Japan's Unfinished Business - Tying the Loose Ends of WWII at Home
KIMURA Masato / Journalist
March 24, 2014
In the United Kingdom, where I live, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine has reignited media reports on Japan's shift to the right under the Abe administration. Mr. David Pilling, Asia editor of the Financial Times, was a leading voice among them.
As a Japanese, it is hard to swallow the accusations made by victor nations against the way Japan mourns its war dead – such was the underlying sentiment expressed through opinion polls conducted by newspapers that showed over 40 percent of the Japanese public in favor of the Prime Minister's Yasukuni visit. Speaking at a lecture in London, Mr. Pilling explained how soldiers who died in battle were enshrined as gods, and recalled his interview with the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, who was sentenced to death as a class-A war criminal by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal.
"His eyebrows, the stub of his last cigarette and his nails were laid out on the table. It was a bizarre interview indeed," he said. Tojo Hideki, who is comparable to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the British mind, is enshrined at Yasukuni.
In an attempt to defuse the diplomatic row over visits paid to Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese prime ministers, former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro once said it was possible to commemorate the fourteen Class-A war criminals separately at the shrine. However, Tojo's granddaughter dismissed the idea as "impossible," said Mr. Pilling, adding his own view that a separate enshrinement was unlikely to come about.
During World War II, about 12,400 POWs from the Allied Forces lost their lives while laboring to construct the Thai-Burma "Death" Railway. Even today, we come across ghastly testimony such as that of an ex-POW who had his tongue cut off by a Japanese soldier.
Since moving to the U.K. seven years ago, I have participated in joint memorial ceremonies and other reconciliation events between Japan and the U.K. to revisit the painful past and to renew my pledge of friendship and mutual prosperity. The Prime Minister's visit to Yasukuni is perceived as an attempt to justify the last war and cover up wartime atrocities, not only by the Chinese and Koreans but also by the British, Dutch and Australians, who are still haunted by the POW issue.
The Japanese people are not insensitive, but ignorant about the emotional scars left by war among people in other nations. They have no idea how the POWs died. And the answer will remain unknown to a Japanese unless he or she is motivated to seek it out, because it is not taught either at school or in university.
Recently, a novel titled "Eien no Zero (The Eternal Zero)" featuring the kamikaze suicide corps became a bestseller in Japan. Its author Hyakuta Naoki was appointed governor of Japan's public broadcaster NHK and caused a stir by claiming the Nanjing Massacre never happened. While opinion differs on the number of victims, the Japanese government itself has admitted that the killing of non-combatants and criminal acts such as looting did take place after the Japanese army entered Nanjing in 1937.
In Europe, denying historic facts such as the Holocaust is a criminal offence. This is a region where tens of millions have died in repeated warfare between various ethnic groups, and Europeans possess an ingrained sense of the dangers of rewriting history for self-serving purposes and the importance of the reconciliation process. There is no lack of flash points that may lead to recurrent tragedies in places such as the Ukraine or Bosnia.
In contrast, Japan is an island nation with no ethnic diversity. Once the war was over reconstruction took precedence. Veterans returning from war swallowed their resentment and bitterness against the military establishment, and questions over wartime responsibility became blurred. "Why should the Japanese fight each other, now that we've lost the war?" Such was the predominant mood in which postwar atonement as a domestic issue was shelved.
And the most prominent example is the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine. The moral obligation of mourning the nation's war dead was used as a convenient cover for introducing a view on history unique to the Yasukuni Shrine - that Japan will not abide by the rulings handed down by victor nations.
Yasukuni Shrine is not part of the same shrine-based Shintoism as the Ise Shrine. Neither do all Japanese agree with the historic view based on the idea of a "Greater East Asia War." If the delineations made by the Tokyo Tribunal are unacceptable, the Japanese people themselves must find a way to come to terms with that war. We must bear the historic responsibility of retelling the atrocities to the next generation as errors committed by humans caught up in the extremities of war.
The furor that surrounds Yasukuni will never die down unless we begin a process of reform, in which the Yasukuni Shrine is transformed from a facility for commemorating war heroes into a facility for mourning the memory of our war dead. Japan has yet to tie the loose ends left by World War II at home.
Masato Kimura is a journalist based in London.
As a Japanese, it is hard to swallow the accusations made by victor nations against the way Japan mourns its war dead – such was the underlying sentiment expressed through opinion polls conducted by newspapers that showed over 40 percent of the Japanese public in favor of the Prime Minister's Yasukuni visit. Speaking at a lecture in London, Mr. Pilling explained how soldiers who died in battle were enshrined as gods, and recalled his interview with the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, who was sentenced to death as a class-A war criminal by the Tokyo war crimes tribunal.
"His eyebrows, the stub of his last cigarette and his nails were laid out on the table. It was a bizarre interview indeed," he said. Tojo Hideki, who is comparable to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the British mind, is enshrined at Yasukuni.
In an attempt to defuse the diplomatic row over visits paid to Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese prime ministers, former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro once said it was possible to commemorate the fourteen Class-A war criminals separately at the shrine. However, Tojo's granddaughter dismissed the idea as "impossible," said Mr. Pilling, adding his own view that a separate enshrinement was unlikely to come about.
During World War II, about 12,400 POWs from the Allied Forces lost their lives while laboring to construct the Thai-Burma "Death" Railway. Even today, we come across ghastly testimony such as that of an ex-POW who had his tongue cut off by a Japanese soldier.
Since moving to the U.K. seven years ago, I have participated in joint memorial ceremonies and other reconciliation events between Japan and the U.K. to revisit the painful past and to renew my pledge of friendship and mutual prosperity. The Prime Minister's visit to Yasukuni is perceived as an attempt to justify the last war and cover up wartime atrocities, not only by the Chinese and Koreans but also by the British, Dutch and Australians, who are still haunted by the POW issue.
The Japanese people are not insensitive, but ignorant about the emotional scars left by war among people in other nations. They have no idea how the POWs died. And the answer will remain unknown to a Japanese unless he or she is motivated to seek it out, because it is not taught either at school or in university.
Recently, a novel titled "Eien no Zero (The Eternal Zero)" featuring the kamikaze suicide corps became a bestseller in Japan. Its author Hyakuta Naoki was appointed governor of Japan's public broadcaster NHK and caused a stir by claiming the Nanjing Massacre never happened. While opinion differs on the number of victims, the Japanese government itself has admitted that the killing of non-combatants and criminal acts such as looting did take place after the Japanese army entered Nanjing in 1937.
In Europe, denying historic facts such as the Holocaust is a criminal offence. This is a region where tens of millions have died in repeated warfare between various ethnic groups, and Europeans possess an ingrained sense of the dangers of rewriting history for self-serving purposes and the importance of the reconciliation process. There is no lack of flash points that may lead to recurrent tragedies in places such as the Ukraine or Bosnia.
In contrast, Japan is an island nation with no ethnic diversity. Once the war was over reconstruction took precedence. Veterans returning from war swallowed their resentment and bitterness against the military establishment, and questions over wartime responsibility became blurred. "Why should the Japanese fight each other, now that we've lost the war?" Such was the predominant mood in which postwar atonement as a domestic issue was shelved.
And the most prominent example is the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine. The moral obligation of mourning the nation's war dead was used as a convenient cover for introducing a view on history unique to the Yasukuni Shrine - that Japan will not abide by the rulings handed down by victor nations.
Yasukuni Shrine is not part of the same shrine-based Shintoism as the Ise Shrine. Neither do all Japanese agree with the historic view based on the idea of a "Greater East Asia War." If the delineations made by the Tokyo Tribunal are unacceptable, the Japanese people themselves must find a way to come to terms with that war. We must bear the historic responsibility of retelling the atrocities to the next generation as errors committed by humans caught up in the extremities of war.
The furor that surrounds Yasukuni will never die down unless we begin a process of reform, in which the Yasukuni Shrine is transformed from a facility for commemorating war heroes into a facility for mourning the memory of our war dead. Japan has yet to tie the loose ends left by World War II at home.
Masato Kimura is a journalist based in London.
The English-Speaking Union of Japan
手付かずのまま残された日本国内の「戦後処理」
木村 正人 / ジャーナリスト
2014年 3月 24日
安倍晋三首相の靖国神社参拝をきっかけに、筆者の暮らす英国では、安倍政権の右傾化を懸念する報道が再燃した。その筆頭が英紙フィナンシャル・タイムズのアジア担当部長デービッド・ピリング氏だろう。
日本人として戦没者の追悼について大戦の戦勝国から糾弾されるのは、やり切れない。こうした思いが新聞の世論調査で安倍首相の靖国参拝に４割を超える支持が集まった背景にはある。
ピリング氏はロンドンで講演した際、靖国神社について「軍人が戦死すれば神としてまつられた」と説明し、東京裁判でA級戦犯として処刑された東條英機首相の孫娘に取材した思い出を紹介した。
「東條の眉毛、最後の吸い殻、爪が机の上に置かれていた。奇妙なインタビューだった」。靖国神社にまつられている東條英機は英国ではナチスのヒトラーに匹敵する存在だ。
首相の靖国参拝が外交問題化するのを避けるため、中曽根康弘元首相は「A級戦犯14人の分祀は可能」と語ったが、東條の孫娘は「不可能」と否定したとピリング氏は話し、「分祀はおそらく無理だろう」と付け加えた。
大戦中、タイと現ミャンマーを結ぶ泰麺鉄道の建設に駆り出された連合軍の戦争捕虜（POW）約１万2400人が死亡した。今でも「日本兵に舌を切り落とされた」という耳を覆いたくなるような証言が出てくることがある。
7年前に渡英してから合同慰霊祭など日英の和解事業に参加して痛ましい過去を追憶し、両国の友好と未来を誓うようにしている。首相の靖国参拝は、中国や韓国だけでなく、POW問題を抱える英国やオランダ、オーストラリアでも旧日本軍の残虐行為を糊塗する行為と受け止められている。
日本人は戦争の傷跡として残る他国の国民感情について鈍感と言うより無知なのだ。POWがどんな死に方をしたのか、まったく知らない。自分で調べようという意欲がない限り、学校や大学でも教わることはないからだ。
日本では特攻隊をテーマにした小説『永遠の０』がベストセラーになり、著者の百田尚樹氏がNHK経営委員に選ばれ、「南京大虐殺はなかった」と発言して騒ぎになった。犠牲者の人数について諸説あるものの、日本政府は「日本軍の南京入城（1937年）後、非戦闘員の殺害や略奪行為等があった」と認めている。
ナチスのユダヤ人虐殺など歴史上の事実を否定する行為は、欧州では犯罪である。多民族が戦争を繰り返し、数千万人が死んだ欧州では歴史を都合よく書き換える行為の危険性と和解プロセスの重要性は体に刻み込まれている。ウクライナ、ボスニアなど悲劇が繰り返される火種はどこにでもある。
それに対して、日本は島国、民族の多様性もない。戦後、復興が優先され、復員兵は軍部への恨みつらみを抱きながらも、戦争責任の追及と総括をあいまいにしてしまった。「戦争に負けたんだ。今度は日本人同士が争ってどうなる」と国内問題としての戦後処理を棚上げにしてしまった。
その最たる例が靖国神社によるA級戦犯の合祀である。戦没者の追悼という国民の道徳的義務を隠れ蓑に、「戦勝国の裁きには応じられない」という靖国神社独自の史観が混入された。
靖国神社が伊勢神宮と同じ神社神道かと言えばそうではない。すべての日本国民が「大東亜戦争史観」に同意しているわけでもない。東京裁判の線引きが受け入れられないのなら、日本国民自らがあの戦争を総括する必要がある。戦争という極限に追い込まれた人間の過ちとして残虐行為を語り継ぐ歴史的な責務を私たちは負っている。
靖国神社が英霊の「顕彰」施設ではなく、戦没者の「追憶」施設として生まれ変わる改革に取り組まない限り、靖国をめぐる喧騒は収まらないだろう。日本の「戦後処理」はまだ手付かずのまま残されている。
（筆者はロンドン在住ジャーナリスト。）
日本人として戦没者の追悼について大戦の戦勝国から糾弾されるのは、やり切れない。こうした思いが新聞の世論調査で安倍首相の靖国参拝に４割を超える支持が集まった背景にはある。
ピリング氏はロンドンで講演した際、靖国神社について「軍人が戦死すれば神としてまつられた」と説明し、東京裁判でA級戦犯として処刑された東條英機首相の孫娘に取材した思い出を紹介した。
「東條の眉毛、最後の吸い殻、爪が机の上に置かれていた。奇妙なインタビューだった」。靖国神社にまつられている東條英機は英国ではナチスのヒトラーに匹敵する存在だ。
首相の靖国参拝が外交問題化するのを避けるため、中曽根康弘元首相は「A級戦犯14人の分祀は可能」と語ったが、東條の孫娘は「不可能」と否定したとピリング氏は話し、「分祀はおそらく無理だろう」と付け加えた。
大戦中、タイと現ミャンマーを結ぶ泰麺鉄道の建設に駆り出された連合軍の戦争捕虜（POW）約１万2400人が死亡した。今でも「日本兵に舌を切り落とされた」という耳を覆いたくなるような証言が出てくることがある。
7年前に渡英してから合同慰霊祭など日英の和解事業に参加して痛ましい過去を追憶し、両国の友好と未来を誓うようにしている。首相の靖国参拝は、中国や韓国だけでなく、POW問題を抱える英国やオランダ、オーストラリアでも旧日本軍の残虐行為を糊塗する行為と受け止められている。
日本人は戦争の傷跡として残る他国の国民感情について鈍感と言うより無知なのだ。POWがどんな死に方をしたのか、まったく知らない。自分で調べようという意欲がない限り、学校や大学でも教わることはないからだ。
日本では特攻隊をテーマにした小説『永遠の０』がベストセラーになり、著者の百田尚樹氏がNHK経営委員に選ばれ、「南京大虐殺はなかった」と発言して騒ぎになった。犠牲者の人数について諸説あるものの、日本政府は「日本軍の南京入城（1937年）後、非戦闘員の殺害や略奪行為等があった」と認めている。
ナチスのユダヤ人虐殺など歴史上の事実を否定する行為は、欧州では犯罪である。多民族が戦争を繰り返し、数千万人が死んだ欧州では歴史を都合よく書き換える行為の危険性と和解プロセスの重要性は体に刻み込まれている。ウクライナ、ボスニアなど悲劇が繰り返される火種はどこにでもある。
それに対して、日本は島国、民族の多様性もない。戦後、復興が優先され、復員兵は軍部への恨みつらみを抱きながらも、戦争責任の追及と総括をあいまいにしてしまった。「戦争に負けたんだ。今度は日本人同士が争ってどうなる」と国内問題としての戦後処理を棚上げにしてしまった。
その最たる例が靖国神社によるA級戦犯の合祀である。戦没者の追悼という国民の道徳的義務を隠れ蓑に、「戦勝国の裁きには応じられない」という靖国神社独自の史観が混入された。
靖国神社が伊勢神宮と同じ神社神道かと言えばそうではない。すべての日本国民が「大東亜戦争史観」に同意しているわけでもない。東京裁判の線引きが受け入れられないのなら、日本国民自らがあの戦争を総括する必要がある。戦争という極限に追い込まれた人間の過ちとして残虐行為を語り継ぐ歴史的な責務を私たちは負っている。
靖国神社が英霊の「顕彰」施設ではなく、戦没者の「追憶」施設として生まれ変わる改革に取り組まない限り、靖国をめぐる喧騒は収まらないだろう。日本の「戦後処理」はまだ手付かずのまま残されている。
（筆者はロンドン在住ジャーナリスト。）
一般社団法人 日本英語交流連盟