Stifled by freedom of expression: The “Statue of a Girl of Peace” and the legacy of colonialism and historical revisionism in Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay provides a closer look at the controversy over the shutdown of an art exhibit titled “After ‘Freedom of Expression?’” at the 2019 Aichi Triennale in Japan. While heated debates over freedom of expression ensued following its closure, larger structural issues underpinning the incident and the “Statue of a Girl of Peace,” an artwork symbolizing the victims of sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese military, were left unexamined by the media and the public. This paper takes issue with such absence and explicates how debates over free speech that fails to address colonial legacy, historical revisionism, and obstinate racism can sustain the suppression of the marginalized. This paper considers hypocritical deployment of free speech arguments that perpetuates the subjugation of racial minorities in Japan and concludes with a call for transnational coalitions to combat a growing tide of nationalism, historical revisionism, and misogyny in Japan and beyond.