Shinzo Abe and Japan’s History

There is a powerful Japanese lobby which constantly brings up the fact that the Americans interned the Japanese and Japanese Americans in the USA during WWII, but these camps were much more benign than the ones the Japanese ran. David Gelernter http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB108631209861028810 wrote the following: “The Japanese army saw captive soldiers as cowards, lower than lice. If we forget this we dishonor the thousands who were tortured and murdered, and put ourselves in danger of believing the soul-corroding lie that all cultures are equally bad or good. Some Americans nowadays seem to think America's behavior during the war was worse than Japan's -- we did intern many loyal Americans of Japanese descent. That was unforgivable -- and unspeakably trivial compared to Japan's unique achievement, mass murder one atrocity at a time."
In the Dutch East Indies alone, more than 4 million people died of starvation, torture, forced labor and other causes. More than 30,000 of those were European civilians. 80% of all people who were interned by the Japanese during the war were in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch colony is #5 in the top ten countries who had the most casualties during WWII (more than Japan, #6 on the list).
Abe’s grandfathers (one a class A war criminal) headed companies that made fortunes, exploiting unpaid forced POW labor. On behalf of www.theindoproject.org I urge Mr Abe to show contrition and put Japan on the path of TRUTH and reconciliation.

Japan needs to admit its past, to the world and more importantly, to itself. That includes its mass-murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians at Nanjing and its forcing of tens of thousands of Korean women into sex slaves.

It just needs to look at Germany as an example. Germany has many museums dedicated to the horror of its conduct during WWII. It has preserved death camps like Auschwitz so that its citizens and visitors may learn from its history, and to express unqualified remorse for its actions. It makes no excuses. Right now, Japan takes the opposite approach - deny, deny, minimize, minimize.

There are always deniers and whitewashers of history. Lately, here in the US, we've played down the abuses of power in the invasion of Iraq. In the days of the California Gold Rush, we put down the rights of Asians and Mexicans. They had less than second class citizenship rights and were often killed for little or no reason. We had an Oklahoma Land Rush (grab) by mistake and so we just ignored the mistake and moved the Native Americans north. We oppressed African Americans by enslaving them for hundreds of years and have yet to give them a full seat at the table a hundred and fifty years after they were "freed."

Probably every nation on the planet has something to live down. Prime Minister Abe has a big one and should not pander to those who would deny the great crimes against humanity. He should be clear and thorough in his apology.

And we all should be humble and apologetic too. We all should be vigilant of the excuses and blindness that lead to atrocities because without the reminders of Abu Ghraib, Auschwitz, and the Death March of Leyte, we are likely to repeat these kinds of horrible injustice.

Shinzo Abe, as a convinced criminal, will never accept the war history. It has been very unfortunate that this man became a prime minister of Japan. We, nevertheless, will never forgive him. No one who lets off an arrow at Heaven shall not be forgiven by Heaven. We will surely punish this man without fail.

April 20, 2015 As this the seventieth year of the Pacific War with the Japanese doctrine of co-prosperity for the might and glory of East Asia in the Pacific – I will as well achieve my seventieth birth-date, along with John Burns sharing the same age. With respect to the continuing petitioning the divine for forgiveness for Earth matters –what I have done is to visit and attend the Noh plays at the Japan Society in NYC. A double bill is offed titled: “ Holy Mother in Nagasaki,” and the historic medieval production as part two by the famous Zeami author – “Kiyotsune. As well my years of earth’s conversation allows for to consider my own American adaptation for trying to explore the forgiveness’ as much the President Obama spirit for the Asia pivot – and indeed with his spirit for Hope and Audacity. As for President Abe, I would dream the Noh creation for a play with the cast of: Hirohito, Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chairman Mao and of course Abe… The idea of forgiving in one heart and one mind universal – so let’s allow for another seventy for seven thousand years to understand the wars of human conquest for earth times and now for all times.

JJA Manhattan, N. Y.

NYT " A lot will depend on whether Mr. Abe is willing to push aside his right-wing supporters and set a tone that can strengthen stability in Asia, rather than weakening it."

Germany and Japan are two powerful and proud nations defeated in WWII. Post war military occupation and reconstruction took place in two distinctive economic, cultural and political environments.

Germany's military occupation and reconstruction were relatively short and successful under the Marshall Plan. The country's nazi past was faced and dealt head on by the political ruling elite. The superior Aryan race ideology was left behind the dustbin of history. The nation moved on and got engaged in leading the process of European integration.

Japan's occupation and reconstruction were not easy. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had left an indelible mark on Japanese psyche but the race purity-superiority ideology remained intact among the elite.

Japan's ruling class --believed to be descendant from samurai dynasties -- has to deal with a humiliating American occupation. Japan is the only country in world with a peaceful constitution imposed by a general, Douglas MaCarthur.

Mr. Abe's refusal to accept Japan's past military crimes against humanity is just national pride and prejudice. A samurai descendant politician of a defeated but proud country unrepentant of a ultra militaristic past.

As the old age runs, "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Caught up in its belief of being exceptional, the United States has hardly faced its own history of slavery and its treatment of Native Americans. Perhaps the nation that takes pride in being the leader and conscience of the world could become the leader in reflective honesty. Right now, the Germans are way ahead in self-examination and forthrightness.

April 20, 2015

As this the seventieth year of the Pacific War with the Japanese doctrine of co-prosperity for the might and glory of East Asia in the Pacific – I will as well achieve my seventieth birth-date, along with John Burns sharing the same age. With respect to the continuing petitioning the divine for forgiveness for Earth matters –what I have done is to visit and attend the Noh plays at the Japan Society in NYC. A double bill is offed titled: “ Holy Mother in Nagasaki,” and the historic medieval production as part two by the famous Zeami author – “Kiyotsune.
As well my years of earth’s conversation allows for to consider my own American adaptation for trying to explore the forgiveness’ as much the President Obama spirit for the Asia pivot – and indeed with his spirit for Hope and Audacity.
As for President Abe, I would dream the Noh creation for a play with the cast of: Hirohito, Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chairman Mao and of course Abe…
The idea of forgiving in one heart and one mind universal – so let’s allow for another seventy for seven thousand years to understand the wars of human conquest for earth times and not for all times.

JJA Manhattan, N. Y.

Japan is guilty of doing what every other European colonial power did, just a couple of centuries too late.

Before we get too self-righteous, we should remember the awful destruction from our bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And as others have pointed out, we rewrite history too.

We have various government officials (Republicans) here in the U.S. who would like to scrub the Advanced Placement curriculum for U.S. History clean in order to avoid being too "negative" about America. Let's stop the hypocrisy at home if we want to set a good example.

The Japanese were pretty good sports after we firebombed and nuked several hundred thousand of their civilians. Since they have been so respectful toward the US, we should act the same way in return, and encourage everyone to focus on the future rather than the past.

At the same time that the US requests Japan apologize for it's wartime brutality, perhaps the US government should apologize to the thousands of US and allied veterans who they abandoned in 1952, by not holding Japanese war criminals accountable for their crimes. Ever wonder why to this day government's are still searching for and prosecuting Nazi war criminals and not Japanese? Well in an effort to gain Japanese support during the cold war, the US declared an amnesty for all Japanese accused of and convicted of war crimes. Not only were the high ranking officials granted amnesty, but the individuals who tortured and murdered prisoners of war and civilians given amnesty. Thank you US Government

Do the people who think the past is in the past and everyone needs to move on feel the same way about slavery? Just a few weeks ago I saw a NYT article about how people's lives are still affected by the aftereffects of the Reconstruction era.

Slavery ended nearly 100 years before WWII started but the US can't get over it. Charles Blow seems to write an article every week about something stemming from slavery. So why should we expect other people to just forget about their historical issues?

"December seventh, 1941 a day that will live in infamy." FDR.

It does and Japan's criminal conduct and massive crimes do as well.

Netanyahu, Abe?

Our congress has strange notions about our guests.

Nanking, the Bataan Death March, grotesque medical experiments at Harbin, enforced sex slavery of hundreds of thousand of women, mass massacres of civilians, concentration camps for civilian prisoners, slave labor for allied captives?

All denied by Abe and he is invited to address the same congress FDR did on dec. 8, 1941?

Disgraceful.

During the entire postwar period, most of the countries where Japan's atrocities have occurred, have been ruled by despots name Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il Jung, Pol Pot and others. Its would have been and remains, ridiculous for Japan to apologize, in the ritualized and sensitive culture of the Far East, to these countries as Japan's crimes are dwarfed by the savagery that those countries have kept their populations under incarceration. China and a few others attempt to use this occasionally, and now apparently they have co-opted the New York Times as well, when they want to distract the world from their own misdeeds. Don't pay attention to the New York Times Mr Abe.

I need to remind everyone here China is the real aggressive country. We must not allow their communism to take over East Asia. Japan is the natural leader with grlious past and commanding leadeship in technology. Japan has vast reserve of enriched uranium and plutonium, if we want, we can produce 40,000 nuclear warheads, and we can produce advanced ICBM using HII rocket techonolgy.
It is time for asian countries to stand up against Chinese aggression, and it is time to bring our views to the world, so everyone know Japan was barbarically attacked for its glorious mission to rescue our brothers in the Great East Asia War. In fact, no Japanese really believe the nonsense forced upon us, because we know what we did was sacred 70 years ago, what is why we support Mr. Abe 100%, it is almost 100% sure Japan will go nuclear at the end of Abe's term. We can be nuclear superpower overnight.

I see no real sense of reflection or acknowledgement of the crimes of the past from the Japanese government. This is especially apparent in how the past is portrayed in schoolbooks.

In having studied German and lived over there for a few years, the contrast is large. This acknowledgement is a part of German culture which I even witnessed in my language classes.

Until Japan is able to come to terms with this, the whole country and not just one Prime Minister, there will be feelings of ill-will among these countries.

As a proud Japanese, I am fed up with other countries criticizing Japan, especially Korea and China, I am extremely angry because our Japan rescued them from imperialism of white people by sacrificing our lives in the Greater East Asia War, that war was forced upon Japan by the US and UK because we want to protect our 40 million compatriots in the Japanese peninsula (now called Korea Peninsula) and our 300 million brothers in China from Russia, USA and UK. Japan has not committed a single homicide against civilians except these criminals (controlled by USA and UK) who fought against their liberators. What do we get? atomic boming of our cities and mass killing of our people. Today, if you go to Taiwan and Philippine, their people still appreciate our Japan for what we have done to them in the 40's. That is fact!
When my father was working for Aisin Seiki in the 60's, they were told to sacrifice themselves (work 12/6) to make sure Japan can defeat the USA in the automobile industry, because their loved one were killed by planes made by US car companies. Even today Toyota employees routinely visit Yasukuni because we cherish our ancestors' sacrifice for our Japan, and in our hearts, our Japanese people will demand US apology for its barbaric action against Japan, we will never forgive the US.
We Japanese people demand NEW history book to reflect our sacrifice to save our brothers from white imperialism.

I do think people need to realize that Japan has its own group of rapidly dwindling World War II veterans who are represented by a powerful lobbying group known as the Izokukai. I don't know how dependent Abe feels that he is on this group for electoral support, but he is far more likely to adhere to their preferences rather than capitulate to public opinion in South Korea or China on the history and Yasukuni issues. If he does not visit Yasukuni Shrine on August 15 of this year, it will be very surprising indeed.

That being said, people like Abe in Japan, George W. Bush, Park in South Korea, Jeb Bush, Rahul Gandhi, and too many others around the world are good arguments against the merits of hereditary politicians. These people have too many weird psychological complexes about their parents, grandparents, and other family members to govern in a manner that puts the interests of voters first.

George Orwell, 1984: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."

Japan needs to own up to the horrific acts it committed during WWII in China, Korea, and many other countries before it can grow and redeem itself. Shinzo Abe is a fool and a coward for trying to deny Japan's sins.

"Done enough to make amends"? A version of "move one."
Japan can get on with future business by first simply and decently acknowledging Japanese mistakes and showing respect for victims.

What, we can't embrace Japan as an ally because their leader hasn't apologized for crimes committed by a geriatric generation 70 years ago? Wow, and is our president going to apologize for the genocide of Native Americans? The invasion, conquest, and massacres we perpetrated in the Phillipines during the "Moro insurgency"? How about Dresden? The fire bombing of Tokyo which took more lives in a single bombing than all others, including the nuclear bombs? Or how about Vietnam? Iraq? How about the interment of Japanese Americans? It should be obvious to all that Japan has moved on, and has been a far, far more peaceful player on the world stage than the U.S.. We need all the help we can get to hold China to her borders. Worry over an utterly useless apology we ourselves, in our position of power, would never make, should not be an impediment to forging a stronger relationship between our two countries.

Japan had always and still feels that it was forced to fight a Pacific war and was defeated by the Western powers, and most notably the US. Its national psyche is that it is the only country in Asia that is built on the modern European ideas. The post war trials of Japanese leaders were made accountable to crimes against the west and not to the Asians. Unlike Germany, they were not forced to acknowledge the atrocities except when it pertained to the west, and hence the denials. Nixon handed the disputed islands to Japan at about the time of his trip to China thus setting the scene for the dispute now. I guess the US did not anticipate the rise of the rest of Asia to challenge the dominance of US Japan alliance.

This is a very personal experience and viewpoint. My brothers served in WW2, one in the Pacific, his ship was torpedoed in the invasio of Leyte.
I served in the Korean War, stationed in Kyushu at a large naval bsse in Sasebo.
Living an working with the Japanese was a deeply conflicted experience. Surprisingly, I evolved to be very understanding and accepting our "former enemy." I was close to Nagasaki and visited once, a memorable experience. At that time there was no formal memorial place. The people of Nagasaki were not hostile, at least on the surface. But our ignorance and prejudice made us (soldiers) quite insensitive to the brutal suffering from the bomb.
I follow the Japanese news (on world Channel). When I heard frequently how Abe has supported veterans of Pelau and other Pacific battle sights, my old feelings of personal anger toward Japanese, I realized how very hard it is for any of us (Japanese or American) to deal with that vicious war and its consequences.

As nation of hypocrites, we’re always eager to point the finger but we’ve never fully lived-up to the crimes we committed, neither on our own soil or abroad.

Not the genocide of Native Americans whose once proud descendants today live in shame and poverty, the capture and enslavement of millions of Africans while discrimination is well and alive, nor the encampment of Japanese Americans, guilty for carrying the wrong facial features.

Our today’s warlords, who laid the fuse that incited the entire Middle East, draw paintings sitting in a bath tub, or giving self-righteous interviews on an obscure cable “News” outlet, instead of serving jail time for the death and destruction they brought to entire countries and millions of humans.

We must fully acknowledge the atrocities committed in our name, similar to what the Germans did after WW II. The war criminals that misled us into a brutal war, to bring “Freedoms and Democracy” to Iraq in exchange for cheap oil for Halliburton, must be brought to justice. Unless that happened, we have no right to point fingers.

Imagine, Japan's attempting to revise "textbooks to recast descriptions of historical events...". I guess we're not in Texas anymore.

Most recent scholarship reveals not only atrocities but gross, dysfunctional incompetence. Leaders knew they would lose the war but went through a complex huff-puff face-saving dance that ended with war against us. Prior to that, they were soundly defeated by the Russians. The war in China was already draining their economy. They had a burst of initial success against unprepared USA and even more incompetent Britain. The tide turned in less than a year. Pearl Harbor Dec 1941. Midway June 1942. Then dogged defense laced with atrocities with no regard for their own civilian population as well as those of the 'co-prosperity sphere'. Japan hides from not only terrible deeds but horrible leadership.

The World, in general, and the US-Japan relations, in particular, have moved so far ahead of the 2nd ww history as to be unsettled let alone reversed simply by a few nationalistic utterances of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

We rightly rejected what Japan was doing. Japan did some awful things.

From their point of view at the time, we strongly objected when: they took French bases in their Vietnamese colony to be Japanese bases in a Vietnamese dependency; when they took over the Dutch and British colonies as their own, and Dutch and British colonial oil and other resources as their own. They did atrocities, but ask an Indian about the famine that Britain allowed even AFTER the Japanese atrocities, which killed more people than all of Japan's atrocities.

The US opposed colonies, and colonial systems, and FDR was aiming at the British and French colonial systems too. The US objected to all of those atrocities. I don't defend here either colonies or atrocities.

We need to see how Japan saw itself at the time, doing what those in power all around it had already done and were still doing. To Japan, its aggression was defensive. To us, it was just aggression, since we didn't see ourselves as the threat they saw.

We can agree that the world changed at the end of WW2, and that the US changed it by that victory in ways that will never be returned to what they were. Japan has prospered in the new order the US established.

That should be enough for good will. There is no need for them to crawl for doing what everyone else on our own side was doing at the time. Stalin was on OUR side in this, and so was Mao. Between them, they killed far more than Hitler, very far more than Japan doing this. Enough.

Just because the United States, as a country, seems bent on constant self-flagellation for the sins of its past doesn't mean every other country on Earth has to do the same thing. Just because China and South Korea want to use their claims to victimhood as political cudgels to force concessions from Japan doesn't mean we should let them.

Certainly, Japan committed atrocities throughout the 20th century. In China and in Korea, as well as against their enemies in World War II. These events should be remembered in history, so that they are not repeated.

But, China and South Korea also spend a lot of time and effort to exaggerate their claims against Japan, So, they're spinning history to their advantage, as well.

In the US, we revel in punishing ourselves for the sins of our past: Slavery, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, and many other offenses that simply could not happen today. But, we continue to downplay our treatment of the Japanese during WWII. Why is that?

The manner in which Americans upbraid Japan on this entire subject is hypocritical and racist at its core.

Who decides whether and when Japan has apologized enough? Granted, Japan's track record on "facing history" is not as good as, say, Germany's but most Asian cultures make a point of not talking about past misdeeds on both personal and national levels.
Japan has probably done more than any other nation in terms of helping build up China's and South Korea's economies. To some degree, leaders of those two countries are using the 'histroy issue' to make domestic political hay.
Maybe if Abe broke into tears in front of Congress??

Why is it that individuals must pay for their crimes but Nations feel they are entitled to be absolved for theirs. Apologies are a good start followed by reparations. It must be difficult for a nation to admit they were inhuman, & took delight in Murder & Rape. I can still see Japanese soldiers throwing Chinese babies into the air & catching them on their bayonets.Thankfully, the Japanese's weren't as efficient as the Germans in mass murder, or they could have, if possible, out done the Germans.In reality no amount of apologies or reparations will ever absolve the brutality of Japan & Germany, & it will take many generations before the oceans can wash the blood from their hands.

Confess and apologize. The whole whole knows the truth.

Abe's behavior is much like Turkey's denial of the genocidal slaughter of the Armenians in 1915. It is up to us, the US and most other nations, to keep insisting on a more accurate reporting of history.

Of course, while we're at it, we need to accurately report our own history, including our reasons for starting various wars.

I have visited both China (once), and Japan (twice). I have visited the War Museum in Tokyo, a museum in Nanjing (China) expounding on Japan's atrocities to the Chinese in WWII, and numerous national art museums in China where much of the work are paintings reflecting on the Japanese surrender to the Chinese at the end of WWII.

Clearly both China and Japan were heavily involved in World War II, fighting against each other. It is time, 70 years later, for both countries to put away their differences, and work together for peace in Asia, and the well-being of citizens throughout Asia. Looking outwards is the way for human prosperity and forgiveness of the past. Both countries have an moral responsibility to do this.

According to China, Imperial Japan's continuing denial of it's bigoted racist ethnic sectarian xenophobic military imperialist reign of terror claimed 30 million Chinese lives during World War II. Ahead of 27.5 million dead Soviets during the war.

While white Nazi Germany's war against Europeans and America has dominated American memory of the war, Asians, particularly China, have very different recollections. After World War II, there were also war crime trials in Tokyo. There was the "Rape of Nanking" and there were Korean "comfort" women. Japan is aging and shrinking nation. Emperor Hirohito received a pass for his war crimes. See " War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War" John Dower

"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Adolf Hitler 22 August 1939 lies at the root of the Holocaust and the holocausts in Vietnam, Algeria, Cambodia, Rwanda, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

It's the same in every country---the conservative forces can't abide the truth, whether in Turkey with the Armenian genocide, in Japan with their wartime atrocities, or in the US with the many warts on our historical face. Pressure the textbook publishers to falsify history so that the reactionaries feel better. And then whine about Alinsky....

“Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.”
― Shannon L. Alder

Large numbers of Japanese are vaguely aware of the multiple horrors perpetrated by the Imperial Family and the Japanese military before WWII. But unlike Germany Japan has never owned up to its many atrocities, and will never do so in the foreseeable future. Moderate politicians who desire to get elected or stay in office are bullied into silence, and we can just forget about the prospect of the the Japanese right wing ever admitting, for example, the Rape of Nanking as well as the other atrocities mentioned in this article.

Denialism is alive and well among political leaders in Tokyo, and it's fierce. Proof of Japan's current state of mind on the past will be found by looking at Japan's history textbooks for children, scrubbed clean for decades, such that most adults in Japan will tell you that all that talk about Nanking, comfort women, and prisoner-of-war atrocities, is hype.