Jinhee Lee, Professor of History, Eastern Illinois State University▶ Click here to enlarge
The background of Cambridge University in England’s revising thesis of Harvard Law School Professor Mark Ramseyer who distorted the Korean massacre was the persistent efforts of historian Lee Jin-hee, a professor of history at Eastern Illinois State University.
In an interview with Yonhap News on the 21st (local time), Professor Lee revealed the story behind the persuasion of Israeli professors who served as co-editors of the academic journal at Cambridge University.
Professor Lee, a researcher at the Center for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, read in advance the full text of a distorting dissipation for comfort women written by Professor Ramsey earlier this year.
Astonished by Professor Ramsey’s distortion of history, Professor Lee began work on confirming another paper by Professor Ramsey.
In this process, he confirmed that Professor Ramsey wrote a thesis justifying not only the comfort women issue but also the massacre of Koreans and discrimination against Koreans in Japan during the Great Kanto Earthquake.
Prof. Lee, who is considered the most authoritative expert in this field, including writing the world’s first doctoral thesis on the Great Kanto Earthquake of the Korean massacre, producing material books, and conducting documentary tours of witnesses, immediately sent an e-mail to the person in charge of the University of Cambridge.
Professor Ramsey’s claim that’the Japanese vigilantes went to massacre because of a crime committed by Koreans’ was a distortion contrary to historical facts.
However, the initial reaction by Israeli scholars, co-editors of the academic book, was disappointing.
They sent a reply stating, “Because the time of publication of the book is imminent, the content of the paper cannot be modified.”
Professor Lee sent an email again. He added that denying the justification of the massacre of Koreans and the leading role of the Japanese government’s military is nothing less than denying the Holocaust, the Nazi massacre.
As the Holocaust was mentioned, Professor Lee explains that Israeli scholars seem to have understood the nature and seriousness of the matter.
Israeli scholars changed their position to ask historians and legal experts for a final review of the thesis prior to publication.
At the same time, it also revealed that even if the paper is published, the phrase’thesis based on controversial claims’ will be inserted in the preface.
However, Professor Lee pointed out that publishing the paper even though he knew that the paper was distorted is not in line with the code of ethics of Cambridge University and its publishing house.
In response to Professor Lee’s repeated comments, Israeli scholars eventually changed their positions.
In a recent e-mail interview with Yonhap News, Alon Harrell, professor of law at Hebrew University of Israel, admitted that Ramsay’s thesis was “a very regrettable mistake,” and drew a line that the original text would not be published in the journal.
Professor Lee also sent a complaint to the European Journal of Law and Economics, which published last week’s dissertation on discrimination against Koreans in Japan by Ramsayer. The intention is to reveal the position of the journal even online.
Professor Lee emphasized the necessity of preparing countermeasures, saying, “It is very likely that other journal editors trust the professor’s background and title to determine his history knowledge as accurate, and not seek thesis review by a private academic expert.”
[연합뉴스]
Copyrights ⓒ Yonhap News. Unauthorized reproduction and redistribution prohibited