Not as a whole, no. But certain aspects of it are (like pretty much every culture, in fact). And these aspects are especially relevant here.
Just a wild hijack here but how apologetic has the Japanese government been for their war crimes? Comfort women, the Rape of Nanking, Unit 731, mutilation of prisoners, etc. all occurred with government knowledge and acceptance IIRC yet I don’t think there has ever been a substantial apology or even an acknowledgement from the Japanese leaders.
Germans have been forthcoming with their apologies to the point that it is a crime to deny the Holocaust. They bend over backwards to atone for what they did wrong. The US government has apologized for its treatment of African slaves, Native Americans, Japanese-Americans during WWII, and so on. The current administrations actions will be held up to the light of day at a later date and apologies will be made, I’m sure.
Yet I don’t think the Japanese have ever been held accountable for what they did. A lot of the atrocities were swept aside by the occupying forces because we needed bases as staging areas during the cold war. Has anyone in their government even admitted that they did the things they are accused of?
erie774, AIUI there have been some apologies. The most recent I think was the recent Prime Minister saying something conciliatory about the comfort women.
And every apology brings out the Right-Wing Japanese Nationalists to condemn the politician making the apology.
I’m more interested in seeing the state-approved histories of the era start to mention things like the truth of what happened in Nanking, and the overall treatment of subjugated populations than I am in seeing a mouth-piece say nice things on the world stage. One may educate people to help prevent similar atrocities, the other just earns Japan or simply a specific politician brownie points.
No, you’re right. It’s hot here in Thailand, but that’s no excuse. I retract my last 4 words and apologize. I wrote that shit and walked to my guesthouse only to turn around and come back here.
No worries then. We all say things we regret when we’re pissed off, and my hat’s off to you for being big enough to admit it.
Seconded.
And by this, do you mean that it’s not really possible to trust the Japanese?
As far as I can see they’ve made the barest minimum of apologies only after having their arms twisted out of their sockets.
Meanwhile the cynical lies in textbooks continues.
I wouldn’t trust the Japanese in charge of a prisoner of waw camp without international oversight, no.
Would I trust them with international oversight? Sure.
Would I trust them to honour a contract? Definitely. Much more than, say, an Italian. And a hell of a lot more than a Nigerian prince.
In the same way I wouldn’t trust an Englishman making Creme Brulee.
Yes, people do cruel things to other people. I recently read Andersonville a novel by Mackinlay Kantor. During the US Civil War, Andersonville was a POW camp in the south, run by a sadistic general and others.
From:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/seac/histback.htm
American soldiers torturing/starving/etc American soldiers.
FWIW, some of my best friends are southerners.
Sorry old boy, I couldn’t really hear you over the sound of frantic backpedalling…
I haven’t been doing any backpedalling, I’ve just been clarifying my remarks. The Japanese are not fit to run a prisoner of war camp.
A great Pit OP. Frantic. Hysterical. Over the top. Eyes full of piss and vinegar. Well done!
Unlike the distinctions in the English language that separate Germans from Nazis, there’s really no everyday word that distinguishes Japanese Imperialists from Japanese. When you add that to the fact that many of the beliefs held by the Japanese prior to VJ Day are still ingrained in their people and their culture, I don’t think the term “disgusting” is all that far off the mark. Ask almost any East Asian ‘man on the street’ what the general perception of their Japanese neighbors is, and the first two terms you’d be likely to hear would be racist and arrogant (usually followed by harsher expletives). You can’t attribute those attitudes solely to the rape, cannibalism and outright slaughter of 30 million people on the Asian continent some 60 plus years ago. There’s something still there that causes a feeling of disgust by a very large number of people, even those whose memory doesn’t go back to the first half of the 20th Century.
You: “It’s a disgusting culture.”
Me: “Really?”
You: “Well, bits of it are disgusting.”
You: “It’s not really possible to trust them.”
Me: “Really?”
You: “Well, you can’t really trust them under certain circumstances…”
Sorry Bub, but it smells like backpedalling to me. If you don’t want people to misunderstand you, perhaps you should be more careful with the sweeping generalisations in the first place.
Are the Right-Wing Japanese Nationalists you mentioned similar to the neo-Nazis in Germany? How prevalent are they within the Diet?
I agree that the histories need to be corrected to admit to what happened. How hard would it be to get honest books out to the general populace? Is the media so repressed that potentially “offensive” facts could be kept away from the citizens? In a country so technologically advanced as Japan you would think that it would be impossible for the information to be kept away from the citizens. I can see how it happens in China and other countries but there should be no way to keep the average Japanese citizen from learning the truth. Can a “grass roots” campaign be started to pass the word similar to the way the Tiananmen Square protesters were able to pass info along via fax and e-mail? Get prominent Japanese academics to create web sites and blogs about the true events of Imperial Japan and pass links throughout the country. Eventually the media would get a hold of it and the government would be forced to acknowledge what went on.
Or maybe I’m just too naïve about everything.
Actually many historians now believe that much of the outrage over Andersonville was misplaced. There’s strong evidence that the Confederacy just did not have the resources to properly house POWs and that the man in charge of Andersonville, Captain Henry Wirz (not a general) did the best he could to house the men given his extremely limited resources.
Look, on balance Japanese culture is disgusting. But saying that sounds a bit bigoted, and ignores some fantastic aheivements. So I thought I’d clairfy it for you.
Don’t forget this thread is about the POW camps in the first place!
What I read made it seem like Capt Wirz was doing General Winder’s biding. I’m not much of an historian and I shouldn’t base my understanding of US history on a novel.
FWIW, my understanding is that the problems with Andersonville owed at least as much to the general lack of resources that the South had by that point in the war, severe overcrowding far beyond the planned capacity of the camp, and atrocities committed upon other prisonsers by prisoners, rather than specific sadism on the part of the camp commandant.
It doesn’t change the effect on the ground, so-to-speak, but it is a signifigant moral difference, I believe.
For that matter, for all the harrowing events and conditions at Andersonville, the North’s Elmira camp in NY’s Finger Lakes region was arguably nearly as bad - and with far less reason.
On preview -
They’re distressingly prevalent in the Diet and other levels of government. Not at all like the neo-Nazis in Germany, which I understand to be generally a youth movement, with little actual political power. Some of our posters from Japan would be better able to answer this than I can, so I’m just going to hit high points. Sunspace and others will likely be here with better cites soon enough.
The Japanese education system is far, far more centralized than most Americans can imagine. My understanding is that the Ministry of Education actually sets up national curricula, with recommended lesson plans - not simply giving individual school districts the choice between various approved texts. And the Nationalists tend to be over-represented in the committees that sit on texts, because they care so much about Japan’s historical image.
For an exercise - how aware are you, as an American, that the US invaded Canada several times, with the intent to conquer it? It’s not something most Americans think about, really. And it’s not often mentioned in US histories. Not even through any deliberate attempt to obfuscate history - just because in the long run, for US history, it’s not been that important. The invasions never really went very far, and today Canada is a close and trusted neighbor.
I’m guessing that you’ve never really thought about how much fighting there had been along the US-Canada border. And you’re a well-educated and intelligent person. But that’s an example of how thoroughly an event, or series of events, can be forgotten if it’s not mentioned in general histories.
When you consider Japan, you have other factors - the Nationalists I’ve mentioned do have real political power. They often try to ostracize any educators who mention Nanking, and there aren’t many who even try. So, not only is the Japanese War Crimes record uncomfortable to consider, it’s subject to people actviely trying to suppress it. And so, most people in Japan, don’t think about it. And often have no real idea of how prevalent the crimes were.