Week 13: Japan War Memories

Note on China: I watched an interesting documentary that could be useful to future classes called "Concrete Revolution" about China's construction and urbanization as well as its liberalization. The filmmaker is a Chinese woman who went in and tried to get candid responses from Chinese workers without government managers around, and actually has moments where the filming is interrupted or when she explains that she had to stop filming because of the government. It was very interesting to see, and I recommend it, though the translation is a bit slow to catch up to the speaking. Overall it was worth seeing. It's in the library at IC (though right now it's in my living room).

Selden:

Selden poses the following questions early on in his work, and I found them compelling as well.
"What explains the fact that Japanese denial and refusal to provide compensation to victims has long been the subject of sharp domestic and international contention, while there has been relatively little analysis of United States atrocities, less criticism or recrimination for that nation’s commission and denial of atrocities, and still less demand for reparations? What are the consequences of this difference for the two nations and the contemporary international relations of the Asia Pacific?" (Selden 1)

My Response to the reading:

I thought it was interesting to hear that there are historians who recognized that the massacre began en route to Nanjing, because the use of force is a continual aspect of any conflict, regardless of whether a confrontation is occuring in any one area. To some extent I've realized that even I can fall prey to a sense of confusion when I realize that war is as messy as it actually is. Even knowing what we do about warfare, I thinkk there is a tendency among people who have not been embedded in these conflicts to view war in an almost medeival sense, with two opposing sides fighting one another openly. Obviously this is no longer the case, but so often we hear of specific locations where extreme violence has taken place in war and in a world where warfare has changed so drastically this rarely, if ever, still looks like fatal football.

I was immediately reminded of our own government's denial of the Geneva Conventions with regard to GITMO and extraordinary rendition as soon as I read,

"In the absence of a declaration of war, as Utsumi Aiko notes, the Japanese high command held that it was under no obligation to treat captured Chinese soldiers as POWs or observe other international principles of warfare that Japan had scrupulously adhered to in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, such as the protection of the rights of civilians. " (Selden)

In comparing the two nations - Japan and the USA - their shared penchant for denying the validity of international agreements is certainly worth noting; however, since 1952 the USA has continued on this trend alone. Selden referred to US exceptionalism in his first question set, and it leads me to note the occurence of this sense of being above the law that the US practices with regard to situations around the world.

Yet, gloabally the US has an horrendous reputation and certainly there are people who harbor lingering and current antagonism toward the USA. Japan stands out as a strange instance, in my opinion, of such resentment being negligible. To my rationale Japan has a much greater reason to harbor a grudge than other nations, and yet it is almost as if their economic prosperity since 1952 has made it possible for them to move beyond the past and be more oriented to the future. In contrast, China, from what little I understand, seems to be more tied to the past in many respects, in large part because of the role and power of the Party. In a country like Japan the citizens have greater access to political and social freedoms, as well as wider acess to information. Chinese citizens, as we are seeing in the case of Tibet, and as we saw with the Tank Man, are spoon fed government approved news. For many Chinese, the war with Japan was the last time Chinese citizens were very much involved in atrocities that were made public and were used to rally the people. Since the war, many of the atrocities committed against Chinese citizens have come from their own government, a government whom they have little control over. Thus,Chinese resentment and aggression remain, with Japan as an easy, and certainly not faultless, target of their repressed anger. Of course, I could be completely off base, I'm just hypothesizig here.

Japan and China's Unforgotten War:
"If, at age 83, she [Jong] can put the past behind her, why is this younger generation reviving history?" (Chinese-American Filmmaker) Such a fantastic question, and one that I think is prevalent around the world. Perhaps it has more to do with age and wisdom than with any sort of historical impetus.

"In China this is an anniversary of victory as much as it is an anniversary of war." (Chinese-American Filmmaker) Just an interesting point, I found it to be a well stated point that I may not otherwise have thought of.

"We're often accused of living in a peace stupor." (Japanese filmmaker) It's strage, but after she said this, I began to think about my own impressions of Japan, andit's true that I tend to think of World War II and then only ever as a manufacturing center that is overpopulated but fairly neutral as an international body. To be sure, this is too simplistic and sculpted by ignorance, but as I learn more, I am relieved to gain a slightly more nuanced perception.

It is always so interesting to hear about, read, or see another perspective on war. I was reminded of my own subtle patriotism when I heard the Japanese Law student speak of the need to honor the dead soldiers. "We can't disregard respect for the people who fought to protect the country, to protect their family, to protect their friends." (Law Student) My own Grandfather was at the Bay of Pigs, and was at Okinawa, and though I disagree strongly with those actions as commanded by the American government, I am quick to honor those who fought as American soldiers because I feel a sense of duty to respect people, like my grandfather, who felt their own duty to the American government or the American people to protect something they believed in, though what they believed in then and what they believe in now continue to elude my own sense of ethics. Still, it seems wrong not to honor the dead, though I am quick to honor the dead around the world who have fallen prey to conflict, and so I hesitate somewhat in my defense of the soldiers because it is less a defense and more a sense that the soldiers are really pawns in a chess game that I don't approve of.