TOM CLIFFORD
members of the public bowed their heads.
The Japanese government must bear responsibility. First they allow the shrine to spread its obnoxious propaganda. Also some visitors were there because Tokyo has not yet organized a decent way for members of the general public to acknowledge an historic day, the surrender of Japan. Literally, across the road the emperor and other dignitaries held a formal ceremony. But the general public is excluded. A vacuum exists, one that Yasukuni can exploit.
The air-conditioned museum annex beside the shrine lured thousands with its promise of cool shade. A Zero fighter takes pride of place near the entrance. A cannon from the 100th Artillery Battalion, from Okinawa, the last of its kind according to the plaque underneath it, was of particular interest. Bullet holes were evident, testimony, the plaque said, to the intensity of fighting. The plaque also states that the exhibits on display are there to ensure the peace of the nation, an assertion that would be laughable if it was not so serious. The shrine, oozing menace and militarism, portrays itself as a keeper of peace.
In Japan, Yasukuni is often described as an oasis. True, its tree-lined avenue, meandering paths, do provide a refuge of sorts from the city’s frenzy. But it acts like an incubator of a vicious creed.
Nobody is suggesting that Japan will become a military state in the foreseeable future, but the building blocks for such a state are disturbingly visible on the streets of Tokyo — from the schoolboys in their Prussian-style uniforms with brass buttons, to the menacing black sound trucks that blare out nationalist propaganda and to which police turn a deaf ear.
Immediately after World War II, Japan experienced its only time of true liberalization. Trade unions were allowed, political debate and dissent encouraged. But then the US occupation forces became chilled by the Cold War and reversed course. War criminals were rehabilitated and political stability became the watchword. Beliefs that sustained and nourished the extreme right were never challenged, as they were in postwar West Germany.