Japan is not Germany

When Japanese PM, Shinzo Abe, recently said that this generation should be the last one to apologize for Japan’s World War II related atrocities, I could see why: how long could future generations keep apologizing? I went on to wonder why the Germans don't ever feel the same way.

But it turns out that German and Japanese perceptions of their roles during World War II are significantly different. One very important difference was that the German defeat ended up with the removal from power of Hitler and his Nazi regime. Whereas in case of defeated Japan, the ruling Emperor Hirohito under whose command Japan had marched, was not prosecuted because General Douglas MacArthur felt that “a crushed people would be more biddable with their emperor still in place”.  That difference meant the Germans could distance themselves from Nazism (to some extent) and look at their crimes a bit more objectively than the Japanese could.

Further, many Japanese have always questioned why Japanese expansionism was any worse than what the West had been doing. Wasn’t it just Western hypocrisy, they asked. Others asked wasn’t Japan a victim of war crimes too?
“Witness the smouldering aftermath of the firebombing of Tokyo, in which 100,000 died; witness the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Today, the Japanese PM Abe subscribes to the above viewpoints. He also views Japan’s constitution as something imposed by the victors and as something that constrains “Japan’s legitimate ambitions”.

That point about the atomic bombs though triggers accusations from China and South Korea who contend that Japan uses the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs to portray themselves as victims and downplay their own acts of aggression and rape.

The Yasukuni shrine in Japan honours those who died protecting the emperor since 1869. Nobody had issues with that. But in 1978, Japan decided to add to the shrine 14 political and military leaders who had been found guilty by the Tokyo War Crimes Trial after World War II. Japanese PM Abe paid his respects at the shrine in late 2013. He considers the war crimes tribunals victor’s justice, and doesn’t see why, by the same parameters, most Western rulers shouldn’t have been hanged too.

At that point, China and South Korea went ballistic. How could the Japanese be honouring war criminals, they asked. I am not a huge fan of China, but wouldn’t we react similarly if the British honoured General Dyer today despite Jallianwala Bagh?

Comments

  1. KumarAugust 18, 2015 at 7:14 PM

    Interesting.

    The thing is much of the arguments are timeless, in a strange way. Your mention of how "Many Japanese have always questioned why Japanese expansionism was any worse than what the West had been doing. Wasn’t it just Western hypocrisy, they asked", is a point of that kind. Political hypocrisy is timeless and not region-exclusive either. :-(

    Finally we all know that victors of wars project themselves as 'goodies' - while they are indeed almost as much 'baddies' as the those who lost the war.

    As to the eternal method of defense, "He did wrong, didn't he? So why are you only telling me I do wrong?" This, in effect, diverts the attention partly and dilutes the rating for the wrong deeds! Very common in India too.

    ReplyDelete

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