Toru Hashimoto addresses reporters. (KYODO)
The 11-member San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted a resolution demanding its sister city’s mayor, Toru Hashimoto, retract his comment that Japan’s wartime system of sexual slavery was necessary at the time, according to a Japan Times article. The Osaka mayor said in May the so-called “comfort women” were a “necessary evil” so Japanese soldiers could “rest” during the war. The board called on San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to send its petition to Hashimoto and the Osaka Municipal Assembly. The resolution will also be sent to President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and members of Congress.
The board’s resolution states:
“The board of supervisors strongly condemns the attitude and statements of Hashimoto justifying the state-sponsored ‘comfort women’ system, which forced hundreds of thousands of Asian women into sexual servitude for the Japanese military, and denying the historical veracity of such atrocities committed against women and girls in countries occupied by Japan throughout East and Southeast Asia. … (The board) urges Hashimoto to publicly retract his statements and apologize to the survivors of the Japanese government-sponsored ‘comfort women’ system of forced sexual slavery. … Amnesty International … attacked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who became prime minister on Dec. 26, 2012, and nine future members of his Cabinet, when they jointly signed an advertisement in the Nov. 4, 2012, New Jersey Star Ledger that ‘denied (that the) Japanese Imperial Army forced women into military sexual slavery during World War II.'”
Mayor Hashimoto probably couldn’t care less about a resolution from a Board of Supervisors that presumes it has the authority to make foreign policy, but he is also under pressure from his co-leader in the Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, a favorite subject on my blog. Ishihara urged Hashimoto to apologize for his comments, not because he disagrees with them, but because of the potential fallout in the upcoming election. (Compared to Ishihara, Hashimoto is progressive. At least Hashimoto conceded Japan may have used sexual slavery during World War II.) Hashimoto has since threatened to quit the Japan Restoration Party.
The Japan Restoration Party’s platform for the Upper House election states, “as for the so-called ‘comfort women’ issue, we need to clarify the historic facts and protect the dignity and honor of Japan and Japanese citizens.”
Hashimoto went on to dig himself further into a hole when he told reporters, “I don’t think my comments were a mistake, and I will continue to explain them to voters.”
I find something incredibly disturbing about the fact that idiots like Ishihara and Hashimoto continually manage to get reelected. Both have expressed fascist, xenophobic, outright racist and misogynistic viewpoints on numerous occasions. Are they just part of a vocal minority? Or do they actually strike a chord with Japan’s vast “silent majority”? I would like opinions from Japanese readers.
