hankyoreh

By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent

“What is Japan’s ‘yamato’ spirit? It is the flowers of the wild cherry tree that gleam in the morning sunlight.” As we enter Yasukuni’s first exhibit room - called “The Heart of the Soldier” - we see this message written on a hanging scroll. These are the words that appeared on a self-portrait that 17th century Japanese Kokugaku (national revival) scholar Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) painted at the age of 61.

This line was included in a collection of poems by 100 patriots, selected by the Japanese Literary Patriotism Society and printed in the Mainichi Shimbun in 1942. It was reinterpreted as describing the spirit of a soldier who lays down his life for his country with the elegance of a falling cherry blossom.

The name of the building, or Yushukan (遊就館), is derived from a passage from the Chinese classic “Xunzi” that says, “The man of virtue must choose his place of residence with care, and he must study with an excellent scholar” (君子居必擇鄕遊必就士).

The Japanese soldiers who fought in World War II willingly went to their death shouting “Long live the Emperor!” and they reminded each other that they would meet again at Yasukuni after they died. Hanging here and there from the cherry trees in the garden in front of Yushukan are wooden placards bearing the names of Japanese military units.

Motoori’s words appear again in a picture in the 13th exhibit room, which lionizes the “kamikaze” suicide pilots who rammed the Allies’ naval vessels with their planes. At Yushukan, all such sacrifices that people were forced to make are glamorized in this way.

The following is a “touching story” that is presented in “Gods of Yasukuni,” the 15th exhibit room.

“First Lieutenant Fujii was a drillmaster who was in charge of psychological training for the boys’ air squadron. When a group of his students departed on a suicide mission, he would tell them, ‘I’m not going to let you boys die alone. One of these days, I’ll be going, too.’ Fujii’s wife, who was aware of his intentions, drowned herself and their two children in a river near the flight school. On May 28, 1945, Fujii boarded a plane flown by his subordinate and made a suicide attack on Okinawa.”

Another Yushukan exhibit that praises the spirit of those who sacrificed for their country shows the diving suits worn by commando teams of boys aged around 16 or 17. These boys were “human torpedoes” who would wrap themselves in explosives and collide with enemy vessels. They would lurk underwater, holding sticks loaded with bombs, and then blow them up when the enemy’s ships passed by in an attempt to prevent the ships from landing.

The view of history offered at Yushukan is that the wars that Japan waged were beneficial for many Asian countries. At the end of the final exhibit room there is a map with the continents of Asia and Africa on which the names of several Asian countries that became independent after the war are categorized by date. The following explanation appears under the title “The Results of World War II”

“Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War [1904-05] gave the hope of independence to various Asian peoples who were bowed under the yoke of the Western Powers [. . .] Asian countries were able to gain their independence after colonial authorities were toppled by the Japanese military in the early part of the Greater East Asia War. The flames of independence ignited under the control of the Japanese army were not extinguished even after Japan lost, and one by one these peoples waged wars for independence and regained control over their own lands.”

This presents the suspect argument that the Japan was not waging wars of aggression but was rather fighting to liberate European colonies.

“Viewed in terms of Yasukuni’s ideology, World War II was a holy war,” explained Uchida. “Because of this, they claim that terrible atrocities such as the sexual slavery of the comfort women or the Nanjing massacre just could not have happened.”

Uchida said that this is why Japan’s conservatives and right-wingers continue to distort and deny these two atrocities

After passing through the historical exhibit rooms at Yushukan, we reach the room for the “Gods of Yasukuni” who are enshrined there. The term “war heroes” appears in the English explanation of the room.

Among the people enshrined here are Koreans who are represented under Japanese names. The Yasukuni Shrine continues to venerate them despite the opposition of their families. The shrine is also opposed to the proposal made in certain quarters to construct a separate memorial facility and enshrine the war criminals there.

“In a certain sense, it is class A war criminals that are closest to the spirit of the Yasukuni Shrine,” Uchida said. “If the war criminals were to be housed separately, Yasukuni’s historical understanding, which is founded on the ideology of holy war, would fall apart, and it wouldn‘t be the Yasukuni Shrine anymore.”

As we leave the Yushukan building, we see a large memorial stone standing at the end of the left side of the lawn. On the stone a human face is carved in relief. The face is that of Radhabinod Pal, the Indian jurist who participated in the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo that was held to prosecute war criminals in World War II, and the stone was erected in his honor.

“Pal perceived that the Tokyo Trials were little more than a barbarian desire for revenge that the Allies, who were drunk with victory, foisted upon Japan, which had been rendered helpless by its defeat in the war,” the stone reads. “Demonstrating that there was no legal basis for the Allies’ proceedings, and that they were fraught with factual inaccuracies, he came to the opinion that all of the defendants were innocent.”

This stone testifies to the fact that the Yasukuni Shrine denies the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials, at which Hideki Tojo were convicted of war crimes. Tojo was a general in the Japanese army and prime minister who was executed for dragging Japan into the madness of war, but at Yasukuni, he is a god. Yushukan proudly displays a flag of Japan that was signed by the twenty-five defendants, including Tojo, who were charged with class A war crimes at the Tokyo Trials.

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