TWO Most Cruel and Inhumane Historical Events!
Children’s Crusade and Comfort Women are TWO most cruel and Inhumane historical events I can think of!!
World History was not my cup of tea until I had my near-fatal brain aneurysm rupture in 2007. After more than one month of hospitalization in both the critical care unit (CCU) and the intensive care unit (ICU), I came home. But, I was very weak with critical setbacks. When I felt I had NO hope~~~NO life ~~~NO tomorrow, my backyard welcomed me to start new life~~~a new chapter~~~a new-found appreciation for life.
With my feet and my two hands, like roots, connecting with the warmth of the mother soil, I dug up the soil to plant the seeds of love and healing and peace. In the same way I dug up in my garden, I dug up the story of my mother and my grandmother while the history of my birth land, Korea, lingers in the background.
Through the digging, I have realized that my family story is a part of history~~~not separate from it. This led me to expand my study to World History to look for underlying causes. I have looked deeper and deeper to find the root of problems in a logical way. Persistently searching for underlying causes, I had to go all the way to Greek and Roman besides Eastern history from the current. This is how I start studying World History to understand our root problems in the past and present.
During the course of my World History digging, I have learned that there have been countless cruel and inhumane historical events throughout past, which caused thousands of innocent deaths~~~The Holocaust~~~Unit 731~~~ Cultural Revolution~~~ Native American Genocide~~~Bosnian genocide ~~~Rwandan Genocide and many more.
More importantly, it is apparent that many of these atrocities could have been avoided.
This is the time to open deep wounds in our history that demonstrate the parts of inhumanity and tendencies of human survival through atrocities and its historical bleeding in the past and present.
Of brutal and inhumane historical events, I would like to discuss two brutally bleeding events~~~Children’s Crusade and Comfort Women! We need to remember and try to understand how these brutal events came so that we NEVER repeat. Both Children’s Crusade and Comfort Women involved the use of children as slaves: the former was for children army-slaves and the latter for children sex-slaves.
Children’s Crusade in 1212 happened during Medieval Crusades (1095-1291).
Comfort Women happened during Japanese Imperial Expansion until America dropped two A-bombs~~~during World War II.
Children’s Crusade composed entirely of young children to get to the Holy Land and take Jerusalem for the Christians as old as 15 years old while Comfort Women composed entirely of young women including young girls as little as 11 years old.
Children’s Crusade was formed after the Fourth Crusade failed. Two groups were made~~~one from France, the other from Germany appeared. Since Church authorities used joining the Crusades as part of the penance which people had to do in order to seek forgiveness for their sins, thousands children answered call or were summoned an army of children to conquer Jerusalem and convert all of Palestine from Islam to Christianity.
Comfort Women were formed after getting international criticism from Japanese Imperial Army’s mass rapes, such as Rape of Nanking. Some of whom were only 11 to 16 years old~~~were kidnapped and/or deceived by people working for Japanese to collaborate recruitment~~~turned into sex slaves, servicing 30 to 60 men per day. Japanese soldiers queued in long lines in front of the cubicles called the ‘comfort station’. Each Japanese soldier had 30 minutes allotment to be with one comfort woman per visit.
Joining a Crusade was a form of religious devotion and repay spiritual wrongdoing, and it was considered as a reward of seeking forgiveness for their sins. Children became convinced that they would be protected by God and prepared to march without provisions. This was because their faith might be proven pure and their utter dependency on an all-powerful God proven. Their journey called the “Children’s Crusade” ended with thousands of children being sold into slavery, badly beaten, or killed.
Like Children’s Crusade, Comfort Women were in hunger, beatings, assaulting, violating, and invading for both the body and soul. Comfort Women could not escape from being in the frontline of the war~~~ from being horrible conditions. I have two missing aunts. The only thing we knew was that my two aunts were taken somewhere by Japanese. My grandmother died waiting. But they never came back home. In August 1991~~~a few years after my grandma’s death, ONE Korean woman— Hak-Soon Kim — who served as ‘Comfort Women’ revealed her horrible experiences during her sex-slave ordeal. From this revealing testimony as the starting point, more women came forward. With tears in their eyes and fears in their hearts, we have learned bit by bit, little by little about Comfort Women.
The estimated number of Children’s Crusade was about 100,000 soldiers ~~~ less than 15 years old.
The estimated number of Comfort Women was 80,000 to 200,000 (estimated by Japanese researcher. Chinese researchers estimated as much as 400,000).
In the long history of the Medieval Crusades (1095-1291), capturing Holy Land, Jerusalem, caused devastated people for both Jews and Muslims. Thousands and Thousands of knights, soldiers, and peasants lost their lives… on the march or in Holy Land battle. It goes without saying about the fact that women were raped, and both adults and children were killed brutally. It was rich men’s game through armor, helmet, sward, war horse. And the whole purpose was to get the site of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ or Holy (promised) Land, Jerusalem. Who promised the promise land?
In the history of the Japanese Imperial Expansion (1890 -1945), Japanese called other Asian people including my father and grandma “Poop Race” or “Sub-Human”. The reason of this calling was because Japanese were educated and raised with the concept that they had Imperial blood running though their veins, which made them believe that they were superior to any other races. People who have been brainwashed into these superiority complexes can brutalize other humans terribly and inhumanely, and their behaviors often target what they see to be “Sub-Human” races.
~~~ without regret, they can slice live human beings while still alive and screaming and justify these brutal actions by labeling those they torture as “Sub-Human”.
~~~ without fear of reprisal, they can cut live human body to conduct live-body experiments administered by Unit 731, Heavenly Emperor’s Biological War Crimes & Human Experiments.
~~~ without guilt or being sorry, they can kidnap young girls and use as sex-slaves forcing 15 to over fifty soldiers per day and beating them death.
Comfort Women experienced not only sexual violence but also institutionalized racism. They were used sex slaves called “comfort women” or “sprit women” for Japanese soldiers~~~at least some Japanese people believed~~~to give powers and spiritual energies to Japanese soldiers in war front. They were transferred to Shanghai, China and Taiwan when Japan was carrying on its war of continental invasion from Manchuria into mid-China via Korea as well as its war against America until Japanese made unconditional surrender due to America’s dropping two atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, Aug 15, 1945.
Through these two events, I think that all those unimaginable atrocities were then well-justified at first, but later, they did not even bother to justify.
Most of them did not come back, but died where they were taken.
It was the way things were.
It is the way things always have been throughout history~~~ throughout the past.
Continues even today, both physically and psychologically across the world.
~~~continue to experience injustice and unfairness on our modern society.
I hope that innocent death from Children’s Crusade and Comfort Women is remembered and honored, not wasted in vain.
I deeply hope to make sure that no more blood spilled in the name of justice. I deeply hope that there are no more recurrences of these multiple human right violations. I deeply hope that the empowerment of humanity should be the first and foremost issue in human rights.
~~~No more~~~No more ~~~either children army-slaves or children sex-slaves through Children’s Crusade and Comfort Women!
Throughout our past from the patriarch, the children and women slave trade has been always occurred and they were treated as property. Throughout the colonial and imperial powers, countless children and women were used, raped, and died inhumanly. Thousands of young people were taken, drugged, beaten and forced into sexual servitude and slavery worldwide.
I feel that those unimaginable atrocities and suffering aren’t isolated cases, but the similar violations appear to be an ongoing matter and still continues today.
This is still on-going, even right now
~~~even in the city I currently live in
~~~use illegal immigrants for sex-slaves.
~~~use children to meet the desire of Pedophilia’s mental illness.
It is time to remember the victims of our inhumanity~~~to understand through the eyes of victims, especially children in these cases. We as humans are so slow to mature, but we have our hope to educate and learn each other in humane way and respectable way.
This is the TIME to heal those who are still with unbearable tears.
This is the TIME to hug those who are still crying because of past suffering.
This is the TIME to wipe their unbearable tears away.
This is the TIME to fill up the emptiness of their agonizing life with love and understanding.
Let’s work together to heal our deep wounds.
Let’s educate each other to help the ignorant to see the reality.
Let’s hope to have peace in this present world~~~to be peace makers.