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Why did South Koreans keep absolutely silent about former "comfort women" for 46 years?
Only in August 1991 did the story of Kim Hak-soon a former comfort woman during World War II explode. The following December, three former comfort women filed claims against the Japanese government, demanding what since became their Holy Grail ― an official government apology with "legal" compensation, requiring legislative action.
A patriarchal world view drilled into every soul for over six centuries led to the silence. For women, the teachings meant: Thou shalt hold chastity even above your life.
Former South Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil spoke about comfort women in 114 oral history interviews published in 2015 in The JoongAng Daily. Kim, the right-hand man to President Park Chung-hee, the engineer of "The Miracle on the Han River," revealed that during the 1951-1965 negotiations with Japan, neither Korea nor Japan ever discussed Korean comfort women. Why?
Kim stated in The JoongAng Daily, 5/5/2015: "Korea's failure to address our comfort women issue reflected our society's near-paralysis, not knowing what to do for them. Those women miraculously survived the indignities inflicted upon them by the Japanese and returned home. They were still young, in their 30s or early 40s, and finally, they married and began to bear children. To drag out their unhealed past would have burst open their wounds for the second, maybe, third time."
You, hypocrite! Paralysis? I ranted.
True, the testimonies by 76 former Korean comfort women published in Korean since 1993 clearly depict the do-or-die roads these women travelled to protect their past secret. Some married but were divorced when the truth leaked out. So far, I know of only one woman who confessed her past to her suitor, but only because she had been divorced by her husband upon his discovery of her past.
"Do you still want me?" She grilled the second man. He was college educated, younger than her, and had never been married ― a contrast to the partners some comfort women found. They were much older and with children from previous marriages. He said "Yes!"
Crouching behind such a need for secrecy of their comfort women, Koreans licked angst over their impotence to protect them. Also smoldering in Koreans' hearts was their shame over some of their countrymen's sins ― "selling" their own girls to the Japanese.
Even if Koreans broke their silence, and an army of governmental employees searched for former comfort women through every alley way, slum, red light district, market place, and homes with hired domestics, most women would have only shrunk deeper into the shadows, forfeiting any government subsidy.
Hundreds or more of the 5,000 women (the lowest crude estimate of former comfort women who returned to the Korean peninsula) committed suicide or died of sexually-transmitted and other diseases that left their minds and bodies "manshinchang," meaning tattered to shreds. The ailments and hunger were compounded by "han," hearts bruised to pulp. This was the price of their silence.This was the price set by their fathers, mothers, and fellow countrymen.
The framed calligraphy work in his office, defining Kim Jong-pil's canon of politics (and life) ― "Merely Smile and Offer No Answer" ― witnesses his stunning rise as one of the most crucial shapers of Korea's modern history. His motto syncs with that of Korean comfort women, except the women's would have been, "Merely Bear and Not Say a Word."
All this said, the reason for the "Big Silence" Kim cited still rings hollow. If Koreans felt the passion to reach their abandoned women, apologize and compensate for Korea's failures, and comfort them, surely, they would have found ways.
The author of an autobiographical novel about Korea, "The Voices of Heaven," Maija Rhee Devine is working on her next books ― a nonfiction book and a novel about comfort women of WWII. Contact: www.MaijaRheeDevine; maijadevine@gmail.com.
