Saturday, March 03, 2007
Japan and the Need to Deny
Years ago I was at a dinner party in Tokyo when, suddenly and without provocation, the host stood up and started shouting that the Japanese were justified in their invasion of China. They were doing it to rid Asia of Western imperialists. On the same trip, a man at the Ministry of Education showed me an English translation of a school history textbook. He was intending to prove that the authorities no longer denied that the Nanking Massacre had taken place. And, indeed, the massacre was mentioned, but it was only 'said' to have taken place. The Japanese also persist in taking no notice of foreign protests about the war criminals honoured at the Yasukuni Shrine. Now Shinzo Abe has denied women were forced into military brothels. I know very little about Japan but this need to deny an obvious truth - that the country once fell into the grip of a murderous, fascist regime - intrigues me. We assume it is healthy to face up to our failings and, like the Germans, do what we can to atone. Plainly the Japanese don't, or, of course, they believe their own denials. The question is: does it matter?
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
A very important question - and not easy to answer. Imperial Japan seems more remote than the Third Reich, the majority of its victims were Asian rather than European: so your question doesn't often get asked, and seems less important when it is... Nor can I magine many young Japanese being as interested as some German youth, although that is fading. Many many Germans now feel hard done by... why should wealthy people who play excellent football trouble to remember 6 million Jews? But in general, we don't expect people to escape punishment for their crimes. It has been very well established that the nature of 'Obedience cultures' like the TR and Imperial Japan don't allow their citizens to 'excuse' the criminal actions of its agents. It took many thousands to unleash the Holocaust - and many acted on their own 'working towards the Fuehrer' as Ian Kershaw puts it. I would argue that active participants of these regimes SHOULD be brought to justice and that their trials can be of immense value. To some extent, this happened in Germany: but remember that for decades any kind of serious investigation was smothered by the economic miracle. We're very good at making money and nice cars so don't expect us to feel guilty? It seemed as Germany was rewarded not punished for a World War and the Holocaust! Germany had to have guilt and retributive processes forced down its throat. The harsh fact is that it's probably too late for Japan. Germany makes much of its contemporary virtues, the money it has repaid, its 'coming to terms with the past', its Green legislation. 21st Germany has to be an improvement on 19th and 20th Century Germany! It had better be because it's Europe's most powerful economy. In brief, what was forced on German hearts and minds was of value - enormous value. But it started decades ago and took a long time. It certainly enriched our knowledge of the past. On the other hand, talking about the Holocaust has not as far as we know stopped genocides happening. But that would be an unrealistic expectation. Genocides happen for different reasons in different places. At the same time, there is increasing awareness of Allied 'crimes': both Germany and Japan view themselves as victims. Should be now be equality of guilt? So it is much much harder NOW for US to sit in judgement on THEM. I think we can be certain this will never happen happen in Japan. How could it? The consequences of their omissions will only become clear a hundred years from now.
ReplyDeleteThe West's need for an ally against communism allowed the politics of the day to forgive a lot of horrendous acts by both the Germans and Japanese.
ReplyDeleteWhile Japanese atonement is long overdue it unfortunately is much to late for those that suffered and needed to hear it.
To come forth now would have little effect on our current society and that in itself is a crime.
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
ReplyDeleteI am sure this also applies to those who deny history.
Yes, I think it matters. It is a question of significance whether or not very serious crimes or immoral acts are acknowledged within the public sphere. Morality requires public demonstration.
ReplyDeleteObserver review of Forgotten Wars: Two years after Japan surrendered in 1945, there were still some 80,000 Japanese prisoners of war in the hands of British South East Asia. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to repatriate them and dissolve Japan's broken army, but Britain refused. It preferred cheap conscript labour and seemed to enjoy humiliating these legions of the lost. They existed on only half a normal PoW diet; men were routinely forced to kneel and beg their captors for food. Nearly 9,000 of them died of malnutrition or disease. The last remnants of 'Operation Nipoff', as it was malignly known, didn't get home until as late as 1948.
ReplyDeleteIf you investigate the bombing of Germany in the latter half of WW2, there isn't much doubt that ordinary people did quite a bit of suffering. The diabolic bombing of Dresden, of no military significance killed more thatn Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. However it is right that the Nazis themselves did to a large extent go unpunished or even rewarded; In 1947, something like 2000 Nazi scientists were brought into the US under OPERATION PAPERCLIP, to run NASA's rocket program and chemical/ biological weapons programs. In West Germany, the SS spy agency was revived as the Gehlen Org. which became West Germanys' spy agency BND. $200 million in US taxdollars was fed over 10 years to rehire thousands of Nazi SS and GESTAPO veterans.
ReplyDeleteA rather important man in funding the Nazis was someone by the name of Prescott Bush, whose family hasn't been particularly punished since.
On the subject of Japan, have you read Murakami, Bryan? Reading Kafka on the Shore at the moment, having previously read Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and I think he's well worth checking out. He does touch on the war in both works, though he's far from being a polemicist of any obvious hue.
ReplyDelete