Toshio Tamogami
According to the Washington Post, a Japanese air force chief named Toshio Tamogami was ousted last month for saying that Japan was not an aggressor during World War II. This isn’t old news; I have friends in Japan who say that they didn’t know about Japan’s WWII history until they traveled to Australia and felt the resentment from people whose relatives had been killed. The issue, of course, is that Japan is still relatively insular, and that the Japanese government has taken virtually no responsibility for educating its citizens about the truth. Leaders like Tamogami are more interested in building false confidence rather than teaching truth.
The whole idea of truth is one which I emphasize often in my activism. Truth is actually the defining aspect of Frank Chin‘s activism as well. When Frank said that Kingston faked Fa Mulan, he was focusing on truth. When he helped lead the Day of Remembrance, he was demanding an acknowledgement of truth from the U.S. government.
This issue is much the same. Truth is a fact of life. Lots of people, American and non, play games by saying that there are different interpretations and sides to every story, and when we’re talking about opinions or viewpoints, that is correct. But in the case of facts, facts are facts. Kingston’s Mulan is totally inauthentic, the American government practiced racism by wrongly incarcerating Japanese Americans based on race, and Japan was an aggressor during World War II. Repeating things that are untrue over and over again doesn’t make them true. It’s possible to use the media to brainwash people into believing things that aren’t true, but it doesn’t help anyone to live authentically.
I don’t know if Tamogami really believes what he has written, but the rest of the world stands witness to what really happened. The Japanese government should take responsibility for educating its population and making sure that high ranking officials don’t continue to perpetuate lies. People and countries need to learn from their mistakes rather than denying them.
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I agree with everything you said. About #1…I think...
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So true, man. And I know that Japan is relatively insulated, a lot of people there having not been exposed to the truth – but they are also not North Korea, you know? And in this day and age, anyone with the internet should know the big truths of history – especially if government is their profession. Maybe your run-of-the-mill elementary kid won’t know because he’d rather look up sponge bob – but Tamogami has no excuse for that kind of bigoted, self-serving, and, in the end, embarrassing (at least for anyone of Japanese descent) ignorance.
Zach,
You’re totally right. It’s all about truth.
In addition to the internet, these Japanese government officials also get messages from other countries as well. China is constantly demanding an apology. U.S. Congressman Mike Honda, while in the State Assembly, was instrumental in making clear the U.S. position on the atrocities, drafting a resolution calling for Japan to apologize. It’s crazy to see the Japanese government continuing to deny these war crimes. Germany took action right away–it’s illegal to own a copy of Mein Kampf in Germany, and they’ll lock up anyone who even tries to argue in defense of Nazism.
Coming clean would help Japan too. How can a country become a big player on the world stage when their leaders can’t even face the truth?
My goodness…they’re at it again!
http://www.angryasianman.com/2008/11/revisionist-nanking-film-now-playing.html
(I too knew about this before, but I also forgot…)
I had no idea how insulated and misinformed an average Japanese person might be regarding WWII as well as the invasion and subsquent occupation of Korea until a Japanese colleague in my graduate program was quite convinced that Koreans were the aggressors toward the Japanese people – she honestly thought that I, as a Korean, deserved a bit of discrimination from her due to what she perceived as history. It was mind boggling.
I agree – this day and age? No excuse for ignorance OR perpetuance of it.
In the original ballad, Mulan does not have a surname. There are dozens of interpretations of the history of this character, but this is the literary text that should be referred to when discussing the concept of Mulan as a Chinese literary story.
木蘭詩
唧唧復唧唧，木蘭當戶織，不聞機杼聲，惟聞女嘆息。
問女何所思，問女何所憶，女亦無所思，女亦無所憶。
昨夜見軍帖，可汗大點兵。軍書十二卷，卷卷有爺名。
阿爺無大兒，木蘭無長兄，願為市鞍馬，從此替爺徵。
東市買駿馬，西市買鞍貉，南市買轡頭，北市買長鞭。
旦辭爺娘去，暮至黃河邊。不聞爺娘喚女聲，但聞黃河流水鳴濺濺。
但辭黃河去，暮宿黑山頭。不聞爺娘喚女聲，但聞燕山胡騎鳴啾啾。
萬裡赴戎機，關山度若飛。朔氣傳金析，寒光照鐵衣。
將軍百戰死，壯士十年歸。歸來見天子，天子坐明堂。
策勛十二轉，賞賜百千強。可汗問所欲，木蘭不用尚書郎。
願馳千里足，送兒還故鄉。爺娘聞女來，出郭相扶將。
阿姊聞妹來，當戶理紅妝。小弟聞姊來，磨刀霍霍曏豬羊。
開我東閣門，坐我西閣床。脫我戰時袍，著我舊時裳。
當窗理雲鬢，對鏡貼花黃。出門看伙伴，伙伴皆驚惶。
同行十二年，不知木蘭是女郎！雄兔腳撲朔，雌兔眼迷離。
雙兔傍地走，安能辨我是雄雌。
Shades,
You’re right. Actually, in the movie “What’s Wrong With Frank Chin,” there’s a Cantonese reading of the Mulan poem; I think that’s the one.
For Chinatown cowboys who can’t read Chinese (I have no idea what a Chinatown cowboy is, but it sounds good), you can see the same text with translation under the wikipedia entry for Hua Mulan, along with a brief history of the surname question.
Mama Nabi,
I’m hoping that things will change in the future. Japan is suffering from a population decline like no other industrialized nation in the world. They’re going to have to invite immigration because there aren’t enough people to do the work that needs to be done. Hopefully this influx of immigration will change the game a bit.
This is an interesting issue with a lot of different facets to it. The debate about Japan’s responsibility in WWII, for example, shows how present day politics are influential factors in play–like many modern disputes about past history in general.
In terms of domestic politics, controversies like the Prime Minister’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine and how Japanese school textbooks characterize WWII not only can be mobilizing issues for the Right Wing but also are related to Japan’s remilitarization as a “normal nation” and debates about changing the pacifist constitution.
Another dimension is geopolitics and Japan’s relationship to an emerging China as well as South and North Koreas, which is an even more complex matter.
And in terms of the truth more broadly, what do you think of the idea that whoever has power defines what counts as true or false to begin with?
This is the “history is written by the victors” argument and is best expressed by George Orwell’s famous quote: “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”
…or maybe Aesop’s fable about the Man and the Lion (though this one probably has to do with know-how rather than might).
Great quote by Orwell. I guess the guy who wrote 1984 knew a thing or two about government control. In Japan, as in most countries, the government has the power, and they’ve demonstrated it by their disregard for history. We see this reflected in the people educated in their school system.
I agree that whoever has power defines what counts as true or false. It’s an unfortunate characteristic of the way things work, which is yet another reason why people who respect truth need to influence those in power or become powerful ourselves.