The Struggle Against Ultra-Nationalism and the Entrapment of Orientalism

Abstract

Discussions surrounding the ‘comfort women’ system have instigated fundamental questions about history. To fully comprehend these diverse and complex discussions that have developed in Japan (and beyond), which have been referred to as ‘the eruption of’ the ‘comfort women’ issue (Seaton, 2007: 55), we need to connect them with existing and broader debates on the history, culture and society of Japan within a particular political formation. The international community, influenced mainly by English-speaking media, popularly believes that war memories have been ‘inadequately addressed’ in Japan and that the Japanese people lack knowledge about the Second World War. However, diverse cultural and social narratives of the war have existed in Japan since the war (Seaton, 2007: 4). While the Japanese government has often attempted, through the textbook approval system, to obscure the devastation that the war caused and Japanese war atrocities, more progressive public opinions and groups have always existed, raising awareness of the catastrophe of the war and of Japanese war responsibility (Obinata, 2004: 18–22; Yoshida, 2005: 101). As it evolved, therefore, the discourse on ‘comfort women’ in Japan was affected by these diverse narratives of the war.