Erasing guilt by rewriting history
Mar. 18th, 2015 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterDuring her recent visit in Tokyo, German chancellor Angela Merkel urged Japan to seek reconciliation with its neighbours, and said that as soon as Germany showed a readiness to admit its WW2 guilt, France extended a hand of peace. After her meeting with Japanese prime minister Abe, Merkel said that coming to terms with the past is a necessary prerequisite for peace in the future, although she cautioned that her words shouldn't be interpreted as an attempt to pontificate. Notably, upon hearing this, her host's facial expression remained stone-cold:
Just a few hours after Merkel left Tokyo, the Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida said that it had been inappropriate to make comparisons between Germany's war past and Japan. The fate of the two countries in WW2 was rather different, he argued. He probably had in mind the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the devastating American bombings of a number of Japanese cities (many cities in Germany were also almost leveled to the ground, by the way). He also said the two countries have very different neighbours, but came short of mentioning names like China and North Korea.
I think it is no coincidence that the official Japanese reaction to Merkel's words was so swift and unequivocal. Right now, the country is witnessing a heated debate about the way the 70th anniversary of the end of the war should be commemorated. Traditionally, the government would come out with a declaration on every round anniversary of the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, when the Emperor declared the capitulation in a radio address. In 1995 the socialist prime minister Murayama expressed his "deep regret" for the Japanese "colonial rule and aggression". And in 2005 the conservative Koizumi repeated the same apology, almost word by word.
But the present prime minister Shinzo Abe seems to be planning to put "new nuances" in the way the past is to be interpreted. A special council consisting of historians, journalists and intellectuals has convened at the end of February, and it was supposed to come up with proposals and specific formulations. The intellectuals were advised to focus on the Japanese efforts to achieve reconciliation after the war, and on the future of the neighbourly relations in the region, rarther than the military actions from 70 years ago.
Except, Abe is currently under big international pressure. His allies, the US and Germany among them, expect Japan to admit its military guilt, and state that clearly on the 70th anniversary. Japan's neighbours are expecting the same. Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang even insisted that the Japanese government should "take responsibility for the crimes of the past". And South Korean president Park Geun-hye has urged the Japanese to show sincerity regarding their war past. She believes Japan should take a more categorical responsibility for the sexual exploitation of Korean women by its military. For now, Japan is doing the exact opposite.
At the end of October, Abe's cabinet appointed a panel with the task of working out specific measures for restoring Japanese honour on the issue of the so called "comfort women". This seemingly innocent definition applies to nearly 200 thousand women from a number of Asian countries, who during the war were forced to sell their bodies in the brothels of the Japanese army. A number of independent historians have proven without a doubt that thousands of women were forced by the Imperial army into sex slavery. But the revisionists in Japan are now claiming that those women had worked as prostitutes by their own will. The Japanese ministry of foreign affairs has even insisted that the respective correction should be introduced into the contents of the US history textbooks.
In 1993, the then cabinet speaker Yohei Kono publicly admitted that private mediators had been responsible for selecting the "comfort women", many of those mediators being commissioned by the Japanese army - that is what is today known as the Kono Statement. But in 2007, during Abe's first short term, the government announced that there was no evidence directly incriminating the army. And last year, now in his second term, it was announced that Kono's statement was merely based on anecdotal and unverifiable testimony by 16 Korean women. And that the South Korean government had actively participated in the formulation of that statement. Which is outright ridiculous.
This constant distancing of the government from the Kono statement, just at the eve of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, looks very much like yet another revisionist effort on Abe's part. Things have gone so far as to cause concerns even among the imperial family. The Emperor and his relatives are usually supposed to refrain from making political statements, but that has not stopped crown prince Naruhito from publicly calling for a "correct commemoration" of the anniversary: "It is important to look humbly on the past", he said on his latest birthday. That was a clear signal to the prime minister that he is going over a line that shouldn't be crossed.
Just a few hours after Merkel left Tokyo, the Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida said that it had been inappropriate to make comparisons between Germany's war past and Japan. The fate of the two countries in WW2 was rather different, he argued. He probably had in mind the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the devastating American bombings of a number of Japanese cities (many cities in Germany were also almost leveled to the ground, by the way). He also said the two countries have very different neighbours, but came short of mentioning names like China and North Korea.
I think it is no coincidence that the official Japanese reaction to Merkel's words was so swift and unequivocal. Right now, the country is witnessing a heated debate about the way the 70th anniversary of the end of the war should be commemorated. Traditionally, the government would come out with a declaration on every round anniversary of the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, when the Emperor declared the capitulation in a radio address. In 1995 the socialist prime minister Murayama expressed his "deep regret" for the Japanese "colonial rule and aggression". And in 2005 the conservative Koizumi repeated the same apology, almost word by word.
But the present prime minister Shinzo Abe seems to be planning to put "new nuances" in the way the past is to be interpreted. A special council consisting of historians, journalists and intellectuals has convened at the end of February, and it was supposed to come up with proposals and specific formulations. The intellectuals were advised to focus on the Japanese efforts to achieve reconciliation after the war, and on the future of the neighbourly relations in the region, rarther than the military actions from 70 years ago.
Except, Abe is currently under big international pressure. His allies, the US and Germany among them, expect Japan to admit its military guilt, and state that clearly on the 70th anniversary. Japan's neighbours are expecting the same. Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang even insisted that the Japanese government should "take responsibility for the crimes of the past". And South Korean president Park Geun-hye has urged the Japanese to show sincerity regarding their war past. She believes Japan should take a more categorical responsibility for the sexual exploitation of Korean women by its military. For now, Japan is doing the exact opposite.
At the end of October, Abe's cabinet appointed a panel with the task of working out specific measures for restoring Japanese honour on the issue of the so called "comfort women". This seemingly innocent definition applies to nearly 200 thousand women from a number of Asian countries, who during the war were forced to sell their bodies in the brothels of the Japanese army. A number of independent historians have proven without a doubt that thousands of women were forced by the Imperial army into sex slavery. But the revisionists in Japan are now claiming that those women had worked as prostitutes by their own will. The Japanese ministry of foreign affairs has even insisted that the respective correction should be introduced into the contents of the US history textbooks.
In 1993, the then cabinet speaker Yohei Kono publicly admitted that private mediators had been responsible for selecting the "comfort women", many of those mediators being commissioned by the Japanese army - that is what is today known as the Kono Statement. But in 2007, during Abe's first short term, the government announced that there was no evidence directly incriminating the army. And last year, now in his second term, it was announced that Kono's statement was merely based on anecdotal and unverifiable testimony by 16 Korean women. And that the South Korean government had actively participated in the formulation of that statement. Which is outright ridiculous.
This constant distancing of the government from the Kono statement, just at the eve of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, looks very much like yet another revisionist effort on Abe's part. Things have gone so far as to cause concerns even among the imperial family. The Emperor and his relatives are usually supposed to refrain from making political statements, but that has not stopped crown prince Naruhito from publicly calling for a "correct commemoration" of the anniversary: "It is important to look humbly on the past", he said on his latest birthday. That was a clear signal to the prime minister that he is going over a line that shouldn't be crossed.
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-18 08:50 pm (UTC). . . Merkel said that coming to terms with the past is a necessary prerequisite for peace in the future. . . .
There is a revisionist interpretation of historical events that blames the rise of Hitler on the Weimar hyperinflation. This is simply not true. The Weimar's got inflation under control in just a few months with the help of loans from the US. These, though, ended in 1930.
Afterwards (as I mentioned years ago) Chancellor Brüning went down the austerity route, which destroyed the economy . . . and brought Hitler and the Communists to power. Hitler purged the Communists and the rest, sadly, is history.
Merkel is acting just like the Allies did when they wrote the Versailles Treaty, demanding more reparation/interest on old principal than the economy can provide. Which is really, really ironic to me.
In other words, Merkel and the ECB are doing exactly that austerity thing to Greece today. They should not be surprised by the results.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 07:00 am (UTC)I think her premise is sound, all the inevitable tu quoques notwithstanding.
As for Greece (which is not the topic here at all), unless you are saying there is a Hitler in the making in Greece right now, I really cannot see the connection here.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 08:43 pm (UTC). . . unless you are saying there is a Hitler in the making in Greece right now, I really cannot see the connection here.
That is exactly what I am saying.
Austerity has never worked to restore an economy; only to wreck it. People resent being wrecked from abroad, and take steps toward vengeance. Germany should have learned that during the Weimar, though later scholars took exactly the wrong lesson from it, perhaps simply because they supported the austerity and, with later congative dissonance, failed to recognize what that austerity led directly to.
No, this was not your topic, not at all. I could not, though, fail to see the irony in Germany—with its own lack of a clear understanding of its past—berating Japan for revising its history.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-19 10:34 pm (UTC)Burying their head in the sand about their past does Japan no service.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-21 12:07 am (UTC)If this were true, it would recognize the conditions that pushed Hitler into power are also exactly the conditions it is imposing on Greece.
I will grant Merkel et. al. one consideration: the amount of ink spilled to distort what happened to Germany pre-WWII is phenomenal, with the rise of Austrian economics completely missing the boat on what constitutes what on just about every level. It is probable that the folks in charge of the ECB and the bond holders at Deutchebank think that they are acting on sound practice, thanks to all that spilled ink, all those distortions of the facts.
Japan does not have such distortions to conveniently point to when it comes to its past, with the beheading contests and comfort girls and death marches. I do heartily agree with you; Abe is playing a very dangerous game, if a game it is.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-21 07:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-21 08:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-03-22 07:02 am (UTC)