Korean Comfort Women

I haven't posted for some time, but a recent newspaper article needed comment. During the second world war, Japan was a devastating colonial force. In fact, their colonial period began in 1910 and continued until the US forced Japan into submission with unprecedented military action - two infamous nuclear warheads that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Korea was one of the colonies most devastated by the Japanese. You can also find out more about the Japanese devastation of Asia by reading on the rape of Nanjing. One despicable thing Japan did as a colonial power was to enslave young Korean women (teens) beat them into submission, and use them as sex slaves for the Japanese forces. Korea estimates that Japan enslaved 200, 000 Korean women between 1930 and 1945. Unlike atrocities committed by forces in Europe (thinking primarily of the Holocaust here), Japan has never apologized for the treatment of these women. Moreover, they deny that they ever participated in this systematic rape and torture of a significant portion of Korean women at that time. They still teach a version of Japanese history that whitewashes their activities in Asia, portraying their colonization of Korea as humane.

The article just published by the Korean Times comments on the US support of the comfort women, urging Japan for a public apology and financial remuneration. Korea, China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore are no longer singing an Asia-only lament. I believe that Canada, if it hasn't already, should put significant pressure on the Japanese to apologize for their treatment of Korean Comfort Women.

Ex-Sex Slaves Welcome US Resolution


Comfort women who were forced to serve for the Japanese army as a sexual slave during World War II are consoled by protesters during a press conference welcoming the passage of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Japan to formally apologize to the victims and accept historical responsibility in front of Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Tuesday. / AP-Yonhap

By Park Chung-a
Staff Reporter

Former Korean sex slaves used by Japanese soldiers during World War II hailed Tuesday the passage of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives, urging Japan to officially apologize to the victims and acknowledge its historical responsibility.

``The United States’ approval of the resolution gives us hope for the restoration of honor, the realization of justice for victims of comfort women in the Asia Pacific region, and women’s human rights activists who have spent tens of years for supporting victims of comfort women,’’ said the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.

``The Japanese government should officially apologize to the elderly victims as soon as possible and make legal compensations as well as teach the younger generations correct history and promise a peaceful future,’’ it said.

Kil Won-ok and Lee Soon-duk, two of the victims of comfort women, expressed their delight.

``My delight is beyond words. The Japanese government should now sincerely apologize to the victims in order not to become the mockery of the world,’’ said Kil.

Lee, 91, demanded activists to continue their efforts for rights of the victims.

``I have no single spot in my body which is well as I was beaten so hard when I was hauled away at the age of 17. Please help us live decent lives for the rest of our lives,’’ she said.

Lawmakers, including Lee Mi-kyung of the Uri Party, also hailed the U.S. House Resolution as a wise decision and called on the Japanese government to immediately give legal compensation to victims and to educate future generations about comfort women without distorting history.

The non-binding House resolution is symbolic, but it demands Japan to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery in military brothels in the 1930s and 40s.

While estimates are varying, hundreds of thousands of women, mostly from Korea and other Asian countries, are believed to have been sexually enslaved by Japan, which colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

U.S. Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, the resolution's chief sponsor, said Lee Yong-soo, who testified before Congress in February on her rape and torture at the hands of Japanese soldiers, watched Monday's proceedings. ``All she could do was weep and say thank you,’’ Honda said. ``It vindicated her past.’’

In 1993, Japan issued a carefully worded official apology, but it was never approved by its parliament. Japan has rejected compensation claims, saying they were settled by postwar treaties.

michelle@koreatimes.co.kr

Gord Downey's Controversial Poem

This is a poem by Gord Downey of The Tragically Hip. He recited this as he accepted the hips induction into the Canadian Rock of Fame (or whatever it is called). I guess it stirred up some controversy. At anyrate, Gord is a good lyricist, and this is not a bad poem persay, it has it 's moments. I liked his foray into theology half way through.


WE ARE THE NEXT US
(The time occupied by the action is an afternoon and one night.)

I don't know who comes up with this
but, I wish they'd stop saying;
'it's not the band I hate, it's their fans'

You can't hate "fans".
You must narrow your hate
You can't hate huge, hate sprawling, hate the wild,
unfocussed hate hates itself,
pick your victims. specialize
find the good n' unaffiliated, the heir-not apparent, the everyday outcast,
the weirdo with the heart of gold, infiltrate the hoser elite.
Find the ribs-showingest rock n roll stray dog
That ever pushed melodious air
howling against vivisection in the uncompartmentalizeable
night.
and, then hate

or go to a show - look down your row.
the lights are on - find people you know.
There's AnthemSinger standing with his arm
around DarklyNurturedDream.
and Ol'Quintessential listening to HigherThanACBCGuest say;
"I haven't read them, but I understand them."
And there's BrainOfAToaster (he knows when things are done)
next to that girl, CradlingHerKeyCard, whispering,
"this might be my last show, come."
Check it out! There's HoldStill and Gently - together again for the very first time.
and MyDoctrineHasFailedMeButMyMusicHasn't
next to ColderValues, next to FeaturelessButFree.
Hey, even TheEmperorHasNoHook is here and IDon'tWannaTalkAboutItHowYouBrokeMyHeart, she's here too.

Go to a show. Look down your row
While the lights are on
find people you know:
MindOfFame's yelling
to GoesWithoutSaying and
OverTheRadar points out
WinWinWinWin to
GulpIndeed

Go to a show.
Music Lovers under a full moon in trust
It's not the band you like it's their sea of hate you don't trust
you're in the right place

Author a killing.
employ carelessness, greed
wait til the hate's flowing
then hate like the wind
take hate's hate and do it better
make hate retire - go soft
catch bats til you feel better
try and catch them aloft

don't hate fans it makes ya sound like a fuckin fascist, or worse -
undiscerning.
No one likes indiscriminate.
you won't get laid with those politics

that said. Lets go backstage! See what's hateable there.
C'mon!

C'mon

C'mon
The band is preparing - lost in thought,
relearning, "How To Get Lost" and
"Where To Appear, Where to Never Appear"
hoping to return to the birthplace of the word
where winning sentences hang from trees
where no one is too cool to move
or too slow to get out of their own way.

The crew is moving on water
Tributarily spring-run-off fed rapids they're paddling
deliberately, quietly, fur-traders not missionaries
they run God's Instrument through the Devil's Amp for chrissakes
they bring the Peace If Peace
is any good at all
it's because of them,
and if it isn't, well, it was working before.

a shadowy figure stands alone with a notebook
writes then underlines;
'Glowing Disses'
- I fucked Paul McCartney
- Put teen ennui back in 'tsunami fatigue'
- Penned Relentlessly Apt…
- Forgot DarklyNurturedDream

look,
deep in conversation,
It's Picasso (Canadian) and Matisse (Canadian)
- 'Giving is where the pleasure is in this business.'
- 'That's when can you see what this business can do'
- 'When everyone in this business is together- whoa - I'd like to be you'
they organize relief in a heartbeat
they can stand in a canoe
lets move UN to the Halifax move Superior to the moon.

Hey there's Andrea, the dancer
and a poet named Ken.
Their nametags say, 'Muse'
they are Somebody's Someone Somewhere then
waving to the Canadian Arc
they're gonna do something
together one day
A thing about a country that
found itself in its
art found its way

It's getting time - it's getting close (go to your seats)
a part in the night where's the love of my life?
kiss me, 'thank you for this'
kiss me 'I won't be myself without you'
kiss me, It's time, to reach you the way you reach me
it's time.

Out in the emptying lobby, a lonely Waterkeeper is late setting up his booth.
A kid, who is interested, says, 'here, let me help you.'

Here's an explosion
an explosion inside
the just before music sound (the sound of just before music)
kindnesses, sweetnesses shoot up
and shower back down
The listeners have spoken, and it's,

WeAreTheNextUs.

We all have our moments
get the success we deserve
We must look at each other
(it's failure that takes nerve)
make eye contact, shake hands
silently vow;
Like the greats before us
let us cry into the curtains
and then go on stage

Now

The band's plugging in (they intend to stay)
The singer strides to the microphone
Yells (rock voice) 'Thank you!' as if to say
'For giving us our start!'
and 'This one's for Neil!'
and 'Have a great Augusta, Craig!'
And then we start

It's revealed

now you can hate

Literal and Figurative reading

To take it figuratively we must take it literally. This is a maxim that I want to try to think around in this post. For a while now, I have found tiresome the polemic against fundamentalists that condemns readers for interpreting the bible literally and then lectures on the virtues of reading the bible figuratively (for an example of this read the first chapter of Chris Hedge's American Fascists). The dichotomy of literal and figurative seems wrong headed for some reason.
Genesis
When I read the creation stories of Genesis I do not think that the world was actually created according to the 7 day scheme. I tend more toward the evolutionist frame work with a divine driver. However, there is a part of me that will not allow myself to junk the first three chapters of Genesis because I no longer think that they represent "reality", because, on some level I do think that they represent reality much better then say Darwin's On the Origin of Species. I don't think of the original composers of the text, and the later editors, as people who thought to themselves "I'm going to write a figurative story about creation for my children". I think that such authors said, I'm going to tell "our" perspective on the world. This is to say that I don't think of the first authors to be hung up with the enlightenment problems of empiricism. These authors were much more poetic, much more Heideggerian, if you will, meaning that they thought of themselves as living in a "house of language", a world contained by their theological convictions. This world was distinct because it was sustained by a God who was both singular and plural. Both in the world and beyond. Both evident and mysterious. To understand this God you must enter into figuration, while reading figurative statements as if they were literal. This is me is the essence behind the ontological argument proposed by Anselm of Cantebury: Imagine the greatest "thing"; now imagine that "thing" as real; isn't that better? (Anselm"And certainly that than which a greater cannot be imagined cannot be in the understanding alone. For if it is at least in the understanding alone, it can be imagined to be in reality too, which is greater."). With contemporary readers, I do not think that Anselm was trying to prove the a priori existence of God, but to help Christian, people of a particular faith, to understand what it is that they have hope in. To me the spirit of Anselm thus expressed, is extremely important to reading the tales of Genesis (one of my all time favourite pieces of literature - one I grow to value more and more on formal and aesthetic and anthropological grounds). To read Genesis according to a limp concept of figurative language, on that is not attached to a realist theology, is to undermine faith in God. This is what thinkers like Chris Hedges do while they imagine themselves to be correcting the blindness of hardly literate readers.

The Body of Christ:
In several places in the new testament Christians are referred to as the body of Christ. If we think of this with a limp concept of figuration we say that the man Jesus wanted to express how close the followers of his ethical ideology were to him to such extent that he used hyperbole, claiming that followers were actually him. This should be read as a concept of ideological tradition, whereby Jesus' thoughts are carried on by those who think and act likewise. To read Christ likewise, is to read him as though he were merely finite. We must actually enrich this finite reading, which is wrong only in that it limit's Jesus to the category of man, without ever approaching the infinity of Christ. Christians cannot think of themselves as only being part of an ideological body/tradition of teaching, they must flesh out this ideology by then understanding the mystical nature of this comment. Spiritually, Christians are the body of Christ. This means that our finite capacity as human beings is united with Christ's infinite capacity as the resurrected, un-end-able, God that he is. To be the body of Christ is to participate in God himself, the most real of the real. To think thus, we must entertain the figurative element in the statement, but read it literally. The finite nature of the language does not totally capture the mysterious reality, yet, it is one of the most useful doors through which we imagine this reality. It is not the only door, because Christ himself (as narrated in the Gospels) used other expressions to describe this mysterious event - the imagine of the vine and the branches. My brother in law speculates that this analogy has a natural referent - the vine - that was especially developed for the purpose of expressing Christ's message to believers. I do not permit myself such speculation, as it overshoots the mark from my perspective, but it is an interesting comment that may be aimed at getting folks to meditate on God's eternal foresight for the world. At any rate, Christians cannot afford not to think of themselves as literally embodying Christ on some level.

The End

To Taste

I am not a careful poet. In fact I find caring to much about punctuation during the writing freezes me up and I lose the vision. Today I was inspired by listening to Ryan Adams talk about the 15 albums he's written in the last 7 years. He defended his output and called everyone else lazy and afraid of their imagination. He claimed that we live in an era of art criticism that has forgotten how to create art. He claims that the critic kills art. There was something about what he said that resonated with the (almost forgotten) poet in me. I think I wrestle with two selves, the poet and the critic. The critic would not have me write, the poet lives only to write. Michael Winter wrote once about an artist who found the critic in him outgrew the poet. Yes. I know what you speak of young warrior. It is a tough thing to listen to the soul. To hear the rhythm of the cosmos in the solitude of your gray matter. So today, I turned the critic down low, and rolled a few of my favourite things around in my head - a song by Ryan Adams called Dancing Till the Stars go Blue, a Yoga pose called Dancing Shiva, the Eucharist, and Gregory of Nyssa's ontology.

Without Further Ado, Ladies and Gentlemen - To Taste


Amid cheerleaders and doomsayers
I stand, sand on my toes,
Warmed by the fire, waiting for the dance.
The great balance
Cupped hand before me,
Leg stretched out behind
Back arched
The muscles of my spirit invigorate
Suddenly my body begins to transform
Eternally transform, perpetually turning
Into the solar wind of time,
Perpetually reaching forward to the mosaic
Experience of the back side
The tail wind of

Nyssa would call this the pursuit of perfection
But what else do we have?
I’ve no taste for evil,
It just comes in cravings.

In weakness these holes spiral back through my
Substance and spew out my core
On the yellow road, I take steps
On the dolorosa, and move one foot
After another towards what?
I can not say,
Towards whom?
I shall never fully know,
But I will always have the promise of taste.

Take and eat,
These words haunt my Baptist
She cowers in the corner remembering all that is
And not knowing where to go, who to flee to…
Is it a question of groups, of feasting or pretending to feast?
Remembering a future time of great enjoyment.
There is an inescapable aspect to remembering
But,
We must eat to live, and I must eat more then symbols.

I’m hungry
hoc est corpus meum
Is me
Whoa, like Isaiah of old I feel trapped in lips unclean
Hopes with ends unforeseen
Not knowing where to step
Who to go to with time
Plans
Charity
Not knowing what charity I might have to give
What order lies in me to expel
Express
But a word lingers on my tongue

My mouth salivates for this word

The poetry of my life has been in neglect,
I have not found my epic, or perhaps I have been too involved in my epic, in my preparation for flight
That I have not found my myth.

Where do I go when I’m lonely?

Who do I call when I’m lost;
How can I lie right beside you peacefully, and
Watch the stars flow on and on,
Across a sky, some say has soured,
Some say will bust?
These are my questions,
My mystery at heart
That I worry myself about,
That I fear critics will take up,
This is my wordlessness that leaves me silent
As I tear through the fabric of time

Waiting for the dance.

Women In Art

This is a "morphage" of women in western uppercrusty art. I found it quiet good.

Who writes a novel?

I was mowing the lawn today thinking about my upcoming dissertation proposal presentation, and the thought occurred to me: who writes a novel? I'm working on Atlantic Canadian literature and the theme of religion though and in it, and what is coming to the fore is that Catholics are writing novels like they are going out of style. When you look back into the history of Can lit and At-can lit, you find that this is somewhat of a new thing. So I've been wondering why now? What makes one want to write a novel? What political and economic forces must be in place to make writing a novel something you might do? What follows is a conversation over gmail between me and my colleague, Holly (who works on Jews is film), about what gave rise to the novel:

1:22 PM me: who writes a novel?
1:23 PM Holly: a-a-an authour?
well, in biblical lit, we have the debate - "a person creates a document, not a community"
me: this is the big question that hit me while mowing the lawn....
Holly: but then again I don't know if that is true
1:24 PM a text is created FOR a community
me: that seems to be a debate with german romantic ancestry...and a novel isn't really any old document
Holly: no published authour creates just for him or herself
1:25 PM me: no author creates ex nihlo
Holly: yes - that is my take with film
I like Berger's theory of internalization, externalization
1:26 PM me: you know that is Berger's retelling of Marx's dialectic of production - worker makes product and becomes alienated from it though the process of production
1:27 PM Holly: yes
me: but back to the novel. it seems to me that the novel has a particular place in history
Holly: but the idea that a person consumes the product - that is important
1:28 PM novels both document and create history
me: it's kind of like the car... you don't have it until the 20th century...with the novel you don't really have it in full force until the 19th century
Holly: yes - but you had things that led up to it
1:29 PM the stage led to the novel, as well as the essay, the sermon, the poem and the song
me: yes, certainly biblical literature, as well as greek and roman epics lead up to it
1:30 PM The stage...the play
uh huh... is a novel a private 5 act play?
Holly: it is the frustration
poem are too short, sermons too dusty, and plays not internal enough
1:31 PM and, yes, too corporate
me: the european epic to clunky
Holly: the novel is a drawing room intrigue laid bare
a false memoir
me: yes the novel comes to rise after europe is tired of trying to organize communities to act their ideas
Holly: yes
1:32 PM I think I see what you mean
me: the novel also needs the printing press, where the play doesn't
Holly: it is the individual, not the chorus
yes
but with the enlightenment, the emphasis placed on internal reason...
you can't just show after that
you have to let the reader into the mind
1:33 PM since that is what "really matters"
me: wow, this is the question, or the impulse that lead to the unconscious
1:34 PM since the novel is the presentation of one's own imagination, housed in the mind, plus one's own theory of external organization - say Jane Austen's communities and the play of marriage
1:35 PM Holly: yes
1:36 PM me: it can't be wholly about the social, or the community, it has to also be about the depth and complexity of ones internal realm. it has to be exibihitionist
Holly: it is the digesting of what is around you - not the Truth, but the digested matter
people cannot get away from their showing roots
they still must show
but the mode of shoing is different
me: this is why scatological tropes are so common
1:37 PM Holly: through the novel, you can create a play, but you get more than action to do it with
that is why film bridges the gap - it is a play, but with tighter angles so you can show the internal, as well
1:38 PM me: well shakespeare certainly had more then action. Hamlets whole to be or not to be is internal reasoning at its finest
Holly: yes, but it is still rare and short
with a novel, there is more room to develope
and you don't have to rely on artificail things like silloquies
1:39 PM Shakespeare is to the novel as musicals are to personal films
me: so beyond the psychological and the formal, what has to be happening in your state to create a novel?
1:40 PM Holly: a need to express
me: I'm thinking that the novel is tied to the rise of nationalism in europe
Holly: a need to reflect what you see
a need to find others who feel the same
perhaps a need to pursuade
me: perhaps reflect is the wrong word, maybe dominate would do better?
1:41 PM yes, a need to persuade one to your way of thinking... this must come after everyone's unified, catholic way of thinking has been ruptured
1:42 PM Holly: well, that is the function of the nation state
me: The novel is a protestant apolegetic invention
Holly: to unifiy individuals
me: it is made to create communities
audiences (here the parallel with film is strong, yet different)
1:44 PM so we started by saying that a novel was created by an individual who was not interested in organizing and persuading other individuals to take the time to act out their particular imaginative thing. Now we see that the novel does still have a communal impulse - it longs to draw people together under it in affirmation of the author's individual mastery of the known world and the interior drama of self.
1:45 PM It is the drive to political leadership internalized, privatized...
1:46 PM when margaret atwood travels around canada to audiences that gawk at her she is actual demonstrating her leadership of a certain community within a nation. She has created a party
1:48 PM Have you read mrs. Dalloway or seen the film the hours?
1:49 PM Holly: read
me: you know how she bustles around all day trying to create a party, which happens at the end...I think this is an analogy for the novel and its function in society
1:51 PM VW was trying to create an audience of readers, a party in both the upper class and political sense.
do you think this is the same with film?
1:52 PM Holly: maybe

Re-reading Casanova's Public Religions in the Modern World.

Re-reading Casanova's Public Religions in the Modern World.
While I think that Asad has done a sufficient job of poking holes in Casanova's argument about secularization, I find myself going back to Casanova's book. I'm back here because I think that C's argument covers a lot of ground and I find myself continually playing with the dichotomy of public and private. On this topic, Casanova quotes Seyla Benhabib:
"SB has shown that the liberal model of "public dialogue" and its "neutrality" rule impose certain "conversational restraint," which tend to function as a "gag rule," excluding from public deliberation the entire range of matters declared to be "private" - from the private economy to the private domestic sphere to private norm formation." (65)

I think SB is right on here. I've been trying to track down her essay, rather then read it second hand. I wonder where an electronic version might be hiding out?