Past strife haunts present discord (2)

By Harvey Stockwin

This is the second of two articles highlighting some of the ways in which to show that World War II has not ended in Asia.

HONG KONG (JP): Emperor Akihito did not have to say a thing. All he had to do was to silently place a wreath on the Arizona -- blown up by Japanese bombs almost as soon as the Pearl Harbor attack came out of the blue -- with the inscription "from the Emperor, Government and People of Japan".

The cathartic effect of such a gesture might not have been immediately obvious. Yet it would have been profound, and enduring.

Significantly, public opinion polls show that the Japanese people clearly approved an Imperial visit to the Arizona. Showing little imagination and even less courage, Japan's political power holders instead sent the Emperor to an Hawaiian war cemetery, a gesture which simply did not have the same meaning.

Significantly, too, the Clinton Administration demonstrated its lack of attention to the all-important details of foreign policy. Neither Clinton nor his Ambassador to Japan, former Vice President Walter Mondale, picked up a telephone to quietly tell the Japanese that a visit to the Arizona was, very definitely, in the alliance interest.

The result is that dangerously mercurial U.S.- Japan relations will continue to suffer from a removable handicap. Americans will go recalling Pearl Harbor as a synonym for treachery. "Economic Pearl Harbor" or some such damaging and emotive phrase will still be used, as it was when Japanese purchased Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

Worse of all, books will continue to regularly flow forth symbolizing the undying U.S. mistrust of Japan. Top novelist Michael Crichton recently wrote a best-seller, Rising Sun, graphically portraying the Japanese as economic enemies.

Two academics wrote about the Coming War With Japan. Now another top U.S. novelist, Tom Clancy, has just produced a novel which features Pearl Harbor II, as two nuclear U.S. aircraft- carriers are crippled by Japanese high-tech torpedoes in another sneak attack at the beginning of another U.S.-Japan war. It takes place at the end of an U.S.-Japan alliance military exercise in what amounts to a re-run of the 1942 Battle of Midway, only the third time the Japanese "win".

As one American Asia-watcher puts it -- "Millions more Americans are going to get their political guidance on the world from a Clancy novel than from any treatise on the importance of U.S.-Japan relations".

Secondly, it hardly needs stressing that Japan has also failed to exorcise the demons underlying its relations with most of the nations of East and Southeast Asia. There are still countless bitter memories in the vast areas which Japan either colonized or conquered prior to 1945.

This situation hardly needs any emphasizing since in the last few months two Cabinet Ministers have been forced to resign, one for denying the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, another for denying Japanese World War II aggression.

Here, too, apologies and blame are less important than the underlying realities.

There is the amazing degree of Japanese myopia which leads Japanese politicians to assume that what they say in Japanese to Japanese audiences will not be picked up and conveyed to the non- Japanese world.

There is the extremely obstinate Japan-centric worldview, which simply does not begin to consider the feelings of other peoples and nations, but thinks only of what is right for Japan.

There is the enduring deep-seated sense of Japanese nationalism, which sends some Japanese politicians down paths of national self-justification which most other nationalities would not bother to tread.

These and other related qualities were the ones which got Japan into World War II, and these are the ones which are failing to get Japan out of World War II, so to speak.

To the often asked question -- "are the Japanese still the same?"-- the sad answer has to be a regretful "yes". The nation's goals and the circumstances are very different, the atmosphere has changed, but, in many ways, the national ethos remains unchanging.

Thus while the one billion U.S. dollar "compensation" package which has now emerged from the Japanese bureaucracy does represent an effort to improve Japan's image vis-a-vis the wartime suffering which it caused, the program itself illustrates the same old Japanese tendencies.

Japan would rather spend millions of yen trying to influence future Asian views of World War II, rather than itself adapting to how Asians have, do and will regard the conflict. The program does nothing directly to meet the needs of those who actually suffered.

Thirdly, it is not only the Japanese who have selective memories. An amazing development recently has been a growing controversy over American historical forgetfulness.

The controversy has arisen in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington where the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber which carried the first atomic bomb from Tinian to Hiroshima, has been carefully restored for display during the World War II 50th commemoration.

The original display, and even the currently amended version, present a highly contentious view of the dropping of the first A- bombs which has quite rightly stirred up a furious debate within the United States.

Seen from afar, it seems rather as if the Smithsonian Institute, which runs the museum, must have been receiving a lot of large Japanese donations lately, because its display, even when amended, goes overboard to support the Japanese view that they were unjustified "victims" of American racialism when the atomic bombs were dropped. Americans were fighting "a war of vengeance" while Japan "was defending its unique culture against Western imperialism".

The intention, writes the museum director, with unconscious irony, was to "provide not an opinion piece but rather basic information". As part of that "basic information" the display suggested that "Some have argued the United States would never have dropped the (atomic) bomb on Germans, because Americans were more reluctant to bomb white people than Asians."

Such a totally unhistorical view -- the whole thrust of the U.S. crash program to build and use the bomb was anti-Nazi Germany, but the Germans surrendered first -- has happily got a lot of American blood boiling, reminding the museum of basic facts of which it seems unaware. The swirling controversy is noteworthy for several reasons.

For a start, American historical forgetfulness as practiced by the museum ties in neatly with Japanese historical amnesia. During the 50th commemoration of Pearl Harbor in 1991, the Japanese media often publicized the contention that Japan did not mean to conduct a sneak attack. It's safe to assume that this coming year will see repeated Japanese assertions that, because of the A-bombs, Japan was the poor hapless victim of World War II, rather than one of its perpetrators. Such a campaign could further postpone reconciliation between Japan and the rest of Asia, as well as between the U.S. and Japan.

Next, the museum's distortions of history indicate a disturbing trend. The Americans, having won the Cold War, are now busy emulating a communist practice. Communist societies customarily lay down rules about what is and what is not "politically correct". Particularly in U.S. universities, but also in society at large, the U.S. is adopting the same bad habit.

The U.S. pursuit of political correctness is deeply worrying on two counts. It seems to exhibit a masochistic attitude of "when in doubt, blame America". It subordinates freedom of expression to an overconcern for never giving offense to anyone.

In short, it adds to fears of an America that commemorates World War II by returning to the isolationism which, like Japanese aggression, was a basic cause of the conflict.

All told, the year of the 50th commemoration of the ending of World War II has got off to a contentious start.

MacArthur's return to the Philippines, the destruction of Manila, the bitter battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa -- these and other World War II commemorations are bound to open up many more debates. In more ways than one, in order to look forward, it will first be necessary to look back.

Window A: There is the enduring deep-seated sense of Japanese nationalism, which sends some Japanese politicians down paths of national self-justification.

Window B: Communist societies customarily lay down rules about what is and what is not "politically correct".

Window C: In more ways than one, in order to look forward, it will first be necessary to look back.