Americas Kamikaze Embrace

America’s continued kamikaze embrace of Japan, including its suggestion that Japan’s last Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi succeed Kofi Annan as the next Secretary General of the U.N., is tantamount to bringing Japan to Pearl Harbor and asking it to start another war again. Why America insists on perpetuating and repeating its earlier Japanese foreign policy follies by continuing to embrace Japan and its culture of denial of World War II atrocities is not only bewildering to the people of the countries Japan invaded, but to many Japanese as well. Sixty percent of Japan’s 125 million people, including many in the governing coalition, opposition parties and civic groups disapprove of the Prime Ministers visits to the Yasukuni Shrine because of the hostile reactions it creates in China and Korea. The shrine visits betray the majority of Japanese who cannot live in peace with their neighbors or the rest of the world, politically or economically, unless the visits stop and Japan acknowledges its shamfull history.

The name Yasukuni comes from Chinese classical literature and means “to bring peace to the nation”. It was adopted in 1879 and is the spiritual pillar for nationalists deeply associated with Japan’s imperial past. Kamikaze pilots would embark on their suicide missions with the shrine’s amulets under their headbands and tell one another, “See you at Yasukuni.” The shrine symbolizes and glorifies Japan’s militaristic history.

Prime Minister Koizumi’s decision to make his last official visit to the shrine on August 15, 2006, the most politically sensitive and diplomatically explosive day ─ the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II, the day Japan surrendered ─ was a slap to all peace loving people in Japan and the rest of the world. He was not only honoring Japan’s aggressive militarist past, but confirming its future militaristic ambitions. Nationalism is on the rise in Japan. That really worries and pisses off the hood because of the painfull memories of how much people suffered and endured during Japan’s brutal aggression before and during World War II.

“August 15 should be a day when we share a pledge of no more war” said Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party. Koizumi’s effort to change the nature of the anniversary into a day of justifying sacrifice to the state is unforgiveable. August 15 should be a day to remember the sorrows of war. The government’s revisionist efforts to re-write history with the Yasukuni visits and textbooks that glorify Japan’s militaristic past on the grounds that Japan was liberating Asia from Western imperialism, only inflames the region and paralyzes America’s foreign policy in Asia.

Koizumi’s successor Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, a grandson of World War II cabinet member and post-war prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, is a security hawk who has visited the Yasukunis Shrine on several occassions and has publicly questioned the legitimacy of the Allied tribunal that convicted as “Class A” war criminals ─ guilty of “crimes against peace” ─ the 14 leading figures who in 1978, the same year Japan and China established diplomatic relations, were added to Yasukuni’s rolls by the nationalistic Shinto priests who maintain and protect the shrine.

Abe is a fellow author and Samuri who is very proud of his archery skills who vocally supports and perpetuates the shrine visits that glorify Japan’s militaristic history. Any wonder people in Aisa are upset? Why isn’t America?