As if nothing happened
On Friday, March 1, 2013, two U.S. Navy sailors convicted of raping and injuring a woman in Okinawa in October 2012 were sentenced to nine and 10 years in prison. The crimes resulted in strong protests, especially in Okinawa, against the frequent crimes and sexual assaults involving members of the U.S military forces in Japan. Even though the Americans in this case expressed remorse, it will certainly not be easy for the victim, a Japanese woman in her 20s, to easily erase that nightmare incident from her memory. Indeed, as numerous so-called wartime "comfort women” (Imperial military sex slaves) and rape victims of members of the U.S. forces have testified painfully, the awful experiences they underwent dominated the rest of their lives. Here in Japan, unfavorable or shameful aspects of the nation's history are routinely passed over as if nothing happened. Incredibly, even the Great Est Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, and the subsequent, ongoing catastr...