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Full Version: The Rape Of Nanking
OLD American Century / White Rose Society message boards > Political Discussion forums > Politics In General
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| The Japanese government would really appreciate it if everybody could just stop bringing up this horrific massacre committed against Chinese civilian noncombatants in December 1937. Frankly, it makes them uncomfortable. And while we're at it, let's not go anywhere near the topic of reparations. If we could just agree never to discuss the unpleasantness, and remove all traces of it from our history textbooks, and everyone goes on with their lives as though it never happened, pretty soon the event will fade from our collective memory. And when the last eyewitness finally dies, it will be as though it had never happened. Won't that be nice? What sets World War II apart from a lot of other wars was how good all the different sides had gotten with weaponry and efficiency of killing; all the magic of the Industrial Age combined with the power of Mass Media, working together to make it that much easier to fight each other. The improvements to the Tank and the addition of the submarine into the mix ensured that things would be entirely out of hand, even for just for the enlisted personnel, who had agreed to fight in the first place. Everything was in place to ensure the Sequel would make The First World War look like a snowball fight. The problem was civillians; they got everywhere. And since war could come upon an area of countryside within hours (instead of days), an awful lot of people were caught flat-footed, and faced with armed troops whose job was to Destroy the Enemy, come what may. As a result, atrocities happened. Lots of them. In all sorts of places. We've heard a bit about that population control program we now call The Holocaust, but a lot of other events happened too. One of the biggies for Japan's part in the War was what has become known as "The Rape of Nanking", a military operation where Japanese troops descended on the capital of China, Nanking, in December of 1937 and stayed until March of 1938. In that time, somewhere between 200,000 to 300,000 prisoners of war and civilians were slaughtered, and somewhere in the range of 80,000 women and girls were raped, tortured, mutilated and otherwise defiled. There are photos, hundreds of them, of the bodies piled up, the masses being killed, the whole deal. It was another military operation to the Japanese, and they documented it like everything else. There's lots of them, and they look really damning. Just like Holocaust Revisionists , there are revisionists for Nanking as well, quoting this statistic or that, calling the stories falsified, the stories propaganda, the eyewitnesses glory-hounds looking for a quick buck. It's almost a pathological problem, like being caught stealing a cookie and denying, beyond all hope and reason that you're just not holding that cookie. Or you were putting the cookie back. But unlike Holocaust Revisionism, the painting of the Rape of Nanking as a propaganda stunt of complete fiction has been largely successful in Japan, where large segments of the society claim it never happened, or even better yet, have never heard of it. And as the last eyewitnesses die off, and as the endless call to ignore and shove this little bit of nastiness under the rug continues, who knows how much longer it'll be remembered. |
Which makes me doubly grateful for Iris Chang, who in her short but productive life managed to make a coherent and highly praised book out of this hideous event that won corroboration from Japanese army vets and Chinese civilian witnesses alike. See the Arts and Culture section for more on Iris Chang herself.
'Bina.
Japanese society has a real hard time dealing with shame. They used to commit suicide to deal with it and some still do, but when the entire nation must face this shame they are caught between the desire to punish themselves and denial. Perhaps sometime in the future they will understand that it isn't about shame but about preventing something like that from happening again. They must learn the lessons of the past without thinking they are all guilty of it's crimes. I hope they can see that it was their leaders that perverted the code of the Samurai that lead to this act and not their society in whole that is responsible. It is a real crime to not teach your children this important lesson.
Yep. It's important to realize, too, that the Holocaust deniers in Germany are fewer than the Nanking deniers of Japan, precisely because Germany was painstakingly de-Nazified after the war by the allies, while Japan was largely left to its own devices. The US built military bases on Okinawa, Iwo and a number of other Asian outposts to contain any potential future aggression from Japan, but that's about it. They didn't go in and, in helping to rebuild, also de-fascistize Japan. The result is that Japan became an industrial giant, but a moral midget by comparison to Germany. Right-wingers in Japan were not marginalized and criminalized, as they were in Germany, after the war. So the lies could grow and mutate unchecked. It's a shame and a crime, because the Japanese people themselves are certainly not stupid or evil; they're as capable of comprehending and making reparations as any German. The difference is, the political will to acknowledge and make redress was never there. Had the postwar government mandated that they all be informed about Nanking, the way the German children were about the Nazi crimes, things might look very different there today!
'Bina.
'Bina.
Also, there were powerful Jewish interests in the United States that made it clear the Holocaust was not to be forgotten--the same is not true of Chinese interests in the US. That, coupled with the fact that China was to face further atrocities in the so-called "Glorious Revolution" meant it was easy to conveniently ignore abhorent acts like Nanking.
Ah yes...thank you. In the haste to demonize "red" China, it clearly became convenient for the right wing over here to ignore the rape of Nanking. Never mind that it did NOT happen during Mao's era. They were little, they were yellow, they were largely non-Christian, therefore they really didn't matter. 
'Bina.
'Bina.
| QUOTE (BinaBecker @ Monday, 13 December 2004, 9:11 pm) |
| Ah yes...thank you. In the haste to demonize "red" China, it clearly became convenient for the right wing over here to ignore the rape of Nanking. Never mind that it did NOT happen during Mao's era. They were little, they were yellow, they were largely non-Christian, therefore they really didn't matter. 'Bina. |
Yup, it's so disgusting how the Right can nullfy suffering for nonwhites...I hate it.
'Doc
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