Abstract
The Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is undergoing a “comprehensive review” as a consequence of the crisis provoked by the actions of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Member States, following the 2015 nomination to the International MoW Register of documents relating to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. Within the context of the “history wars” that have raged for decades in East Asia, Japan campaigned to block the inscription of documents on the “Comfort Women” system of World War II, nominated in 2017 by an international alliance of NGOs. In early 2018, UNESCO bowed to Japanese pressure, suspending both the operation of the International Register and the implementation of revised MoW General Guidelines and Code of Ethics newly authorized by the Programme’s International Advisory Committee (IAC), thereby calling into question the integrity of its processes as well as the expertise of its document specialists. Such interference in existing policy at the behest of one Member State is unprecedented in UNESCO’s history. The author attempts to create a record of what happened and why, for those engaged in the disciplines of documentary heritage.
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Notes
- 1.
See also Edmondson, “Reviewing”, in this volume.
- 2.
For an introduction to MoW, see Edmondson, “Memory of the World: An Introduction”, in this volume.
- 3.
In this chapter, “Korea” means the Republic of Korea.
- 4.
By 2013, Japan had 3 International Register inscriptions. China had 9 and Korea 11.
- 5.
Archives of the May 18, 1980, Gwangju Democratic Uprising Against Military Regime, inscribed 2011.
- 6.
Those who understood the “history wars” judged this was more about retaliating against repeated denials of wartime atrocities than about the documents. The Nanjing Massacre topped the list of atrocities, which included the Comfort Women system, the Harbin Biological Warfare Unit 731, mobilization of British POWs (Prisoners of War) to construct the Burma “death railway” and brutal treatment of Allied POWs resulting in massive fatalities.
- 7.
This exceeds the limit of two nominations per country per cycle, as specified in the General Guidelines. The Kamikaze nomination was later withdrawn.
- 8.
I thank Mr. Jan Bos, Chair of the IAC Register Subcommittee, for the text of this letter.
- 9.
The Japan-US nomination for 2016/2017 cycle, “Documentation on ‘Comfort Women’” and “Japanese Military Discipline,” claimed this story was fictitious.
- 10.
Unusually, two from China, five from Japan. Beyond occasional Hong Kong and Macau representation, there had been no Chinese observers since 1993, except for the seventh meeting in Lijiang, China, in 2005. Two Japanese observers are recorded at the 2013 meeting in Kwangju, Korea.
- 11.
Cf. Nomination Dossiers of “Voices of the Comfort Women” by the ICN and the “Documentation on ‘Comfort Women’ and Japanese Army Discipline” by The Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women (Japan), Study Group for Japan’s Rebirth (USA), Institution of Research of Policy of Media and Broadcasting (Japan) and Japanese Women for Justice and Peace (Japan).
- 12.
The reference is to the IAC’s review of its Statutes and Guidelines.
- 13.
The final report of this meeting lacks a list of participants.
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Suh, Kh. (2020). History Wars in the Memory of the World: The Documents of the Nanjing Massacre and the “Comfort Women”. In: Edmondson, R., Jordan, L., Prodan, A.C. (eds) The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Heritage Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18441-4_7
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