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Magazine
Devils behind a mask
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A disturbing trend in contemporary Japan is to gloss over the country's wartime atrocities — even to the extent of introducing revised history textbooks. Minoru Matsui's documentary film `Japanese Devils' seeks to portray the truth, featuring the confessions of former soldiers.
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A group of right wingers march in to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.
JAPAN'S wartime atrocities often read like horror stories. Though the past grows distinctly hazier with the death of every soldier and the rise of a new generation, recent events have sought to keep the memory of the archipelago nation's black deeds alive.
One such has been Minoru Matsui's ``Japanese Devils'', a deeply disturbing documentary that draws its truth and its strength from the confessions of 14 former soldiers who fought in China. Their revelations about the Manchurian incident and the Nanjing massacre are shocking, and indicate in all their stark brutality the role of Japan's Imperial Power, which made devils out of these men.
With little time left to live, these old soldiers have no reason to lie or exaggerate, and their accounts are in, all probability, honest versions. They said that they and others had bayoneted prisoners tied to stakes not out of blind fanaticism, but failing to do so would have meant a shame on their manhood, a criterion defined by the group. They had vivisected helpless subjects not out of a sadistic compulsion, but because the soldiers were expected to do so on a people — Chinese — regarded as subhuman.
Although armies have, in all eras and in just about every place, plundered, raped and murdered, the reasons for the Japanese soldiers' mayhem appear so very different. Some among the 14 even averred that they and others had gone on the rampage for the sheer thrill of it. A former sergeant contended that he had felt a sense of pleasure when he heard the cries of a mother and her newborn baby being burnt alive.
Few will refute what the film has to say. This is hardly an issue. What is, and what is really abhorring is the latest tendency to whitewash Japan's misdeeds. If this harms Tokyo's relations with Beijing and even Seoul — Korea also suffered during Japan's colonial rule there between 1910 and 1945 — no one need to point out the damage that such denial of truth causes in the international arena. While Germany is more than willing to atone for its war guilt, Japan is not even ready to acknowledge its crimes, let alone apologise for them.
There have been moves to introduce in schools revised history textbooks, which gloss over Japan's atrocities. At a Tokyo symposium some weeks ago, a prominent Right-wing commentator said that those responsible for the incidents in China were not Japanese, but a group of belligerent Chinese soldiers, possibly Communists. A conservative audience rose in applause! There are several Internet sites that take this line of argument.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, may or may not agree with this, but he did precious little to soothe ruffled feathers: his visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine — which doubles up as a memorial to the war dead — some time ago angered Beijing and Seoul. By visiting it on an occasion when people went to shrines and temples as a mark of respect and remembrance to departed souls, Koizumi felt that he was apparently doing no harm. After all, nobody gets worked up when German Chancellors commemorate the thousands of ordinary soldiers who died for their motherland during the war.
But the Yasukuni Shrine celebrates not just the rank and file. It also exalts the Japanese equivalents of Goring and Himmler, and the savage form of imperialism they advocated. The most famous man to be revered at the shrine is Hideki Tojo, a Japanese General, who as Prime Minister, presided over his nation's surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, its lightning conquest of South-east Asia and its ongoing war against China. A dozen others executed by the Allies as Class ``A'' war criminals after Japan's surrender also find a spiritual home at Yasukuni.
In fact, the shrine has always been clouded in controversy. After its foundation in 1869, it served as the focal point of State Shintoism, a religion that is widely believed to have fostered absolutist government and the rise of militarism.
Although the Americans abolished State Shinto after the war, the shrine continues to be a centre of sorts for fringe nationalists — despite the fact that religion has been clearly separated from politics in a country where most citizens care very little about any faith.
Also, the shrine houses a museum, where paraphernalia of Japan's notorious ``kamikaze'' (suicide) bombers, and other military memorabilia are displayed.
Obviously, South Korea and China were livid over Koizumi's shrine trip, and the Prime Minister is still trying to make amends to a step he took mainly to pander to extreme Right-wing forces, including The Japan Association of War Bereaved Families — a powerful group with close links to Yasukuni — which could garner a million votes for Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party.
Matsui's movie comes as a frank reminder of Japan's inglorious past. What is more, it seeks to demolish a growing feeling that Japan's wartime activities were no more heinous than those of any other nation. Japan's great culture of marked politeness, disarming courtesy and remarkable tolerance can give way to sheer bestiality, as the war proved. A race known for its kindness and sensitivity is capable of turning into ``Devils''. Or, so conveys Matsui's work.
GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN
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