JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

dcg1963's past comments

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  dcg1963Aug. 18, 2008 - 06:05PM JST

  63 years on, and the mere sight of Japan's former Rising Sun flag being carried or displayed anywhere, raises the hackles of the masses. The sight of it being carried into Yasukuni Shrine, stirs many to anger, as though the sole purpose for that being done was to antagonise those of us in nations who fought against and suffered at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. (The Japanese nationalists, I believe, are the only ones who fly that flag, for reasons which should be an affront to us. Those nationalists though, are a very vocal but insignificant minority within the Japanese population.) The simple fact is that Japan lost over a million troops in the Pacific in WW2, and many more, in former conflicts spanning their nation's history. Whether they were morally right or wrong to have engaged in that war is irrelevant. Many of them gave their lives fighting for their country, fighting under that flag, many voluntarily, but for all too many, without real choice, as conscripts. Regardless of whether the war was right or wrong, those men died, in service of their country. They made the ultimate sacrifice, and there supreme sacrifice is honoured, at Yasukuni Shrine. We in other countries have our own monuments and sacred sites, for doing the same thing, for our own soldiers, who gave their lives in service of our countries and their ideals. Something worth noting about Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, is that Aside from the 13 war criminals buried within that Shrine, there are hundreds of thousands of others, who gave their lives, fighting for Japan. They were all sons, brothers, and fathers...with families and loved ones, who suffered the same loss that we in other countries did, when we lost loved ones. Why should they be denied the right to pay their respects to their fallen soldiers, at Yasukuni Shrine?

  While I understand why other nations feel so incensed that the Japanese Prime Minister visits Yasukuni Shrine to honour and pay respect to Japan's war dead, (wrongly) assuming that the Government does so to pay respect to the handful of war criminals buried there, and jumping to the conclusion that the Japanese do not regret the course of action they chose. My own feeling is that Japanese Prime Ministers visit the Shrine to pay respect to all of the fallen, in spite of the presence of those war criminals buried there-in. A Japanese Prime Minister not visiting Yasukuni, is in my eyes to make the hundreds of thousands of the fallen pay for the crimes of a few. (By the way, the war criminals were secretly buried in Yasukuni Shrine at night, without the Japanese Government's knowledge or approval. Exuming the remains and relocating them for burial elsewhere, was never and is never (I.M.O.) going to be an option, once they were buried there.)

  The bottom line to me is, that Yasukuni Shrine is a religiously and historically significant place that the Japanese visit, to pay their respects to ALL those who made the supreme sacrifice, in service of their nation. Rightly or Wrongly...those who gave their lives, did so fighting for their country. To honour and pay respects to those buried within Yasukuni Shrine, for having sacrificed their lives in service of one's nation, seems to me to be a perfectly natural and morally right thing to do. Visiting Yasukuni Shrine doesn't, in and of itself, make anyone a Nationalist. Nationalists pay their respects there too, of course, but so too do hordes more normal Japanese people. Yasukuni Shrine is a place at which to pay one's respects and honour the sacrifice of ALL the fallen. The war criminals buried there-in, to me, are a smaller part of a far larger and more significant picture.

  Those who have spent time in Japan will come to realise just how anti-war the modern Japanese people truly are. They have no desire to again re-visit the hell that they too suffered, through and in the aftermath of WW2. They appear to have learnt the lessons to be learned from that experience, and to have chosen to turn their backs on war, ever since. I have every confidence that we will never again see Japan wage war against another nation.

  Peace...is infinitely better than the alternative.

  • David (Australia)

  Posted in: Yasukuni

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