The Brutality of Japanese Imperialism to Korea - Research Paper Example

?Imperial Japan and Korean Oppression Japan is a world leader in terms of industrialization, technology, and education. Recently they experienced a catastrophe that demanded the attention and support of the world at large. Japan poses a great threat to the rest of the international community as a direct result of the potential contamination of the seas with the leakage of nuclear waste from facilities that were damaged during the quake. This is indeed sad but by no means does it absolve them of blame for the brutality towards Korean citizens during its imperial reign from 1910-1945. After a briefs discussion of the recent apology by the Japanese Prime Minister, this paper focuses on 3 primary aspects of the Japanese colonial rule: 1. The use of Forced labor and draft from Korea 2. The subjugation of Women 3. Experimentation on the human body. The colonial period of Japanese relations with Korea is haunted with memories of the oppressed as well as narratives that describe the brutal enforcement of their policies. The Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the following, "Through the colonial rule that was against their will... the people of Korea were deprived of their nation and culture and their ethnic pride was deeply hurt," (Australian, 2010). The perpetuation of cultural genocide against the nation was an attempt to assimilate the Koreans into the Japanese way of life. This prompted Japan to promise the return of cultural relics that were confiscated during the imperial occupation. This can be described as an attempt by the Japanese to forge closer relationships with the individuals of the Korean peninsula (Australian, 2010). Mr Kan expressed his "feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for the tremendous damage and suffering brought by the colonial rule"(Australian, 2010). Korea was liberated from the Japanese occupation in 1945 following the conclusion of WWII where a condition for the Japanese surrender was the return of the country to its previous sovereign rule. The use of Forced labor and draft from Korea In 1939, Japan’s empire suffered from labor shortages as a result of the mandatory conscription of Japanese males for the military campaign of WWII. This led to the recruitment of Koreans for labor within the original territory of Japan as well as in Korea and specific parts of China that were under the rule of the empire (Lee, 1999). The recruitment techniques regularly involved specific coercion techniques where individuals were forced into labor against their will. By the year of 1942 the Japanese ruling class passed what is known as the National Mobilization Law which outlined the policy for forced conscription of Korean workers in factories and mines. This policy also included the involuntary relocation of Koreans which contributed to the cultural genocide that was committed against the peoples (Fukuoka, 1996). There were a total of 5.5 million Koreans who were forced into this programs where nearly 1 million of them were relocated to the main island of Japan. The workers were forced to work under conditions that were unsafe and dangerous. As a result of the conditions of the work facilities there were reports of about 60,000 workers who were killed under those conditions. The total estimated deaths between the period of 1939 and the end of the occupation was nearly 1 million. After the conflict was over, the end of the war resulted in the creation of internally displaced persons who were not allowed repatriation to either mainland Japan or the Korean peninsula. These individuals came from the area of Russia that was controlled by the Japanese empire but returned, called Sakhalin. This created what is known as Sakhalin Koreans whose existence is a testament to the brutal campaign of the Chinese. In 1985, the Japanese government offered transit rights and funding for the repatriation of the original group of Sakhalin Koreans, but roughly 1500 were returned of the time period of 2 decades. The rest refused the offer and chose to stay in Sakhalin(Lee, 1999). The National Mobilization Law provided the government with controls over labor unions as well as the capacity to nationalize strategic industries, create price controls, ration goods, and control the national media assets. The government also gained access to a bottomless government in order to subsidize war production and compensate manufacturers for the losses that were the consequence of the war and the implementation logistics (Fukuoka, 1996). The Prime Minister at the time, Konoe passed what was known as the National Service Draft Ordinance. It gave the government the capacity to draft civilians as workers in factories that were integral to the strategy of the war. The program was operated by the Ministry of Welfare. Almost 6 million workers were reclassified as draftees (Cook, 1992). This law was only nullified in 1945 at the conclusion of the war by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers who requested as a contingency of the surrender of Japan. The subjugation of Women Women were subjugated within the Japanese construct of its patriarchal norms. Their society created a hierarchy where the female was merely a means of satisfying the sexual appetite of the male soldiers. They had what were referred to as comfort women. Comfort women referred to women who worked in military brothels. This represented a form of sexual slavery where the women were repeatedly raped by soldiers in the Japanese military. It is estimated that roughly a quarter to a half million females were inducted into this program. The majority of the women were conscripted from Korea during the National Mobilization campaign (Fukuoka, 1996). The program targeted young women from the countries that were under control of imperial Japan. Their recruitment techniques were coercive often including kidnapping and the offering of false information regarding the nature of the job (Cook, 1992). Some sources indicate that the Japanese military itself would utilize force to capture women and place them in brothels. This created a structure where the individuals within the Imperial Army were allowed to capture women as spoils of war. Moreover the individuals would see women during their campaign and take them captive. Essentially, women who were in countries under the control of the Japanese Imperial Army lived in a constant state of fear which caused much psychological harm (Harris, 1994). Victims who reported activity within the brothels indicated that there were days where they would be raped more than 30 times a day. Women who attempted to escape from the brothels were at times killed to force other women to fear the consequence of attempting to escape. This still remains a main area of contention within debates in scholarly institutions (Barenblatt, 2004). Some individuals claim that women were not forced but instead volunteered to work in these brothels, while most of the evidence points to the reality that they were oppressively forced into the program. While the brothels were run by private agents, they were supervised by the Japanese Army. Some estimations point to the sad reality that only 25 percent of the comfort women were able to survive. Another shocking report indicates that most women were unable to have children as a consequence of the multiple rapes or diseases that they contracted. Soldiers begin to view these women as objects and less like human (Fukuoka, 1996). Despite the cries by the women, the soldiers cared not whether they lived or died. They would even rape women who were in the cities where they occupied and perpetuated physical force against those who contested their rule. Jan Ruff-O'Hearn made the following statement to the U.S. House of Representatives at a special hearing after the war. "Many stories have been told about the horrors, brutalities, suffering and starvation of Dutch women in Japanese prison camps. But one story was never told, the most shameful story of the worst human rights abuse committed by the Japanese during World War II: The story of the “Comfort Women”, the jugun ianfu, and how these women were forcibly seized against their will, to provide sexual services for the Japanese Imperial Army. In the so-called “Comfort Station” I was systematically beaten and raped day and night. Even the Japanese doctor raped me each time he visited the brothel to examine us for venereal disease (Harris, 1994)." After the war, there was only 1 General who was prosecuted of the crime and sentenced to death. The Japanese Army did nothing to stop this practice and contended that the only people who conscripted into the brothels volunteered to be there (Harris, 1994). Experimentation on the Human Body Japan pursued scientific ventures that broke protocol for ethical standards governing the industry. Additionally the country violated various international laws and human rights in order to pursue these scientific ends. The specific violations occurred at what is referred to as Unit 731 which was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development sector of the Japanese Imperial Army (Cook, 1992). They would engage in experiments on the human body that typically resulted in fatal consequences. The official title for the unit was the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army. The original charter of the unit was to developed weapons to be deployed against the Chinese in the event that they would engage in offensive military strikes against the Imperial Army (Barenblatt, 2004). The camp was brutal and treated individual human subjects as if they were lab rats in an experiment. In fact, almost all of the subjects in the facilities were Korean (Barenblatt, 2004). This was the result of a campaign that attempted to subject Koreans to the genocidal campaign they were implemented. This was the direct result of the dehumanization that the country engaged in which was necessary to have the doctors perform the unethical experiments on human subjects (Cook, 1992). This occurs when individuals construct a view of the other that creates a view of them as less than human. The prisoners of these facilities were subjected to various experiments such as being hung upside down to determine how long it would take for them to choke to death. Another cruel experiment included having air injected into the arteries of the prisoners to determine the time it takes for embolism to set in. All of the experiments were inhumane and extremely painful for the subjects who were forced to suffer the impact of them (Barenblatt, 2004). Moreover prisoners were deprived of food and water to determine how long humans could survive without food or water. An even more painful treatment is that they were placed into high pressure chambers until they dropped dead (Barenblatt, 2004). This was an attempt to see how much pressure the human body could sustain. They also attempted experiments to determine the maximum temperature that humans would be able to survive which forced the subjects to suffer from extreme burns and painful deaths. They even conducted experiments where they would place individuals into centrifuges and spin the subject until they were dead (Barenblatt, 2004). The purpose of the experiment is still yet to be determined; it seems as if it merely provides scientific knowledge. It’s hard to understand why the focus of World War 2 is on the atrocities committed by Hitler against the Jewish community because the Koreans went through treatment that was just as harsh if not worse. They were even exposed to lethal doses x-rays to determine what humans could survive. They were even placed in gas chambers and had chemical weapons tested against them to test the effects (Barenblatt, 2004). While there were mass graves in Germany, Korean were also placed in massive graves but the difference is that subjects were often buried alive. The test on Koreans gets even worse when discussing the medical experiments that were conducted on the individuals. Prisoners would have their limbs removed to study the rate of blood loss. Beyond that, doctors would often reattach the limbs to the opposite side of the body to determine how the tissue would react (Cook, 1992). Another grueling fact is that some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed as well as having the esophagus reattached to the intestines. It did not stop there, doctors continued by removing parts of the brain, lungs, liver, and more. The atrocities committed against Korean individuals is unbearable, and an apology does not cure the years of stomach aching pain that individuals were forced to endure. The Japanese oppression of the Korean people and culture was excessive and is comparable to the holocaust (Barenblatt, 2004). References Barenblatt, Daniel. A Plague Upon Humanity: the Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation, HarperCollins, 2004. Cook, Haruko Taya; Cook, Theodore F., Japan at war : an oral history, New York: New Press: Distributed by Norton, 1992. Fukuoka, Yasunori (1996). Beyond Assimilation and Dissimilation: Diverse Resolutions to Identity Crises among Younger Generation Koreans in Japan. Saitama University. http://www.han.org/a/fukuoka96b.html. Retrieved 2006-11-27. Harris, Sheldon H. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 and the American Cover-Up, Routledge, 1994. Lee, Ki-Baik; Translated by Edward W. Wagner with Edwar J. Shultz (1999). A New History of Korea (?????). Ilchorak/Harvard University Press. pp. 1080. Australian, The (2010) Japan apologises for suffering caused by its colonisation of Korean peninsula http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/japan-apologises-for-the-suffering-inflicted-during-its-colonisation-of-korean-peninsula/story-e6frg6so-1225903572265 (Retrieved, April 8, 2011) Read More