During my first visit to Israel on Jan. 27, 2002, I was shocked to hear that a suicide terrorist attack had occurred on the same day in downtown Jerusalem. The attack killed an elderly person and left more than 150 people injured.
The attacker was a 28-year-old woman who had been working as a first-aid team member at a camp for Palestinian refugees. The incident was reported extensively around the world as the first suicide bombing by a woman.
I went to the gruesome bomb scene. A few days later, I visited the Palestinian autonomous region and found posters praising her act. The posters called her “a heroic martyr” and contained words from the Koran that said that people who give their lives following God’s path are not dead but are given new lives under God.
“Terrorist” or “martyr”?
Was the woman a “terrorist” or a “martyr”? The difference in definitions clearly shows the gap that separates people who hate each other.
Israeli and Palestinian youths who lost their parents in the chain of violence that continues to rock the region came to Japan last summer as a group.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met with the young people and related the story of World War II kamikaze suicide pilots who attacked U.S. warships. He told them that former enemies Japan and the United States are now “the best friends in the world” and encouraged the youths to change their thoughts of hatred to hopes for reconciliation, adding, “Despair is a conclusion that only fools reach.”
Of course, it is not fair to talk about suicide terrorist bombers who indiscriminately attack civilians in the same light as kamikaze pilots sent on military attacks. However, they share the aberrant objective of sacrificing their own lives to attack others.
In this country during the war, kamikaze pilots were lauded as “benefactors who saved their country” and “deified war heroes.” Behind such thinking was the state religion of Shintoism. Although it made us uneasy, the terrorists who flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York were called the “reincarnation of kamikaze pilots” in the United States.
Three years ago, Koizumi visited Chiran Tokko Heiwa Kaikan (Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots) in Kagoshima Prefecture dedicated to kamikaze pilots. As he stood in front of the photographs of the deceased pilots, he wept, showing his strong feelings for young people who died for their country.
The same feelings are behind his annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine. This year, he visited the shrine on New Year’s Day. According to the prime minister, he “prays for Japan‘s peace and prosperity” by remembering people who sacrificed themselves in war.
On the shrine grounds is the Yushukan, a museum of historical exhibits on war and the imperial army in and after the Meiji Era (1868-1912). Among them are photographs of “the Yasukuni gods”, including kamikaze pilots, along with wills and other personal belongings they left behind.
The wills contain such phrases as “My body may perish like a cherry blossom, but I will die for my country and become its guardian spirit.” “I will hit an enemy vessel together with my plane. I cannot be happier thinking I can attain my long-cherished ambition as a warrior.” The writings are very moving. Moreover, when we remember the pilots’ words of adieu, “Let’s meet again at Yasukuni,” Koizumi’s feelings are not hard to comprehend.
But if we feel for the innocent young men who died for the state and its people, we can also sympathize with young suicide terrorists.
The true culprit in suicide attacks is not the individual who sacrifices his or her life, but the organizations and leaders who praise, encourage or order such attacks. Likewise, unless we look squarely at the mistakes made by the imperial army and national leaders who forced Japan to fight a reckless war at the cost of the lives of young kamikaze pilots, there is no way we can truly mourn for the war dead, including kamikaze pilots, and in the same breath pray for peace.
At the time, as the central facility for state Shintoism, Yasukuni Shrine played a leading role in whipping up fighting spirit and encouraging kamikaze pilots. Even now that the shrine is officially no more than one of countless religious corporations, it continues to serve as the spiritual base for people who still believe Japan’s path was right and inevitable as it entered the “Greater East Asia War.”
The Yushukan exhibits clearly reflect this. Starting with a proud Zero fighter, the museum displays rare documents, including the “imperial rescript of the end of the war.” The underlying idea behind the exhibits, as stated in a brochure published by the shrine, is that “Japan had no choice but to go to war in order to protect its independence and prosper together with its Asian neighbors as a peaceful nation.”
This attitude lacks any perspective that questions militarism, and it offers no remorse. The museum also shows a documentary film that portrays how soldiers, including kamikaze pilots, “died honorable deaths to defend their motherland Japan.” The film also stresses the viewpoint that “the United States tempted Japan to go to war.”
In reference to the Tokyo Tribunal, which tried war criminals, the brochure states: “People who were falsely and one-sidedly disgraced as ‘war criminals’ were brutally killed.”
With such thinking going on behind the scenes, it was expected for the shrine to enshrine Class-A war criminals together with other war dead in 1978.
Hope for ethnic reconciliation
The emperor stopped visiting Yasukuni Shrine in 1975. This choice was not unrelated to the enshrinement of Class-A war criminals. Like ordinary visitors, Koizumi may wish simply to mourn the war dead and pray for peace. However, foreign media in particular report Yasukuni Shrine with deep implications and call it a symbol of militarism. That is why the prime minister’s visits are so controversial.
Come to think of it, the prime minister mentioned hope for “ethnic reconciliation” in his speech about kamikaze pilots. If he truly desires this, it would make more sense for him to find a way to remember the war dead that leads to ethnic reconciliation rather than stick to Yasukuni visits that provoke the anger of our Asian neighbors.
The United States, which Koizumi calls “Japan‘s best friend,” supposedly won our trust with its occupational policy that led to the democratization of this country. Repudiating state Shintoism and turning Yasukuni Shrine into a private organization was also part of that policy.
The author heads The Asahi Shimbun editorial board. This viewpoint appeared in the International Herald Tribune/Asahi on February 5, 2004.
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