Yale Daily News
FEATURE: The Struggle Against Fiction
A Harvard professor denied a widely accepted historical atrocity. Students and professors at Yale push back.
EDWARD SEOL
7:05 PM, APR 29, 2021
イェール日報
特集：虚構に対する闘争
ハーヴァードの教授が広く受け入れられた歴史的暴虐を否認した。イェールの学生と教授は反撃する。
エドワード·ソウル
2021年 4月29日 午後7:05
Editors’ Note: This article contains discussion of sexual violence.
編集者註記：この記事は性暴力をめぐる議論を内容としている。
“Pure fiction… that is the nature of the comfort-women-sex-slave story.” —J. Mark Ramseyer, Japan Forward, January 2021.
「純粋な虚構…それが慰安婦性奴隷物語りの本質だ。」ーーＪ·マーク·ラムザイヤー、『進め日本』2021年 1月号
On December 1, 2020, Harvard Law professor J. Mark Ramseyer sparked a global controversy when he published an article in the International Review of Law and Economics (IRLE) about “comfort women” in Imperial Japan. In the article, he rejected the historical understanding that “comfort women,” many of whom were of Korean origin, were violently coerced into a system of sexual servitude — arguing that these women “voluntarily participated” in contracts for sex work.
2020年12月 1日、ハーヴァードの法学教授、Ｊ·マーク·ラムザイヤーは、帝国日本の「慰安婦」について『法と経済の国際批評』(IRLE）誌に記事を発表したことによって全地球的論争に火を点けた。その記事の中で彼は、朝鮮/韓国の出身者の多かった「慰安婦」たちが性的奴隷制度への編入を暴力的に強要されたという歴史認識を拒絶し、この女の人たちはセックスする仕事の契約に「自由意志で参加した」と論じている。
The article incited a firestorm. It triggered a letter demanding retraction with over 3,600 signatories — including 44 members of the Yale community ranging from undergraduate students to esteemed professors — inspired Japanese right-wing denialists, and drew sharp condemnation from both North and South Korea. In a New Yorker article, fellow Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen wondered at the article’s impact in worsening the fraught relationship between Japan and Korea, and in challenging the U.S.’ role as their mutual ally — several members of Congress have spoken out against Ramseyer’s article.
記事は嵐を呼び起こした。それは撤回を要求する手紙を書かせて、手紙には学部生から高名な教授に至る四十四人のイェール大学関係者を含む三千六百人が署名する結果となり、日本の右翼的な歴史否認家たちを活気づかせ、北朝鮮と南韓国のどちらからも痛烈な断罪を引き出した。ニューヨーカー誌のある記事でハーヴァードの同僚法学教授ジャニー·スク·ガーセンは、危険を孕んだ日韓関係を悪化させ、日韓の両方と同盟関係にある合衆国の役割を妨害する点で、記事の与える衝撃は測り知れないと述べ、何人もの国会議員がラムザイヤーの記事に反対して声を上げた。
The history of “comfort women” has often been obscured by active silencing and denial. In 2015, the Japanese foreign ministry asked American publisher McGraw Hill to remove a reference to “comfort women” from a textbook they distributed to Californian high schools, ambiguously claiming the text included “grave errors and descriptions that conflict with [their] nation’s stance.” Former prime minister Shinzo Abe also “openly flirted” with the idea of retracting the 1993 government apology to “comfort women.”
「慰安婦」の歴史はしばしば能動的な口封じや否認によって押し隠されてきた。2015年には日本の外務省がアメリカの出版社マッグロー·ヒルに、同社がカリフォルニアの高等学校に頒布している教科書の記述に「重大な誤りと、わが国の立場と齟齬する説明」が含まれるとの曖昧な主張をしながら、「慰安婦」への言及を削除することを要請した。前首相[当時]の安倍晋三もまた1993年に政府が「慰安婦」にした謝罪を取り消そうという目論見を公然と弄んだ。
Nonetheless, students and faculty at Yale stand in unity to bring light to the issue. Hailing from various backgrounds, they have the common hope of preserving integrity and truth in academia, and giving voice to the long-silenced survivors of sexual violence.
それでもなお、イェールの学生·教職員はこの問題に光を当てるために結束して立つ。彼らは様々な経歴を有しながら、学問における誠意と真実を守り、長きにわたり沈黙を強いられた性暴力の体験者に声を与えたいという、共通の希望を抱いている。
REFUTING RAMSEYER’S “SCHOLARSHIP”
ラムザイヤーの「学識」を反証する人々
In his article, Ramseyer argues that “comfort women” voluntarily participated in indentured contracts. These arrangements, he writes, provided sufficient incentives for women to work because they would receive large upfront payments and were only bound for a short duration. Ramseyer also claims that these contracts were organized by private entrepreneurs unaffiliated with the Imperial Japanese military or government, and the women were fully aware of what the contracts entailed.
記事の中でラムザイヤーは、「慰安婦」が自発的に署名捺印した証文を取り交わして契約に参加したと論じている。こうした取り決めは、彼が記すところでは、女たちに働く気を起こさせる十分な誘引を提供する。なぜならこの女たちは多額の前払い報酬を受け取り、短い年期しか課されないからだ。ラムザイヤーはまた、これらの契約は帝国日本の軍や政府に所属しない民間の企業家によって組織されたものであり、女たちは契約にどういう結果が付いて来るかをすっかり承知していたとも主張している。
At one point, Ramseyer uses an example involving a 10-year-old girl named Osaki to assert that contracting was consensual. He wrote, “The recruiter did not try to trick her; even at age 10, she knew what the job entailed.” This statement is not only false — Osaki was lied to about the work she would have to do — but also poses a more severe problem: proposing that a 10-year-old child is capable of giving consent.
ある所でラムザイヤーはオサキという名の十歳の少女にまつわる一例を使って、契約締結は合意の上だったと断ずる。彼はこう記した。「徴募員は彼女を騙そうとはしなかった。十歳であっても彼女はその仕事にどんなことが伴うかを知っていた｡」 この叙述は虚偽であるだけでなくーーオサキは自分がすることになる仕事について嘘をつかれていたーーより深刻な問題を提出している。十歳の子どもが同意をする能力があることにしようと提案しているのだ。
Thousands of scholars, activists and students have condemned Ramseyer’s work for its disturbing assertions, poor methodology and unsupported claims. In a statement, Yale professor of economics and former chief economist of the World Bank Pinelopi Goldberg called Ramseyer’s passage about Osaki a “blatant endorsement of child sex trafficking.” She added, “The issue here is not just about fact versus fiction or academic freedom. It is about justifying acts (i.e., child rape and human trafficking) that are not only morally repugnant, but also strictly illegal in civilized society.”
何千という学者、活動家と学生がラムザイヤーの仕事を、その撹乱的断言、貧困な方法論と根拠のない主張により断罪してきた。イェールの経済学教授であり世界銀行の前主任経済学者であるピネロピ·ゴールドバーグはある声明の中で、オサキについてラムザイヤーが述べたくだりを「児童性奴隷売買の露骨な擁護」と評した。彼女はさらに「ここで論点とすべきは、事実か虚構かとか、学問の自由かどうかということだけではない。道徳的に嫌悪すべきであるだけでなく、文明社会においては明確に違法でもある行為（すなわち児童強姦と人身売買）を、正当化してよいのかということだ。」と付け加えた。
In general, Ramseyer’s article contains a myriad of inaccurate and unsupported historical claims. According to Tessa Morris-Suzuki, professor emerita in Japanese history at the Australian National University, “Professor Ramseyer provides no reference to a single contract actually signed between a ‘comfort woman’ and her employers, and cites no oral testimony from any former ‘comfort woman’ who recalls signing a contract of the type he describes.” Scholars have also identified misapplication of data from different time periods and problems of misquotation and misinterpretation. Additionally, while Ramseyer contends that the Japanese government and military were not involved in the coercion of women to work in military brothels, the Japanese government itself has admitted to and apologized for its involvement multiple times.
全体として、ラムザイヤーの記事は無数の不正確で無根拠な主張を内容としている。日本史を専門とするオーストラリア国立大学のテッサ·モーリス·スズキ名誉教授によれば、「ラムザイヤー教授は『慰安婦』とその雇い主の間で実際に署名された契約書への参照をただの一つも提供していないし、彼が述べる様なたぐいの契約書に署名したことを回想するいかなる元『慰安婦』による口述証言も引用していない｡」 異なる時期からのデータの不正利用、および不正引用や不正解釈の問題を確認した学者もまた少なくない。加えて、日本の政府と軍は女たちに軍用娼館での仕事を強制することには関わっていないとラムザイヤーは言い募るけれども、日本政府自身は度重ねてその関与を認め、謝罪してきた。
Ramseyer mainly frames his argument through economic theory, claiming that the contracts between “comfort women” and their recruiters “followed basic game-theoretic principles of credible commitments.” But economists have called the paper an abuse of economic theory. As the economists who drafted the letter demanding the article’s retraction write, “Game-theoretic principles can be used to interpret many coercive situations, from crime and punishment to nuclear warfare. But invoking game theory does not establish the absence of violent exploitation or predation.”
ラムザイヤーは主として経済理論を使って論理を組み立て、「慰安婦」とその徴募員の間の契約が「信用できる委託というゲーム理論の根本原理に従っていた」と主張する。だが経済学者たちは論文を経済理論の冒瀆と評した。記事の撤回を要請する手紙を起草した経済学者たちが書いている様に、「ゲーム理論の諸原理を用いて犯罪と刑罰から核戦争に至る様々な強要状況を解釈することはできる。だがゲーム理論を適用できたからといって、暴力的搾取や弱肉強食の不在を立証したことにはならない」のだ。
Ramseyer uses a framework that presupposes “comfort women” could contract freely and without coercion. But his appeals to game theory do not prove that such interactions were consensual. Economic principles cannot discount history as it happened, as recounted by “comfort women” and documented by academics worldwide — women throughout Imperial Japan faced violent exploitation and coercion.
「慰安婦」が自由に、強要されることなく契約することができたことを前提とした論理構成をラムザイヤーは用いている。だが彼がゲーム理論に依拠したところで、そうした相互作用が合意に基づいていたことの証明にはならない。帝国日本のいたる所の女たちが暴力的な搾取と強制に直面したという、生起した通りの歴史を、「慰安婦」が物語り、世界中の学者が記録文書で裏付けた通りの歴史を、経済原理で値切るとはできない。
THE UNKNOWN STORY OF “COMFORT WOMEN”
知られていない「慰安婦」の話
In 1937, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Imperial Japanese troops destroyed the Chinese city of Nanking. In an event called the Rape of Nanking, soldiers raped between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women.
日中戦争中の1937年、帝国日本軍の部隊は中国の都市南京を破壊した。南京陵辱と呼ばれる事件で兵士たちは二万人から八万人の中国人女性を陵辱した。
Following the Rape of Nanking, military brothels were expanded across Imperial Japan. “Comfort stations” were designed to reduce the incidence of wartime rape — a rising cause of anti-Japanese sentiment in occupied territories — and to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among Japanese military forces. The isolation of women in military brothels, the Japanese believed, would also ensure that women could not communicate any military secrets.
南京陵辱に続いて、帝国日本[軍の占領地―訳者]の至る所に軍用娼館が拡散して行った。「慰安所」は戦時強姦（占領地域における抗日気運の原因の中でも重大性を増すもの）の発生件数を減少させるためと、性感染疾病の広がりを防ぐために制度設計された。女たちを軍用娼館に隔離しておくことは、日本軍が信じたところでは、女たちがどんな軍事機密も伝達できないことを保証するはずでもあった。
Rules for the recruitment of “comfort women” differed across regions. In Japan, kidnapping was illegal and recruitment was limited to professional prostitutes. But in colonies like Korea and Taiwan, mass deception and abductions were rampant. According to testimonies, middlemen hired by the Japanese military lured women through promises of work in factories, restaurants, and medical facilities.
「慰安婦」徴募の規則は地域によって異なっていた。日本では略取誘拐は犯罪であり徴募できるのは職業的売春婦に限られた。だが朝鮮と台湾の様な植民地では集団的な詐欺と拉致が横行した。諸証言によれば日本軍に雇われた仲介者がたちが工場や食堂、医療施設での仕事を女たちに約束して誘惑した。
Primary accounts from “comfort women” tell of being forced to have sex under brutal and inhumane conditions, sometimes with upwards of 20 soldiers daily. Survivors describe no access to medical care, forced sterilization and abortions, sexually transmitted diseases and physical torture for women who resisted. While Japan destroyed most of its wartime documents after its surrender in World War II, most historians believe there were between 50,000 and 200,000 “comfort women.” Roughly 75 percent are estimated to have died from this experience.
残忍で非人道的な条件下で、時には日に20人に上る兵士たちと性交させられたことを、「慰安婦」からの一次証言は伝える。内科医の診療は受けられなかったこと、消毒と墮胎の強制、性感染疾病、抵抗した女性への肉体的加虐を被害生還者は物語る。日本は第二次大戦で降伏した後に大部分の戦時中の記録文書を破壊したけれども、大多数の歴史家は五万人から二十万人の「慰安婦」がいたはずだと考える。ざっと七十五パーセントがこの体験によって死亡したと推定される。
In 1991, Kim Hak-sun broke over 50 years of silence when she became the first “comfort woman” to testify about her experiences. She and others filed a suit in Tokyo District Court demanding the Japanese government take responsibility for its human rights violations during World War II. This opened the door for hundreds of women — not only from South Korea but also China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries — to come forward and share their accounts. Today, remaining survivors continue to share their stories, and translators work to make more testimony available in English.
1991年にキム·ハクスン[金学順]が五十年間の沈黙を破り、自分の体験を証言した最初の「慰安婦」となった。彼女と仲間たちは日本政府にその第二次大戦中の人権侵害の責任を取ることを求めて東京地方裁判所に提訴した。これによってドアが開かれ、何百人もの女たち（韓国だけでなく中国、台湾、フィリピン、インドネシアその他の国からも）にドアを開き、進み出て証言を公開した。今日も残る生存者たちは語りを提供し続け、翻訳家はより多くの証言を英語で読めるようにする仕事をしている。
BEHIND THE VEIL: HOW ACADEMIC JOURNALS WORK
ヴェールに包まれた学術雑誌の編集作業
Ramseyer’s article denies a grave historical atrocity and silences the voices of “comfort women” in Imperial Japan. But his work was only able to gain widespread attention through the peer-reviewed International Review of Law and Economics (IRLE).
ラムザイヤーの論説は重大な歴史的残虐事件を否認し、帝国日本の「慰安婦」の声を掻き消す。だが彼の著作が広範な人々の注目を浴びるのは専門家による査読のある法経済学国際評論
The journal publishing process is a foreign concept to many people. Yale professor of economics Larry Samuelson explained to the News that the process begins when an author submits a paper to a journal. The editors select referees who read the paper and write reports, typically recommending a decision, explaining their reasoning and offering comments on the paper. Referees may come from different fields to ensure that different viewpoints engage with the article. The editors then decide whether to reject the paper, invite revisions or accept the paper for publication.
Michael Chwe, professor of political science at University of California, Los Angeles, was part of the initial organizing efforts for the letter by concerned economists demanding the article’s retraction. He speculates that Ramseyer understood that the IRLE journal editors, and their referee connections, were not as familiar with history as they were with law and economics.
“[Ramseyer] is purposefully not submitting these papers in the journals where that expertise would be strongest,” Chwe said. “It’s very, very difficult in the best circumstances to judge an article to the highest accuracy. But it is particularly difficult when you can’t trust the author to tell the truth. It is particularly difficult when the author doesn’t seem to actually care.”
Postdoctoral associate at the Yale Economics Department Sun Kyoung Lee also noted to the News that a lack of anonymity in the publishing process may create problems. Authors may target journals whose editors they believe will receive their article favorably. Likewise, she said, “There may be a bias among editors in selecting referees, sometimes leaning towards people they know. That can be very dangerous.”
Lee also pointed out that the peer-reviewed status of the IRLE provides undeserved legitimacy to Ramseyer’s claims. “It gives extra validity to his argument by having this whole system and infrastructure approve his work,” she says.
Universities are not insulated from the failures of journals to uphold scholarly standards. Professor Goldberg mentioned that Yale decides to pay for journal subscriptions, including the IRLE. “Why are we supporting this kind of lousy research?” she asked. Goldberg added that if Yale wanted to respond appropriately, the University should cancel its subscription to the IRLE.
STANDING FOR TRUTH AND INTEGRITY AT YALE
Members of the Yale community have taken a stand against Ramseyer’s attempt to rewrite history and the IRLE’s failure to reject and retract his article.
Hannah Shepherd, an incoming assistant professor of Japanese history at Yale, sent calls for retraction to the IRLE editorial board, citing the article’s lack of academic integrity. “The response from the editorial board of IRLE has been slow and often difficult to understand,” she said. “We are still waiting to hear whether the article will be retracted.”
These efforts have not been without pushback, Shepherd noted. She said, “We have also been subject to quite aggressive harassment on Twitter by right-wing Japanese trolls, who support Ramseyer and consider any criticism of his work ‘anti-Japanese.’”
Still, Shepherd and fellow academics have worked on documenting issues in the IRLE article to prove it was a case of academic misconduct. They published a 28-page fact-checking document online and sent it to the IRLE editors in February.
The structure of journals also allows academics to protest. Journals rely on authors to submit publishable content and volunteers to referee. Researchers can boycott journals to send a message. Indeed, Chwe noted, “We already have some very well-known people, including pioneering figures in law and economics, saying that they regret having published in the journal and that they don’t plan to submit in the future. If enough people do that, then the journal cannot live.”
Students at Yale have also helped bring light to the true history of “comfort women.”
Stand with “Comfort Women” (STAND) is a student-led task force at Yale that aims to foster productive conversations on the “comfort women” issue through educational projects. Kimberly Cruz ’22 and Sharmaine Koh ’22 are board members of STAND. Last summer, they helped organize a remote series attracting hundreds of attendees who listened to women survivors, photographers, musicians and scholars share their experiences and perspectives on the atrocity.
Cruz first learned of the topic through a documentary in a high school history class. “Our teacher showed us a documentary on the Rape of Nanking, and I started crying. It was showing how women were brutally abused and how people were running away from the Imperial Army,” she said. That moment impacted Cruz so deeply that in the summer after her sophomore year, she conducted independent research on the “comfort women” issue in Japan through a grant from Yale’s Council on East Asian Studies. There, she interviewed Japanese citizens and people of Korean descent on the topic.
For Koh, who grew up and lives in Singapore, Japanese occupation was a frequent topic in school because of Singapore’s status as an occupied territory during World War II. Yet “comfort women” were only brought up in passing. “It wasn’t until college, when I stumbled across Chinese historical archives on ‘comfort women’ for a class, that I really began learning about the issue,” Koh said. She wrote her final paper on the topic, and her professor subsequently connected her to some STAND alumni.
When Cruz and Koh first heard of the Ramseyer article, they were surprised to see the denialist claims coming from a Harvard professor. They each quickly took to social media to share links and spread awareness of the true history.
Cruz expressed some disappointment with how few of her friends were aware of the controversy or knew about “comfort women.” For STAND, engaging Yale students has been challenging. Koh said, “A lot of our audience consists of members from partner organizations or people outside of Yale who have long been engaged with this issue.”
The two STAND members traced the difficulty of engaging students to the historical removal of World War II’s atrocities and the perceived lack of contemporary relevance. “People seem less interested in activism that doesn’t bring immediate change because WWII seems very distant to them,” Cruz said. During the group’s events, Koh said, “People always ask what they can do, and we say we want them to learn about this history. But then they ask again, ‘No, what do you want us to do?’”
Postdoctoral associate Lee, a native Korean, cites a different kind of problem in South Korea. She thinks that younger generations are more reluctant to revisit this history, saying, “People generally don’t like seeing themselves as victims. They are almost like, ‘Why are we talking about this over and over again?’”
STAND’s current efforts include sharing a petition about the Imperial Army flag that Japan is trying to display at the 2021 Olympics. They are also coordinating with New Haven public schools to educate students about “comfort women.” While the Holocaust is taught across American public schools, this aspect of the war is often uncovered. “When people learn about ‘comfort women,’” Cruz said, “They’re kind of shocked. They ask, why don’t we talk about it?”
MOVING FORWARD
Many have found hope in the responses to Ramseyer’s article, as people from diverse communities, both academic and not, have banded together to condemn its falsehoods. As the efforts of STAND and numerous academics show, people rapidly mobilize in response to injustice and controversy.
Many are now thinking about the next steps forward. Yale postdoctoral associate in East Asian studies Russell Burge, who supported efforts to retract Ramseyer’s article, said his next step is “really rethinking [his] teaching.” As a historian of Japan and its colonial empire, incoming Yale assistant professor of Japanese history Shepherd wants students in her future classes to see the topic “not just as a discrete issue of ‘war memory’ or present day denialism, but in terms of how the histories of mobilization, colonial rule, sex trafficking and economic deprivation intersected to produce this system.”
As STAND continues with its educational efforts, the group is thinking about reframing the “comfort women” issue around human rights and current events. Cruz spoke of the persistence of institutionalized sexual violence against women. “There are paramilitary groups out there that torment women and do not give them autonomy over their bodies,” she said. “That is something we’ll focus more on — the connection of ‘comfort women’ to the present.”
The “comfort women” experience is an intergenerational source of trauma. Today, there are few survivors left to share their stories. Without continued efforts to spread awareness — and a willingness to learn — the story of this historical atrocity may very well lay buried in the unread footnotes of history books. The pain of these women and their families may be denied.
Educating ourselves and standing with “comfort women” has been and remains an essential obligation. Only by doing so can we prevent claims of “pure fiction” from tearing out pages from history.
EDWARD SEOL 