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Yasukuni ≠ Arlington
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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is stirring a lot of controversy these days.
The Liberal Democratic Party, under Abe’s stewardship, is seeking to amend the pacifist constitution so that Japan could use force overseas.
Among a series of his provocative moves, Abe’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine have been greeted with the most criticism. Yet he appears unfazed by the criticism and is looking for ways to justify his visits to the controversial shrine, where Japan’s war dead are enshrined, including 14 Class-A war criminals.
In a recent interview with Foreign Affairs magazine, Abe likened Yasukuni to the Arlington National Cemetery. It is not the first time he has made such blatant remarks. As early as September 2006, when he was still the chief cabinet secretary, Abe said going to the shrine was no different than visits to the Arlington cemetery.
But his analogy is mistaken, because “the two memorials share neither the same history nor spirit,” according to American scholar Mindy Kotler, director of nonprofit think tank Asia Policy Point. In an opinion article published by the National Interest magazine on January 16, Kotler wrote, “Although both were the result of civil wars, Yasukuni now focuses on the idealization of the Pacific Theater of World War II, while Arlington records the continuing sorrow of a nation.”
One of the biggest differences between Yasukuni and Arlington is the narratives embodied by the two memorials. At Yasukuni, wartime deeds are glorified. “The narrative boasts of how Japan liberated Asia from the Western colonialists after the United States ‘tricked’ Japan into the war.”
Invoking Arlington doesn’t lend credence to their rationale for visits to Yasukuni.
By contrast, “Arlington does not dwell on the glory of any war or push one interpretation, providing instead a neutral ground upon which people can mourn and reflect,” wrote Kotler.
There is probably no place on earth that whitewashes war crimes and atrocities more systemically on a national level than Yasukuni. By repeatedly visiting the shrine, Abe is showing the world that he is insensitive, or indeed, indifferent, to the suffering of Imperial Japan’s victims.
According to Kotler, “The story Yasukuni wants to tell is that an industrially sophisticated Japan liberated a backward Asia and that their fellow Asians should be grateful,” which is exactly the opposite of what happened.
In its quest for a “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,” countless Asians and Westerners, instead of being “liberated,” were displaced, enslaved and murdered. By going to the shrine that apotheosizes the mass murderers responsible for those hideous war crimes, Abe is insulting the honor and memories of the survivors of Japanese wartime brutality.
As such, his justifications for visits to the shrine are morally inconsistent, and merit the harshest opprobrium.
Abe, together with his right-wing colleagues, may reckon that visiting Yasukuni will bolster their political capital and portray them as autonomous politicians, immune to outside pressure. But their defiance has only earned them global censure and domestic opposition.
Abe and Japanese rightist politicians need to change tack. Invoking Arlington doesn’t lend credence to their rationale for visits to Yasukuni, because what is commemorated at Arlington and what is glorified at Yasukuni can never be mentioned in the same breath.
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