Editorial - Japanese introspection

Japan learns a lesson (Editorial)

They say history repeats itself and it seems to be doing so in the strangest way right now in Japan. Junichiro Koizumi, that country's popular new prime minister, is stirring the pot of pent-up old feelings and suppressed nationalism.

Koizumi's government recently approved a new textbook for use in Japanese schools. The book whitewashes aspects of Japanese history, including the invasion of China in 1932 (never mentioned) and the "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers (similarly ignored).

At the same time, there has been a controversy over the prime minister's visit this week to the Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial to the war dead from Japan's imperial age. No previous prime minister had ventured into the shrine, which glorifies imperial aggression and apparently reverts to the sort of emperor worship that seems to have fallen out of favor elsewhere in modern Japan.

In response to this newly visible nationalism, Japanese critics are stating what has often gone unsaid. The Japanese have a term - kotonakareshugi - which means deliberately suppressing unpleasant things. Journalists now are suggesting that the war years have fallen victim to kotonakareshugi.

Post-war Germany went through varying degrees of catharsis in dealing with its history during the Third Reich. It can hardly be said that Germany has resolved the complex psycho-social results of Nazism, but it must be noted that there have been efforts to acknowledge it - to such an extent, in fact, that there is a backlash among some members of the younger generation who complain that they are being held responsible for events that occurred long before their births.

Japan has never gone through the same sort of self-examination, perhaps because of the fundamentally different cultural norms of that country, the sort that give rise to kotonakareshugi.

Where the media in Germany may have encouraged debate on its war role, such independence is unusual in Japan.

Nevertheless, a few people have publicly expressed concerns about the government's direction and it will be interesting to see if the voices in the wilderness can overcome Japanese reticence and confront the past.

Interestingly, in addition to the parallels with Germany, the brouhaha over the textbooks has a direct parallel with Israel. Where Japan is whitewashing its official history, Israel has gone through a mirror-image debate recently, over the creation of a textbook that upends the traditional Zionist-pioneer hero motif and dwells on the dark blemishes of the Israeli experience.

These discussions, in diverse parts of the world, raise fundamental issues of how we depict ourselves. Regardless of the emotional wounds that are opened in doing so, a nation cannot ignore any part of its past — good or bad.

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