Community and Identity in Northeast Asia: 1930s and Today
January 22, 2005 -- ZNet's Asia Watch.
East Asian Community: The Unfinished Project of the 1930s
....What is Japan? 55 years after the end of the war, Prime Minister Mori's answer (June 2000) was: "a country of the gods centred on the emperor" General Tojo would have put it in exactly the same terms. While Japan is superior and a land of the gods, Asians are "third country" people (as Tokyo Governor Ishihara puts it explicitly). Over two hundred members of the Diet belong to the "Shinto Seiji Renmei" (established 1970), officially rendered into English as "Shinto Association of Spiritual leadership," or SAS, many more to the "Dietmembers League for the Passing on of a Correct History," (established 1995) and well over one hundred to the "Association of Dietmembers for a Bright Japan" (established 1996), while outside the Diet powerful organizations such as "Japan Conference" (Nihon Kaigi) lament the loss of a distinctive Japanese historical consciousness, oppose what they see as a "masochistic" view of history, and campaign for a return to the values of the Imperial Rescripts, or for preparation of special textbooks to instill a sense of national pride and to a sense of "correct" history return to a pure, bright, superior Japanese identity of yesteryear. ...more...and. more...
