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Where Emperors dare not tread

By Tom Clifford - posted Friday, 16 August 2013


Asked in parliament if he would consider revising the Murayama statement, he replied: "The definition of what constitutes aggression has yet to be established in academia or in the international community.

"Things that happened between nations will look differently depending on which side you view them from." Total, absolute and utter nonsense.

Can you image the global reaction if Angela Merkel addressed the Bundestag and said something similar about German wartime aggression? Any Japanese politician who says there was a massacre in Nanjing will be in the center of a storm of protests. Their career would be over. The comparison with Germany should again be borne in mind. A German denying the Holocaust would be ostracised and face criminal charges. A Japanese minister admitting the Nanking Massacre would be shunned.

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The museum adjoining the shrine is an insult to humanity.

It refers to the total of 1,068 tried for war crimes after World War II as "martyrs," who were "cruelly and unjustly tried by a sham tribunal of the allied forces [the international court] of the US, England (sic), Netherlands, China and others. These martyrs are also the kami of Yasukuni.'' It adds that "Japan's dream of building a Great East Asia (the Japanese refereed to WWII as the Struggle for the Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere) was necessitated by history and was sought after by the countries of Asia." Complete claptrap.

In a denial that is criminal both in intent and fact, the shrine's propaganda adds that the "comfort women" - women forced into sex slavery to satisfy Japanese soldiers - were not coerced "by the Japanese empire".

You can also see a depiction of the battle for Tokyo Bay. Except there wasn't one. Myth.

There is a reason why Japanese children know so little about their country's past, there is a reason why the Nanjing Massacre is barely mentioned let alone acknowledged in Japan. There is a reason why the emperor will not visit. Yasukuni is an expression of the forces at work that deny Japan's military aggression and want to shape a different, more belligerent future, for the country. It is not just a shrine, looking at the past through a militarist prism; it represents a lurking threat. A clear and present danger.

Its influence is working. Look at the Japanese cabinet.

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Thirteen members support Nihon Kaigi, a nationalist think-tank that rejects what it terms Japan's "apology diplomacy" for its wartime misdeeds.

When a cabinet member says that Tokyo could learn about costitutional reform from the Nazis to carry out a massive program of rearmanent by under the radar, as Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso did earlier this month, then the influence of Yasukuni is undeniable.

Yasukuni wants Japan to dramatically change direction. If the emperor, or any emperor, crosses the road, they will have succeeded.

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About the Author

Tom Clifford worked as a freelance journalist in South America in 2009, covering Bolivian and Argentine affairs. Now in China, he has worked for newspapers in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Far East.

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