Harvard Prof accused of provoking Korean anger by rejecting historical consensus on Comfort Women

NEW DELHI: Two back-to-back articles – one in a Japanese newspaper and another in an academic law journal by J. Mark Ramseyer, the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard Law School characterizing the comfort women as prostitutes, has provoked widespread Korean anger and fueled bitterness between the two Asian giants Japan and South Korea.

A large-scale resentment prevails in the Korean community, and the law professor has been accused of rejecting the historical consensus on comfort women, and also for ignoring extensive historical evidence in claiming that the “comfort women” were not sex slaves but instead were willing and well-compensated prostitutes.

In January, Prof. Ramseyer wrote an op-ed in a Japanese newspaper Japan Forward saying the “comfort-women-sex-slave story” as “pure fiction.” Japan Forward is the English-language news and opinion site by Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan’s top newspapers.

He later published another article ” Contracting for sex in the Pacific War” in the March edition of an academic journal, the International Review of Law and Economics, and characterized comfort women as prostitutes, terming them as rational economic actors who were able to negotiate and command high remuneration for their sexual labors.

Prof Ramseyer went on to write that the women were volunteers and not “sex slaves,” and there was no coercion from the Japanese government in recruiting the women.

These articles are being criticized not only in South Korea but also in the United States. A section of scholars has said that he did not provide any proof or evidence that can support his claim.

In a critically countering article “Comfort women: Japan again provokes anger in Korea” by Mark Peterson, Professor Emeritus at Brigham Young University in Korea.Net said, “Why doesn’t Japan ever learn? Or do they purposely provoke Korean anger for some kind of unseen ulterior motive? Whatever the reason, the ugly picture of Japan defending its role and actions in World War II raises its ugly head again already in 2021.”

Korea.Net is the news-media site of the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, Republic of Korea.

Prof. Peterson said that the problem with the article by Harvard Law School’s Mitsubishi Professor was that it did not deal with the greater issues of how women were recruited by force or trickery but only dealt with an arcane legal topic that only lawyers should read.

“He focuses on the legal structure of the brothel system, and makes the case that there were women who were indeed prostitutes who were recruited for the empire’s overseas, battlefront, comfort stations,” Prof. Peterson wrote.

J. Mark Ramseyer, was raised in Japan, and two years ago was awarded Japan’s top civilian honour the “Rising Sun” medal. While not a Japanese citizen himself, he is a man who represents Japan as much as anyone in or out of Japan can, plus he now carries the imprimatur of the Mt. Everest of universities, Harvard Law School. His article in a law journal has needlessly wrangled the raw emotions of Koreans once again.

Prof. Peterson lambasted the author for not talking about the women who were forced to join, who may have been kidnapped, or tricked into joining. Without giving a balanced account of how many were involuntarily “dragooned” — he criticized the use of that term in an earlier version of the paper — he only deals with the “legal” structure of the government brothels.

“The problem is not a new take on the legal brothels of wartime Japan. The problem is that the two governments, and the two people — of Japan and Korea — are on completely different standing on the issue. Korea sees the article as one more stone in the wall of Japan’s vile treatment of Korea during the Japanese occupation of Korea,” Prof. Peterson stated in Korea.net.

He added, “Japan is a “far-country mile away” from showing the sympathy and contrition that a war criminal should show. Japan is not Germany. Germany makes no defense for their war crimes — the Nazis, Hitler, a passive supporting public — are all condemned. Always. By all but the most right-wing element of Germany. Not so Japan.”

Prof. Peterson accused Prof. Ramseyer of looking at only one segment of the issue, and deliberately targeting just Korea and not talking about the plight of women from other countries like the Philippines, China, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries.

“It did not mention the women of the Philippines who were also forced to serve the conquering Japanese soldiers. Nor does it mention the women of China. Nor Southeast Asia. Nor the Dutch women, some of whom were mothers with children who were captured in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia, today).”