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Memorializing Comfort Women: Memory and Human Rights in K orea‐ J apan Relations
Author(s) -
Kim Mikyoung
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
asian politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1943-0787
pISSN - 1943-0779
DOI - 10.1111/aspp.12089
Subject(s) - human rights , economic justice , democracy , accountability , democratization , acknowledgement , sociology , political science , politics , law , computer security , computer science
Current paradigms of human rights and reconciliation call for democratization of memories, with former victims interjecting their interpretations of the past, challenging the versions recollected by the powerful. The trajectory of comfort women issues has implications not only for the J apanese democracy, but also for K orea. The shifts in memory are about respect for human rights and the beginning of a reconciliatory journey between former adversaries. Reconciliation involves multiple stages of self‐reflexivity, acknowledgement, redistributive justice, corrective mechanisms, and a final movement of forgiving. In order to transcend the counterproductive blame games, memory, human rights, and reconciliation need to be interwoven. The rising global awareness of human rights helps to highlight the accountability of the individual, once largely overshadowed by groups, with political leaders, and nation‐states. Memories are no longer confined within national borders. As the comfort women monuments in K orea and the U nited S tates suggest, they become increasingly transnational and even global.