Title: The View From Japan
1The Asia-Pacific War and Modern Memory
2- At 2.45 on the morning of 6th August
3Scale of the Devastation
- Total Japanese War Dead 2,694,322 (140,00 in
Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki from a total of
393,367 civilian casualties) - Destroyed shipping 80 automobiles 36.8
machine tools 34 structures 24.6 - 66 Cities bombed destroying 40 of area and
making 30 homeless
4Memory
- Remembering is never a quiet act of
introspection or retrospection. It is a painful
remembering, a putting together of the
dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of
the present. Homi K Bhaba Interrogating Identity.
5Collective Memory
- The act of gathering bits and pieces of the past,
and joining them together in public. . . . What
they create is not a cluster of individual
memories the whole is greater than the sum of
the parts. Collective memory is constructed
through the action of groups and individuals in
the light of day. When people enter the
public domain, and comment about the past - their
own personal past, their family past, their
national past, and so on - they bring with them
the images and gestures derived from their
broader social experience. When people come
together to remember, they enter a domain beyond
that of individual memory. (Winter and Sivan)
6Mugonkan Voiceless Museum
Founded 1997 in Ueda, Nagano. Dedicated to
young artists who died during or shortly after
the war.
7The Occupation and the manipulation of Japanese
historical consciousness
8A History of the Pacific War The Destruction of
Deceit and Militarism in Japan (Civil Information
and Education Section)
- Listed Japans war crimes and attacked the
concealment of the truth by successive Japanese
wartime governments. - Emphasised the crimes resulting from Japanese
militarism, including those committed during the
so-called Rape of Nanking, but also portrayed
Hirohito as working for peace as the leader of a
moderate faction. - Placed the blame for the war on a handful of
military cliques and depicted the Japanese
people as deluded victims and the emperor as
having been deceived by the military.
9Matters Concerning War Responsibility and Other
Issues (Shidehara Cabinet)
- The empire was compelled to embark on the Greater
East Asia War in view of the surrounding
circumstances. - Tojos attack on Pearl Harbor was an act of
self-defence. - The emperor had always been a peace-minded
constitutionalist who was in kept in ignorance of
the actual details of the attack. - Completely ignored Japanese aggression in China
after 1931 and in Southeast Asia in 1940.
10Hiroshima and the Peace Movement
- 1954 growth of strng pacifist movement centred on
Hiroshima. - Stories of the hibakusha became heard.
- Lucky Dragon incident causes concern about
nuclear testing - Japanese popular culture Godzilla and Barefoot
Gen - No to revision of Clause 9
11Honda Katsuichi and the Ghosts of Nanking
- 1971 journalist Honda Katsuichi serialised
reports about atrocities committed in Nanking. - Caused reverberations in Japan
12Textbook flap Ienaga Saburo
- 1965-1970 Japanese Historian Ienaga Saburo
campaigned in the courts for the truth to be
told about the war. - 2000 Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
13In summer 1982 the Chinese and South Korean
governments complained to the Japanese government
that the Monbusho was attempting to play down the
brutal behaviour of Japanese troops during the
war by omitting details or softening the
language..
14Apology?
- 26 August 1982 the Chief Cabinet Secretary
Miyazawa in a unified government statement
referred to past joint statements signed with
Korea and China expressing Japans contrition and
deep regret for the suffering inflicted on the
Chinese and Korean people. - Stated that the Japanese government will pay
full heed to the criticism in promoting
friendship and good will with neighbouring
countries, and will undertake on its own
responsibility to make the necessary amendments.
15Japanese Prime Ministers and the Yasukuni Shrine
(Nakasone and Koizumi)
16Fujioka Nobukatsu and the Association for
Advancement of Liberal View of History
- History is not just a chronological sequencing
of events, but the story of a people or peoples,
from their origins, their adventures, their
successes and failures. This is a site for
Japan's modern history, a period which some say
begins in the 16th century. - http//www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/index.html
17Fujioka Nobukatsu
18Whats in a name?
- Announcement "Jiyuu-shugi-shikan Kenkyuu-kai"'s
English name has been changed to Association for
Advancement of Unbiased View of History from
Association for Advancement of Liberal View of
History. The word "Jiyuu" can denote a number of
meanings, and it has been pointed out to us that
what we wish to express by 'jiyuu' is better
expressed in the English word 'unbiased', rather
than 'liberal'.
19Nanking Massacre
20Pierre Vidal Naquet on replacing the unbearable
truth with a reassuring lie.
- the use of pseudo-technical arguments to
demonstrate the physical impossibility of
atrocities. - seizing upon one or two examples of
propagandistic exaggeration on the part of the
victims and then through wild extrapolation draw
the conclusion that entire atrocity is a
fabrication. - linking the atrocity to the ideological causes of
those who identify with the victims.
21Conclusion Lieux de memoire (Pierre Nora)
- Memory is always suspect in the eyes of history,
whose true mission is to demolish it, to repress
it. - Historicised memory comes to us from without.
Because it is no longer a social practice, we
internalize it as an individual constraint. - The transition from memory to history requires
every social group to redefine its identity by
dredging up the past.