#26: Apology and Atonement (PART 6)

【Empathy】
Japan once again chose to manipulate the minds of its people, just as it used to in the prewar days. Upon receiving the education emphasizing on its historical reality as perpetrator, would the students feel “embarrassed” or “guilty” to be born a citizen of their own country? Perhaps, struggle to regain pride in a country with such “tainted” history? If the history textbooks and curriculum are deemed a risk to any of the above, then the government’s choice is to apply pressure to gradually eliminate such realities from history education. Now that so many witnesses and evidence are lost forever to war, none of those realities can be proven anyways – and so their twisted logic goes.
 
From Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso, the vast majority of the central figures of ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are members of Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi) – along with Yasunori Kagoike of Moritomo Gakuen, an infamous kindergarten known for its ultra-nationalist education. Japan Conference is an ultra-nationalist association which, among its primary missions, aims to “Modify the self-humiliating and unpatriotic accounts written in the school textbooks,” and “Modify the self-humiliating history education that wrongly condemns our own history.” At its core, Japan Conference promotes the fundamental ideals of Militarist Japan.
 
What’s more, Japan Conference’s interpretation of history is hard-right radical, promoting the view of Japanese aggression in World War II as “Not a war of aggression and invasion. Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from European and American colonial powers. We must stop apologizing to the world so we can regain pride in our own country.”  
 
To educate the future generations by honestly confronting the historical realities as perpetrator. To teach the historical realities as exactly as things were. To Japan Conference and its members, such efforts are deemed unpatriotic. Japan Conference and LDP are choosing to manipulate the minds so people can “regain” the Pride in their own country. And they’re trying to do so by stigmatizing as unpatriotic the people who refuse to uphold ultra-nationalist sentiments.  
 
Such is a duplicate copy of the traitor tactic employed in prewar Japan. Traitor was an unjust stigma, dripping with hatred and contempt, attached to the people calling for peace and resisting the government’s war agenda. And the government widely promoted the idea – and most people eagerly followed – that the act of persecuting traitors “proves” our patriotism and Pride in our own country.
 
These thoughts of promoting prewar ideology and justifying war aggression by Militarist Japan, surely, are extremely dangerous. We would most certainly consider it a dubious ideology if Germany were to promote similarly about Hitler and Nazism through its school textbooks and recognition of history. And if the German chancellor and ruling party were to embrace such repugnant thoughts, then the world would be gravely concerned and thoroughly alarmed.
 
Represented by the current Abe administration and LDP, Japan today is already ruled under the dubious ideology of Japan Conference. Needless to say, this present state warrants extreme caution. As unfortunate as the government chose to lead the country in this way, it’s even more unfortunate that the Japanese people jumped on the bandwagon and gravitated toward this easy way out.
 
By taking this path, will we regain the Pride in our own country in the truest sense? Looking away from things we wish not to see. Covering our ears to things we wish not to hear. Evading and avoiding our harsh realities, hoping for the ugly truth to fade into obscurity, and waiting for people to eventually forget – are such the path to true “Pride?”
 
What is “Pride in our own country” in the truest sense? It’s the “Hope” that lies beyond apology and atonement. It’s what we reach out for by honestly confronting our past mistakes and vowing such tragedy will never again fall upon anyone, anywhere. At the very least, many German students will agree to this.
 
So then, why do we hesitate to reach out for that “Pride” and “Hope?” It’s because those heinous crimes are not of our doing. Surely, people of the past committed those crimes, not us. Just because we’re born to the same country, does that make us who live here today responsible for someone else’s past crimes? Perhaps, these mixed and torn emotions are preventing us from truly reaching out.
 
To address these emotions head-on, directly and quite bluntly, we who live here today are not responsible for the past horrors of war aggression including sexual enslavement of Comfort Women. That responsibility absolutely doesn’t belong to us who live here today. It’s because responsibility of a certain action resides only with those who directly or indirectly took part in such action.
 
And very clearly, the vast majority of us who live here today did not take part in the war aggressions, neither directly nor indirectly. Without a doubt, the perpetrators are those people of the past who ended up supporting or accepting the war, however actively or passively they did so.
 
Notwithstanding the foregoing, standing here today, if we find ourselves justifying or approving those past war aggressions in any way, shape or form, then that’s completely our own doing and utterly inadmissible. However desperately we attempt to rationalize by saying, “That’s not my intention,” “It’s inevitable in times of war,” or “They were worse than us,” that doesn't alter the truth that such ignorance must be repudiated.
 
And if we find ourselves peddling such thoughts of ignorance, then we who live here today are, very clearly, responsible for that ignorance. Without a doubt, that responsibility belongs to us who live here today – no matter where we’re born or what our nationality.
 
German warning memorials and school education are mostly products of the reaction that transpired in the 1960s. Such reaction was propelled by the postwar generation, as eager to warn and remember as their parents were to forget. Regrettably in postwar Japan, such younger generation has been missing.
 
History education for the future generations that encompasses both war aggression and victimization. That is, warning memorials that honestly confront the historical realities. That is, an honest school education. That is, a genuine peace education in the truest sense, not just in form but in truthful spirit. And sustaining such education for the future generations to ensure that the tragedy will never again fall upon anyone, anywhere. And continuing to extend our deepest empathy and compassion to the heartbroken people who endured unspeakable despair.
 
That, indeed, is atonement.
 
To make atonement or not, it’s all up to us who live here today. We are the ones who can bring about a truly sincere, heart healing resolution for the victims.

Read Previous: Apology and Atonement (5)【Honest Peace Education】

Complete Series: Apology and Atonement (1)～(6)
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