From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: An open letter to the Emperor Akihito of Japa
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 18:06:50 GMT

Mr Toge make some good points here; allow me to make a few elaborations.

In article <92230.210311TOGE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> TOGE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Nobukazu Toge) writes:
>Regarding this Japanese-atrocities-during-WWII stuff.
>
>Whatever the item may be, the oh-so-typical-persistent pattern is -
>
>(1) At least the government-to-government relashionship-wise it's
>    said that the victim country decides not to demand compensations
>    [this is the case for ROK and PRC, not sure about others.]

The ROK did demand, and got, some reparation in the early-mid 60's. A recent
NHK report shows that documents available to Japanese at the time concerning
the activities of the Japanese in Korea were NOT made available to the Koreans
during the negotiations. Korea, lacking any facts on which to present its 
case, settled for a lump payment of $500,000,000 in order to rebuild its
economy (which they did very successfully)

>(2) Japanese government decides, hence, that the case closed,

Which they tried to do before the negotiations started.

>(3) Victim country citizens never happy, erupting their anger
>    periodically,
>(4) Japanese government continues issuing a token "regret" word,
>(5) Victim country citizen even more infuriated, since the words
>    don't sound sincere.
>(6) Go do (3).

>This has got to stop. The Japanese (in particular the gov'ment) have to
>reveal WHAT REALLY IT WAS.  Whether one wants to apologize when and how
>or not would naturally follow after that.  To me it's rediculous to

Which is the most important point. While private citizens are becoming more
aware of what happened in that war, and while there are (privately financed)
exhibitions of Japanese atrocities touring and established in Japan, the
government refuses to acknowledge ANYTHING happened at the time, other
than "trouble" (meiwaku).

>consider letting Mr Akihito murmur some apologetic words without going
>through that first step first.  After all, what one country would
>apologize for, if it's not all that clear what is being talked about
>and its extent?  [Once, I thought I had standard knowledges on Korean
>comfort women: Since I heard that many of them had been practically
>abducted from their towns, I'm no longer sure what else is hidden.]

The Japanese government repeatedly claimed that this was all the work of 
private companies. Documents came to light showing that the government
contracted these companies to provide these women. The Japanese government is
now "studying the situation carefully"

>A comment on recent fears on the Japanese military expansionism
>shared by (some/many) peoples in Asia.  The economical or industrial
>structure that shaped the pre-WWII Japan simply don't exist any more.
>Militarily expanding itself just won't pay for Japan.  So if one is
>afraid of something like Dai-Nippon-Kyo-Ei-Ken of '30s-'40s coming
>back, that's simply an illusion.  If one still keeps the inclination
>to call Japanese "Japs" now, it may not be too clear to such persons,
>though <--- If you find this statement abrasive, let me tell you sorry,
>but it's your problem, sir.

One more thing has fundamentally changed; Russia, Korea, and China are
all (relatively) modernized, and have nuclear arsonels. Japan, with roughly
70% of its population in a 300 mile belt of land is more vulnerable to 
attack than any of the countries it could immediately threaten.

>If, on the other hand, one is talking about the Japanese mentality,
>it's a good question to ask if it changed after WWII.  The present
>"Shimaguni konjou" etc were shaped up during 260 years of Tokugawa era.
>After the Tokugawa era, it took about 75 years to get to the end of
>WWII.  Since the end of WWII, it's been 47 years.  One can only guess
>how long it would take Japanese to overcome some of our problematic(?)
>characteristics.

While I believe the Japanese people are different (ie, better educated, more
prosperous, more worldy, etc) than in the previous generation, I'm not certain
if this is relevant; while there was a call for war in the mid-30s by right-
wing groups, I don't believe the general populace was much into expanding 
hostilities. I believe Mr Goldman has posted information indicating that,
in free elections, right-wing candidates lost badly. It was by military bullyingand cowardice by the government (plus, at BEST, inaction by the Emporer) that
these militarists effectively ran the country. 

How much of a system of checks and balances is in place is something we don't
know yet.

Mike
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