Anniversary of wars provides a time for reflection
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 19, 2015
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Israelis stop walking and stand in silence in the center of Jerusalem on April 16, 2015, as sirens wailed across Israel for two minutes marking Holocaust memorial day and 70 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camps. Commemorations began at sunset yesterday and were to continue today with Israeli leaders attending official ceremonies at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, parliament and elsewhere. [Xinhua photo] |
This September, China will host a military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. The United States will celebrate not just the anniversary of World War II, but also that of the end of the American Civil War. April 9 marks 150 years since Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Northern General Ulysses S. Grant, unifying the United States and bringing about the end of slavery (although fighting continued under other generals).
Both wars played a role in ending brutal repression. Both wars preserved their respective federal government's sovereignty over (most of) their land. Yet there is one more shameful similarity between the two wars, and that is this: neither Japan nor the former states of the confederacy have fully come to terms with their history.
In America, there remains an affinity among some southerners for the "lost cause of the south." When The New Republic's Brian Beutler wrote an article arguing that April 9 should be a national holiday, some conservatives, southerners, and southern conservatives reacted angrily. Rick Moran, an editor at PJ Media, accused Beutler of "hating the south."
It shouldn't be this way. After all, the Confederate States of America no longer exist and only existed for five years. The last living Confederate veteran died in 1951. No one today has any connection to the Confederacy.
Every country has made mistakes. In America's case, slavery was a big one. At the same time, there is a natural desire for people to be proud of their ancestors and their history. Americans celebrate winning their independence from Britain and defeating the Nazis and Japanese imperialists in World War II.
Yet there was also a losing side in those wars, and that is one of Japan's big mistakes. So it is understandable, to a degree, that Japan has a hard time coping with it. Japanese soldiers took up arms and put their lives on the line -- even if they were fighting for an unjust cause. The rank and file soldier didn't have the same level of culpability as the politicians and generals.
The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates all soldiers who died fighting for Japan from 1868 to 1947. Unfortunately, among those soldiers are 1,068 convicted war criminals, including 14 convicted of A-Class crimes in World War II. The on-site Yushukan museum includes misinformation about the war, stating, for example, that Japan's puppet state of Manchuria was established by Chinese ethnic groups. No matter how patriotic someone is, the truth should reign supreme.
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