Could it be that someone has a rational thought on Yasukuni? Ichiro Ozawa, the newly elected president of the Democratic Party of Japan, has come out in favor of getting the War Criminals out of the Yasukuni shrine.
Yeah, it is not the first time this thought has been floated, and the DPJ are hardly poised to take power, but it is nice to be reminded that plenty of Japanese people have more moderate opinions on the Shrine and nationalism.
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Alas, the last time I heard this idea floated, that was not good enough to Korean and Chinese leaders. They want no visits at all to the Arlington Yasukuni Shrine, even if the only people remembered there are common soldiers.
Andy - Yasukuni is not the same as Arlington, though. It was set up for those who laid down their lives for the Emperor in 1868. The Emperor and that state are not the same things, except for those who believe in the militaristic imperial cult. Ian Buruma calls it more Bonapartist than Arlington, which seems fair to me.
That said, I do wish we’d see more rationality on the Yasukuni issue from all sides.
I like Koi and Ishi. They should take Japan into a warpath with China( Korea?).
The U.S. can pay off 30% of national debt by selling fighterplanes, ships and missles to Japan. China can buy them as well.
The U.S. will be able to pay 70% of National debt and, provided that a Democrate is in the white house, will distribute the tax surplus as the Social security payment.
$2000 per month, Baby. $2000 per person.
The shrine keepers insist that kami cannot be disenshrined. That suggestion is a non-starter.
Essentially, in the late 1970s when the political decision was made to enshrine the Yasukuni-14, the shrine itself, unable to disenshrine them, became a permanent political tool of the Japanese far right.
As a symbol of Japan’s sacrifice for political leaders to visit as a prayer for peace, it no longer exists. That Yasukuni Jinja has been destroyed.
This is not just a technicality. The emperor doesn’t visit. Most of Japan’s PMs since then didn’t visit. Koizumi is doing this to pander to the far right.
And a visit to the shrine’s museum, Yushukan Museum, clearly shows that the shrine is being used by Japan’s far right to promote a view of a peace-loving Japan that was misunderstood and forced into war by the evil Americans.
Indeed, if more Americans were informed as to why the Chinese and Koreans (and some Japanese) are so cheesed (and some journalists might help them out with this in the near future), a lot more Americans might be less sympathetic to the Japanese side on this, especially if they read what’s up over there.
Someone could just destroy the thing, by fire or bomb, however it seems to be a convienient target and tool for Chinese and Korean polititians that need something to take their countrymen’s minds off of their own problems.
Andy Jackson,
As ignorant as I am over this Yaskuni issue, you obviously know even less.
R.Elgin
Please understand that Korea unfortunately did not have the pleasure of dropping a couple of nukes on the Japanese. It’s just a tad bit different when your country gets raped and you never got a chance to slaughter them en mass in return.
How’s this for a little moment of perspective.
I work for a Western firm’s Tokyo office. We had our quarterly party at Nakagawa Bussan last week — that’s the outdoor courtyard within the Yasukuni grounds. Wre we throwing our hat into the ring on this issue? Not really — it’s just a nice spot to eat and drink at under the cherry blossoms. And this wasn’t blatant sensitivity. The planning committee had cleared it with our three Korean and two Chinese employees, one of whom is on the management committee. All gave their approval.
Several hours and many “one cup Ozeki”s into the festivities, I got up to use the facilities and asked one of the people wiping the tables where I could find the toilet. She looked at me like I was an idiot. I thought this was some sort of “it’s a Westerner, ignore his Japanese” ploy. But when she asked two of the other people cleaning the tables what I was talking about, and I understood why she didn’t understand me — she and two other people working there were Chinese.
BTW, anyone who wants a tour of Yasukuni should contact me through CA contact form and I’d be glad to take you around. I’m pretty confident you’ll say what everyone says who comes and visits: “what’s the big deal?”
I’m pretty confident you’ll say what everyone says who comes and visits: “what’s the big deal?”
Ha ha ha. That was pretty funny.
Oh, wait. You’re serious.
I guess your tour doesn’t include the museum then?
(The main shrine itself is pretty innocuous, including a number of elderly folks, along with some middle-aged or younger people, praying or otherwise paying their respects, most likely to family members, I believe.)
Interesting take Curzon. Of course the inverse can also be applied to your arguement. Would removing the Yasukuni 14 or asking politicians not to make public visits change one thing about the more mundane aspects of the shrine?
So far I haven’t heard any demands for the shrine to be razed and the ground sewn with salt.
Kushibo: last time I checked, politicians weren’t going to the museum. They were going to a shrine to commemorate the war dead.
cmdjing: Yes, the war criminals who were executed or died of old age should be removed — they did not die while serving their country — but a grain of sand in a bowl of rice doesn’t make it untouchable. I go to Yasukuni, I’m glad the PM goes, and the ROK and the PRC making this a “condition” for better relations just makes me want to go even more.
This is just empty bluster from Ichiro Ozawa. Unless he is proposing a change in the constitution so that the Japanese government can interfere in religious beliefs, then what he is saying is just the kind of thing we see from opposition leaders all the time, a tall tale that has no chance of coming true, but is easily said because the opposition has no chance of making it happen.