 A LIVING ATROCITY AND A CONTINUING CRIME
In November, I wrote a fairly well-received essay on Iris Chang and her struggle to bring to light the Japanese crimes against the people of Asia and humanity itself. The Rape of Nanking opened my eyes for the first time to that tortuous period of history and what I see as the continuing crimes of the Japanese government and people. Even through the prism of over sixty years, the horror that Ms. Chang documented took an enormous toll on her mental health and likely contributed to her suicide at the age of 37. These are tragedies that continue to claim victims even today.
The wartime axis of Italy, Germany and Japan was defeated in 1944-45 and each country atoned for its sins in different ways. Italy, whose wartime crimes were largely limited to its crusade in Ethiopia in the early 30s, were let off the easiest. Furthermore, the Italians were in complete political disintegration by the time of their capitualton and submitted totally to the allied occupation.
The Germans paid the heaviest price of the three for their policy of mechanized extermination against the Jews. No one will ever forget the Holocaust and it is highly improbable that anyone will ever let the Germans forget it. Nor should they. Humanity should always keep in the back of its mind the industrial cruelty of which it is capable. Yes, Germany perpetrated the Holocaust, but we should remember that before the war Germany was also the most hospitable country in Europe toward the Jews. That the Germans took that final step is a mere accident of history. It could have been anyone.
Other than the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the war, the Japanese were never properly brought to account for their sins. Yes, the main perpetrators were brought to justice during the Tokyo war crimes trials of 1946-48, but there was never any collective guilt admitted to by the Japanese people or foisted upon them.
Guilt is a very specific thing. In the criminal law, guilt is determined two ways. First is the finding of guilt by a judge and jury. The second is a plea of guilty by the accused. In a number of societies, a mere pleading isn't enough to satisfy justice. He or she must allocute, or explain in open court what they did, how and why. To hear an open, public confession under oath and penalty of purjury serves to remove any doubt that the accused is guilty and that justice hasn't been served.
Guilt was never properly branded on Japanese society for what they've done. The Japanese never fully confessed to their crimes and the Allies determined that it was in no one's interest to force them to do so. There are three main reasons for this.
First, the western guilt over having resorted to nuclear weapons when it is now known that Hirohito was trying to negotiate a surrender through the Soviet Union.
Second, a strong, unified Japan was seen as a necessary force in the nothern Pacific when it became obvious that World War II would flow seamlessly into the Cold War and something would be needed to contain Soviet expansionism.
Third, there was strong political pressure, particularly in the United States, to "bring the boys back home" and restore the economy to its peacetime footing. Within three years, the U.K would renounce foreign adventurism almost completely and begin granting its colonies their independence.
Because of the demands required to resist the Soviets in western Europe, there couldn't be a wholesale rebuilding of the Japanese civil order. General MacArthur even allowed Hirohito to retain the throne. There was no policy comprable to the "de-Nazification" that occured in Germany. How could there be with the head of the wartime council at the head of the "new Japan?" It was as if Hitler were allowed to continue as president of West Germany. Accordingly, only the most obvious war criminals were removed from office or prosecuted.
Of the three former Axis powers, Japan returned to normalcy the fastest. But with that normalcy came a heavy moral cost.
Because the Japanese people were never forced to admit their complicity in the crimes against their neighbours, let alone punished for them, they were first allowed the delusion that they didn't commit them. Finally, they deny that they happened at all. And these denials come from the very highest levels of the Japanese government.
Anyone who doubts the Japanese army forced Asian women into sexual slavery in World War II should "face the truth," South Korea's foreign minister said yesterday as outrage grew over comments by Japan's prime minister that there was no evidence of the enslavement.
Women's rights activists in the Philippines and a group of politicians in South Korea denounced the remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday that there was no proof so-called "comfort women" were forced into prostitution during the war.
Chinese-Canadian politicians and community leaders also called on Ottawa to publicly condemn the comments. Actually, anyone with a conscience should publicly condem those comments, but it's a better than even bet that no western government will. I would be shocked if Ottawa, Washington or London condemed Abe with the language he so richly deserves. Most likely, weak, meaningless words like "regrettable" with used. That is, if anything is said at all.
But one of the harshest reactions came from 81-year-old Hilaria Bustamante of Manila, who said she was kept as a sex slave in a Japanese garrison for a year in 1942 as a 16-year-old. "What (Abe) said has angered me," she said. "They think we are just like toilet paper that they can throw away after being used.''
Historians say some 200,000 women – mostly from Korea and China – served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. Witnesses, victims and even some former Japanese soldiers say many of the women were kidnapped or otherwise forced into brothels, where they could be raped by scores of soldiers a day.
Abe on Thursday said there is no proof the women were forced into prostitution: "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion."
His statement contradicted evidence in Japanese documents unearthed in 1992 that historians said showed military authorities had a direct role in working with contractors to forcibly procure women for the brothels, known as "comfort stations."
The remark also cast doubt on a 1993 Japanese government apology to the sex slaves.
No, prime minister, the fact is that what these women allege happened did and one of your own courts so found over fifteen years ago. The cited "unearthed documents" were part of trial evidence in a lawsuit by the Korean comfort women against the government of Japan.
What is most offensive is the way that Abe is further distorting Japan's already ludicrious position on its own history. Prior to 1992, the government of Japan took the position that there were comfort women, but they were impressed by Japanese industry and in no way connected to the Imperial government. The '92 trial documents showed that to be a lie and the government issued it's controversial 1993 apology.
Abe's remarks do not "cast doubt" on the evidence or the apology, they serve to reverse them. They are a cruel infliction of further pain on old women who had their innocence brutally taken from them and seve no reasonable purpose. It is savagery for its own sake. It is to suggest that a woman who was gang-raped on a daily basis for years was actually "asking for it." It might be the most shameful thing a democratically elected head of government has said in my lifetime.
"We should speak out and issue a condemnation," NDP MP Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) said in Ottawa yesterday.
Conservative MP Inky Mark (Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette) said he was shocked when he read Abe's words and said he wants Prime Minister Stephen Harper to condemn the comments.
"It's along the same lines of denying the Holocaust. It was a war crime against humanity." All things being equal, if you're Chinese, Korean or Filipino, it isn't "along the same lines as denying the Holocaust," it actually is denying it. There really are no two ways about that. Japan's conduct, particularly in China, has been described as "the first genocide." Hundreds of thousands of Nanking residents were murdered in a matter of weeks. If that isn't a holocaust, it's as close as you can reasonably come.
I've written about the specifics of Japan's atrocities before and I won't do so again now. But they were well-documented and not at all a secret from the public at home. If anything, this makes the Japanese people at least a degree more culpable for the crimes of their government than the Germans. Hitler's Germany went to great lengths to hide the Holocaust from the German people. Japan actually publicised their grotesque acts to entertain the folks at home. And did the Japanese people protest it? No, they cheered it on. And now they deny that it happened at all.
I think we all know what the reaction would be if Germany suddenly began denying the Holocaust. There would be no end to the outrage. Israel would cut off diplomatic relations and most other western countries would level some sort of sanctions. Yet Japan suffers no consequences at all for doing precisely that.
There's a double standard when it comes to recognizing war crimes in the West, said Joseph Wong, the founding president of the Chinese Canadian National Council.
"We have heard how quick Western politicians are to condemn Holocaust deniers, which is good, because that has to be done," he said.
"But on the other hand, Western politicians are so silent when they encounter these denials from Japanese right-wing politicians who say the rape of Nanking was justified and these comfort women, these sexual slaves, were willing victims."
There is a profound difference in the way we memoralize the victims of European slaughters and those that happen elsewhere. Consider the case two contemporary genocides, Bosnia and Rwanda. Given the media attention given to both, you would think that Bosnia was the worse of the two. In fact, it wasn't. Approximately 250,000 Bosnians were killed in four years of civil war. In Rwanda, 800,000 were killed in just under a month. Does the race of the victims have something to do with how their plight is recognized and remembered? The evidence seems to suggest that it does. I'm not niave enough to suggest that my government or anyone else's is going to do much of anything about Japan. They are simply too important an economic player for that. But simply because our government's are wallowing in moral cowardice doesn't mean that you and I have to. Individuals have a measure of economic power, too. If you're disgusted by the actions of the Japanese government, I invite you to consider that when you next find yourself buying a DVD player ... or a car. Want to see Asia and not spend a fortune? Well, South Korea is pretty interesting and much cheaper than Tokyo.
The fact is that your elected officials and mine probably won't express the outrage they should at Shinzo Abe and his pornographic view of history, but you can. You can vote with your wallet. Would you be able to buy a car from Holocaust denier just because you saved five grand and still look at yourself in the mirror? If you really want to find out, keep buying Japanese.
Special thanks to the great Damian Penny for sending me the link to this story. He was a great supporter of my original Iris Chang article and having someone that important in your own country get behind your work is a great honor. Thanks Damian.
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