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April 16, 2005
The Yasukuni Conundrum
More protests in China today, over the same contentious historical memory/textbook/UN Security Council/drilling issues with Japan. This is becoming an unnervingly common phenomenon in China, but this weekend's protests seem to have taken on a somewhat uglier flair:
Protesters vandalized three Japanese-themed restaurants before breaking at least nine windows at the consulate. They also broke the cash register at a ''shabu-shabu'' restaurant in Shanghai's prime shopping district.
On a road near the consulate, screaming protesters mobbed seven Japanese-style barbecue restaurants, prompting management to lock the doors. Some mounted cartoon effigies of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi above the restaurant doors.
[..]
The Japanese Embassy said two Japanese men suffered minor injuries while being harassed by demonstrators in Shanghai.
According to the embassy, the two men were looking at a Japanese restaurant where a fire had occurred when they suddenly found themselves surrounded by a group of Chinese.
They fled to a police car stopped nearby, but the demonstrators followed and surrounded the vehicle. One of the car's rear windows was then smashed, with the pair suffering scratches from the flying glass. [emphasis mine]
Meanwhile, our good friends at Xinhua contribute additional helpful reportage of the situation. It is true that some very nasty fellows are interred at Yasukuni Shrine, and it is also true that Japanese Prime Ministers have a peculiar and wholly unnecessary habit of visiting Yasukini regularly -- it seems somehow symbolic of a national, collective complex. Furthermore, when I was at Yasukuni in 2003, the adjoining war museum contained some panels and displays that would not inaccurately be described as revisionist history, as this photo I took points out with sickening understatement.
But before I even got the museum, I had to walk through the heart of the shrine complex itself. Upon turning the corner to enter the Yaskuuni grounds, I thought I was in the wrong place. Music was playing, children were laughing, and yakisoba was sizzling. Out of sheer luck, I had stumbled upon the Mitama Matsuri (a Japanese festival), which takes place each summer at Yasukuni, and which I also took the following snapshot of. I must have stood out in the crowd that day -- a slack-jawed American, expecting a solemn venue, instead was wandering aimlessly through throngs of jubilant Japanese.
The contrasts here are obvious: jovial festivities at a controversial war monument, revisionist descriptions at an otherwise immaculate war museum. What does this mean? I'm not entirely sure, but I left Yasukuni that sweltering July day with my preconceived notions simultaneously confirmed and destroyed. Yasukuni is not the center of Japanese militarism and hatred that Chinese, Koreans, and others may take it for. But it does validate the worst kind of collective memory, confirming beyond any doubt that Japan has a long way to go in truly coping with its militarist past.
Contemporary politics, however, are too complicated to make blame a one-way street. While Japan collectively has much to do in reconciling its war memory with historical reality, it also embodies an amazing success story of a peaceful, prosperous, post-war recovery. Its Asian neighbors cannot, in good conscience, deny Japan the respect it deserves based solely on its actions over 60 years ago. To continue to do so represents not only a lack of diplomatic imagination, but a moral crime that smacks of hypocrisy.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 04:28 PM to Asia
