« Level of Politeness | Government »
@ 2007-12-01 – 02:34:47
People who claim the Nazi did not massacre the Jews in the World War 2 cannot speak in the public and even this is illegal in some countries.
Why do people who claim the Japanese did not have a massacre in China can even establish books? The Japanese have plenty of chances to explain why they claim there were no massacres in China. the even said the evidences like photos are fake.
What do you think about this policy of Japanese?
SpideySi
lovefighter
Thank you very much for your comment.
I think the German know they were wrong and try their best to prevent wars again. The Japanese only think they were the victims in the atomic bomb.
I do not mind there are different views on this topic. But at least the government should let the people who born after the war know the data and give them think critically.
The_Walrus
Pro There are some Japanese politicians who admit the atrocities, and apologise for them, but not many.
It's a bit like the way the Turkish government gets all upset if you mention the deliberate slaughter of over a million Armenians, even though it was done by the Ottoman empire, rather than modern Turkey. They need to say, yes it happened, and it was shameful, but we are not the people who did it. Instead, they are determined to present the empire they came from as their own glorious history, so they feebly say, yes but some of the Armenians fought back, so it served them right.
lovefighter
Thank you very much for your comment.
I agree that a new government is a new start. But they should bear in mind that not to do the same wrong thing. It is quite dangerous if the government deny they were wrong. It means they do not think they had done before or they do not think it is wrong. Either one of two is dangerous.
SpideySi
The Japanese were of course victims of the atomic bomb. And this too should not be minimised. Human suffering is tragic whatever the circumstances. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki were truly horrifying events about which debate will rightly always continue.
It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that no society uses events where it's people were the victim to either distract from or even justify its own previous or future transgressions (there is a modern conflict that this perhaps very much applies to in some respects).
Germany is perhaps a case in point. As the Russians marched on Berlin they committed a wave of atrocities against civilians including women and young children. Yes, they had suffered themselves but by committing these acts they became little better than their aggressors. However, I've never seen this used to distract from the inhumanity of the Nazi extermination machine. This is usually faced full on. If you ever visit Berlin you will find they are visibly keen never to forget what the Nazis did.
There was a recent exhibition in Hanover that demonstrated that it was not just the Nazis who perpetrated crimes against Jews and Eastern Europeans - the Wehrmacht - the German army - were often enthusiastic contributors. The exhibition damned them with their own photos.
The Japanese brutalised the people of several nations and murdered and mistreated thousands of prisoners of war by refusing to apply anything other than their own world view on the conquered. No event, no matter how catastrophic, can make any restoration for their crimes. Their may be a reluctance to accept that in some quarters of Japan - but there will never be a shortage of people to remind them. I'll happily join you in the queue.
One thing though - my worry is that this kind of focus on the past blinds us to the reality that state sponsored murder continues around the world today... sometimes its better to focus on our energies where they can make a difference to people's lives rather than on getting societies to accept a past that they no longer perpetrate on others.
lovefighter
All people and countries participate in wars are victims.
"Distract" is always a policy of government when there are some problems they cannot solve. Use wars to distract from other problems and then use other things to distract from wars.
Maybe learn from the history is one way to make people's live better.
SpideySi
The world really is not that straightforward my friend. Not everyone who participates in war is a victim. Many people profit from war, both in the short and long term. Many of these profiteers never go on to become victims themselves.
And I wouldn't say that war is necessarily a distraction although that is indeed often the case (the Falklands War can be viewed this way perhaps from both sides). War is more complex than that. For the Nazis in the 1930s it was implicit policy in my view - not a distraction. For the Japanese it was the continuation of an Imperial design. Japanese society, still strictly controlled, had no need for distractions. What they did need was materials for industry and expansionism was considered the best way to gain these.
I agree with the sentiment about learning from history. It's noble but the fact is we've never done so. We need to acknowledge that more is required to prevent war than relying on the testament of history.
We have over two thousand years of written history. Almost every civilization that has expanded through violence has eventually waned at the cost of enormous suffering and yet as a race we show no evidence of having learnt a thing. In fact if you read most historians and their analysis of war they rarely suggest that war itself was foolish. Instead they focus on strategic mistakes or lack of preparation - sometimes it reads like advice for the next war!
In this global age with almost instant reporting of events and widespread access to information maybe its time those of us who care focussed on preventing and subverting these tragedies rather than expecting yet again that we'll somehow learn our lesson collectively. War requires the co-operation of societies. It's time we stopped co-operating perhaps...
lovefighter
Yes, some people are profiteers in wars, if profit or loss is depends on money or economy. But lives are always the most valuable things.
Few historians discuss on if a war is suitable but they discuss on how to win in a war. I think this is their preference on discussing on this aspect but they don't really think a war is suitable or not. Maybe they (or politicians) need to say what the government want to hear.
SpideySi
Hi again.
This is turning into an interesting debate. However, you do seem to go off on tangents. My comment about profiteers from war was in reponse to your assertion that everyone is a victim in war. I thought that was way too sweepeing a statement and I wanted to demonstrate to you why. If some people profit, which you seem to accept, then clearly not everyone is a victim. I wasn't commenting on what is or is not valuable. That's an entirely different topic. The tragedy of modern war is the large number of innocents who have to pay the price for it - it'll be a rare person who will disagree with either of us there. When it comes to the Second World War it is particualrly tragic because those innocents included several million children.
I think too that you seem very ready to paint a conspiratorial picture of people's views being controlled by "the government". I think an element of attempting to exert control is indeed there, but not to the degree you would like to suggest. Historians are perhaps the worst example. Have you read much history? I'm sure a lot of historians would take great exception to your view that they follow the government line. AJP Taylor, for example, was hardly the darling of the British Government. His treatises were often very dismissive of British policy - scathingly so. Marx was a historian of sorts - he hardly in fell in line with capitalist policy in 19th and 20th Century Germany. Even today, various newspapers and of course the BBC are quick to portay British policy in Irag as a total disaster. These aren't the actions of people who "need to say what the government want to hear".
Historians also do not really focus on how to win wars. They are historians and they deal with past and why wars were won or lost. Strategists deal with the "Art of War" to use an expression of Sun Tzu and how they might best be fought in the future.
As to why historical analysis of war has a success/failure focus I think this is more a feature of how history is written. If you write or indeed read a history of a conflict it is because you are interested in the conflict rather than how it could have been avoided perhaps. It would be interesting to find a history that did try to focus on what the alternatives to conflict might have been...
Incidentally let me recommend you a book which covers one horrific aspect of the Second World War - "Children With A Star" by Deborah Dwork. It won't fail to make your blood boil next time you read of someone denying the holocaust.
lovefighter
Yes, I am far away from the topic.
Back to the origin, should Japanese be allowed to claim there was no massacres in China?
I read the news said some Japanese claim no Japanese killed Chinese illegally during the world war 2.
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Hi there,
At the end of the day perpetrators of atrocities or their successors are always going to try and deny it. You suggest denying the holocaust is a crime (as indeed it is in some countries) and few do it but a quick search of the net will find you a dozen apologists claiming that the disappearance of entire communities and the destruction of particularly Polish and Ukrainian jewry was nothing more than a concoction. The disappearances are otherwise inexplicable and the Nazis were stupidly efficient at keeping precise records of their barbarity so to deny what they did is utter nonsense. So too in China and other Far Eastern nations - the Japanese should face up to their actions the way the majority of Germans and Austrians have.
Indeed the British have a fair amount to answer for in India and the Americans in South East Asia...