Regarding the June 8 Kyodo article "Forcibly recruited Korean sex slaves a myth: lawmaker": Swarms of Japanese misogynistic morons seem to inhabit the Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party). Is there something in the water?
How can so many Japanese leaders sound so amnesiac and heartless on the sex-slave issue? Is Lower House lawmaker Nariaki Nakayama trying to provoke economic and political hostility from South Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the United States? And why would any Japanese woman want to participate in such an extreme right-wing political organization?
As America pivots toward Asia, Japan seems to be pivoting toward its most inglorious past. Japan might very well pivot right off the world stage, becoming very isolated internationally.
Please, Japan, don't let these guys hijack your country. It's a myth that anyone in the Nippon Ishin has any knowledge of history or Asian culture beyond the shores of Japan. Japan really does have first-class industries, second-class housing and third-class politicians. Did Nakayama actually refer to Korean parents who lost their young daughters to Japan's wartime military brothels as "cowards"? Has he no knowledge of Japan's brutal colonial rule of Korea? Is such speech itself not the words of a coward?
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.