South Korea moves to resolve WWII dispute with Japan that troubles tech supply chains Japan and South Korea have edged closer to a resolution of a dispute that has its roots in World War II, and their efforts may also improve tech supply chains. The dispute centers on Japan's occupation of the then-united Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. During World War II, Japan used Koreans for forced labor – including …
It would be amazing if positive steps could be taken between SK and Japan. Perhaps even being a small glimmer of light across the globe, as there are many, many such points off contention between nations - some of which are extremely volatile regions,
I'll point out though, that unfortunately it is one thing for reparations to be made on a state level, but an entirely different thing for the effect to apply culturally. Differences in culture, their negative effect, are in existence that are tens of generation old.
Everyone involved in WW1 is dead now, though there are some people who were children at the time in the oldest living persons list. The woman at the top of the list was about 11 when the war ended, and the 50th oldest person was about 7.
There are however still some veterans of WW2 still alive, though mostly they would have been in very junior ranks, not the ones making the decisions.
South Koreans want reparations from 80 years ago.
The US effectively wiped out the majority of the indigenous people.
Caribbean nations want reparations from 300 years ago, even though many times more Europeans were indentured by those regimes (effectively slavery, but with a potential release date).
Protestants were persecuted by Catholics and visa versa at various points in European history.
The Vikings enslaved or killed a good proportion of everyone they came into contact with.
The Holy Roman Empire enslaved people from most of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
History says remember these atrocities so that we may learn from them and not repeat them.
Some decedents want financial gains, now, obsessed with the past, rather than working for their own future.
And we have the opposite effect in Europe and the US at the moment with large scale economic migrations from more impoverished areas.
Global society is becoming more aware of inequality via the instant communications, which is a good thing, but it is also driving a sense of entitlement.
However, if society is wanting more economic equality then it must also embrace equality in other areas. How equal is someone in Sub-Saharan Africa, wanting 1st world medicine, but practicing 13th century birth control (still pursued by 2 major religions), with maybe a dozen children in a landscape that cannot support them, relying on food aid?
The 1st world cannot enforce 1st world societal norms, such as responsible birth control, in exchange for 1st world medicine, for example. So, I cannot see an equal future, more than I can see the unequal present and past.
I'm ready for the flames; but seriously is there an answer? Surely, this must be as large an issue as climate change?
"The 1st world cannot enforce 1st world societal norms, such as responsible birth control, in exchange for 1st world medicine, for example."
Define the norms.
There are plenty of "1st World" nation's where abortion is illegal, contraception is difficult to get and it's the woman that takes the full burden if she's gets pregnant
Sort our own shit out before patronising others
Btw.
This is EXACTLY what the Gates Foundation are trying to improve.
"There are plenty of "1st World" nation's where abortion is illegal..."
Up until a few months ago, an exhaustive list of 1st-world countries were an elective abortion was illegal was: Malta. The current full list of 1st-world countries were an elective abortion is illegal: Malta, USA* (*some states only). In every single other 'first-world' country, the only limits on abortions are late-term ones. The exact limits vary, but elective termination up to 3-4 months is usually legal. Abortion to prevent severe / life-threatening risks is legal everywhere in the 1st world.
The more pressing issue outside of the 1st world is access to contraception and family planning. AFAIK pretty much anyone anywhere in the 1st world can buy a pack of condoms from any supermarket or pharmacy, and the female pill is easily available to any woman who wants it (might be some exceptions in some parts of rural USA???), and in many countries it's also free and/or subsidised.
If by 'our' shit you mean '1st world', our shit is pretty well sorted, thanks (efforts of the US of A to backslide notwithstanding).
With respect to "The 1st world cannot enforce 1st world societal norms, such as responsible birth control...", it is well-demonstrated that as populations get richer, the amount of children they have drops. It's not particularly a 1st world societal norm, nor particularly a cultural thing (with the exception of certain strains of some religions, which are prevalent in the 1st world )
Incidentally, I'm using "1st world" in the traditional sense of the countries aligned with the US during the cold war, which roughly correlates currently to the richest democracies ie (most of) Europe plus USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea
I feel it's important to note that the situation changed quite recently for some First-World countries. For example abortions became available in the Republic of Ireland on 1st Jan 2019 (the bill legalising them was passed in 2018). In Northern Ireland (part of the UK) abortions officially became available in March 2020, although the Northern Ireland Department of Health had not made provision for this when in December 2022 the Northern Ireland Secretary formally wrote to them to instruct them to begin.
It's most unlikely that the Holy Roman Empire wasn't involved in slavery, whether or not they enslaved people....
Talk about coincidence! I was just watching a documentary about Bartolomé de Las Casas (in short, about the Spanish going into the Indies). Right at the end of the documentary, and totally unexpected by me, was the info along the lines of: "...as Venezuela had just been gifted to the Welser family by the King of Spain..." [1528]. They enslaved a lot of the population.
So, the bankers to the Holy Roman Empire and the Hapsburgs were in it up to their eye balls from 1523!
Do you condemn gorillas for killing the offspring of the prior alpha? No? Okay. We, start by judging people by the ethics of the day.
Historically, the behavior during war was generally unconstrained (outside of Jewish Law) prior to the Catholic invention of Just War theory.
Generally, the treatment by Europeans of the various populations that they subjugated during the Age of Colonization was slightly better than the historic norm. Generally. The policy of the US government wrt the Indians was quite a bit better. And yes, I'm counting what was done to my great-grandmother & her family in that.
Likewise, slavery was practiced universally until the modern age.
But let's talk about WWII (the issue at hand is NOT about WWI). Japan was party to the Geneva conventions. They had agreed to conduct themselves in war according to a set of rules, and they systematically violated those rules as a matter of official government policy throughout the war. (I give them a pass on the one hour notice before commencing of hostilities, barely, because they did make a good faith effort to inform us.) After the war, we hung a few top officials, but we needed Japan's and Germany's help against the Soviets. So, instead of aggressively investigating, prosecuting, and punishing war crimes, we made a big show of dealing with a handful of top officials, and moved on. The rights of justice for the hundreds of thousands of violated civilians (and P.O.W.s) be ******.
Ignoring justice (which we humans are so good at), what has happened since has been pure politics. For domestic political reasons, the successive SK & JP governments have done what they have. For grand strategic reasons, the US government has steadfastly stayed out. Now, foreign policy issues are forcing the SK & JP governments to figure something out. Don't expect even the appearance of justice to be a major factor--they just need to appease enough of the SK voters without angering too many of the JP voters.
I'm very certain that this is what is driving this. Realpolitck is a *****.
The Japanese government has had (and to a certain extent, still has) extremely practical reasons to deny, deny, deny.
Likewise, the SK government to press, press, press.
But the Rise of Pooh means that both governments are faces with extremely practical reasons to get along. So...they are figuring out something.
I'm glad it's happening, but this is a strong case of justice delayed.
So the descendants of people that did terrible things are expected to pay money to the descendants of the people they did them too.
Which means the person who didn't commit the crime is expected to pay someone who wasn't a victim of that crime.
What problem does this actually solve? If they acknowledge the mistakes of the past and apologise for the actions of the past what more can they actually do? Why should someone be punished for something they didn't do?
Having said all that if there are people that have suffered or are still suffering due to these actions then that's a different story but proving that would be very difficult. As someone else pointed out how far do you go back? Those pyramids didn't build themselves.
My grandmother was indentured to a wealthy family when she was a young girl. Consequently, we can find out nothing about her real name (she was given one by the family when indentured), where she was born, anything about her birth family (who she never saw again), or even her real birth date (the date she used was the date she was indentured.)
This was still common in the UK at the turn of the last century. And although the law was passed earlier, it only fell out of practice with the advent of the First World War.
She was not allowed out of the house alone until she was 16 (probably older in reality as she did not know her real birthday) and then only to run errands for the family. Her only time off was Sunday morning, after lighting the fires and before church. At the age of 18 she was allowed to talk to men on Sunday mornings. When my grandfather wanted to marry her he had to pay a 'release fee' to allow the marriage and another fee to take her away from the household - effectively buying her out of indenture.
In all but the name, this was still slavery in the 20th Century.
I'm pretty sure my Irish and Scotts ancestors didn't come to the USA because they woke up one morning and decided to emigrate. There were reasons; possibly including judicial murder, starvation and general religious suppression. Those same ancestors went on to homestead in the west, in some cases literally over the graves of the previous inhabitants. Apologies are owed all around... but this is an accounting that simply can't be settled. Learn and live for the future.
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