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These Right-Wingers Make Bush Look Like Nader
Matt NegrinPosted: Feb 19th 2009 7:22AM
Filed under: Politics, Culture, Featured Stories, International News, Boston UniversityTOKYO -- Like that pre-calc nerd in high school, Japan doesn't really get out a lot. The government and the people are more concerned with what's happening inside their borders than anything else.
Which helps explain why Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial burial ground for a couple of million war dead including a handful of Japanese war criminals, is a focal point of nationalism.
During World War II, Japan's imperial army led bloody campaigns in China and other parts of Asia, resulting in tens of millions of deaths. Yet a few decades after the island nation surrendered, more than 1,000 soldiers who were charged as war criminals -- including 14 really terrible ones who are called "Class-A" criminals -- were secretly enshrined in the burial ground.
When this became public, China and Korea got pretty angry. Now, every time a Japanese official (like former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi) visits the shrine, East Asia flares up in wars of words. Japan's current leader, Taro Aso, said recently that he is considering a visit.
But that's not the only reason why Yasukuni is controversial. Walk 200 feet to the right of the shrine, and there's the Yushukan, a "history" museum erected by super-conservative, right-wing nationalists who want to set the record straight about Japan's wars -- at least, their version of the record.
Keep in mind that this group openly advocates -- and has succeeded in -- revising school textbooks to omit details such as the fact that during the war, the Japanese used Korean "comfort women" as sex slaves for their soldiers.
So when you think the United States has too many political extremists, think again. Whether they're on the right (like Sean Hannity) or the left (like Bill Maher), none of them have anything on the conservative Uyoku dantai.
It's also important to know that such extreme nationalists, while somewhat influential, are not very popular among most Japanese citizens. They represent a minority of Japanese people who are willing to bend the facts about what happened in one of Japan's darkest chapters. So, enter the Yushukan.
The first thing I saw before I even walked into the museum was a group of right-wingers huddled by their black trucks that bear the old imperial Japanese flag and blast "nationalist" music from loudspeakers. And the first thing I saw inside the museum, near the gift shop, was a row of hundreds of CDs burned with the same type of music.
It's common to hear American politicians defend attacks from their critics by saying that their opponents are practicing "revisionist history," misrepresenting their records. But that phrase has an entirely different and real meaning on the other side of the world.
What's inside the Yushukan is not as important as what's not inside. In 1937, Japan began massacring millions of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, nearly committing genocide. (Japan says its actions were a matter of self-defense.) Yet inside the museum, the only mention of the slaughter is a small panel barely three feet wide that refers to the "China Incident" and makes no mention of any conflict whatsoever.
Similarly conspicuous are the letters written by kamikaze pilots in the hours before they took off on their suicide missions. The letters appear only in Japanese, and the entire display has no English translation. It is one of the few parts of the museum with no English translation whatsoever. A Japanese friend of mine translated a part of one that read, "I'll do my best as one of the Japanese soldiers."
Robert Dujarric, an East Asian expert and former senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, stresses that Yasukuni Shrine is modeled after European values of monarchy and religion, and is really a tribute to Japan's modernization.
"The thing you have to know about Yasukuni is that it's not Japanese," Dujarric told a sociology class as a guest lecturer. The symbolism of honoring the emperor, he said, is a way for nationalists to say to the world, "We died for something."
The shrine and museum are only a small part of Japan. But they represent a significant mindset that still grips at least a few vocal leaders, and they are no doubt on the mind of the Obama administration as Hillary Clinton departs from her trip to Japan. Clinton asked Aso to be the first world leader to visit Barack Obama in the White House, a move that is almost certainly a favor she expects to be returned by committing the isolationist country to contributing more to global issues.
Which helps explain why Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial burial ground for a couple of million war dead including a handful of Japanese war criminals, is a focal point of nationalism.
During World War II, Japan's imperial army led bloody campaigns in China and other parts of Asia, resulting in tens of millions of deaths. Yet a few decades after the island nation surrendered, more than 1,000 soldiers who were charged as war criminals -- including 14 really terrible ones who are called "Class-A" criminals -- were secretly enshrined in the burial ground.
When this became public, China and Korea got pretty angry. Now, every time a Japanese official (like former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi) visits the shrine, East Asia flares up in wars of words. Japan's current leader, Taro Aso, said recently that he is considering a visit.But that's not the only reason why Yasukuni is controversial. Walk 200 feet to the right of the shrine, and there's the Yushukan, a "history" museum erected by super-conservative, right-wing nationalists who want to set the record straight about Japan's wars -- at least, their version of the record.
Keep in mind that this group openly advocates -- and has succeeded in -- revising school textbooks to omit details such as the fact that during the war, the Japanese used Korean "comfort women" as sex slaves for their soldiers.
So when you think the United States has too many political extremists, think again. Whether they're on the right (like Sean Hannity) or the left (like Bill Maher), none of them have anything on the conservative Uyoku dantai.
It's also important to know that such extreme nationalists, while somewhat influential, are not very popular among most Japanese citizens. They represent a minority of Japanese people who are willing to bend the facts about what happened in one of Japan's darkest chapters. So, enter the Yushukan.
The first thing I saw before I even walked into the museum was a group of right-wingers huddled by their black trucks that bear the old imperial Japanese flag and blast "nationalist" music from loudspeakers. And the first thing I saw inside the museum, near the gift shop, was a row of hundreds of CDs burned with the same type of music.
It's common to hear American politicians defend attacks from their critics by saying that their opponents are practicing "revisionist history," misrepresenting their records. But that phrase has an entirely different and real meaning on the other side of the world.
What's inside the Yushukan is not as important as what's not inside. In 1937, Japan began massacring millions of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, nearly committing genocide. (Japan says its actions were a matter of self-defense.) Yet inside the museum, the only mention of the slaughter is a small panel barely three feet wide that refers to the "China Incident" and makes no mention of any conflict whatsoever.
Similarly conspicuous are the letters written by kamikaze pilots in the hours before they took off on their suicide missions. The letters appear only in Japanese, and the entire display has no English translation. It is one of the few parts of the museum with no English translation whatsoever. A Japanese friend of mine translated a part of one that read, "I'll do my best as one of the Japanese soldiers."
Robert Dujarric, an East Asian expert and former senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, stresses that Yasukuni Shrine is modeled after European values of monarchy and religion, and is really a tribute to Japan's modernization.
"The thing you have to know about Yasukuni is that it's not Japanese," Dujarric told a sociology class as a guest lecturer. The symbolism of honoring the emperor, he said, is a way for nationalists to say to the world, "We died for something."
The shrine and museum are only a small part of Japan. But they represent a significant mindset that still grips at least a few vocal leaders, and they are no doubt on the mind of the Obama administration as Hillary Clinton departs from her trip to Japan. Clinton asked Aso to be the first world leader to visit Barack Obama in the White House, a move that is almost certainly a favor she expects to be returned by committing the isolationist country to contributing more to global issues.
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Angiebaby
9:38AM 9:38AM Feb 19th 2009
Good morning, Grasshopper. Today's lesson: Man must learn to think with higher brain. We begin lesson by comparing one-sided, unpopular Japanese war with one-sided, unpopular American war. Many citizens in both countries lack nationalism and support for soldiers going to war after commitment to military. Both countries embarrassed about participation in historical events, and neglect to support soldiers for serving country because war not popular with world. Both countries have memorial and museum to war vets, living and dead. Most people who visit sites also military vets who understand sacrifice of life when called by country. The soldiers in both countries did not did for nothing, regardless of what "most" citizens believe. Neither museum have right to betray intimate words from soldiers by translating them into foreign languages. We end lesson by naming American counterpart to Japanese effort: The Vietnam War Memorial and Museum. And shame if you have visited Japanese memorial and museum but not Vietnam sites in Washington, D.C. This represent our decade of "Lost Boys" and sad reality we cannot go back in time to alter citizens' confusion of hate war, not dedicated soldiers, for Vietnam heroes. I bid you, think on these things, Grasshopper.
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ghm
1:23PM 1:23PM Feb 19th 2009
We have war memorials, too. I couldn't care less what happened over 60 years ago -- I'm sure there's folk who are annoyed by the honors we bestow on vets of controversial wars like Viet Nam and Iraq so piss off, lefty. Find something worth writing about, you know, something relevant -- WWII is over a long time kiddo.
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markeschu
3:37PM 3:37PM Feb 19th 2009
The more we ignor history, and refuse to learn from it, the more we repeat the mistakes that were made. Your statements conferm this.
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markeschu
4:44PM 4:44PM Feb 19th 2009
Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to continue makeing the same mistakes over and over. They continue to call people names and continue acting rude.
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ex pat
4:53AM 4:53AM Mar 3rd 2009
You're missing the point. The Japanese Rightists have a mindset that Japan was correct in invading China, that the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was a good think to keep Asia under Japanese influence. Now the countries that were invaded have another opinion on this. Not to mention all the countries that fought the Japanese. They lost, they were wrong, they committed war crimes. The Right in Japan does not want to admit this.
And by doing so, they really get nations that did suffer under Japan in WWII really upset.
I lived over there. Their education ministry is getting worse as far as how they slant the history in the textbooks.
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Master Shake
1:14AM 1:14AM Feb 20th 2009
"Japan doesn't really get out a lot" ?!?! AMERICANS ARE THE LEAST TRAVELED PEOPLE IN THE MODERN WORLD! There are Japanese tourists and travelers EVERYWHERE I go, from the jungles of New Guinea to the Finnish Gulf. Places that you NEVER, EVER see an American.
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Bob
2:00PM 2:00PM Feb 20th 2009
One never sees a Japanese tourist in Naijing.
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Bill
5:52PM 5:52PM Feb 19th 2009
I've got news. Bush IS like Nader. So are the Clintons and Obama. They are all liberal leftists, just as the Japanese leaders are and have been for decades. True conservatism is very rare on planet earth these days. Right now, conservatism is just a word that left wing progressives use to categorize their continuous failures as belonging to someone else. That particular someone does not exist.
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Willet
6:24PM 6:24PM Feb 19th 2009
Hey Matt, you were scooped on this one. This story has been around since 1975.
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Al
7:07PM 7:07PM Feb 19th 2009
Yeh, as if we Americans never revised our history any.
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Bradley Cooper
2:39AM 2:39AM Feb 20th 2009
Have you ever been to Japan?
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KUNZSP
4:49PM 4:49PM Feb 20th 2009
FIRST IT WAS CHENEY STICKING IT TO
GEORGE W. BUSH. NOW IT'S BILL CLINTON
WHO BLAMES HIM FOR THE ECONOMY. GIVE
ME A BREAK. IT WASN'T BUSH WHO RUINED
THE ECONOMY; IT WAS THE KOOL-AID DRINKERS
IN THE SENATE. IN A BACK ISSUE OF HARPER'S
MAGAZINE A CASE IS MADE THAT THE SENATE
SHOULD BE ABOLISHED. AND CLINTON SHOULD
SHUT THE F--K UP. IT'S THE ECONOMY,
STUPID
PHYLLIS KUNZ
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KC
5:33PM 5:33PM Feb 27th 2009
Operation "END GAME": They're already planning to take some of us out!
San Francisco, CA -- "The San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper has CONFIRMED a government plan code named ENDGAME.
Story reveales that upwards of 775,000 American citizens are on lists to be rounded up by our government.
Now, a major, main stream newspaper has published confirming details!
Rule by fear, or Rule by law?
Operation END GAME
They're already preparing for civil unrest !!!
Whatever you do, do not let them take your guns!
Tell your friends, family, neighbors, and everyone who will listen
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KC
5:38PM 5:38PM Feb 27th 2009
Operation "END GAME": They're already planning to take some of us out!
San Francisco, CA -- "The San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper has CONFIRMED a government plan code named ENDGAME.
Story reveales that upwards of 775,000 American citizens are on lists to be rounded up by our government.
Now, a major, main stream newspaper has published confirming details!
Rule by fear, or Rule by law?
Operation END GAME
They're already preparing for civil unrest !!!
Whatever you do, do not let them take your guns!
Tell your friends, family, neighbors, and everyone who will listen
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ssfahrer
3:02PM 3:02PM Mar 1st 2009
THIS is "Operation Endgame": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Endgame . To get rid of ILLEGAL ALIENS, not American citizens. Try doing some research before you spout such BS....
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James
12:44PM 12:44PM Mar 17th 2009
Hey, just a couple corrections. Yasukuni is not a burial ground since it does not house any bodies of soldiers, but does serve in ceremonies where their "spirits" are brought to the shrine and honored.
Also, there was a whole book of English translations of the Kamikaze pilots last statements right next to the Japanese book, at least in the section I went through.
All in all, and interesting and insightful read that I will hopefully be able to draw some ideas from in writing my Pro-Japanese Nationalism paper. Haha.
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