Maybe we should be judging ourselves

The city of San Francisco recently erected a statue honoring those who were “Comfort Women” of the Japanese army of occupation in China and Korea during World War II. The effort was spearheaded by two American judges of Asian ancestry. They cite sources that estimate over 200,000 women in the occupied region were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese government disputes these allegations as, “One sided interpretations.” They claim local entrepreneurs recruited these women to work as prostitutes, and consider the monument a slap in the face. The controversy has caused Osaka to terminate its sister city relationship with San Francisco.

Forty-five years ago, during the Vietnam War, cheap brothels lined the roads outside U.S. military bases in Thailand, Okinawa, Taiwan and the Philippines. Local entrepreneurs recruited thousands of young women into prostitution. I am sure if we were to interview some of these girls today, they would say they were forced into the sex trade.

The quality of life for many in East Asia in the 1960s was below what we consider the poverty line. Some girls were offered the option to continue their hand-to-mouth existence or work in the brothels. I have even heard stories of parents who sold their daughters to put food on the table.

Prostitutes were recruited by the local entrepreneurs, but the American servicemen provided the money. Given this, is America guilty of sex trafficking?

It isn’t fair to judge the U.S. by what happened 50 years ago during a war. Times have changed. The world’s moral climate has changed. If we apply current moral codes, we could easily condemn our impact on the local communities near our bases.

But that wouldn’t be right. Most of us who would condemn were not there and can only judge through rose colored lenses of 20-20 hindsight. We can only judge past conduct by past criteria.

It seems to be a fairly recent fad to condemn historic characters by using today’s standards. Thus, Robert E. Lee becomes a racist because he fought for the Confederacy and American pioneers who pushed westward are accused of genocide for displacing the natives. This is not only unfair, it is pompous.

Who are we to sit in the moral judgment seat unless we were there and lived the same experience? The last time I checked, Japan was a strong ally. Why pick a fight with them now?

The loss of Osaka as San Francisco’s sister city may seem to be no big deal, but the sister city program creates an avenue to share cultures that we wouldn’t otherwise have. Spokane has a sister city pact with Nishinomia, a similar sized community equidistant from Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka.

The culture of Japan is much different than the culture of Eastern Washington. Sister City exchanges help to bridge those differences with understanding. The arrangement with Nishinomia includes educational interaction with Washington State University.

In 2000, I was selected to participate in the program and spent the 2000–2001 school year teaching English in the Nishinomia public schools. We lived in a Japanese neighborhood where I had the opportunity to experience their culture and values. I would have been offended if our sister city had erected a monument insinuating that my country had participated in sex trafficking during the Vietnam War.

Was the Japanese military guilty of war crimes by forcing women to be sex slaves? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I can only judge the Japanese, or anyone else, by what they do now.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-term resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 19 years.