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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Two
Spring 2003
Rape of Nanking -
Page 4
by Jennifer Butt
Grammatical analysis of Japanese textbooks consistently reveals a reluctance to place blame and responsibility for the Rape of Nanking on the Japanese. Yet Japanese revisionists, in an effort to eliminate all such references in textbooks, have founded groups, such as the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, whose intention is to replace current historical texts, which are seen as "unconscionably full of evil distortion, masochism, and anti-Japanese qualities" eroding national pride among younger generations (Fogel 98), with a history that propagates national identity and pride. Revisionists insist that current textbooks, which mention war crimes and other unethical acts committed by Japan, portray Japan as evil. They claim that "when we [the Japanese] write our history textbooks, we weigh every word, fearful of the reaction of neighboring nations. This is the epitome of . . . a nation ideologically and spiritually enslaved" (Yoshiaki 17). This is consistent with Barnard's findings that Japan is constantly depicted as the victim and target of international scrutiny and attack. Such a position and portrayal are achieved through willful amnesia of the Rape and other war crimes, which "enables Japanese public memory to cast Japan in the role of universal victim of and witness to the horrors of war (as the world's sole victim of atomic bombing) and liberator of Asia from the yoke of Western colonization" (Yoshiaki 5). Revisionists believe that the erosion of national pride and the aggressive and evil image of Japan are not only the result of current textbooks, but also of war memorials, which revisionists perceive as offensive by "unfairly highlight[ing] Japanese wartime atrocities . . . and cultivating national shame" (Fogel 99). While the Society for History Textbook Reform has not yet attained its goal of replacing all middle and high school textbooks with their own versions, revisionists and members of the Society, who have come to include prominent businessmen, politicians, academics, novelists, cartoonists, and athletes, have launched campaigns, within their respective career fields, targeting young and old Japanese people. Their aim is to promote the idea that Japan's crimes, if any, were not any more brutal than those of other countries in wartime and that blame for supposed war crimes is not to be placed upon either Japan or its people. The cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori, for example, created "two comic books that depicted comfort women as prostitutes whose goal was to earn money, and emphasized that the Japanese government therefore had absolutely no responsibility toward them, [and] in Japan, where many young people no longer read books or newspapers, the influence of comic books cannot be ignored" (Yoshiaki 26). It is clear that because revisionists cannot completely deny their war crimes in light of the number of recent survivor accounts of victims and confessions of former soldiers, they attempt to alter historical accounts so that these crimes might be perceived as either consensual or inevitable and, perhaps, legal occurrences, given the circumstances. This notion is further cemented by Yoshinori's statement, which supports Barnard's belief that links between the Japan of 1937-38 and the Japan of today are being severed, for "we [the Japanese people], living tranquil lives today in an era of peace, have absolutely no right to condemn and make criminals of our grandfathers, who fought and died thinking that they were fighting for the sake of 'country and family'" (Yoshiaki 16).