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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHere’s the Japanese rock song so offensive it took North Korea’s focus off U.S.
From 1910 through its defeat at the end of World War II, Japan forced tens of thousands of Korean women into sexual slavery as comfort women. Korea was a Japanese colony at the time; since then, this abuse has come to symbolize the worst of Japanese practices in Korea. But its also become a touchy subject in Japan itself, an abuse so profound that nationalists sometimes refuse to acknowledge it happened. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has hinted he might revise the countrys formal apology or, in very extreme cases, even boast about its past.
A far-right and otherwise obscure Japanese rock band called Scramble, seizing on renewed political attention to the issue, has released a song about comfort women, called Slashing Koreans. I havent been able to get a full translation of the lyrics yet, but an Agence France-Presse story says the song alleges that the women were all prostitues, an allegation often made by far-right Japanese. The song also urges violence against the elderly survivors of Japans wartime sex slavery.
The song is so offensive that North Koreas official media outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, dedicated its daily commentary to it. The daily KCNA editorial is typically a screed against American imperialists or their South Korean lackeys. For the last two weeks, its been wholly consumed with escalating tensions against the United States, so the fact that they set aside an entire daily commentary to call out Scramble for its song suggests that they might really, sincerely be incensed by it.
The song likely came to North Koreas attention after some South Korean survivors of the sexual slavery system, women now in their 80s and 90s, filed a defamation suit against the band. It seems that the women learned of the song when someone mailed a CD of it, along with the lyrics helpfully translated into Korean, to a shelter for comfort women survivors in South Korea. Its not clear who sent the CD, but its worth noting that Scramble took care to include a Korean-language translation of the songs name when they posted it to YouTube, suggesting that they like the idea of rubbing the song in Koreans faces. Perhaps one of the bands few fans wanted to help in that mission.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/04/the-japanese-rock-song-so-offensive-it-took-north-koreas-focus-off-u-s/
still_one
(91,965 posts)antagonism, something like when the Benghazi incident tried to blame it on a video, or issues I believe in Denmark when a cartoonist depicted Mohammad in an insulting manner.
Of course in this particular case, it insults the people that actually went through the terrible ordeal. It would be similar to a group mocking the holocaust, the battle of Stalingrad, or slavery in this country, all of which actually have occurred
The question that comes to being is should their be censorship of it?
Paul E Ester
(952 posts)Amazing the power of a three cord song and lame video to provoke and cause trouble.
Like the recent mohammed video that caused rioting everywhere and peoples deaths, Art can be a powerful political tool.
Looking at Scrambles YT feed, it's like a battle of the bands. Their song seems to be a response to a Korean song called "Dokdo is Korean Island!". Seems there were a bunch of flash mobs where Koreans got together to sing this nationalist ditty about some disputed islands in the sea of Japan. The catchy lyrics for the Korean song are on the right.
alp227
(31,962 posts)But the "kill the f-ing Yankees" part was probably a mis-translation.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)He apologized, either way, so that settled that.
AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)I haven't found a link to the lyrics, but the song and singing is not bad.
Edited to note, I can like some riffs by Ted Nugent (or even a song like Cat Scratch fever) and still hate the idiot for his stupid
political stances.