Truth and Reconciliation of Japan's past

I recently watched a discussion with Howard Bix, the noted Japanese scholar and author, discussing his thesis that Emperor Hirohito was actively involved in Japan’s policy of aggression against its neighbors. He further believes that the fiction of the Emperor being a figurehead used by the military, was a deliberate stratagem practiced by Hirohito to protect his position and supported by successive Japanese governments in order to maintain stability. In grasping for power behind the scenes while publicly appearing uninvolved, Hirohito followed the precedent of many Emperors in Japanese history, most famously perhaps, Go Shirakawa in the 11th Century CE.

Professor Bix’s research for this book led to his conclusion that as necessary for stability as this deception may have seemed at the time, it’s now become an impediment for Japan in its efforts to reconcile itself with the rest of Southeast Asia.

Illustrative of the existing level of fiction regarding the history of WWII is Air Force Chief of Staff Toshio Tamogami’s claim last year that Japan was forced in to the war by America and that it’s aggression helped to create the global drive for racial equality (!). That military and civilian leaders openly make such preposterous claims shows the lack of introspection prevalent in the government and makes it impossible for Japan to assume its necessary role in stabilizing Asia.

This deception also denigrates the sacrifices of dissidents in Japan during the 30’s and 40’s who protested the government’s militaristic policies and suffered at the hands of the fearsome Kempeitai, the Japanese Gestapo. One such hero was Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Schindler, who worked tirelessly to save Jews in Lithuania from being turned over to Nazi authorities. Mr. Sugihara is far better known in Israel and America than in his native land where his courage and humanitarianism should be extolled.

In addition the dire conditions of Japanese civilians caught in the maelstrom of modern war has not been sufficiently understood outside of the country and is discussed infrequently at home. The suffering of the populace from starvation and relentless bombing of the mainland after 1944 occurred at the same time that a generation of young men were being annihilated on the battlefield.

A poignant and deeply troubling dramatization of this history can be found in Isao Takahata's Hotaru no Haka ( Grave of the Fireflies ) reviewed by someone on Amazon as the best movie you'll never want to see again.