Facing the past

[Russell]

New Kyushu museum breaks taboo with POW vivisection display

A new medical history museum in Fukuoka faced the area’s dark wartime past on Saturday by using its grand opening to finally address the infamous live dissections of U.S. prisoners of war that took place at Kyushu University’s medical school.

The museum, built on the university’s campus in Higashi Ward, has a total of 63 items on display detailing over a century of the school’s history, including patient records and medical equipment. Two items refer to the vivisections, including a panel explaining the gruesome episode.

Although the Allied war crimes tribunal denied the university itself was systemically involved in the atrocity despite convicting 14 of its staff, the school had nevertheless treated the topic as a taboo and avoided mentioning it in public over the years.

But after it was suggested at a meeting of professors at the School of Medicine in March that this dark chapter be brought to light upon the museum’s opening, the university decided to add items related to the vivisections, according to the university.

In 1945, a U.S. B-29 bomber was downed near the border between Kumamoto and Oita prefectures. Eight of the airmen were vivisected by doctors of the medical school.

The doctors killed the prisoners by injecting diluted seawater into their veins, removing their lungs or livers and performing other horrific experiments on their bodies to test their limits.

A professor who performed the operations killed himself after the war. Fourteen members of the university were convicted of war crimes and were sentenced to death by hanging and life in prison, but these were later commuted in 1950 by Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

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And for the Takechans among us, this does not bring shame on Japan, but rather trust and dignity, because Japan will be more likely viewed by the international community as willing to face the dark sides of its past.

Excellent action of Kyushu University!

[matsuki]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuu

What's the denial/excuse from the nationalists this time?

"but but but Germany did more/worse things to their prisoners?"

[legion]

I did notice a slight uptick in the "poor Japanese during the war" quota in the media recently, I wonder why .............

Story about interment camps for example, and another about island people with Japanese surnames who could still remember Japanese children's songs.

[kurogane]

I did notice a slight uptick in the "poor Japanese during the war" quota in the media recently, I wonder why .............

Very muchly this is true. I noticed it this past summer in the media and on the street (aka The Bar), both Tokyo and Okinawa. I have many deep thoughts on this topic which is muchly of interest. But first, Costco must be visited for Mass Quantities. More later.




Oooh............Frank's back...................

[Yokohammer]

I did notice a slight uptick in the "poor Japanese during the war" quota in the media recently, I wonder why .............

Story about interment camps for example, and another about island people with Japanese surnames who could still remember Japanese children's songs.

Approaching the 70th anniversary of losing a stupid war is why.

Every year at anniversary time there is a glut of self pity from the media, lamenting how terrible the war was in terms of Japanese suffering, with barely a hint of the suffering imposed on others, and boy oh boy better not mention who started it. Atrocities? WTF are you talking about?

So, as Russell said, this Kyushu University thing is nothing short of enlightened.

But I seriously doubt that the media will take up that side of the discussion, especially with Adolf Abe in charge. This anniversary is a big one, and I'm expecting the victim complex to be marched around with unprecedented brio. If it isn't, if some real reflection and awareness is forthcoming, I'm not the only one who will be amazed. That would be real progress. I'm dreaming, aren't I ...

Japan needs more politicians like Yohei Kono. That man is smart in the right way.

[chibaka]

But I seriously doubt that the media will take up that side of the discussion, especially with Adolf Abe in charge.

You are not alone with this sentiment, I spotted this van a week ago, driven by some old J dude.
Picture was taken outside a local city office too....

IMG_20150402_141621.jpg

Edit: typo

[kurogane]

I'm drunk, but I think that moustache is intended lefty satire. Hard to read now...................later.

[Yokohammer]

Not everyone around these parts is capable of facing the past as honestly as Kyushu University has done.

This opinion piece (in the JT) was written by Hugh Cortazzi, Britain's ambassador to Japan from 1980 through 1984. He compiles a few of the recent and current issues into this one article, with an analysis that generally echoes our own. It is kind of depressing to see things going this way. But, as expected, people all around the world are starting to pay more attention than ever as a direct result of all the misguided efforts to revise and suppress. Rightwing revisionists shooting themselves in the foot like this might not be a bad thing in the long run, because it will throw a spotlight on the very issues they're trying to cover up.

Jaoan's prickly revisionists

Japan’s right-wing politicians who react badly to foreign criticism are often insensitive to the feelings of foreign people whom they seem to despise. They seem to regard any foreigner who does not praise every aspect of Japan and points out that there were dark moments in Japanese history as a “Japan basher” and, accordingly, an enemy of Japan. This attitude is harmful to Japan’s national interests and reputation.

I was shocked to read in a recent issue of the journal of the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo a farewell article by the correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which I know from my service in Germany as a highly respectable serious journal that would never report sensational stories and always checks its facts.

When the correspondent wrote an article critical of the Abe administration’s historical revisionism, the Japanese Consul General in Frankfurt, presumably acting on instructions from Tokyo, called on the paper’s senior foreign policy editor to complain about the article.

The Japanese Consul General refused to produce any facts to counter the arguments in the correspondent’s article and then apparently went on to insult the correspondent and the paper by suggesting that money was “involved,” and that the reporter had to write pro Chinese propaganda to get a visa for China. These remarks were not only unjustified but inept.


... snippety snip ...


The inevitable reaction of scholars and journalists targeted by Japanese revisionists is to dig deeper and draw more attention to the facts which the revisionists would like erased from the record. Japanese historical revisionists remind me of the Orwellian double-speak and double-thinking of the Nazis and the Soviet Communists.

Intelligent friends of Japan in Britain have various views about the prospects of “Abenomics” and Japanese policies on defense issues, but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to defend Japanese historical revisionism.

The recent argument in favor of a Japanese apartheid by Ayako Sono struck British observers as ludicrous. It was hard to believe that these suggestions could be taken seriously and published in Japan. It made us wonder how Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could appoint someone with such views as his education adviser.

It is equally difficult for non-Japanese to understand how intelligent and educated individuals can propagate the concept of Japanese uniqueness as propounded by the “Nihonjinron” theorists. Japan is no more unique than any other country. There are over 120 million Japanese individuals, all different, and most generalizations about Japan and Japanese characteristics are at best approximations.

The Nihonjinron theorists like Japanese historical revisionists seem to exist in a bubble outside the real world. Unlike their Meiji era predecessors they do not really know the world outside Japan. They have no real foreign friends. They act as a drag on efforts to ensure that Japan takes its rightful place in a world that is increasingly globalized both economically and politically.

Read the full article at the link above.

[Takechanpoo]

indeed abe is overdoing in some fields. but the previous j-governments were too weak-kneed toward c and k's egoism.
concretely their extotion or blackmail in the name of poor victims of evil empire japan.
j-naitonals have been strongly dissatisfied with it for a long time. abe is a symbol of the long-time dissatisfactions.
but not a few j-nationals started feeling worried about abes overdoing. the next government will be less howkish one.
natinal politics should be rated in a large flow, not a point.

i am really fed up with the guys labeling revisionist without proper verifications.
i guess the know‐it‐all guy also labeled with superficial impressions without hearing our side of the story.
but that kind of way never can put those "revisionists" into silence.