(I)
Japanese writer Yukio Mishima wrote a
novel
called Peony. The main character of the novel is a lonely old man who fought in the war against China in his youth. This old man seems to have no other hobbies except carefully cultivating hundreds of peonies.
Later, people realized that the old man's love for peonies was related to his early experience in the war. In the old man's eyes,
every peony flower symbolized a beautiful Chinese girl who was killed by him. A large peony bush is a group of Chinese maidens he slaughtered. This veteran does not feel the slightest remorse for his killings, but on the contrary, he glorifies the atrocities of the past. It was his pride, he felt, it was his privilege.
It is such a sick murderer who, in the pen of Yukio Mishima, who believes in militarism, becomes a master of art who enjoys aesthetic pleasure. Looking at thousands of human communities, only Japanese culture has the ability to "turn ugly into beautiful" and "turn rottenness into magic".
The Japanese have a peculiarly self-centered perspective on history. They exaggerate infinitely the side that is favorable to them and minimize the side that is unfavorable to them. They insist on using a microscope to look at the shortcomings of others, but stubbornly close their eyes in front of their own mistakes.
So the Japanese, who were the instigators and perpetrators of the war, suddenly disappeared; they never seemed to have traveled to foreign lands to kill and enslave civilians; they never seemed to have brought death and blood and tears to the people of other countries. On the contrary, they were merely the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, clinging to their sense of being "victims".
So the Japanese people as aggressors disappeared, leaving only the Japanese people as victims; the Japanese soldiers as murderous executioners disappeared, leaving only the old man who planted flowers and indulged himself in beautiful peonies; the Japanese militarists who created the "comfort women system" that legitimized and institutionalized rape disappeared, leaving only an old man who was under the wise leadership of the Emperor. The Japanese militarists who created the "comfort women system" that legalized and institutionalized rape are gone, leaving only an "economic powerhouse" under the wise leadership of the Emperor. They are like children who, after wreaking havoc, do not recognize that they have done anything wrong.
The atrocities of the Japanese army took on a sadistic and destructive character that is rare in the history of war, both ancient and modern. On December 20, 1943, the American journalist Epstein, who witnessed the atrocities of the Japanese army in Changde, Hunan Province, described them in a report he wrote for the weekly Time magazine, saying, "One wonders why the Japanese peasants, who regarded grain as a treasure when they were in the country and cherished the fruits of their labors, not only plundered Chinese peasants of their rice when they arrived in China but also urinated and defecated toward the grain that could not be shipped? But why, when they came to China, did they not only plunder the rice of the Chinese peasants, but also urinated and defecated on the grain that could not be transported? What, one may ask, made the Japanese soldiers, upon entering an orphanage, steal the bedding of the orphans and take the trouble to bring large stones from the downstairs courtyard to smash to pieces the textile machinery of a vocational school? What pleasure did they derive from breaking into schools and slamming ink bottles against the walls?"
No one but the Japanese themselves can actually answer these tough questions. Some of the "essence" of Japanese culture has permeated these unimaginable "pleasures" of the Japanese military.
On the other hand, Japanese culture has a long history of "groupism", which can magnify the power of the individual and minimize the responsibility of the individual. When the Japanese killed and raped people in the war, not only would they not feel guilty, but they would also be filled with a sense of pride because their performance was better than others. At the same time, because it is a group behavior, both "superior orders", and "everyone is the same", which forms a "no responsibility group", no sense of guilt when doing bad things, and no sense of responsibility after doing them. The fact is that there is no sense of responsibility when you do something bad, and there is no sense of responsibility after you have done it.
Japanese scholar Kato Chouichi analyzed in his book "The Basic Characteristics of Japanese Society and Culture" that "in the fifteen years of war, as an individual, there was not a single person who was responsible for the war, i.e., all of us were at fault. The responsibility for the war was borne by all Japanese citizens, not by the leaders. The so-called '100 million total confessions' means that both the cigarette store owner's wife and Prime Minister Tojo were responsible for one part in 100 million. One part in a hundred million is in fact equal to zero, i.e., becoming blameless. The fact that everyone is responsible is almost equivalent to no responsibility at all."
While the Japanese people are certainly the victims of militarism, it cannot be denied that they are also the supporters of militarism. They are not "innocents" or "idle bystanders". Where does the soil for militarism come from? How could militarism have started the war machine so quickly if the whole nation had not been excited by the idea of expanding the space for existence, and had not been anesthetized by the illusion of the inherent superiority of the Yamato nation?
(2)
It is not possible to convince people simply by saying "we have been deceived".
In Japan, most people, from Class A war criminals to ordinary soldiers, have always believed that they are not guilty of anything. Also an unforgivable war criminal, Germany's Hans Frank said before his execution at Nuremberg, "A thousand years are easy to pass, but Germany's sins are hard to undo." Japan's Hideki Tojo, on the other hand, screamed before his execution, "Long live His Majesty the Emperor!" Why this fundamental difference?
In "The Chrysanthemum and the Knife," the American scholar Benedict talks about the difference between a culture of guilt and a culture of shame. A culture of guilt relies on the internal reflection of guilt to do good deeds, while a culture of shame relies on external coercion to do good deeds. In a culture where shame is the main coercive force, as represented by Japan, people feel only remorse for criminal behavior. Moreover, there is no need to be chagrined as long as the bad behavior is not exposed to the society. They believe that confession and repentance can only be self-seeking. In the culture of shame, there is no habit of confessing and repenting, not even to God. They have the ritual of praying for happiness, but not the ritual of praying for atonement.
Also having committed serious war crimes, the Germans reflect not only on themselves, but also on the **** same humanity. The people of Europe and the United States in the context of Christian culture, not only deep repentance, but also have a skeptical and responsible for human nature. But the Japanese have no repentance and ethical responsibility. Japan's technology is one of the best in the world, but in the spiritual level is still empty and thin.
It is almost impossible to get the Japanese to admit their mistakes, and they are very good at blaming others for their mistakes. Why are the Japanese so fond of using the "Soul Shifting Technique"? On the one hand, they attach great importance to face, Benedict in the "chrysanthemums and knives" in the discussion that: "the Japanese people are very mindful of other people's perception of their own behavior, but when other people have no knowledge of their bad deeds, and will be overcome by sin." Therefore, they prefer to cover up one mistake with a hundred mistakes rather than sincerely admit and correct that mistake.
This unique "culture of shame" combined with the spirit of Bushido pushed "non-repentance" to the extreme. The spirit of Bushido and the formation of the samurai class were mutually exclusive. The Japanese samurai regarded killing as friendship, and could cut off the head of a harakiri; the Japanese samurai regarded killing as power, and could kill the other party without sanction if they were insulted; the Japanese samurai regarded killing as a profession, and had to kill someone after drawing their swords in order to take back the sheaths. In Japan, the only way to save one's honor was to fight to the end or to commit suicide. If captured, one's honor was destroyed, and even if one lived, he was a "dead man," or even worse than dead. When the U.S. Army captured Saipan, more than 40,000 Japanese troops were wiped out, and there were more than 10,000 civilians on the island, who were forced to commit suicide, mothers killing their babies and then committing suicide, and old people killing each other or committing suicide.
In the Asahi Shimbun's essay on "World War II as I remember it," a reader named Masao Kumai wrote an article titled "Why we didn't oppose the war. According to the article, "Some people ask: Why didn't you oppose the war? I think it is because the nation is not skeptical of the country's policies. The nation has been taught not to be skeptical of decisions made 'from above'."
First of all, the government is not allowed to give correct information to the nation. News that is unfavorable to the military and the government is kept secret under orders such as the law on maintenance of law and order, which in turn is modified to propagate news that is favorable to the military and the government.
Secondly, the people could not oppose the orders of the Emperor. The Emperor was a god, a being beyond the state. The Emperor has said that the order of the officer is the order of the Emperor. For the common people, the army's orders were the Emperor's orders, so they could not oppose the war until the Emperor ordered a truce.
Thirdly, the sense of national superiority was incited. War leaders must incite the people before they go to war. Hitler's Germany incited the German people to be nationals of superior blood, while Japan incited itself to be the first divine nation in the world under the Emperor's Universal Unity.
Fourthly, leaders emphasize the crisis of the nation indiscriminately. Claims of national crisis were spreading, and the incited nationals believed in them, fell into parochial nationalism, and became a driving force for war, and were still self-righteous.
Japan's unique historical and cultural traditions are fertile soil for the growth of this robber baron logic and philosophy of war.
(iii)
There are three main reasons for the bestiality of the Japanese army: first, the stratified nature of Japanese society made it possible for a long time for Japanese officers to take pleasure in humiliating their soldiers. Soldiers were expected to wash an officer's underwear or to stand obediently and let the officer fan their slaps until the blood ran cold.
Inside the Japanese army, senior generals showed no respect or compassion for the lives of ordinary soldiers. Back in the day, Toyotomi Hideyoshi made his soldiers fight in straw shoes despite the bitter cold of the Korean winter, which resulted in tens of thousands of young soldiers freezing their toes off. Similarly, in the Second World War, the Japanese army attempted to save itself from defeat by forming "kamikaze death squads". Human life was treated like a machine. The senior commander-in-chief, knowing that the Allies had already decoded the code, continued to use it for the sake of so-called pride and self-confidence, resulting in a large number of casualties among the rank-and-file soldiers.
Those with the least power usually have the most sadistic tendencies when they hold the power of life and death over those further down the hierarchy. When Japanese soldiers occupied Nanking, the insanity that had gradually developed from this hierarchy of superiority and inferiority finally had an outlet. The anger, hatred and fear of authority that they had suppressed for so many years easily exploded into uncontrollable violence in Nanking.
The second reason for the bestiality of the Japanese army was that the Japanese were filled with hatred and contempt for the Chinese, feelings that had been cultivated through decades of propaganda, education and social indoctrination. Since the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese began to think of themselves as "quasi-white" in the "out of Asia and into Europe" trend, and generated discrimination against the other yellow races in Asia. In South Africa, which was known for its apartheid, the Japanese were categorized as "honorary whites", and although they were yellow, they sat on the side of the whites and enjoyed the same special treatment as the whites. The Japanese felt complacent and forgot that they were yellow, a fact they could not change.
Many Japanese soldiers believed that the Chinese were not yet human, and that killing them was like squashing a beetle or killing a pig. During the Rape of Nanking, a Japanese officer tied ten Chinese prisoners together so as to make many piles. Then one pile at a time, he pushed the Chinese into a cave pit and burned them alive. Later, he excused his actions by saying, "Pigs are more valuable than Chinese lives because pigs can still be eaten."
The third factor in the bestialization of the Japanese army was that the violence that pervaded among Japanese soldiers took on a certain sacredness. Violence became a strong cultural obligation in the Japanese military. The combat manual issued to soldiers by the Japanese military ministry declared, "Every bullet shall be fired in a royal manner, and every stab of the bayonet shall burn with national sentiment."
Since the average Japanese believes that the emperor is more noble than God, it is easy for the Japanese military to accept the belief that war, even if it is filled with violence, ultimately results in violence that is not only good for the self but also good for the victims. In order to achieve such a "Japanese-style" victory, atrocities were the necessary tools and means.
It is a stark fact that today's Japanese do not live in a different spiritual world than that of the war. It is true that the war was sixty years ago, and that in the meantime there has been a peace movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons. However, the culture that has no respect for the individual, that adapts itself to the needs of the group, that has a fierce competitive mentality, and that sees only upward and downward relationships between people, is still the same as it was in the past. It is a culture that worships academic qualifications and prestigious schools, focuses on the merits of the organization to which one belongs, obsessively pursues a position in the company, and exerts invisible pressure on those who doubt such values. In addition, the Japanese character is also corrupted by the overbearing nature of schools and workplaces, the communalism that impoverishes private life, overtime work, and socializing. The suppression of personal values and the neglect of humanistic qualities have led Japanese people to become economic animals when they enter the economic field, to be strict in the political field, and to indulge in morbid beauty when they enter the cultural field.
In this regard, many Japanese intellectuals have asked, "How can we compare today's Japanese spirit with the so-called "Japanese spirit" of the invasion period, when the Japanese army allowed veterans to oppress new recruits, cultivated soldiers into ghosts of war through assassination of Chinese, and encouraged them to make a name for themselves in the army, and had no sense of the sufferings of those who had been suppressed? Can we say that there is much difference between the two? Is it not the same to compare this system with the system of organizing the military power by raising the aggressiveness of the people from the time of the war of aggression, when people were brutally competing with each other from the time they were children, and when they were in the throes of envy and humiliation?
(4)
Under the sway of the culture of shame, the Japanese general public quickly accomplished the forgetfulness of war crimes, and the Japanese conservative politicians were even more credulous in falsifying history.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Rep. Seiryo Okuno claimed, "In the past, Japan was not waging a war of aggression, nor had it adopted a colonial policy." Justice Minister Shigemon Nagano claimed, "The Greater East Asian War was not a war of aggression, but a product of Japan's serious thinking in order to survive, liberate its colonies and establish the Greater East Asian ****ing Sphere of Glory. The purpose of the war was basically permissible and justifiable at the time
." Sakurai Shin, chief of the Environment Agency, said, "Rather than a war of aggression, it was a war that almost all Asian countries were blessed by. Independence from the domination of European colonies resulted in the spread of education and a higher literacy rate than in Africa, which had long been under European domination. In only half a century, the whole of Asia was experiencing an economic boom."
The LDP declared in its "Letter of Intent" for the "50th Anniversary of the End of the War Diet Members' Coalition" that "Japan's peace and prosperity today are built on the foundation of more than two million war martyrs. These martyrs gave their precious lives in anticipation of Japan's self-existence and self-defense and peace in Asia."
In response to these finger-pointing remarks, a German intellectual hit the nail on the head when he said, "We Germans, as a member of the Christian civilization of Europe, are practical and realistic, and therefore honestly admit our history of foreign aggression. But the Japanese are different, they don't want to admit their mistakes on the grounds of their so-called 'Eastern civilization', isn't this a manifestation of militaristic thinking?"
After the end of the Second World War, Germany and Japan adopted vastly different attitudes toward their respective war crimes. In his book, "Trance with or without Past Crimes," the Dutch writer Bruma contrasted the different attitudes of Germany and Japan toward the war. German Chancellor Brandt knelt in front of a Jewish monument, but no Japanese leader ever did so. In Germany, it is a handful of extremist skinheads hunted by the police who deny war crimes; in Japan, it is prime ministers, Diet members, cabinet ministers and historians.
German President Weizser once noted in a speech that after the war Germany paid 100 billion marks in personal reparations while Japan did almost nothing. He criticized Japan's forty years after the war as "forty years in the wilderness", and that none of its post-war prime ministers had ever clearly and sincerely apologized to the people of the countries they had invaded, each time equivocating and advocating that the history of their own country be deleted from the textbooks.
However, instead of accepting Weizser's advice, conservative forces in Japan attacked and abused Germany. Kanji Nishio, a professor at the University of Electro-Communications in Japan, claimed that Germany's admission of guilt and reparations precisely demonstrated the Germans' "self-deception". He argued that most of the post-war Nazis were exposed and tried by the Germans themselves, while the Japanese did not expose their own people, except for the Tokyo Trials conducted by the Allies and the trials of Class B and C war criminals in various countries, which was a sign of Japan's pride, self-confidence and precious "patriotism".
In a conversation with Japanese writer Hisae Sawachi, Bruma lamented the lack of historical responsibility among Japanese intellectuals. Hisae Sawachi explains, "From 1934 to the present, there is still the danger of blocking and suppressing speech."
Brumma asked in surprise, "Are right-wing forces that strong?"
Sawachi Hisae replied in a disgusted tone, "I can't say that Japan is a civilized and enlightened society yet."
Brumma, educated in European democratism, asked aloud, "So, is it dangerous to condemn the right wing outright?"
Sawachi Hisae replied, "I think I'd have to put my life on the line."
There is no exaggeration in Hisae Sawachi's statement. In the same constitutional monarchy, in the Netherlands, Britain and Denmark, nationals and the media can criticize the queen and even abuse her as much as they want; but in Japan, the emperor still has a sacred status, and criticizing him is still regarded as treasonous and is opposed and attacked by the majority of the people.
A nation that does not repent and reflect on its sins can hardly gain the trust and closeness of the world. In a sense, it is Japan's repeated cover-ups and distortions of history that make Asian citizens still regard Japan as an "enemy" in their minds.
Germany's rapid integration into Europe after the war, and its commitment to building the European Union alongside its former battlefield rivals, was due to the fact that it had thoroughly purged itself of the toxin of fascism. After the war, Japan was unable to complete the transformation from a "defeated country" to an "ordinary country" because Japan itself refused to say goodbye to the evils of yesterday and to sincerely apologize. It is no wonder that George Ball, an undersecretary of state of the United States in the 1960s, exclaimed: "No one knows when the Japanese will go mad!"
For Japan, the first and foremost issue is to face up to history and reflect y if it wants to be friendly with Asian countries, including China. Being rich does not mean automatically having the power to forget history and despise others.
For Japan to become a political power and gain a greater say on the world stage, it should first make itself a country with a sense of responsibility and dignity. In order for Japan to play an important role in Asia in the future, it is necessary to face up to the evils, awaken memories and start a moral discussion within Japan, from the government to general public opinion. Before appealing to the world to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is a moral reckoning with itself. The Japanese need such a movement.
There can be no firm peace and deep trust without sincere repentance and actual reparation, a basic truism and prerequisite for Japan's dealings with Asian countries. The Japanese scholar Taichiro Omura pointed out sharply in his article "Farewell to Fifty Years of Ambiguity": "What is left in Japan now is only a group of national traitors who have taken off their uniforms of the past and have made it their duty to falsify history, and the walking corpses who wear the garb of social democracy but have no bones. The main body of national responsibility has disappeared, and the Diet, which was responsible for organizing it, has degenerated to the point where it only discusses tax issues. Japan should understand that peace was made possible by the deaths of countless people, and if it forgets this history and this truth, then the tree of peace will wither." Does Japan have such a courage to clean up its own historical garbage? We shall see.
A deep and sincere repentance by the Japanese nation at the dawn of a new century is a threshold that cannot be bypassed, for Japan itself, for Asia and for the world. This repentance will be the starting point for the establishment of a new international image for Japan, and this repentance will be the guarantee of Japan's friendship with neighboring countries.
I hope that the saying "Japan is our friend" will finally become a true feeling and a deep realization of the people of Asian countries.
We hope that the question "Japan, why don't you repent" will not continue day after day, year after year.
Excerpted from "Iron and Plowshares: A Century of Sino-Japanese Relations"
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