Section 7 | History, Politics and International Relations | Session 5B, Panel
Chair: Franziska Seraphim (Boston College)
The last ten months of World War II saw the deployment by the Imperial Japanese armed forces of a tactic unprecedented in the history of human conflict – units known as the Tokkôtai ("Special Attack Corps", in the Japanese euphemism), whose personnel were trained to crash explosive-laden aircraft or miniature submarines into enemy targets. While the wartime exploits of the so-called "kamikaze" tinged Western – and especially American – stereotypes of Japanese "Otherness" with a fanatic aspect that has yet to completely fade even sixty years after the events of 1944-45, the kamikaze legacy has developed quite differently in Japan's postwar collective memory.
For the better part of the last six decades, the tragic-yet-resolute figure of the Tokkôtai pilot has stood front-and-center with the atomic bombings, the humiliation of foreign occupation and postwar privations in the pantheon of Japanese World War II victimization iconography, while his fiery sacrifice has stood as potent symbolism for the self-i mmolatory denouement of Japan's experiment in militaristic hypernationalism. In recent years, however, there has been an increasing frequency and volume of calls from various Japanese public and private sectors for a more positive reevaluation of Japan's role in World War II, and through extrapolation of this discourse, towards a more laudatory appraisal of the Tokkôtai. As the issue heats up, a once taboo question is now being openly debated: were the idealistic young pilots who sacrificed their lives in kamikaze missions' victims of thwarted Japanese imperialist ambitions, or heroes in the vanguard of a proud struggle for Asian liberation from Western colonialism?
Based on a three-year fieldwork project entailing interviews with numerous Tokkôtai survivors, observation of the activities of various Japanese memorial and veterans' associations, and on-site research at Yasukuni Shrine, this paper traces the current status of efforts by these and other actors as seemingly disparate as the Governor of Tôkyô and a controversial comic book artist to consecrate the kamikaze war dead in the hearts and minds of current and future generations of Japanese.
Yuki Takatori (Georgia State University)
The Tôkyô War Crimes Trial, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), was the longest war crimes trial following World War II, opening on May 3, 1946 and concluding on November 12, 1948. In the i mmediate wake of defeat, a sense of resignation and nihilism prevailed among the average Japanese, who accepted the death sentences imposed upon their "honest and trusted leaders to whom [their] fate had been confidently entrusted" as adequate, if not necessarily appropriate, punishment for the actions Japan had taken. Intellectuals, on the other hand, were critical of the court's judgment, complaining that, by passing over the war responsibility of the Emperor and the zaibatsu, it had not gone far enough. But, as the years passed, and the Tôkyô Trial continued to be a subject of debate and criticism, the critiques would, in time, come from an altogether different portion of society. In the late 1970s, as the "Japanese Miracle" made possible double-digit economic growth and ubiquity of made-in-Japan merchandise in the world market, many politicians and economists began to assume an attitude of "arrogance through success," and to gradually embrace the idea that Japan itself had been the wrongly-convicted victim of the Allies' unilateral justice. There arose a growing resentment toward and reaction against what they labeled the "Tôkyô Trial View of History": in short, that everything Japan had done between 1928 and 1945 was bad, i mmoral and evil whereas everything the Allies had done was good, moral, and benign. For right-wing politicians, the "Tôkyô Trial View of History" represented a falsified history of modern Japan, poisoning the minds of their countrymen to such an extent that it could have no other result than to convince them that their country was the pre-war world's worst. This decidedly nationalistic interpretation of the court's findings has come to strongly influence Japanese public opinion to case a shadow over Japan's relationships with other Asian nations.
A careful reading of the Tôkyô Judgment, however, reveals a quite different version of the "Tôkyô Trial View of History." According to the historian Arai Shin'ichi, nothing in the verdict endorses the position that Japan was fundamentally bad and the Allies were at root good. Rather, the verdict was based upon the historical theory that pre-war Japan was dominated alternately by two groups; extreme militarists and moderate political leaders. The former was composed of military officers and right-wing politicians whereas the latter consisted of diplomats, economists, and ex-premiers (jûshin). Their struggle for power ended in the defeat of the moderates, ineluctably leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Tôkyô Judgment relieved the moderates, including the Emperor and the zaibatsu, of all responsibility for the war, and shifted the entire blame onto the hard-liners. If there is anything that should be called the "Tôkyô Trial View of History," Arai concludes quite persuasively, that it is this dichotomy between extremists and moderates, not the "good countries – bad country" theory.
André Hertrich (University of Munich/German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tôkyô)
Since Japan increases the use of armed forces as a measure of international activities, it seems to be just a question of time until the first members of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) will return in body bags – especially since Japanese troops are currently based in Iraq. Although their operation area is supposed to be safe, the general situation in Iraq is far from being pacified. In the long run, SDF members might be involved in fights which could lead to the killing of the first Japanese soldiers.
In my paper I would like to investigate the prearrangements for this specific case and pose the question how a future co mmemoration of Japan's war victims would possibly look like. I will do this by focusing on three major issues, describing their interdependence and the long-term effects they will have on the memorial landscape. These issues are: the official co mmemoration and condolence of the Japanese government and the Defense Agency, the unofficial religious remembrance and enshrinement at Yasukuni Shrine, and the personal ideas of how SDF members wish to be remembered and mourned.
The so called "Memorial Zone" in the Defense Agency's compound in Ichigaya/Tôkyô can be viewed as a first step to create a site to co mmemorate SDF members killed in action. Still, the predestined place is the Yasukuni Shrine with its long tradition of enshrining soldiers who died in service of the Japanese nation and the Tennô. But since the end of World War II when the spheres of state and religion were formally separated, remembrance at Yasukuni Shrine was restricted to privacy. Yet there is a certain affinity among politicians and soldiers to the idea of reviving Yasukuni Shrine as the official co mmemoration site of the state. So if SDF members should wish remembrance at Yasukuni Shrine for themselves or their comrades killed in action, this could strengthen the unofficial religious side of memory. This also would give more weight to the demands of some groups to turn Yasukuni Shrine into an official state-financed memorial place. In my presentation, these assumptions shall be thoroughly examined and discussed.