Jews in America are absolutely nuts.
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July 24th, 2009 at 10:32 am
“The Japanese have forgiven the atomic bombs the US dropped on them and the US has forgiven the Japanese for Pearl Harbor”
In other words with more exact expressions, Janpanese attacked Pearl Harbor and US paid it back with atomic bombs. There would be no complain about each other.
“They want the world to know how they are just as good as Japan but all they do is whine about how bad they were treated by Japan over 70 years ago.”
All we want is that Japan stop distorting the history to feed their young generation up with wrong fact, make apology and quit wrong commenting on the historic affairs by some rightist politicians that shows they wouldn’t accept the real fact and fault.
We don’t care whether world regard us as good as Japan or not.
If so, why we reveal the shameful fact instead of good and worth advertising thing?
“We all do it! War is human and humans are f’ed up. Of course war/ambition is going to bring out the worst in humankind. ”
We didn’t or couldn’t. Anyhow, so what you mean is that we need to understand them ’cause they were in specific situations that brought out the worst?
Then it also means many Germany people shouldn’t have to be punished at that time. Germany would appreciate your comment very much.
Imagine that Hitler would say that in front of Jews.
“Korea was, is, and will always be secondary to Japan. Koreans need to accept their rank in the asian hierarchy. Heck, Samsung’s tvs ranked highest on Consumer Reports last year yet Sony remains the number one seller.”
It has nothing to do with this issue. It’s perfectly fit for your personal diary which doesn’t need any reasonable basis or couldn’t provoke anyone.
We don’t want to be number 1 country which is considered superior than others, just want to be happy together without any insult or threat by other countries.
I actually like some Japanese culture as very polite and respectful attitude but still can’t accept some of them are trying to distort the history.
I was very uncomfortable on your article that showed you’re a kind of narrow- minded one who wouldn’t repect other country. GET OVER IT.
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4:36 pm on July 23rd, 2009 6
The point everyone should draw from this posting is that the Koreans complain about Japan teaching distorted history when the Koreans do the same thing. World War II history between Japan and Korea is much more complex than what the demagogues on each side of this issue is willing to admit.
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July 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
What, Koreans, misinformation?
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4:34 am on July 24th, 2009 7
The world still needs a few more years to get over what Japan did. Good points on how Jewish people are able to keep what happened to them on the front burner. Looking at recent events, Blacks are making sure they continue to have front page news also. I guess getting over it should apply to all historical wrongs, until it does the Koreans have just as much right to complain as other racial group.
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