[국제]Japanese academia and civic groups respond to Ramsay’s thesis… history distorted

[앵커]

Japanese academia and civic groups began to verify and criticize Professor Ramsey at Harvard University, who claims that the’comfort women were voluntary prostitutes’.

History-related societies in Japan gathered to hold public seminars to point out the problems of the thesis, and to spread the information to the world.

Correspondent Lee Kyung-ah reports from Tokyo.

[기자]

Professor Ryuta Itagaki from Doshisha University in Japan, who has studied the modern and contemporary history of Korea.

Professor Ramsey’s thesis pointed out that it repeats the claims of the Japanese right-wing forces that have continued since the 1990s.

Obviously, the problem of human rights violations in which victims exist is wrong to presuppose an equal contract relationship with their eyes closed.

Apart from the viewpoint, the academic paper itself was evaluated as having a big problem.

[이타가키 류타 / 일본 도시샤대 교수 : 자료를 잘못 읽었거나 자료의 근거를 찾아봐도 그런 데이터가 나오지 않는 등 여러 가지로 무리해서 이런 주장을 만들어 냈다고 봅니다. 학술적으로 성립되지 않는 얘기입니다.]

Four academic organizations, including the Japan Society for Historical Studies and the Japan Society for History Research, announced a full-fledged verification of the thesis at a public seminar on the 14th of next month.

This is the first time that Japanese academics have jointly responded to Professor Ramsey’s thesis, which is causing international ripples.

[이타가키 류타 / 일본 도시샤대 교수 : 일단 학술 논문으로 나온 것이므로 학술적으로 확실히 비판하는 작업을 하고, 그리고 모두가 알 수 있는 방식으로 제시해 나가지 않으면 안 된다고 생각합니다.]

The civic group hosting this seminar was concerned about the spread of Professor Ramsey’s distorting history thesis by the Japanese right.

[오카모토 유카 / 일본군 위안부 시민단체 ‘파이트 포 저스티스’ 운영위원 : 산케이신문에서 (램지어 논문을 알리는) 기사를 계속 보도하면서 인터넷에도 그걸 인용해 ‘역시 그랬다’거나 ‘위안부는 성노예가 아니었다’는 정보가 넘치고 있습니다.]

He then pointed out that the fact that historical revisionists trying to hold the war responsibility became the mainstream of the Japanese ruling powers eventually led to a matter of education.

[오카모토 유카 / 일본군 위안부 시민단체 ‘파이트 포 저스티스’ 운영위원 : 일본 매스컴에서 이런 문제를 제대로 다루지 않는 배경에 있는 것은 역사 교육이 제대로 돼 있지 않은 것, 이게 대단히 큰 문제라고 생각합니다.]

The organizers said that the first seminar criticizing the thesis has already received applications from ordinary citizens.

In addition, he added that prior to the seminar, a statement protesting Prof. Ramsayer’s thesis will be announced not only in Japanese, but also in English and Korean, and will be announced to the world.

This is Kyungah Lee from YTN in Tokyo.

[저작권자(c) YTN & YTN plus 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]