Report on the San Francisco City Committee Meeting on Building a Comfort Women Memorial on September 17, 2015
Koichi Mera, Ph. D. President, GAHT-US Corporation
The Board of Supervisors of the City and the County of San Francisco had decided that the proposal to urge to build a comfort women memorial be discussed at the Committee chaired by Eric Mar, and upon approval by the Committee, the Board will formally review the proposal. The Committee was scheduled to take up the proposal on September 17, and the author attended the meeting. I shall be describing the developments in the meeting.
As was known in advance, Young Soo Lee came into the room in a wheel chair. She is the person who spoke more than an hour in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives when the resolution was proposed accusing Japan in 2007. She sat on the front bench without wheel chair. Chairperson Mar spoke at length explaining the implications and significance of building a comfort women memorial, and referring to atrocities which the Japanese military committed. He told that the enslavement of comfort women was a typical crime. Then, Mr. Mar introduced Young Soo Lee as a brave and determined fighter who survived in such difficult environment. Then, she spoke eloquently for 10 minutes, and received enthusiastic applause. She greeted to the audience by raising both hands upon her head, and received flushed from cameramen with cheers.
After this, visitors started to express their own views, each given two minutes. First dozen or so speakers were nominated by Mr. Mar, being familiar to Chair, and expressed support to the proposal. Ignasius Ding, Executive Vice President of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia, was about the 15th speaker. He referred to Prime Minister Abe’s remark at Harvard University in April, and stated that the government of Japan admitted the wrongdoing of the Japanese military when Abe stated that his heart felt serious pain when he thought about those women sacrificed by human trafficking during the war. Even though Mr. Abe did not mention who did the human trafficking, Mr. Ding interpreted that the one who did the human trafficking was the Japanese military.
Several persons after Mr. Ding, my name was called. Immediately before me, a Japanese lady from Los Angeles stressed firmly the irrationality of placing such a memorial in the U.S. instead of in Korea or Japan. My remarks are as follows:
Thank you very much, Mr. Mar. I would like to convey is that the comfort women stories generally propagated in this country are totally false. They’re not true. For example, 200,000 people, that’s not true. Forcible recruitment, that was not true. And the sex slaves, that is not true. So, one example I would like to give today is that there’s a book written by C. Sarah Soh, Professor of
Anthropology in this San Francisco State University. She wrote a book called “The Comfort Women.” Then she referred to the lady who spoke earlier, Young Soo Lee. The books states she said In her early testimony “In an early morning of 1944, she sneaked out of her home with a friend and went to a comfort women recruiter,”
Mr. Mar interrupted with this remark “That’s not what she said. Are you calling her a liar?”
Mera replied “ Let me finish.”
Mr. Mar remarked again “That’s not what she said.”
Mera continued with the following: “ I’m saying what is written in this book, I’m not repeating what she said. Please read this book.
Then she was given a pair of shoes and red dress. She was delighted.
So that is what this book says. It’s written in this book. So, ex-comfort women’s testimonies are not reliable.
Now, let me give you a more general talk about this issue. The principal issue is said to be human rights. Some of the human rights proponents are showing this picture. Please see it.
This was taken in Glendale. So i do not believe any of this kind of activity is promoting for women’s human rights. Thank you.
After my presentation, many more people presented their views. Among those who opposed, two more persons referred to Professor Soh’s book questioning the credibility of Ms. Lee’s testimony. According to the records, 50 persons expressed support, and 29 persons did opposition. This time was different from July 21st. Many more Japanese residents and their spouses in San Francisco attended the meeting this time. They did not get information about this issue before, and only recently they have obtained information on this issue.
Among others, we need to pay attention to the organizational power of the Chinese/Chinese Americans. They worked closely and in harmony with Korean participants. Many of the supporters wore a black T-shirt with a yellow butterfly in front, and moved around according to the direction given by leaders. Among them, there were several Japanese Americans, and they tried to create an atmosphere of coalition among Chinese, Koreans and Japanese. It was not pleasant to see
persons with Japanese family names supporting the proposal. One typical example was Cathy Masakoka, who also supported the proposal in Glendale.
When the visitors completed their statements in nearly four hours, Mr. David Campos, one of the Committee members, compassioned with Ms. Lee whose testimony was seriously questioned, stood up and spoke loudly:
“I do want to address some of the members of the audience that came here and spoke to deny what happened. I say this with a great deal of love and respect, but
Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you for denying what happened and shame on you for the personal attacks on this woman, Grandma Lee who had the courage to fly from another side of the world to come here and speak her truth. You know, it is amazing and by the way, I hope that the Japanese government is not behind some of these denials.”
Then, he approached her, embraced her, and kissed on her cheek. Supporters felt supreme. The proposal, although amendments were proposed, was approved without any difficulty.
Receiving the passage of the proposal by the Committee, the proposal will be officially approved by the City at their September 22nd Board meeting. The experience of observing this Committee meeting gave us some lessons. First, it is very difficult to block the proposal where some 60% of the population is Chinese or Chinese American. Second, regardless of the historical facts are unfavorable to them , City Supervisors proceed as they wish to proceed, and third, to have a successful opposition movement, a fairly strong organization is necessary. As a result, these lessons indicate that the legal approach appears to be the only possible way. In addition, by spreading historical knowledge based on facts to the general public in the U.S., judges at the court would be able to make correct decisions more often than otherwise. Thus, I believe that what we are undertaking is the best approach under the circumstances.