2020/6/20
There were many passages in this month's issue of the monthly magazine Seiryon that I left unread.
This morning, when I was reading Mr. Sukehiro Hirakawa's long series of articles, a passage struck me as very similar to what is happening in China today.
In the notes that Mr. Hirakawa included at the end of his article, a passage proved that I had hit the nail on the head.
In this paper, I would like to excerpt those passages and others that all Japanese citizens should know.
Mr. Hirakawa's paper is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people all over the world.
God Soldiers of the Skies
Shortly after the Japanese Army Paratroopers made a surprise drop to Palembang, Sumatra, and the Navy, Paratroopers made a surprise drop to Menado, Celebes, my sister and I went to the Kyoritsu Auditorium in Kanda to hear a briefing.
He was a good talker and made the full auditorium laugh when he told them that he had almost straddled a buffalo when he landed.
The surprise landing on Palembang was to secure the oil field's refinery facilities intact.
Note 4
The captain of Menado, Navy Colonel Toyoaki Horiuchi, was well respected by the locals.
Still, after the war, he was sentenced to death by firing squad by a Dutch military court-martial and followed his men who were killed in action in Menado on a "journey to death, leaving behind the scent of white chrysanthemum."
The white chrysanthemum mentioned in his resignation refers to a parachute.
Suppose the military tribunals in the South had elements of retaliation and showmanship.
In that case, it is only natural that a trial based on the same motive should be held in Tokyo as a spectacle.
Even though it was not explicitly stated in the "Potsdam Declaration," which was accepted by the Japanese side, it was taken for granted by the Allies, especially the U.S., that the Japanese soldiers and politicians who conceived and executed the "Greater East Asia War" would be punished.
Anti-Japanese sentiment, inflamed by propaganda against the enemy during the war, could not help but condemn the Japanese leaders who surprised Pearl Harbor.
The Allied forces, led by the U.S. military, occupied Japan and tried to make the Japanese people believe that Japan was a morally wrong country by starting a war.
Judging Japan in the Eyes of the United States
In Europe, the leaders of Nazi Germany were being punished in Nuremberg.
In the Far East, in Ichigaya, Tokyo, the leaders of the Japanese Empire must also be punished.
It was the occupation policy of the Allies, led by the United States, which analogously grasped the Japanese Empire as the Asian equivalent of Nazi Germany.
In the fall of 1945, the Japanese mass media were forced to propagandize and disseminate the victorious Allies' interpretation of history, and they complied.
Some actively subscribed to this viewpoint and talked about their perception of history as if it came from within themselves.
Because the voice of this force was so strong, some people continue to follow its authority to this day.
One psychologist used the following analogy to explain the psychology of the intervening period.
The way the Japanese press, which was at the mercy of the U.S. military, submitted to the authority of the other side was similar to the way a woman who was raped did not say she was forced to do so but rather convinced herself that she had consented and that it was consensual sex, without filing a complaint, to improve her public image.
I am afraid this analogy is too blunt, but I think it is psychological or truthful.
This article continues.
2023/6/10 in Osaka
