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Admiral
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of the peace and coexistance movement
Feb 2001
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Dissident
I've always wondered how Japan teaches it's history when it comes to ww2. Or Germany. Do they go into the atrocities? I doubt it, since the U.S. doesn't go into its atrocities in ww2. |
Germany is very conscious of the atrocities of the Reich. It is not just the government that upholds the harsh anti-nazi laws in Germany. It is through almost universal support of the populace.
Japan, from what I've read, is a different matter. Apparently, the Shinto temple Yasukuni in Tokyo, and its conjoined museum, is Japan's equivalent of the Smithsonian. And it is not the most impartial recorder of history. The invasion of China (referred to as "the China incident") was inevitable because China was being controlled by the US and Britain, and forcing them to become anti-Japanese. According to a brochure sold there, the Pacific War was "not a war of aggression but just the opposite: it was a holy war to liberate the world from communism." While Shintoism is no longer the state religion, the prime minister and various conservative members of the parliament have a habit of visiting Yasukuni, publicly. Worrysome, isn't it?
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Drake Tungsten
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Knee deep in alien womyn...
Oct 2001
time: 14:31
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quote:
I've always wondered how Japan teaches it's history when it comes to ww2. Or Germany. Do they go into the atrocities? I doubt it, since the U.S. doesn't go into its atrocities in ww2. |
The Japanese hardly teach history. The textbooks are only around 300 pages long and there's hardly any text when compared to American textbooks. They're basically historical picture books.
quote:
Apparently, the Shinto temple Yasukuni in Tokyo, and its conjoined museum, is Japan's equivalent of the Smithsonian. |
No.
quote:
The invasion of China (referred to as "the China incident") was inevitable because China was being controlled by the US and Britain, and forcing them to become anti-Japanese. |
No.
quote:
According to a brochure sold there, the Pacific War was "not a war of aggression but just the opposite: it was a holy war to liberate the world from communism." |
I seriously doubt that, but I've never seen a brochure from Yasukuni shrine, so I'll give it a big "maybe".
quote:
While Shintoism is no longer the state religion, the prime minister and various conservative members of the parliament have a habit of visiting Yasukuni, publicly. Worrysome, isn't it? |
Not particularly. Then again, I know what Yasukuni Shrine actually is.
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Drake Tungsten
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Knee deep in alien womyn...
Oct 2001
time: 14:31
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quote:
I heard it was a traditional shrine dedicated to the warriors who fell in combat (not specific to any particular war) and nothing else. Is it true? |
Sort of. It's not really traditional, as it was founded in 1869, after the Meiji Resoration. It does honor soldiers who have fallen in combat; it's the shrine for all of Japan's war dead. That's all it is. It became controversial when some conservative politicians enshrined the names of 14 war criminals in 1978. There have been a couple requests to remove the names of the war criminals from the list of honored dead, but the shrine authorities refused to do so. I'm not really sure why they refuse, maybe for religious reasons. Anyway, the presence of the war criminals puts Japanese prime ministers in a tough situation. If they visit Yasukuni, they provoke outrage in China and Korea, where such visits are viewed as an endorsement of Japan's militaristic past. If they don't visit Yasukuni, they look like they're bowing to foreign pressure and not paying proper respect to Japan's war dead (remember that the war criminals are a just handful of the 2.5 million people honored at Yasukuni). The shrine is also a drawing point for the small but vocal minority of Japanese right-wing nationalists, which only makes things worse.
It's a complicated issue...
Last edited by Drake Tungsten on 31-03-2005 at 08:20
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Admiral
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of the peace and coexistance movement
Feb 2001
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
quote:
I've always wondered how Japan teaches it's history when it comes to ww2. Or Germany. Do they go into the atrocities? I doubt it, since the U.S. doesn't go into its atrocities in ww2. |
The Japanese hardly teach history. The textbooks are only around 300 pages long and there's hardly any text when compared to American textbooks. They're basically historical picture books.
quote:
Apparently, the Shinto temple Yasukuni in Tokyo, and its conjoined museum, is Japan's equivalent of the Smithsonian. |
No.
quote:
The invasion of China (referred to as "the China incident") was inevitable because China was being controlled by the US and Britain, and forcing them to become anti-Japanese. |
No.
quote:
According to a brochure sold there, the Pacific War was "not a war of aggression but just the opposite: it was a holy war to liberate the world from communism." |
I seriously doubt that, but I've never seen a brochure from Yasukuni shrine, so I'll give it a big "maybe".
quote:
While Shintoism is no longer the state religion, the prime minister and various conservative members of the parliament have a habit of visiting Yasukuni, publicly. Worrysome, isn't it? |
Not particularly. Then again, I know what Yasukuni Shrine actually is. |
Admittedly, I've been operating on information from '95. You'd be much more qualified to judge the situation now than I am.
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31-03-2005 00:13
Not true. Somewhere at home I have a book written by the pilot who announced the famed "Tora, Tora, Tora!" at Pearl Harbor. I'll look around and see if I can find it.
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