International Research Institute of Controversial Histories
President
Sugihara Seishiro
July 2024
Cohosted by the Historical Awareness Research Committee and sponsored by The Sankei Newspaper and Japan Forward, the International Research Institute of Controversial Histories has successfully held the Third International Symposium over the Comfort Women Issue, 2024. On this occasion, we heartily extend our gratitude to all the scholars who took part in the symposium and the wonderful audience who came to gather at Seiryo Kaikan Hall.
History is to be recognized through interpretations based on facts. Interpretations may vary but they must be unfailingly based on facts.
The interpretations of historical facts may vary among different countries in the world. However, the differences must not lead to aggravated conflicts among countries.
The comfort women issue involving the Japanese military was exactly such a harmful one, digressing from the historical facts and instigating international conflicts. However, through this symposium, the groundless lies related to comfort women became evident and the comfort woman statues built widely in the world can be said to have now become the symbol of a false historical movement and study.
In addition, what comfort woman statues insinuated was how badly just a handful of history scholars damaged the truth and failed to fulfill their mission of being objective scholars, also, the mass media impaired the society by relentlessly damaging the international friendship while the government was too incompetent to fulfill its mission as a national organ. Comfort woman statues prove all these statements.
In other words, comfort woman statues symbolize not only the comfort women issue but also what history study should be like, how the mass media reporting should be conducted and how the state should cope with history. Thus, the process of demolishing the comfort woman statues should be a process of returning to the study of truth, adequate mass media reporting and the right role that the government should play.
As the gathering of truthful history scholars from South Korea, Japan and the United States, the “Third International Symposium over the Comfort Women Issue 2024” was certainly a glorious event in history. Lastly, this Institute carries its work, solely supported by understanding Japanese people. We could hold this symposium thanks to your warm and encouraging support. We truly appreciate all your wonderful contributions from the bottom of our hearts.