Cenotaphs, shrines, and an obituary of Japan democracy

History will remember the first time a POTUS and a Japanese PM stood together in Hiroshima more than their empty words.

Hiroshima mon amour

As expected, Shinzo Abe delivered one of his trademark, crocodile-tearful, "History is harsh" speeches*, sparing us his usual fake excuses, because this time, he was not required to provide any. Today, Barack Obama chimed in by using similar smoke screens. And of course, without apologizing.

Yes, 'we have a shared responsibility to look directly in the eye of history', but don't count on us for saying that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was wrong, or that Imperial Japan committed war crimes that also need to be remembered.

The choice of a G7 host city is a fantastic opportunity to push a political agenda, and Hiroshima was a finalist for Shinzo Abe, who wants everybody to remember Japan as a pure victim, and to forget that it committed atrocities under the fascist regime he has, along with fellow members of Nippon Kaigi, pledged to restore ("Imperial Japan v. Japan"). Sorry, Mr Abe, but "No, you can't honor A-Bomb victims in Hiroshima AND War Criminals in Yasukuni".

In his wildest dreams, this incurable provocateur would have selected Yasukuni, but the international community would have condemned him vehemently. He settled for another controversial Shinto shrine he loves to visit as frequently as possible: Ise Grand Shrine doesn't honor war criminals, but it is also led by a eminent member of Nippon Kaigi. And a Japanese government is supposed to respect the separation of State and religion...

Don't forget that as far as extremist lobbies go, Abe follows Shinto Seiji Renmei as well as Nippon Kaigi, and that as a fundamentalist, he wants the restoration of State Shinto, and of the Emperor as the supreme religious and political leader. 

A few Japanese voices raised objections regarding the choice of Ise, but who's listening to the dwindling resistance of the local democracy?

blogules 2016
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
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* for last year's two masterpieces, see ""History is harsh" and other sick jokes" and "Decoding the Abe Statement: "why apologize for crimes Japan never committed?""

Dear Japan, Say No To Fascism

Dear Japan,

I wish you the best in your effort to regain positive dynamics, but I beg you, please don't let your government carry out its main agenda: the suicidal revival of your great country's darkest moments.

Don't get fooled by Abenomics: they're only Weapons of Mass Distraction. Your Prime Minister has been very clear about his priorities:

• Shinzo Abe is an outspoken revisionist and negationist who pledged to rewrite Japan's peace constitution, and to obliterate all records of Imperial Japan's war crimes.
• Shinzo Abe, who headed the Japaneses Society for History Textbook Reform, denies all universally recognized atrocities, from the Nankin massacre to sexual slavery (midly dubbed "comfort women"), and now even dares questioning the use of "invasion" to qualify that doomed regime's expansionism.
• Shinzo Abe insists on visiting Yasukuni Shrine, a place Emperor Hirohito himself refused to visit ever since it was made public that the remains of war criminals had been moved there, the place where Japanese die-hard fascists chose to invite all European extreme-right leaders in an infamous field trip.
• Shinzo Abe, who represents Japan and speaks in its name, refuses to consider war criminals as criminals, imperialists as imperialists, and Japan as a peaceful country. And if you think this man is not a fascist, what more do you need? The return of the "kill all, loot all, destroy all" policy? His portrait between that of Adolf and Benito?

PM Fumimaro Konoe between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. These images will only belong to the past when Japan sets the record clear about the Imperial regime that disgraced it decades ago.
PS: I didn't reach the Godwin point, Abe did. Imagine a German Chancelor saying what he said: they'd be impeached and face justice for such an ignominy.

The worst enemies are always the ones from within and right now, Shinzo Abe and the ultra-nationalist bureaucracy that corrupted Japan's entire political system are the worst enemies of Japan. They deliberately fuel mutual hatred across the region because they need other hatemongers to reach power to secure their own future. For the moment, they're not only alienating Korea, Japan, and America, but bringing friends of Japan closer together to denounce their imposture. You think they are irrelevant and that's true, but they are dangerous, and they want to reshape Japan into a nation where people like them are relevant. You think politics have nothing to do with you but it has to do with everything you do, and in order to survive as a democracy, you simply must reclaim it, and keep people like them away from politics.

If you love your country, act as true Japanese citizens, speak up, say no to Abeignomics, and reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism.


blogules 2013
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!! and Twitter (@stephanemot, @blogules)


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See all posts related to Japan,and particularly:
- "We reject as false the choice between revisionism and nationalism - for a Global Truth and Reconciliation Network"
- "Japan politics? No to Comfort women, yes to Political whoring"
- "Ad Nauseam: about Dark Tourism, the Blind Spots of Memory, and Free Thrashing Agreements"
- "Tokyo Sakura With Patriot Missiles (A Still Life)"
- "One Thousand Wednesdays" (also on my blogules blog in English "1,000th week of shame for Japan" and in French "Japon: regarde-toi, le monde te regarde" "also on Rue89"A Séoul, les « femmes de réconfort » de l'armée japonaise réclament justice"
- "L'extreme-droite Japonaise invite Le Pen... et les projecteurs" (also on Rue89 "La visite de Le Pen au Japon, coup de com pour l'extrême droite nippone")
- "Revisionist schoolbooks : change has not come to Japan"
- "A Common History" (NB: a too brief glimmer of hope)
- "Claiming Dokdo as Takeshima equals claiming Seoul as Gyeongseong"
- ...

Europe's extreme right leaders expose Japanese counterparts

My first reaction when I saw Jean-Marie Le Pen and fellow fascists visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on every international media was to hope this would wake up the Japanese people : these guy are the shame and the scum of Europe, and they've been invited by your own fascist leaders. Would you still support a Japanese minister who visits this infamous shrine ?

Naoto Kan, the new P.M., officially stated that he would never do it*, and Japanese extreme-right leaders made the mistake of exposing their own stupidity through this miserable PR event. They proved they existed and had friends at the global level, but they also revealed their true nature to the Japanese public : not "nationalists", but die-hard fascist revisionists who are betraying their own people.

The question is : will the Japanese people keep allowing those thugs to decide who can be Prime Minister and what should be written in history textbooks ?

blogules 2010 - see also in VF ("L'extreme-droite Japonaise invite Le Pen... et les projecteurs")

* Well. Hatoyama started well too, but eventually gave in to the extremist minority that has been plaguing Japanese politics since WWII : "Hatoyama's Christmas gift to Japanese extreme right"

Hatoyama's Christmas gift to Japanese extreme right

As a Christmas gift to local ultranationalists, the Japanese Government decided to give another hard push in favor of bold revisionism. As usual, school textbooks are used as a vehicle for promoting the idea that Dokdo belongs to the Great Empire. And as usual, the Korean Government denounced the infamy (see "Seoul hits Tokyo's new Dokdo stance" - JoongAng Daily 20091226).

This comes not as a surprise but as a disappointment : Hatoyama really seemed to be willing to crush the last throes of fascism in the archipelago, his aides even leaking proofs that Dokdo didn't belonged to Japan (see "The end of Japanese imperialism"). More recently, there were even rumors that the Emperor himself would visit Korea in 2010 to formulate official apologies for past wrongs.

That made me quite nervous : last time the Emperor made a move towards reconciliation, extreme right activists would push as hard as they could, fueling mutual hatred across the region, including China and Russia.

Actually, I'd been expecting this kind of provocations, lately : Hatoyama is much weaker than a few months ago and yes, that's the economy, stupid (stimulus programs won't last eternally and 2010 seems poised to be a tough year). Obviously, his government badly needs support from people he disagrees with.

Once again, if Dokdo doesn't belong to Japan (and that's been indisputably settled for good by the official documents leaked earlier this year), talking about Takeshima has always been about Japanese politics : claiming the islets, visiting Yasukuni, rewriting history books... each provocation comes at a time the ruler is in a defensive position and needs political support at home.

Japanese politicians keep fooling their own citizens and it's high time to expose this dangerous imposture.

blogules 2009 - initially published in Seoul Village ("Revisionist schoolbooks : change has not come to Japan")

White blogule to Kofi's last throes of morality

Why now ? All of a sudden, the UN's Secretary General asks Koizumi to stop his provocating visits to Yasukuni and a UN panel asks the US to stop Guantanamo's tragic farce. Maybe Kofi Annan feels his days are counted at the head of this not yet dead international body. That won't save Darfur but bad guys can be found everywhere.
Anyway, both Japan and the US do as if nothing happened. Toni Snow said "everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully consistent with the boundaries of American law" and I'm afraid he is right : Amerika's administration changed America's laws to allow torture, illegal tapings, illegal abductions among other small steps for W but giant leaps backwards for humanity.

Red blogule to Junichiro Koizumi - Wake up Japan !

Strange way of apologizing : just a few days after restoring a public holiday as Showa Day, a controversial homage to war-time emperor Hirohito and when asked by a parlementary committee IF he would get back to the Yasukuni shrine after all the turmoil it caused across Asia, Japan's Prime Minister answered he would decide on time WHEN his next visit is appropriate...
Strange how Showa sounds like Shoah... as if revisionist Japan wanted to destroy the memory of that tragedy too...
Strange how this man plays a dangerous game at the international level as well as at home : Japan Inc could get tired of his boldness (Sony and Co surely were instrumental in the said parlementary committee).
Once again : no way Japan should be allowed a permanent seat at the UN.

Red blogule to Japan - No UN Council seat for an Unrepentant Nation

Japan shouldn't be offered a UN Council seat before they fully apologize for their past and moreover for their unacceptable present continuously devoted to revisionism (Dokdo, Yasukuni Shrine, Comfort Women, history textbooks, even archaeological hoaxes...).
Germany showed the way and can be proud of it. This is worthy of a great nation and a great people, both responsible and respectable.
Japan is simply wrong : just like Bush, Junichiro Koizumi keeps sending the wrong messages at the wrong places and the wrong moments. In order to please hardliners and prevent them from losing face he doesn't realise he actually has his whole country lose face in front of History and the rest of the world. Humility is their only way out of utter humiliation, but this is too disturbing a concept for such a stubborn bunch of fanatics.
I fully support the opposition to a permanent seat for Japan at the UN Council : the world should seize this opportunity and demand a true act of contrition (without the religious flavor, of course), which would be a genuine act of grandeur. Stephane MOT