The education system within Japan is perhaps the most sinister aspect of their malaise. Japanese education is notoriously known to be one of the most rigorous, competitive, and “study hard” system in the world. Yet in this slippery pyramid of education, the Japanese do not provide students with an accurate account of World War II, one of the biggest and greatest influence within the twentieth century. Not until 1994 were Japanese school children taught that Hirohito’s army was responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million Asian civilians, and allied soldiers during the war. Critical elements such as the Japanese role in the Rape of Nanking, the forced evacuations of Chinese and Korean prisoners to labor camps in Japan, the exploitation of “ Korean comfort women,” and other atrocities are all glossed over, rationalized, or omitted from Japanese textbooks, society, and often from Japanese memories. As Iris Chang, the author of The Rape of Nanking puts it, “Denial is an integral part of atrocity, and it’s a natural part after a society has committed genocide. First you kill them, then the memory of killing is killed.” Because the academic community in Japan has failed to properly research the truth on the Rape of Nanking, it has been primarily left up to those operating outside academia, such as journalists or freelance authors to present the truth of the massacre to the Japanese public.
When Japan opened up their national museum on World War II, the world was horrified to see they had left out Japan’s negative role in the war and solely concentrated on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the film, The Last Emperor, the films distribution company removed a thirty second scene depicting the Rape of Nanking, because it was “too gruesome,” and would not serve the moral of the country.
Because the Japanese were and still are very concerned with “saving face,” an Asian concept which focuses on preserving one’s dignity, integrity, and pride, they often deny and rationalize things so that they are seen in a better, more favorable light. Yet ironically, not only do their horrific actions speak contrary to that ancient Asian philosophy, hiding and denying the occurrence of the Rape of Nanking is more shameful than anything else.
Chang’s novel written in1997, was widely criticized in Japan. The contract to have her novel translated into Japanese, to be published and distributed throughout Japan was canceled due to opposing views on the veracity of the book. Many Japanese scholars and high level officials denounced this book as false and fictitious, or at best, a great exaggeration. When Chinese president Jiang Zemin visited Japan in late 1998, he succeeded in extracting from his hosts a more forthcoming, yet still grudging apology for past “misdeeds.” In this, Jiang was trying to unite China while attempting to bring open both dormant and raging issues in Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations. All Chinese, whether Nationalists or Communists, are united in their fight for justice, and their quest for acknowledgment of war crimes committed against them during the war.
The historical past has been a source of friction in China-Japan ties, and passions, resentment, and anger are easily inflamed when in the face of provocation. Unlike Japan, Chinese students are reared on tales of Japanese atrocities during the brutal time period of 1937-45, when they occupied China. At the age of eight, school children are shown their first photograph of the Japanese bayoneting and beheading Chinese civilians in Nanking. Therefore in the past sixty years tensions between the two nations still can run high. After a Japanese Right-wing convention denied that the 1937 massacre happened, many Chinese voted to boycott Japanese goods. After the conference that ironically took place in the Osaka International “Peace” Center in January 2000, where right winged Japanese derided the Rape of Nanking as a myth, computer hackers struck at Japanese government Internet web sites, taunting Japanese authorities with insults. As the Japanese write books to counter argue Chang’s novel, and as they use media to create for themselves a better history, I believe China’s, People’s Daily puts it best when it states, “Lies written in ink, cannot cover up facts written in blood.”
Sadly enough, very few Americans know about the Rape of Nanking. Many may have heard of the book written by Iris Chang, as it caused an international storm of controversy, but very few know the facts of this enormous massacre of innocent civilians and allied, unarmed soldiers. That is why many people call the Rape of Nanking the second and forgotten Holocaust. Who today can possibly deny the occurrence of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, who does not know of Adolf Hitler and the atrocities committed against the Jews during World War II? Can you imagine Germany today declaring that ethnic cleansing and the killing of millions of Jews never happened, or at most that it is an extreme exaggeration of events? I think not. Thus I must ask, what has caused this vast difference in world perception of these two holocausts?
