Either way, the war time Japanese government does not get let off the hook. If some people here were hoping for an issue where they can say the Japanese are trying to avoid responsibility, this is not the issue.

For people that are interested, there are interviews on Youtube (in Japanese) with Okinawa residents that actually lived during those times, and they tell of their experiences.

Sapporo might actually be Ainu land in its entirety.

It might be a case of the Japanese having succesfully taken it off Ainu hands quite permanently.

Now, the world associates Sapporo = Japan.

Sapporo Ichicban. Sapporo beer. = = = Japan ramen. Japan beer.

This could have happenned to Korea. Certainly could have.

But thank heavens it didn’t.

I mean, wasn’t that all pretty much self inflicted and well deserved?

I truly don’t understand people who write or believe that shit that Japan was so pressed by the US that it had to bomb the US.

All the while with the Japanese rep in DC, serving as a distraction.

Abe, who has led a drive to build a “beautiful nation” proud of its history,
After the ceremony, the premier told reporters that the textbook issue had been examined by a government council “from a scientific viewpoint”.
Abe, Japan’s first leader born after World War II, is known for his hawkish views on history and has made it a priority to rewrite the US-imposed postwar pacifist constitution.
In February, he caused international uproar when he said there was no clear evidence that the military directly coerced Korean and other Asian “comfort women” to work in WWII frontline brothels for Japanese troops.
The Okinawan assembly, including supporters of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, unanimously adopted a statement Friday calling it “an undeniable fact that mass suicides could not have occurred without the involvement of the Japanese military”.
Local accounts say Japanese troops forced residents of Okinawa to kill themselves “honourably” rather than face capture by US troops.
Nationalist academics in recent years have insisted that Okinawa’s suicide pacts were voluntary and not due to orders by troops from mainland Japan.

Not a bit surprising. Okinawans only became citizens of the Empire for what, 200 or 300 some years? Getting the snub by Honshu, Kyushu, and Sapporo isn’t something jaw dropping considering how Ainus also try to hide their origins in this “beautiful nation” proud of its history.

Make no mistake about it, Ponta, Japan, Japanophile in Australia,

There is nothing beautiful about what Japan did in World War I and II. I AND II. Japan got away in I, because they allied right. In sheer stupidity, they aligned wrong in II, and thus got its due judgment.
Let’s review.

1. Japan protected East Asia by its military and colonial presence over its neighbors.
2. Colonial girls tried to thank Japan by putting out for Japanese men.
3. Suicide was promoted as part of Japanese culture and a code of honour? Stop watching movies like Letters from Iwo Jima.
4. Japanese historians are scientific and infallible in their conclusions. Believe everything they say.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20.....0623190008

you may find yourself saying that more often than you might like.

What I find telling about the attempt to revise what the overwhelming majority of Japanese youth would be taught is that it happens to be about Okinawa. I wonder if it isn’t unintended revelation by ultra-rightists that they acknowledge Okinawa is occupied, or at least exploited, territory. It’s a colony, and so you can get away with violating it all over again in the history books, like Ainu lands, Korea, China. Guilt about colonial past requires that you deny and glorify, and it’s hard to do that with your majority constituents.

As I entered the initial posting on the Okinawans concerns, I was immediately struck by the question “how is what the Japanese Government is attempting to do there any different from what has been done by ideologues here, in Korea?”, thus my follow up comment (after-thought). I apologize for doing such a naughty thing. (Beat me with a wet sock please.)

I should have asked the question from the beginning, but, I was hoping others might discuss the growing incidents of historical revisionism in China, Korea and Japan and the context of these revisions. How are these occurrences different and how are they similar?

Exactly! I don’t mind discussing that issue about Korean textbooks….but what the heck did that have to do with Okinawa?? And why did Pawi get nailed for addressing this?