Yesterday, on 26 December 2013, Prime Minister Abe visited Yasukuni Shirine. It is not an ordinary Shinto Shrine. The Shinto, an indigenous religion of this country was always combined with Buddhism and received a theoretical backing from it. Yasukuni, on the other hand, was established and supported by the State to enshrine those who had died in the wars, mostly external wars once the period of the civil wars was over during the early Meiji era. My generation, who were in the primary school during the Second World War, was told to dedicate our lives to the Emperor and the country and to be enshrined there. 'See you at Yasukuni', even the small boys used to say, let alone the men.
So when Abe told us that he went there to pray for no more war, we are at a loss. If you glorify the death in the last war, you will be glorifying the war itself. This is not an Unknown Soldier's Tomb, and Abe is intentionally mixing them up. That is why the two US Secretaries who were here in October on a official visit did not come to this Shrine but to a different tomb nearby which is much more like an Unknown Soldier's Tomb. Incidentally there is a map inscribed in the stone there showing roughly how many Japanese soldiers lost their lives in different theatres in the war. Many lost their lives far away in different parts of the Pacific of starvation and illness. What for? Abe would say that that is why he went to Yasukuni to thank them, and to pray to their souls. But if you justify and glorify the past war, you will be getting ready to justify the future war as well.
I had to say that because that is what the Shrine is engaging in. justifying and glorifying the past wars of this country. It has enshrined 14 defendants, all convicted at the Tokyo Tribunal, including all the seven executed, in 1987. The late Emperor wisely stopped visiting it afterwards, and the present one not once. Most of these had a role to play in China, and elsewhere in Asia also. Nowadays the Shrine is a huge institution propagating the justice of the war, and the injustice of the Tokyo Tribunal. Thus they are challenging the legitimacy of the post-war world.
Yesterday the US Embassy in Tokyo did not hide their disappointment. That was a correct attitude. They should know whom, what kind of people, they were calling their allies. They should also know their Cold War policy had a great hand in the growth of those allies. Thus they are in a dilemma. And so is Abe.
So when Abe told us that he went there to pray for no more war, we are at a loss. If you glorify the death in the last war, you will be glorifying the war itself. This is not an Unknown Soldier's Tomb, and Abe is intentionally mixing them up. That is why the two US Secretaries who were here in October on a official visit did not come to this Shrine but to a different tomb nearby which is much more like an Unknown Soldier's Tomb. Incidentally there is a map inscribed in the stone there showing roughly how many Japanese soldiers lost their lives in different theatres in the war. Many lost their lives far away in different parts of the Pacific of starvation and illness. What for? Abe would say that that is why he went to Yasukuni to thank them, and to pray to their souls. But if you justify and glorify the past war, you will be getting ready to justify the future war as well.
I had to say that because that is what the Shrine is engaging in. justifying and glorifying the past wars of this country. It has enshrined 14 defendants, all convicted at the Tokyo Tribunal, including all the seven executed, in 1987. The late Emperor wisely stopped visiting it afterwards, and the present one not once. Most of these had a role to play in China, and elsewhere in Asia also. Nowadays the Shrine is a huge institution propagating the justice of the war, and the injustice of the Tokyo Tribunal. Thus they are challenging the legitimacy of the post-war world.
Yesterday the US Embassy in Tokyo did not hide their disappointment. That was a correct attitude. They should know whom, what kind of people, they were calling their allies. They should also know their Cold War policy had a great hand in the growth of those allies. Thus they are in a dilemma. And so is Abe.
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