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In Japan, an Emperor Constrained by History and a National Identity Crisis
The Interpreter
By MAX FISHER AUG. 9, 2016
That ideology, which culminated in wartime atrocities, required a godlike emperor who could be worshiped as the literal embodiment of the nation.
What is the ideology which culminates in American wartime atrocities? American Imperialism ?
It didn't require a god-like emperor?
Today’s law against abdication is a legacy of this divine status — how could a deity ever resign?
No
If the monarch can abdicate of his own will, it makes sense for a successor also to be able to reject the enthronement. If every member of royalty abdicates or rejects the the enthronement, that's the end of the Japanese monarch system. Besides, politicians might abuse the rule and might make the monarch abdicate behind the scene. That should not happen. That's why
It feared that forcing the Japanese to confront their war crimes and reject the beloved emperor could send them into the Soviets’ arms.
U.S. forced the Japanese to confront their war crimes by trying and hanging Japanese war criminals while saving some other war criminals like Shirō Ishii who are useful for U.S.
And keep in mind U.S. avoided war crime charge of dropping atomic bombs.
American occupation leaders also acted out of racial animus, avoiding fuller reforms because they “regarded the Japanese as childlike people, prone to savagery if not taken firmly in hand,”
This racist stereotype is alive and well still now.
The occupiers allowed Japan to develop an expedient myth that its people and its emperor — officially considered synonymous — had been innocent victims rather than willful perpetrators of the militarism that the new Constitution rejected.
On the contrary, the occupiers tried to instill war guilt among Japanese people by War Guilt Information Program
The old ways had been a mistake, they were told, and yet the man most associated with those ways remained a revered national figurehead, visible and celebrated daily.
The Japanese narrative is that Hirohito put an end to the old way by breaking his traditional silence at Imperial Conference; He accepted the Potsdam Declaration and ended the war.
Barely a year into Emperor Akihito’s reign, in January 1990, the mayor of Nagasaki violated a national taboo by saying Hirohito had borne some responsibility for imperial crimes.
It was not national taboo. The controversies over whether Hirohito had borne some responsibility for the war have been debated. My history teacher at high school used to say the emperor was responsible for the war and the teacher was against the Japanese monarchy.
Japanese communist party has been claiming that the Emperor and other political leaders should be held responsible for the war crimes.
http://megalodon.jp/2016-0811-0110-04/www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/law/lex/00-6/akazawa.htm
Google 天皇の戦争責任、 you'll find hot debates.
In subsequent years, Emperor Akihito acknowledged Japan’s indebtedness to Korean culture and his own Korean roots — another taboo in a country that has long treated Koreans as inferior
Most controversially, he expressed regret for Japan’s wartime abuses abroad.
He is not the first to express regret for Japan's wartime abuses abroad.
List of war apology statements issued by Japan
Even nationalist Abe has engraved in his heart the suffering of the people in East Asia
日本のことをよく知らないとか、日本語が読めない人には、「ああ、そうなのかああ」みたいに納得されるかんじの記事なのかねえ？
No polling data. No evidence no fact-checking
