Protection or Denial?
I think I mentioned Outpost Nine posts someday in this blog. Well, it was about experiences of an American living in Japan as a JET English teacher. As his stories were funny and showed a side of Japan that people usually don't know, I used to check it quite often.
Times change, people too. That guy is not a teacher anymore, but still is in Japan. His blog also moved to Gaijin Smash. As I resumed reading his posts recently, I found one talking about Japanese people (or should I say "government") feelings towards WWII (World War II)...
The war is largely regarded in Japan as - "there was a war in the Pacific, and then we got a-bombed." That's it. Japan's involvement with Hitler and the Axis Powers is rarely ever mentioned. Their imperialistic marches into China and Korea and given a footnote at best in historical textbooks. And Pearl Harbor is also little more than a fleeting thought. If you talk about WWII in Japan, the conversation goes straight to the a-bomb and how pitiable Japan is.
I don't mean to play down the bombings, not at all. They were horrible, tragic losses of human life. Even if one wanted to say "the ends justify the means", these means were indeed, truly horrendous. We should hope that such an event is never repeated in human history ever again.
But that sentiment doesn't just go for the bombings. It goes for all of the terrible things that happened in that war. Of which, the Japanese participated in quite a few.
However, when it comes to any of Japan's faults during the war, their tune suddenly changes. The Rape of Nanking "wasn't that bad", or "you can't prove all that stuff actually happened." Other horrible atrocities committed in China and Korea are also flat-out ignored. Some politicians would have you believe that the Japanese were over there "helping" their Asian neighbors. Japan forced thousands of women into sex-slavery during the war; some of these survivors and their descents have been trying unsuccessfully to get recognition/compensation from the Japanese government about this. The government's response? "You can't really prove that the government sanctioned this" (despite there being proof otherwise) or "you girls weren't slaves, there was no coercion". Some will even go as far as to say that America forced Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Textbooks are altered to completely gloss over these things. Recently, the government moved to strike any reference to the Japanese military forcing civilians to commit suicide in the Battle of Okinawa. Of course, anything else - the comfort women, the atrocities in China and Korea, are nowhere to be found. These things don't seem to matter that much. If you're Japanese, all that matters about WWII is how poor Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed.
For the full post, check here. It may be worth reading.
I've never tried to engage in a discussion with a Japanese person about those subjects, but I know that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a high issue here. They should be. I don't know much about their opinions about the reasons of the bombing or about the Japanese war crimes, so there's not much I can add in that aspect. Although I've heard that even some Univeristy professors in Japan have points of view like the "Japanese opinion about the war" mentioned above, and they're not open to discussion.
One of the things that I regret not doing the first time I came to Japan was taking classes about Japanese History or World History. It'd be nice to learn those under a different perspective. Not that I'd understand much with my Japanese language ability at the time... even now it'd not be much better. That issue about Japan during WWII made me more eager to check a World History book in Japanese someday...
In fact, many are concerned about the movement of the Japanese government to wipe out of History books some of Japan's past wrongdoings. One of the most common justificatives is that, this way, children would feel more proud of being Japanese.
Putting my feelings about nationalism aside, now what is that!? So, one country must have a beautiful History for people to have pride for having been born in it?
Sorry, that's not how I think it works. If that's "patriotism" you're looking for, the current situation of the country may influence that more than its past. Or, in another point of view, kids won't have pride if they are bullyied at school. And I don't think what's happening today may be because the bad roles of Japan in History were taught...
In fact, looking at the past may help to understand the current situation and try to solve it... At least it may be true for Brazil, where violence in some places, for example, now rise to levels close to civil war after decades with little efforts to control economic inequality, among other reasons.
Another point of view is that wouldn't you feel proud to know that, although your country was in bad situation and had done bad things, it was able to overcome it, improve and evolve, like the "Japanese miracle" of becoming one of the most important economies of the world even after all the destruction during WWII?
I can't think of a country that has never done anything wrong. Every Germany had its Nazis (and it's interesting to compare how most Germans and Japanese regard the war), every US had its Vietnam. Brazil had/have things like slavery (brought from Africa mainly, although even today there are some cases here and there...) and discrimination (against African-descendents is the most talked, although most immigrants suffered it too).
Internationally speaking, I remember the War of the Triple Alliance as some kind of "mistake". I'm not a historian, so I may be ignoring facts or distorting something, but considering that Paraguay had a growing economy before the war, with some chances of catching up with some of today's "developed countries" and was destroyed after the war, with some considering it as a "Chinese products retailer" wasn't Brazil responsible for that in some way? (Brazil's situation after the war wasn't good as well though...) Also, it may be intersting to check the Wikipedia entry for that War in different languages... there are some sensible differences sometimes.
My examples are feeble, in part because of my lack of deep knowledge of History. I just hope I made my point clear.
But it's true that it hard for a government to really admit what it did wrong and really apologize (I put the word really because sometimes the apology has no real meaning). Brazilians may know it well from the current political situation... I couldn't find a good link in English, but let's say that corrpution is becoming commonplace and no one ever admits involvement. US also has Iraq invasion as an example. And even if they do recognize, the government tries to minimize the situation, at the moment or later.
Not only governments, people are like that as well... It's easy to feel proud of one's accomplishments, but it's hard to admit and compensate for one's wrongdoings.
There's the saying that people should learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes in the future...
Maybe that's why it's also said that History repeats itself...
Times change, people too. That guy is not a teacher anymore, but still is in Japan. His blog also moved to Gaijin Smash. As I resumed reading his posts recently, I found one talking about Japanese people (or should I say "government") feelings towards WWII (World War II)...
The war is largely regarded in Japan as - "there was a war in the Pacific, and then we got a-bombed." That's it. Japan's involvement with Hitler and the Axis Powers is rarely ever mentioned. Their imperialistic marches into China and Korea and given a footnote at best in historical textbooks. And Pearl Harbor is also little more than a fleeting thought. If you talk about WWII in Japan, the conversation goes straight to the a-bomb and how pitiable Japan is.
I don't mean to play down the bombings, not at all. They were horrible, tragic losses of human life. Even if one wanted to say "the ends justify the means", these means were indeed, truly horrendous. We should hope that such an event is never repeated in human history ever again.
But that sentiment doesn't just go for the bombings. It goes for all of the terrible things that happened in that war. Of which, the Japanese participated in quite a few.
However, when it comes to any of Japan's faults during the war, their tune suddenly changes. The Rape of Nanking "wasn't that bad", or "you can't prove all that stuff actually happened." Other horrible atrocities committed in China and Korea are also flat-out ignored. Some politicians would have you believe that the Japanese were over there "helping" their Asian neighbors. Japan forced thousands of women into sex-slavery during the war; some of these survivors and their descents have been trying unsuccessfully to get recognition/compensation from the Japanese government about this. The government's response? "You can't really prove that the government sanctioned this" (despite there being proof otherwise) or "you girls weren't slaves, there was no coercion". Some will even go as far as to say that America forced Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor.
Textbooks are altered to completely gloss over these things. Recently, the government moved to strike any reference to the Japanese military forcing civilians to commit suicide in the Battle of Okinawa. Of course, anything else - the comfort women, the atrocities in China and Korea, are nowhere to be found. These things don't seem to matter that much. If you're Japanese, all that matters about WWII is how poor Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed.
For the full post, check here. It may be worth reading.
I've never tried to engage in a discussion with a Japanese person about those subjects, but I know that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a high issue here. They should be. I don't know much about their opinions about the reasons of the bombing or about the Japanese war crimes, so there's not much I can add in that aspect. Although I've heard that even some Univeristy professors in Japan have points of view like the "Japanese opinion about the war" mentioned above, and they're not open to discussion.
One of the things that I regret not doing the first time I came to Japan was taking classes about Japanese History or World History. It'd be nice to learn those under a different perspective. Not that I'd understand much with my Japanese language ability at the time... even now it'd not be much better. That issue about Japan during WWII made me more eager to check a World History book in Japanese someday...
In fact, many are concerned about the movement of the Japanese government to wipe out of History books some of Japan's past wrongdoings. One of the most common justificatives is that, this way, children would feel more proud of being Japanese.
Putting my feelings about nationalism aside, now what is that!? So, one country must have a beautiful History for people to have pride for having been born in it?
Sorry, that's not how I think it works. If that's "patriotism" you're looking for, the current situation of the country may influence that more than its past. Or, in another point of view, kids won't have pride if they are bullyied at school. And I don't think what's happening today may be because the bad roles of Japan in History were taught...
In fact, looking at the past may help to understand the current situation and try to solve it... At least it may be true for Brazil, where violence in some places, for example, now rise to levels close to civil war after decades with little efforts to control economic inequality, among other reasons.
Another point of view is that wouldn't you feel proud to know that, although your country was in bad situation and had done bad things, it was able to overcome it, improve and evolve, like the "Japanese miracle" of becoming one of the most important economies of the world even after all the destruction during WWII?
I can't think of a country that has never done anything wrong. Every Germany had its Nazis (and it's interesting to compare how most Germans and Japanese regard the war), every US had its Vietnam. Brazil had/have things like slavery (brought from Africa mainly, although even today there are some cases here and there...) and discrimination (against African-descendents is the most talked, although most immigrants suffered it too).
Internationally speaking, I remember the War of the Triple Alliance as some kind of "mistake". I'm not a historian, so I may be ignoring facts or distorting something, but considering that Paraguay had a growing economy before the war, with some chances of catching up with some of today's "developed countries" and was destroyed after the war, with some considering it as a "Chinese products retailer" wasn't Brazil responsible for that in some way? (Brazil's situation after the war wasn't good as well though...) Also, it may be intersting to check the Wikipedia entry for that War in different languages... there are some sensible differences sometimes.
My examples are feeble, in part because of my lack of deep knowledge of History. I just hope I made my point clear.
But it's true that it hard for a government to really admit what it did wrong and really apologize (I put the word really because sometimes the apology has no real meaning). Brazilians may know it well from the current political situation... I couldn't find a good link in English, but let's say that corrpution is becoming commonplace and no one ever admits involvement. US also has Iraq invasion as an example. And even if they do recognize, the government tries to minimize the situation, at the moment or later.
Not only governments, people are like that as well... It's easy to feel proud of one's accomplishments, but it's hard to admit and compensate for one's wrongdoings.
There's the saying that people should learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes in the future...
Maybe that's why it's also said that History repeats itself...
No comments:
Post a Comment