Latest news with #ImperialJapan
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Telegraph
The Imperial War Museum shines a blazing light on a neglected war crime
'No one knew the truth. If I didn't testify, it would be buried forever. I'll never forget the past, even if I am 100 years old. It was vividly carved into my head.' Tricked into sexual enslavement as a so-called 'Comfort Woman' for the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War, this moving testimony from Kim Bok-dong encapsulates how easily the stories of sexual violence survivors and victims in conflict can slip through the cracks of posterity. Whether shamed or shunned, threatened or shushed, countless victims and survivors of sexual violence have been silenced for as long as wars have been waged. That it has taken until 2025 for the first major exhibition in the UK to deal exclusively with sexual violence in conflict demonstrates how, even within peacetime democracies, the subject has long been consigned to the shadows. But, with its brand-new exhibition Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Imperial War Museum shines a blazing light on 'the most neglected war crime', as described by the Sunday Times chief foreign correspondent Christina Lamb in the exhibition's introductory video. While redeveloping the site's Second World War and Holocaust galleries in recent years, Helen Upcraft – lead curator of Unsilenced – and her IWM colleagues had quickly recognised that 'we needed a dedicated space to tell this story from start to finish, looking at all of those underlying societal structures and causes, through to justice and reconciliation'. Over the past six years, the IWM has drawn upon both its diverse collection of historical objects and the rich expertise of leading activists, journalists and academics in the field to realise this vision. When you step into Unsilenced, you are immediately struck by the unusual choice of material used to house much of the exhibition's information: fabric. The unravelling threads of the fabric as you pass through to the next room represent how war and conflict unpick societal norms; the wooden beams solemnly arching over your head symbolise the entrenched systems and unshakeable framework that enable sexual violence to be perpetrated in conflict. Although rape is synonymous with the subject, Unsilenced crucially reminds us that sexual violence is committed in many different forms. These include sexual humiliation and assault; torture and genital mutilation; forced sexual favours in return for basic amenities; and, at its most extreme, as part of ethnic cleansing. The main room highlights that such acts do not take place in a vacuum: rather, political structures, gender stereotypes, and power imbalances all contribute to their occurrence. An intriguing row of propaganda posters from multiple wars documents how men in war have long been portrayed throughout modern history. The men, of course, are rippling with muscles and oozing with machismo, virile and assertive in the heat of battle. Running concurrently beneath those posters, however, are the multiple negative stereotypes of women at war, such as being duplicitous sirens – 'Keep Mum, She's Not So Dumb!' – or being weak and passive. Where Unsilenced is especially inspired, though, is how it flips our typical notion of military history on its head to reframe them from the perspective of sexual violence survivors and victims. An especially thought-provoking example can be seen in the German bayonet and scabbard on display from the First World War. As the accompanying panel explains, 'During the German invasion of Belgium in the autumn of 1914, witnesses testified that German soldiers raped Belgian women and used their bayonets to cut off their breasts before killing them.' Already a weapon with a grim military history to begin with, the thought that this exact kind of bayonet was also used to mutilate women out of sexual pleasure or vengeful rage makes the cold metal glint even more menacingly under the exhibition's spotlights. What is also sickening is the everyday nature of this sexual barbarity and dehumanisation of women in both World Wars. This is epitomised by the 'Comfort Women Station' sign that was reputedly taken from the door of a Japanese brothel in Burma during 1944. Forced to have sex with up to forty men a day, many of these women contracted horrific STDs and were rendered infertile; some were even raped to death. That the piece of wood is daubed with the words 'closed/just having a temporary 'rest'' on one side and 'sold out' on the other illustrates Imperial Japan's blasé commodification of between 50,000 and 200,000 'Comfort Women' from Korea, China, the Philippines, Burma and other Japan-occupied countries during the Second World War. Heartbreaking parallels can be seen in the exhibition's coverage of Yezidi women being registered, bought and sold as sex slaves by Isis fighters from 2014. But, though women and girls are heavily featured due to being disproportionally affected by sexual violence in conflict, Unsilenced highlights the sexual violence experienced by men as well. The present endemic of Ukrainian prisoners-of-war being sexually humiliated and tortured in Russian detention centres is mentioned, while references to the sexual humiliation, rape and torture of Abu Ghraib inmates by the United States Army and the CIA in the Iraq War are also made. Children, too, are covered by the exhibition. In a country whose popular culture is often transfixed on more nostalgic elements of the Second World War, Britons should not forget that up to 15 per cent of British child evacuees were subjected to physical, sexual or emotional abuse by their host families. Unsilenced, then, does not make for easy viewing; it therefore advises that children under 16 should not view this exhibit. Yet, though the full scale and scope of the subject are depicted, it is carried out with great attentiveness and the utmost sensitivity. 'We've tried to keep graphic content to a minimum,' Upcraft further explains, 'and we've tried to display it in a way that is sensitive to victims and survivors.' She adds that 'we don't want to shy away from the fact that this is an atrocity, it's a war crime, and people need to understand what that looks like – but ultimately, this exhibition is about making people feel confident and encouraging them to engage, and so we've definitely tried to do that with the objects we've put on display.' The exhibition deliberately covers some of the content in a lighter part of the gallery to represent the importance of no longer hiding a hushed subject in the shadows. What's more, Unsilenced is careful to reclaim the narratives of sexual violence survivors and victims by demonstrating that hope and community can follow trauma and isolation. By the end of the exhibition, the stitched-up seams of the previously fraying panels signify the vital process of healing and repair; of how strength and direction can be found despite the chaos of the past. The final sections of Unsilenced include the bringing of perpetrators to justice and also global activism – especially illuminating the vital support given to victims and survivors of sexual violence in conflict by non-governmental organisations such as the Free Yezidi Foundation, Women for Women International, the All Survivors Project and Waging Peace. 'It is vital,' the exhibition concludes, 'that we listen to and learn from victims and survivors and centre our discussions around their experiences.' The sheer assiduity and compassion that radiate from this remarkable exhibition proves that the Imperial War Museum has achieved precisely that.
Fox News
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
MORNING GLORY: A 'Big Four' run the world now that the fog of the Biden regency-era has lifted
In the period of most intense conflict during World War II, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin contended against Hitler, Mussolini and the leadership of Imperial Japan (primarily Hideki Tojo) for control of the world. Armies and navies circled the globe, clashed repeatedly over vast spaces. The cost in lives soared above 70 million people as a result of that cataclysm. The peak war years occurred after Hitler had double-crossed Marshall Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. That Stalin had been our enemy the day before did not matter the day after Operation Barbarossa launched. Suddenly Stalin was part of "the big three" with Churchill and FDR. There are many great and inspiring figures from that era who played major roles in defeating the Axis Powers, and even among the "big three," Harry Truman would replace FDR after the latter's death just as Clement Attlee replaced Churchill on July 26, 1945 after an election dissolved the national government after VE Day, but before VJ Day. There were so many legendary figures of enormous but still secondary importance — Generals George Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Admirals Ernest King and Chester Nimitz and France's great inspiration Charles DeGaulle, China's long dueling combatants and sometimes allies against the Imperial Japanese, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, and a host of senior military and civilian leaders commanding armies of millions across continents. But for much of the time there were only the five men who mattered most and who had the authority to decide the great and dread questions: Churchill, FDR, Stalin, Hitler and Tojo. We have found ourselves in another of those moments of history where only a handful of very powerful figures make decisions for the world: United States President Donald Trump, People's Republic of China General Secretary Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and … Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There are other executives with nuclear weapons in their countries' arsenals, primarily Indian Prime Minister Modi and Pakistan's Pakistan National Command Authority. North Korea's Kim Jong Un has a small arsenal and is erratic but not apparently suicidal. None of these powers are in anything like the current "big four." United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron control nuclear arsenals, but would never even think of rattling them without U.S. consent and guidance. It is a world almost wholly dependent on four men who must be understood by the other three to be willing, if they needed to, to unleash hell on the planet in retaliation for a nuclear strike on their homeland. This is not an imminent risk now as it was, say, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Whatever we think about Putin — and he is a war criminal — he does not seem intent on triggering Armeggedon. None of them do. The most dangerous situation is the desire for the PRC to take over Taiwan, but Xi must know that the United States and its allies would oppose such an invasion and by means quite extraordinary and sufficient to the task, via capabilities only hinted at in public. So the world is, while not peaceful, stable as to the superpowers and their potential for conflict among themselves. But one government, possessed in the future of such a nuclear weapons arsenal, would in fact pose an imminent risk of nuclear Armageddon for it is a regime of theocrats — fanatics who may see it as their religious mission to bring about the apocalypse: The Islamic Republic of Iran. Which is why Saturday's pulverizing strikes against the Houthis was such an important step for President Trump to take and why I think the war against Hamas will resume soon unless Hamas releases its remaining hostages and escapes to Iran to hide there as best they can, even as Iran deconstructs its nuclear program in full view of the world. The world cannot afford fanatics with nukes and the world cannot afford a repeat of the horror of 10/7/23 when Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered 1200, wounded 5,000 and kidnapped 250 innocents. Other powerful countries are rising in the world that will, eventually, obtain nuclear weapons. It has to be hoped that they are all countries with regimes that do not seek an end — literally — to history. Each will seek their own paths and develop their own alliances. It is to be hoped that the People's Republic of China wants only superpower status and not an exclusive economic zone or an invasion of Taiwan which would almost certainly trigger Cold War 2.0 to escalate to World War 3. But for the next 45 months, at least, the United States has a president and he and a set of advisors who will simply end the Iranian regime, likely in concert with Israel and moderate Sunni states, if Iran does not move quickly to disassemble its nuclear program, now naked and exposed after 17 months of direct and indirect war with Israel. America is back as Israel's strong strategic partner. The Biden regency of fog and confusion is past. Putin can chose too to take the off-ramp that Trump built for him in eight weeks, but that will be the Russian dictator's call. If Putin refuses the end of the war, Trump should rally the West to President Zelensky in ways that dwarf the feeble and trembling half-steps of the Biden Regency. It did not take long at all for the world to see everything as it is, even if the world doesn't see everything the U.S. has at its command, the capabilities it can use. Ten thousand commentators with opinions and no clearances or authorities, and a thousand senior commanders with clearances and authorities but no opinions, just chains of command, are on watch. Rarely has everything been this clear.
