Two ruthless regimes - one trail of destruction

Please allow me to take longer than I should. Much of the following is a subject dear to my heart and has been the focus of my Master’s thesis.

This is Baluarte de San Andres, a dungeon where Japanese soldiers tortured and killed thousands to Filipinos and American soldiers during WW2. There are hundreds of similar landmarks scattered throughout Southeast Asia.

Filipinos are very emotional about the mass killing of their brethren and the almost complete destruction of their country during WW2. Did you know that an estimated one million Filipinos died during WW2 as a result of the Japanese occupation? Probably not.

We all know about Hitler’s crime. Hitler’s victims, primarily Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and pretty much everyone else, have made it a duty to explain to the world the horrors of Hitler’s regime. And rightfully so.

The oppressors have also recognized their guilt. Not a single young German who goes through high school can claim to ignore the bloodstained history of his country. The German government has also been active in paying billions in reparations to the victims. Germany has also shown humility and penance at the highest level, as Willy Brandt’s famous kniefall in Warsaw demonstrated. This gesture helped heal the open wounds from WW2 between Germany and Eastern Europe. By and large, Germany has done what no other nation has ever done in this world: apologize for past crimes and seek to repair the damage.

At the same time as Germany was waging war in Europe, another country was waging war against its neighbours: Japan. The 1931 invasion of China marked the beginning of 14 year long reign of blood and massacres that rival the bloodbath in Europe.

Yet, history couldn’t have been more lenient towards Japan. Two countries, two brutal wars of aggression, two very different associations.

Germans are forever tainted by Hitler. What comes to mind when one mentions “Germany?” Hitler.

What comes to mind when one hears “Japan”? Technological development? Sony? Now Fukushima?

We first saw evidence of Japanese war crimes in Darwin, Australia. In a 1942 raid the Japanese managed to destroy half of the city. Anybody who visits Darwin is reminded of the tragic events.

Japanese occupation during WW2 reached all of Southeast Asia. Singapore was occupied. So was Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Japanese occupation was ruthless: millions of women in occupied countries became the property of the imperial troops of Japan. Dozens of millions – in China in particular – were bayoneted, beheaded, hanged, worked to death, sent to death camps, or simply eliminated with a bullet.

And what has the Japanese government done after the war to repair the damage?

Virtually nothing. Until very recently Japan considered “comfort women”, as the women forced to service Japanese soldiers during WW2 were called, to be either allied wartime propaganda or willing “lovers” of Japanese imperial troops. Today children in Japan learn from history books similar to those distributed in Soviet Union: the Nanking massacre, the gruesome killing of 300 000 women and children in 1937, is a fabrication of Chinese propaganda. Children also learn that Japan never acted as the aggressor during WW2; it was simply trying to protect its interests in the region. Worse, it is still customary for the prime minister of Japan to pay his respect at the Yasukini Shrine, a place of rest for Japanese war criminals who were hanged by the Americans in 1945.

Can you imagine what kind of hell would fall on Germany if its chancellor paid tribute to the men who were hanged at Nuremberg?

I am writing about this because in Southeast Asia, every major town was occupied by the Japanese and suffered enormously as a result. Yet the Japanese, having denied participation in the most heinous crimes of the 20^th Century, are the heroes who brought us Toyota and Playstation.

Unsurprisingly relationships are still strained between Japan and its neighbours. China, South Korea, the Philippines are among many nations who will not let Japan rewrite history because history is too “shameful”.

A nation is truly free when it is able to make amends for its crimes instead of denying them.