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The following are excerpts from the thesis Japanese collective memory and the search for a "true" history, copyright 2004. Do not print or redistribute without permission.

Japan: the “true” facts

In 1994, Sheldon H. Harris wrote a controversial book called Factories of Death. In a chapter titled “Nanking’s BW death factory,” he describes Japanese use of biological weapons testing on live human subjects taken from its colonies before and during World War II:

Nanking worked with every conceivable disease…Masuda did stress studies of cholera, typhus, and plague, but he did not ignore snake poisons, blowfish poisons, cyanide, and arsenic…Scientists and technicians worked diligently to produce huge quantities of cholera, typhus, and plague cultures…Experiments were not limited to adult male prisoners. Women and young children were also used in the Nanking tests in proportionally larger numbers than in either Ping Fan or Changchun.[1]

Yet even while atrocities committed by the Imperial Army are slowly being recognized internationally, many human rights abuses, like BW, still remain relatively unvoiced. In fact, many historians and theorists have observed that Japan, unlike Germany,[2] has done considerably little to acknowledge its past grievances committed prior to and during World War II.[3] It was not until 1992 that the Japanese Government formally acknowledge the existence of “comfort stations” (places where women where forced into prostitution by Imperial Forces),[4] and recently a wave of ultra-nationalism has led many historians to deny that Japan committed mass atrocities, creating resentment among its neighbouring nations.[5]

This resentment dates back to Colonial rule. From 1905 to 1942, Japan gained control over Korea, the Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Burma and Malaya, and part of China. Japanese generals did not plan to stop there. There was even consideration of eventually reaching India, Australia, and possibly Hawaii.[6] Japanese Colonial rule was characterized by cruelty and atrocity; “from the rape of Naking…to the rape of Manila in the final stages of the Pacific War, the emperor’s soldiers and sailors left a trail of unspeakable cruelty and rapacity.”[7]

Yet the Japanese Government has remained mostly silent on this subject, much to the anger of its neighbours. Many feel that Japan has not done enough to portray its guilt as an aggressor before and during WWII. Critics claim that Japan has not been held morally accountable for its human rights abuses. The manner in which justice was done following the war, they feel, amounts to nothing more than victor’s justice.[8]

Following Japan’s surrender, Allied (for the most part, American) powers set up tribunals to judge those accused of war crimes. Modeled after the Nuremberg Trials, these tribunals were put in place to punish Japanese war criminals. Trials were divided at local and international levels. The local trials received very little international attention, and remained mostly excluded from international popular memory. “Thousands of Japanese were eventually accused of [war] crimes and brought before local military tribunals convened by the victorious powers…these local tribunals established no precedents, attracted no great attention, and left no lasting mark on popular memory outside Japan.”[9]

The trials at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo trial or the Tokyo tribunal) ought to have resembled Nuremberg in its international significance. Here, for the first time, as in Nuremberg, individuals were being held responsible for acts in the name of the State, while the definition for crimes against humanity was being expanded. The principle of command responsibility enforced in these trials set a precedent for future individual responsibility for crimes committed under one’s authority.[10]

Yet whereas the Nuremberg Trials represented a first-time accomplishment for international law that set the political tone for many future generations, in Japan, as John Dower argues, “the Tokyo trial was undeniably a poorly conceived affair; [and] what the deniers of grievous Japanese war responsibility have done is use this vulnerable exercise in victor’s justice as a smokescreen for covering up the real war crimes and acts of aggression the Japanese did commit in the course of their fifteen-year war.”[11]

For the Japanese, there was little more than victor’s justice being done at the Tokyo Trials. These trials were characterized by a dramatic flair that could have been produced in a Hollywood studio. As John W. Dower observes, “like Nuremberg, the Tokyo trial was law, politics, and theater all in one… ‘It was like a huge-scale theatrical production,’ the Dutch jurist [Justice Röling] observed…In its coverage of the opening sessions, Time magazine was impressed by how the stage was set… ‘The klieg lights suggested a Hollywood premiere.’”[12] At the end, seven former Japanese leaders were hanged, six given life terms in prison, one was given twenty years, and one was given seven.[13] The result, however, was from being one of reconciliation between victim and aggressor.

It is true that at least some leaders called for collective repentance immediately following the war. In 1945, Prime Minister Higashikuni Naruhiko claimed that “nationwide, collective repentance [ichioku so-zange] is…the first step on our road to reconstruction, and the first step toward national unity.”[14] Yet evidence suggests that no comprehensive measures towards reconciliation were implemented. For most Japanese, and certainly for the military personnel involved in the war, Japan’s actions since 1931 (or 1905, when it annexed Korea) were no different than the imperialism driving other nations at the time.[15]

Perhaps even more significantly, no measures for reconciliation were implemented between Japan and the victims of its colonial rule. Of the eleven jurists to participate in the Tokyo Trial, only one was Asian (a Chinese juror), and not even one Korean served as juror or prosecutor. “The trial was fundamentally a white man’s tribunal.”[16] The fact that prosecutors accused Japan of promoting the notions of racial superiority struck a note of hypocrisy for many.[17]

Whereas in the Nuremberg Trials members of “victim” nations were directly responsible (as the victors) for trying their aggressors, the Tokyo Trial remained essentially an issue between the Allies (in particular, the United States) and Japan. Hardly any exchange of open talks took place among Asian nations and Japan about colonial aggressions. China and Japan did not resume good diplomatic relations until 1972.[18] Many Koreans and Chinese still feel resentful towards the Japanese government for the suffering their countries had endured under colonialism.

The consequences of the lack of reconciliation between victim and aggressor are still felt today. In recent years, two particular issues have triggered new rounds of international debate about WWII crimes of war. Recent lawsuits filed by “comfort women,” as well as the current “textbook controversy,” serve as reminders that Japanese acknowledgement of its war-time record is still overdue.

On March 29, 2001, Hiroshima's High Court overturned a breakthrough April 1998 ruling by a lower Japanese court. The prior verdict would have required the Japanese government to pay around 300,000 yen (2,440 dollars) in reparations to three South Korean women who were forced to work as “Comfort Women” for Japanese Imperial forces in World War II. An estimated 200,000 women were allegedly misled or kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese army during the war. Most of the women were Korean, but others also came from China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. A wave of protests around the world broke out as some 190 of the remaining survivors came forward demanding for an apology from the Japanese government.[19] On March 25, 2003, the Japanese High Court sustained a similar ruling denying compensation to fifteen Korean women who filed an international lawsuit from the United States despite an appeal filed by the survivors.[20] In 1998 South Korea had granted compensation to some survivors of “comfort stations,” with the understanding that Japan would later re-pay the South Korean government.[21]

The second issue that has stirred thousands of protesters from Japan’s neighbours and that has certainly caused controversy in international affairs is Textbook debate. In early 2000, Nishio Kanji and others from the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform wrote a textbook called The New History Textbook. The textbook refuses to recognize the cruelties committed by Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II, denying counts of aggression, forced labor, biological weapons experiments, sexual slavery, and massacre of civilians. This book was approved by the Ministry of Education in 2000, and since then Korean and Chinese public officials have been calling for the Ministry of Education to recant its decision.[22]

Fujioka, co-author of The New History Textbook, claims that the records of Japanese atrocities are no more than "wartime propaganda . . . just a rumor.” Revisionists also argue that that the "Greater East Asian War," a term used by the imperial government during the war, was really fought to secure Asian independence from Western colonialism.[23]

An article appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald the following year quotes Professor Tadae Takubo, president of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform: "Patriotism and nationalism do not exist in school textbooks. There is an urgent need to bring these factors in otherwise it will result in the collapse of the nation." The textbook avoids any mention of the Army's use of "comfort women", the article explains, a euphemism for the use of sex slaves for the Imperial Army. For Professor Takubo, such issues have no place in high-school textbooks. "I don't think [its mention] will ever foster love towards one's nation," he says.[24]

In August 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi further infuriated Korea and China once again by paying an official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. The monument not only honours Japan’s military deceased, but also enshrines several Class A war criminals found guilty in the Tokyo Trials.[25] Clearly, rising tensions in the Eastern Pacific region show the need to confront a historical account forged without reconciliation between victims and aggressors. The question, then, is why Japan, unlike Germany, did not give sufficient accountability for its past atrocities.

The politics of collective memory

Even after WWII, very limited coverage was given of Japan’s war crimes. This happened primarily for two reasons.

First, upon unconditional surrender, Japan became an occupied territory virtually completely under US control. Comfort stations were set up for Allied forces in Japan; the US army would thus not have had reason to denounce this practice to international tribunals.[26] In addition, other crimes like BW testing on the Chinese population were kept secret in exchange for information. “The CW and BW investigators [from Washington] would brook no interference in their quest for what they deemed to be vital knowledge in these fields. They would not permit the issue of war criminal responsibilities to interfere with their research. They were assisted, wittingly or not, in their work by the highest military authorities, and possibly by civilian leaders in Washington, London, and Ottawa. Their posture would be of great importance in determining the fate of Ishii, Kitano, Wakamatsu, Masuda, and the other leading BW personalities.”[27]

Second, Japan did not see itself a victimizer, but rather as a victim. At first, even domestic Japanese media coverage of Japan’s war crimes was limited. As John Dower observes, “while a massive and prolonged act of barbarism such as the Rape of Nanking had been witnessed by the Japanese press corps and publicized internationally, it was not disclosed in Japan.”[28] By the end of 1945, however, such atrocities had been well documented, and were widely acknowledged by the Japanese population.

The fact that the victims of Japan’s war crimes were mostly powerless, however, left its mark in Japan’s lack of accountability. “Crimes against Koreans or Formosans…were of comparatively slight interest to either the victors or the vanquished.”[29] There was also a tendency to downplay China’s role as victim; “as the Cold War intensified and the occupiers came to identify newly communist China as the archenemy, it became an integral part of American policy itself to discourage recollection of Japan’s atrocities…China was ‘going communist’ and replacing Japan in American eyes as the major enemy in Asia.”[30]

Both of these factors added to Japan’s collective amnesia and contributed to Japan’s new image of itself: that of victim, rather than perpetrator. Japan’s collective memory was now reshaped, and most Japanese saw themselves as victims of the war.[31] In his essay, “Postwar Social and Political Thought, 1945-90,” Andrew Barshay comments on Japan’s sense of victimization of itself. “Japan assumed the status of victim that virtually transcended history…the first step in that definition was the collective negation of the past – and also of the present to the extent that it perpetuated the past.”[32] Japanese collective memory, clearly, did not correspond to the historical facts that ought to have supported it.

For Germany, the Historikerstreit debate has questioned the ability of collective memory to fully understand an even like the Holocaust. Scholars have debated whether such an event can ever be truly comprehended. For Japan, however, instead of a debate regarding how “the facts” ought to be interpreted, there is a debate regarding whether these facts are even to be acknowledged.

For the Chinese, Koreans, Philippinos and others who suffered directly, coming to terms with the atrocities suffered prior to and during WWII may never come to be a finished process. But acknowledging the victims’ truth is a first step, long overdue.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Harris, Sheldon H. Factories of Death: Japanese biological warfare 1932-45 and the American cover-up, p106-107.

[2] Paris, Erna, Long Shadows. Comments regarding Germany: “[the Nazi period] is, it appears, impossible to assimilate or explain but to Germany’s great credit it is now memorialized and taught in the school.” Comments regarding Japan: “The number of ways we shape historical memory is, I now believe, surprisingly limited, ranging from outright lies and denial, as in Serbia and Japan…,” pp450-451.

[3] Although in Western nations World War II is considered to have been started in 1939, and in 1941 for the United States, Japan first invaded China in 1931, and Korea had been annexed as a colony since the beginning of the 20th century. This is why many historians date the period during which Imperial Japan committed atrocities differently than those committed by Nazi Germany. Source: Dower, John. “An Aptitude for Being Unloved: War and Memory in Japan,” found in Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the 20th Century, p221.

[4] “In 1992 Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary expressed "deep remorse" and admitted for their first time that the Japanese Imperial Army was in some way involved in the running of comfort facilities. Later that year, the Government released 127 documents implicating the Japanese military in the use of "comfort stations." However, Japan continued to deny an official role in "recruiting" the women”, http://www.cmht.com/casewatch/cases/cwcomfort2.htm

[5] The Washington Post, April 18, 2001. “South Korea recalled its ambassador to Tokyo last week and canceled official visits. Lawmakers in Seoul are calling for a boycott of Japanese goods. Street demonstrations have erupted outside the Japanese Embassy in South Korea. Even President Kim Dae Jung, who supports quiet diplomacy, has criticized the Japanese government. And a South Korean lawmaker staged an unusual six-day hunger strike beside the Japanese parliament…The criticisms were echoed in China. The official New China News Agency said ‘a handful of ultra-rightist forces are still trying to reverse the verdict on Japan's wars of aggression.’” http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/new_text_reopening_old_wounds_washington_post_18April2001.htm

[6] Source: Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, p23.

[7] Ibid, p23.

[8] John Dower describes how, for instance, “from the Japanese perspective, the Soviet presence on the tribunal constituted a particularly egregious aspect of victor’s justice. The Soviet Union, after all, had not exactly been an exemplary model of peace and justice,” Embracing Defeat, p472.

[9] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat, p443-444. There are, however, two local trials that brought great attention – “the hasty proceedings by US military tribunals in the Philippines against generals Yamashita Tomoyuki and Homma Masahuru, both executed after being judged responsible for atrocities committed by troops under their commands,” p443. Ruti Teitel makes reference to these trials as part of the international Tokyo Trials in his Transitional Justice, p35 – “In the Tokyo trials, General Tomoyuki Yamashita was held criminally responsible for atrocities committed by his troops, convicted and executed – all without any showing of personal involvement or even knowledge of the acts committed by his subordinates. Nevertheless, the courts hearing his case said that ‘he should have known’ of the violations of the law of war in the are under his command.”

[10] Teitel, Ruti, Transitional Justice, p34.

[11] Dower, John, “An Aptitude for Being Unloved: War and Memory in Japan,” found in War Crimes, p225.

[12] Dower, John, Embracing Defeat, p461.

[13] Ibid, p450.

[14] “Nihon saiken no shishin – Higashikuni shusho kasha kaiken,” as quoted in Andrew E. Barshay’s essay, “Post-war Social and Political Thought, 1945-90,” found in Modern Japanese Thought, p274. Yet even these calls for national repentance had more to do with shame at loss than with guilt at abusing human rights. Higashikuni says earlier that the decline of the Japanese moral fiber from 1931-1945 had nothing whatsoever to do with mass atrocities. “A further case of our defeat lies in the decile of the nation’s moral fiber [kokumin dogi]. That is, the military and civilian officials were, half openly, and general population more covertly, engaging in black market commerce,” Ibid, p273.

[15] Ibid, p468. “Apart from acknowledging the horror of ‘conventional’ war crimes and atrocities…[many Japanese] found it difficult to regard their country’s actions as having been unique. Unsurprisingly, they were more inclined than the victors to see the war in terms of power politics in an unstable imperialist world.”

[16] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat, p469.

[17] Ibid, p471. Justice Pal, from India, and Justice Jaranilla were the only other non-white men at the tribunal.

[18] “Timeline: Japan,” BBC News, March 10, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1261918.stm. A treaty on post-war compensation between Korea and Japan signed in the 1960s is as far as the reconciliation process between these two nations went.

[19] http://www.uchinanchu.org/about/comfort_women_press_release.htm, http://www.cmht.com/casewatch/cases/cwcomfort2.htm, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/03/29/japan.comfort.women/, among other sources

[20] “Japan Rejects Sex Slave Appeal,” BBC News, March 25, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2885189.stm. These two cases were not the only lawsuits filed against Japan. Another lawsuit filed by two Chinese women was also turned down. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1900329.stm

[21] “Korean Comfort Women Compensated,” BBC News, March 29, 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/despatches/71239.stm. The Japanese government never agreed to re-pay South Korea, however, and is not expected to do so since the Japanese High Court has turned down the lawsuits filed by “comfort” women.

[22] http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/new_text_reopening_old_wounds_washington_post_18April2001.htm

[23] “New Text Reopening Old Wounds: Revisionist History in Japan Minimizes Atrocities Before, During WWII”, Washington Post, April 18, 2001. http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/new_text_reopening_old_wounds_washington_post_18April2001.htm

[24] “Japan Buries War Shame in Search for Pride,” Sydney Morning Herald 12/05/2001. found on http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/Japan_buries_war_shame_in_search_for_pride_Sydney_Morning_Herald_12May2001.htm

[25] “Japan’s New Nationalism,” The New York Times, March 29, 2001. http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/japan_new_nationalism_Herbert_Bix_NYTimes_29May2001.htm

[26] “Comfort Women for Allied Soldiers,” Only four days after Japan's surrender,on August 19th, the Japanese government decided to set up comfort stations specifically for the Allied soldiers. The government and private dealers contributed 50 million yen each for this purpose. http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/db2b.html

[27] Harris, Sheldon, Factories of Death, p174. On page 202, he describes further the immunity granted to Japanese BW researchers: “During every one of the meetings between Fell [Nobert Fell, American researcher] and the experts, he promised them immunity for their deeds.”

[28] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat, pp505-506. “Other mass murders, extending to the Rape of Manila in early 1945, were also suppressed. The first detailed reports of atrocities, which focused on the Philippines and China, shocked the Japanese greatly.”

[29] Ibid, p506.

[30] Ibid, pp508-511.

[31] As Dower comments, the American cover-up assisted in this victimization of the Japanese. “These sensitive responses to revelation of the hands-on horrors perpetuated by the emperor’s men, fragile and fragmented to begin with, never developed into a truly widespread popular acknowledgement of Japan as victimizer rather than victim,” Ibid, p508.

[32] Barshay, Andrew, “Postwar Social and Political Thought, 1945-90,” found in Modern Japanese Thought, p284.

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- posted by Emmanuel @ 10:03 AM

 
The following are excerpts from the thesis Japanese collective memory and the search for a "true" history, copyright 2004. Do not print or redistribute without permission.

Japan: the “true” facts

In 1994, Sheldon H. Harris wrote a controversial book called Factories of Death. In a chapter titled “Nanking’s BW death factory,” he describes Japanese use of biological weapons testing on live human subjects taken from its colonies before and during World War II:

Nanking worked with every conceivable disease…Masuda did stress studies of cholera, typhus, and plague, but he did not ignore snake poisons, blowfish poisons, cyanide, and arsenic…Scientists and technicians worked diligently to produce huge quantities of cholera, typhus, and plague cultures…Experiments were not limited to adult male prisoners. Women and young children were also used in the Nanking tests in proportionally larger numbers than in either Ping Fan or Changchun.[1]

Yet even while atrocities committed by the Imperial Army are slowly being recognized internationally, many human rights abuses, like BW, still remain relatively unvoiced. In fact, many historians and theorists have observed that Japan, unlike Germany,[2] has done considerably little to acknowledge its past grievances committed prior to and during World War II.[3] It was not until 1992 that the Japanese Government formally acknowledge the existence of “comfort stations” (places where women where forced into prostitution by Imperial Forces),[4] and recently a wave of ultra-nationalism has led many historians to deny that Japan committed mass atrocities, creating resentment among its neighbouring nations.[5]

This resentment dates back to Colonial rule. From 1905 to 1942, Japan gained control over Korea, the Philippines, Dutch East Indies, Burma and Malaya, and part of China. Japanese generals did not plan to stop there. There was even consideration of eventually reaching India, Australia, and possibly Hawaii.[6] Japanese Colonial rule was characterized by cruelty and atrocity; “from the rape of Naking…to the rape of Manila in the final stages of the Pacific War, the emperor’s soldiers and sailors left a trail of unspeakable cruelty and rapacity.”[7]

Yet the Japanese Government has remained mostly silent on this subject, much to the anger of its neighbours. Many feel that Japan has not done enough to portray its guilt as an aggressor before and during WWII. Critics claim that Japan has not been held morally accountable for its human rights abuses. The manner in which justice was done following the war, they feel, amounts to nothing more than victor’s justice.[8]

Following Japan’s surrender, Allied (for the most part, American) powers set up tribunals to judge those accused of war crimes. Modeled after the Nuremberg Trials, these tribunals were put in place to punish Japanese war criminals. Trials were divided at local and international levels. The local trials received very little international attention, and remained mostly excluded from international popular memory. “Thousands of Japanese were eventually accused of [war] crimes and brought before local military tribunals convened by the victorious powers…these local tribunals established no precedents, attracted no great attention, and left no lasting mark on popular memory outside Japan.”[9]

The trials at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo trial or the Tokyo tribunal) ought to have resembled Nuremberg in its international significance. Here, for the first time, as in Nuremberg, individuals were being held responsible for acts in the name of the State, while the definition for crimes against humanity was being expanded. The principle of command responsibility enforced in these trials set a precedent for future individual responsibility for crimes committed under one’s authority.[10]

Yet whereas the Nuremberg Trials represented a first-time accomplishment for international law that set the political tone for many future generations, in Japan, as John Dower argues, “the Tokyo trial was undeniably a poorly conceived affair; [and] what the deniers of grievous Japanese war responsibility have done is use this vulnerable exercise in victor’s justice as a smokescreen for covering up the real war crimes and acts of aggression the Japanese did commit in the course of their fifteen-year war.”[11]

For the Japanese, there was little more than victor’s justice being done at the Tokyo Trials. These trials were characterized by a dramatic flair that could have been produced in a Hollywood studio. As John W. Dower observes, “like Nuremberg, the Tokyo trial was law, politics, and theater all in one… ‘It was like a huge-scale theatrical production,’ the Dutch jurist [Justice Röling] observed…In its coverage of the opening sessions, Time magazine was impressed by how the stage was set… ‘The klieg lights suggested a Hollywood premiere.’”[12] At the end, seven former Japanese leaders were hanged, six given life terms in prison, one was given twenty years, and one was given seven.[13] The result, however, was from being one of reconciliation between victim and aggressor.

It is true that at least some leaders called for collective repentance immediately following the war. In 1945, Prime Minister Higashikuni Naruhiko claimed that “nationwide, collective repentance [ichioku so-zange] is…the first step on our road to reconstruction, and the first step toward national unity.”[14] Yet evidence suggests that no comprehensive measures towards reconciliation were implemented. For most Japanese, and certainly for the military personnel involved in the war, Japan’s actions since 1931 (or 1905, when it annexed Korea) were no different than the imperialism driving other nations at the time.[15]

Perhaps even more significantly, no measures for reconciliation were implemented between Japan and the victims of its colonial rule. Of the eleven jurists to participate in the Tokyo Trial, only one was Asian (a Chinese juror), and not even one Korean served as juror or prosecutor. “The trial was fundamentally a white man’s tribunal.”[16] The fact that prosecutors accused Japan of promoting the notions of racial superiority struck a note of hypocrisy for many.[17]

Whereas in the Nuremberg Trials members of “victim” nations were directly responsible (as the victors) for trying their aggressors, the Tokyo Trial remained essentially an issue between the Allies (in particular, the United States) and Japan. Hardly any exchange of open talks took place among Asian nations and Japan about colonial aggressions. China and Japan did not resume good diplomatic relations until 1972.[18] Many Koreans and Chinese still feel resentful towards the Japanese government for the suffering their countries had endured under colonialism.

The consequences of the lack of reconciliation between victim and aggressor are still felt today. In recent years, two particular issues have triggered new rounds of international debate about WWII crimes of war. Recent lawsuits filed by “comfort women,” as well as the current “textbook controversy,” serve as reminders that Japanese acknowledgement of its war-time record is still overdue.

On March 29, 2001, Hiroshima's High Court overturned a breakthrough April 1998 ruling by a lower Japanese court. The prior verdict would have required the Japanese government to pay around 300,000 yen (2,440 dollars) in reparations to three South Korean women who were forced to work as “Comfort Women” for Japanese Imperial forces in World War II. An estimated 200,000 women were allegedly misled or kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese army during the war. Most of the women were Korean, but others also came from China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia. A wave of protests around the world broke out as some 190 of the remaining survivors came forward demanding for an apology from the Japanese government.[19] On March 25, 2003, the Japanese High Court sustained a similar ruling denying compensation to fifteen Korean women who filed an international lawsuit from the United States despite an appeal filed by the survivors.[20] In 1998 South Korea had granted compensation to some survivors of “comfort stations,” with the understanding that Japan would later re-pay the South Korean government.[21]

The second issue that has stirred thousands of protesters from Japan’s neighbours and that has certainly caused controversy in international affairs is Textbook debate. In early 2000, Nishio Kanji and others from the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform wrote a textbook called The New History Textbook. The textbook refuses to recognize the cruelties committed by Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II, denying counts of aggression, forced labor, biological weapons experiments, sexual slavery, and massacre of civilians. This book was approved by the Ministry of Education in 2000, and since then Korean and Chinese public officials have been calling for the Ministry of Education to recant its decision.[22]

Fujioka, co-author of The New History Textbook, claims that the records of Japanese atrocities are no more than "wartime propaganda . . . just a rumor.” Revisionists also argue that that the "Greater East Asian War," a term used by the imperial government during the war, was really fought to secure Asian independence from Western colonialism.[23]

An article appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald the following year quotes Professor Tadae Takubo, president of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform: "Patriotism and nationalism do not exist in school textbooks. There is an urgent need to bring these factors in otherwise it will result in the collapse of the nation." The textbook avoids any mention of the Army's use of "comfort women", the article explains, a euphemism for the use of sex slaves for the Imperial Army. For Professor Takubo, such issues have no place in high-school textbooks. "I don't think [its mention] will ever foster love towards one's nation," he says.[24]

In August 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi further infuriated Korea and China once again by paying an official visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. The monument not only honours Japan’s military deceased, but also enshrines several Class A war criminals found guilty in the Tokyo Trials.[25] Clearly, rising tensions in the Eastern Pacific region show the need to confront a historical account forged without reconciliation between victims and aggressors. The question, then, is why Japan, unlike Germany, did not give sufficient accountability for its past atrocities.

The politics of collective memory

Even after WWII, very limited coverage was given of Japan’s war crimes. This happened primarily for two reasons.

First, upon unconditional surrender, Japan became an occupied territory virtually completely under US control. Comfort stations were set up for Allied forces in Japan; the US army would thus not have had reason to denounce this practice to international tribunals.[26] In addition, other crimes like BW testing on the Chinese population were kept secret in exchange for information. “The CW and BW investigators [from Washington] would brook no interference in their quest for what they deemed to be vital knowledge in these fields. They would not permit the issue of war criminal responsibilities to interfere with their research. They were assisted, wittingly or not, in their work by the highest military authorities, and possibly by civilian leaders in Washington, London, and Ottawa. Their posture would be of great importance in determining the fate of Ishii, Kitano, Wakamatsu, Masuda, and the other leading BW personalities.”[27]

Second, Japan did not see itself a victimizer, but rather as a victim. At first, even domestic Japanese media coverage of Japan’s war crimes was limited. As John Dower observes, “while a massive and prolonged act of barbarism such as the Rape of Nanking had been witnessed by the Japanese press corps and publicized internationally, it was not disclosed in Japan.”[28] By the end of 1945, however, such atrocities had been well documented, and were widely acknowledged by the Japanese population.

The fact that the victims of Japan’s war crimes were mostly powerless, however, left its mark in Japan’s lack of accountability. “Crimes against Koreans or Formosans…were of comparatively slight interest to either the victors or the vanquished.”[29] There was also a tendency to downplay China’s role as victim; “as the Cold War intensified and the occupiers came to identify newly communist China as the archenemy, it became an integral part of American policy itself to discourage recollection of Japan’s atrocities…China was ‘going communist’ and replacing Japan in American eyes as the major enemy in Asia.”[30]

Both of these factors added to Japan’s collective amnesia and contributed to Japan’s new image of itself: that of victim, rather than perpetrator. Japan’s collective memory was now reshaped, and most Japanese saw themselves as victims of the war.[31] In his essay, “Postwar Social and Political Thought, 1945-90,” Andrew Barshay comments on Japan’s sense of victimization of itself. “Japan assumed the status of victim that virtually transcended history…the first step in that definition was the collective negation of the past – and also of the present to the extent that it perpetuated the past.”[32] Japanese collective memory, clearly, did not correspond to the historical facts that ought to have supported it.

For Germany, the Historikerstreit debate has questioned the ability of collective memory to fully understand an even like the Holocaust. Scholars have debated whether such an event can ever be truly comprehended. For Japan, however, instead of a debate regarding how “the facts” ought to be interpreted, there is a debate regarding whether these facts are even to be acknowledged.

For the Chinese, Koreans, Philippinos and others who suffered directly, coming to terms with the atrocities suffered prior to and during WWII may never come to be a finished process. But acknowledging the victims’ truth is a first step, long overdue.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Harris, Sheldon H. Factories of Death: Japanese biological warfare 1932-45 and the American cover-up, p106-107.

[2] Paris, Erna, Long Shadows. Comments regarding Germany: “[the Nazi period] is, it appears, impossible to assimilate or explain but to Germany’s great credit it is now memorialized and taught in the school.” Comments regarding Japan: “The number of ways we shape historical memory is, I now believe, surprisingly limited, ranging from outright lies and denial, as in Serbia and Japan…,” pp450-451.

[3] Although in Western nations World War II is considered to have been started in 1939, and in 1941 for the United States, Japan first invaded China in 1931, and Korea had been annexed as a colony since the beginning of the 20th century. This is why many historians date the period during which Imperial Japan committed atrocities differently than those committed by Nazi Germany. Source: Dower, John. “An Aptitude for Being Unloved: War and Memory in Japan,” found in Crimes of War: Guilt and Denial in the 20th Century, p221.

[4] “In 1992 Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary expressed "deep remorse" and admitted for their first time that the Japanese Imperial Army was in some way involved in the running of comfort facilities. Later that year, the Government released 127 documents implicating the Japanese military in the use of "comfort stations." However, Japan continued to deny an official role in "recruiting" the women”, http://www.cmht.com/casewatch/cases/cwcomfort2.htm

[5] The Washington Post, April 18, 2001. “South Korea recalled its ambassador to Tokyo last week and canceled official visits. Lawmakers in Seoul are calling for a boycott of Japanese goods. Street demonstrations have erupted outside the Japanese Embassy in South Korea. Even President Kim Dae Jung, who supports quiet diplomacy, has criticized the Japanese government. And a South Korean lawmaker staged an unusual six-day hunger strike beside the Japanese parliament…The criticisms were echoed in China. The official New China News Agency said ‘a handful of ultra-rightist forces are still trying to reverse the verdict on Japan's wars of aggression.’” http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/new_text_reopening_old_wounds_washington_post_18April2001.htm

[6] Source: Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, p23.

[7] Ibid, p23.

[8] John Dower describes how, for instance, “from the Japanese perspective, the Soviet presence on the tribunal constituted a particularly egregious aspect of victor’s justice. The Soviet Union, after all, had not exactly been an exemplary model of peace and justice,” Embracing Defeat, p472.

[9] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat, p443-444. There are, however, two local trials that brought great attention – “the hasty proceedings by US military tribunals in the Philippines against generals Yamashita Tomoyuki and Homma Masahuru, both executed after being judged responsible for atrocities committed by troops under their commands,” p443. Ruti Teitel makes reference to these trials as part of the international Tokyo Trials in his Transitional Justice, p35 – “In the Tokyo trials, General Tomoyuki Yamashita was held criminally responsible for atrocities committed by his troops, convicted and executed – all without any showing of personal involvement or even knowledge of the acts committed by his subordinates. Nevertheless, the courts hearing his case said that ‘he should have known’ of the violations of the law of war in the are under his command.”

[10] Teitel, Ruti, Transitional Justice, p34.

[11] Dower, John, “An Aptitude for Being Unloved: War and Memory in Japan,” found in War Crimes, p225.

[12] Dower, John, Embracing Defeat, p461.

[13] Ibid, p450.

[14] “Nihon saiken no shishin – Higashikuni shusho kasha kaiken,” as quoted in Andrew E. Barshay’s essay, “Post-war Social and Political Thought, 1945-90,” found in Modern Japanese Thought, p274. Yet even these calls for national repentance had more to do with shame at loss than with guilt at abusing human rights. Higashikuni says earlier that the decline of the Japanese moral fiber from 1931-1945 had nothing whatsoever to do with mass atrocities. “A further case of our defeat lies in the decile of the nation’s moral fiber [kokumin dogi]. That is, the military and civilian officials were, half openly, and general population more covertly, engaging in black market commerce,” Ibid, p273.

[15] Ibid, p468. “Apart from acknowledging the horror of ‘conventional’ war crimes and atrocities…[many Japanese] found it difficult to regard their country’s actions as having been unique. Unsurprisingly, they were more inclined than the victors to see the war in terms of power politics in an unstable imperialist world.”

[16] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat, p469.

[17] Ibid, p471. Justice Pal, from India, and Justice Jaranilla were the only other non-white men at the tribunal.

[18] “Timeline: Japan,” BBC News, March 10, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1261918.stm. A treaty on post-war compensation between Korea and Japan signed in the 1960s is as far as the reconciliation process between these two nations went.

[19] http://www.uchinanchu.org/about/comfort_women_press_release.htm, http://www.cmht.com/casewatch/cases/cwcomfort2.htm, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/03/29/japan.comfort.women/, among other sources

[20] “Japan Rejects Sex Slave Appeal,” BBC News, March 25, 2003. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2885189.stm. These two cases were not the only lawsuits filed against Japan. Another lawsuit filed by two Chinese women was also turned down. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1900329.stm

[21] “Korean Comfort Women Compensated,” BBC News, March 29, 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/despatches/71239.stm. The Japanese government never agreed to re-pay South Korea, however, and is not expected to do so since the Japanese High Court has turned down the lawsuits filed by “comfort” women.

[22] http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/new_text_reopening_old_wounds_washington_post_18April2001.htm

[23] “New Text Reopening Old Wounds: Revisionist History in Japan Minimizes Atrocities Before, During WWII”, Washington Post, April 18, 2001. http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/new_text_reopening_old_wounds_washington_post_18April2001.htm

[24] “Japan Buries War Shame in Search for Pride,” Sydney Morning Herald 12/05/2001. found on http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/Japan_buries_war_shame_in_search_for_pride_Sydney_Morning_Herald_12May2001.htm

[25] “Japan’s New Nationalism,” The New York Times, March 29, 2001. http://www.gainfo.org/SFPT/Amnesia/japan_new_nationalism_Herbert_Bix_NYTimes_29May2001.htm

[26] “Comfort Women for Allied Soldiers,” Only four days after Japan's surrender,on August 19th, the Japanese government decided to set up comfort stations specifically for the Allied soldiers. The government and private dealers contributed 50 million yen each for this purpose. http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/db2b.html

[27] Harris, Sheldon, Factories of Death, p174. On page 202, he describes further the immunity granted to Japanese BW researchers: “During every one of the meetings between Fell [Nobert Fell, American researcher] and the experts, he promised them immunity for their deeds.”

[28] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat, pp505-506. “Other mass murders, extending to the Rape of Manila in early 1945, were also suppressed. The first detailed reports of atrocities, which focused on the Philippines and China, shocked the Japanese greatly.”

[29] Ibid, p506.

[30] Ibid, pp508-511.

[31] As Dower comments, the American cover-up assisted in this victimization of the Japanese. “These sensitive responses to revelation of the hands-on horrors perpetuated by the emperor’s men, fragile and fragmented to begin with, never developed into a truly widespread popular acknowledgement of Japan as victimizer rather than victim,” Ibid, p508.

[32] Barshay, Andrew, “Postwar Social and Political Thought, 1945-90,” found in Modern Japanese Thought, p284.


- posted by Emmanuel @ 7:19 AM