Yasukuni Shrine

[SoggyFrog]

This debate has political extensions, which we will be trying to avoid.

The Yasukuni Shrine has honoured the men, women and children who died for Japan since the Boshin War that ended in 1868. A matter of controversy has arisen in more recent decades when in 1978 14 class A war criminals (7 of whom were executed.) from World War II were included among those honoured. Of the 2.5 million names listed, there are over 1000 war criminals honoured in the shrine. Further details:

BBC Article
Wikipedia Article
Yasukuni Page

Should those who commit war crimes be honoured for their sacrifice?

[Zuwxiv]

Does a suicide bomber show dedication as well as sacrifice to his cause? Sure, but he also blows up busloads of children.

War criminals should be honored for their dedication, but shunned for their actions.

[kshcshbash]

Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto Shrine created during the Meiji Restoration, at a time when Japan was changing from a backwards crapper to a Great Power.
It commemorates the Spirits of the Soldiers who died hailing Banzai to the Emperor of Japan.

Originally it was dedicated to the dead Soldiers of the Boshin Civil War, but now covers more than 10 different conflicts, including World War Two. It also enshrines Wartime nurses and student soldiers.
The Shinto Religion teaches that when a person dies, their Spirit remains on in this world andis known as a kami. The kami-tachi of one's ancestors should be respected and worshipped, and they will protect you.
There are approximately two and a half million Kami-tachi enshrined at Yasukuni. This includes convicted war criminals from World War Two.

There is a huge amount of controversy over the worship of those convicted of War crimes. No doubt, their crimes were horrific ranging from ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of POWs to the massacres of entire villages. However, before you pass judgement, you must look at the motivation.

In World War Two, Bushido was revived amongst the ranks as a way of increasing the fighting spirit of the men. They were taught the older notions of Honour and loyalty. This can be directly related to the brutality of the Japanese soldiers. They were taught to sacrifice themselves for their country and their Emperor, who was believed to be a living kami.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo says:

Lord Naoshige said, "An ancestor's good or evil can be determined by the conduct of his desecendants." A descendant should act in a way that will manifest the good in his ancestor and not the bad. This is filial piety."
[...]
When Nakano Shogen commited seppuku, the members of his group gathered at Oki Hyobu's place and said various bad things about him. Hyobu said, "One does not speak bad things about a person after his death. And since a person who has recieved some censure is to be pitied. It is the obligation of a Samurai to speak something good of him, no matter how little. There is no doubt that in twenty years, Shogen will have the reputation of a faithful retainer."
These truly were the words of a seasoned man.

No matter how bad the crime, the descendants of the soldiers should strive to highlight the good in them, and not the bad. This concept can be applied to the War Shrines, one should enshrine their Ancestors for the good in them and not the bad, regardless of just how bad that might be. The Japanese people's are Worshipping their ancestors for the good that they did.

Tsunetomo also states that no matter how evil or unjust an order my be, a retainer must do his masters bidding.
That is exactly what the Japanese soldiers did.Now you may argue that this is condoning the war crimes that they commited. It is not. When someone visits the Shrine they visit it to remember the sacrifices that their ancestors made.

The Dead must be Honoured. Irrelevant of what they did in life, one must "speak something good of him, no matter how little". That isn't speaking good of their evil.
Their Way is to respect the dead and honour them. Did they die with honour? It doesn't matter. What about the honour of their victims? One more thing that doesn't matter. Let their men honour them.
This may sound like a racist system, but it is not. If each person was to honour their ancestors according to his Way, then nobody would be left dishonoured.

If a memorial to Hitler was created in Berlin, there would be outrage. Why? Because it is not the Way of the German peoples to honour men who commited evil.
Our societies are inherently different. We do not believe in izzad like the Japanese. Death is a very sheltered affair, seldom discussed or visited. Life and Death are very separated. We live on in history, alone. Life after Death is based on

Life before death. This does not allow us to forget Life.
Bushido, on the other hand, teaches that we should live as though we are already dead. This creates a single "era" in a life.

That is very...common...to people. They do not hold acts against the deceased and are able to pick out different parts so as to let the Spirit continue living as a good person.
This affects how they are remembered, and eventually the two Ways will clash.

One Way will demand that the Spirit is post-humously punished for its bad deeds, whereas the other believes that the deceased should be honoured for it's good deeds.

Remember the core idea of what Yasukuni represents. The sacrifice of Soldiers for their country. It does not represent the war crimes of the soldiers. Leave them at the door.

What people are asking to do is to go against the Way and that just can't be done.


Each unto his own.

[Syron]

Exactly, this is essentially a form of ancestor worship that was particularly common in the Asia-Pacific region.

We must separate it from other situations as it is primarily cultural and not ideological in origin. I've studied Japanese and while doing so learnt about the culture and it's important to stress it in many area's is incredibly different to that which most people here are familiar with.

By worshipping these people at the shrine they're not saying that what they did is good, they're saying it's important to remember them just like everyone else.

in this case and considering what it means to the Japanese it is important to do what they are doing.

The only problem is that this causes political tensions. I think more should be done to show why the Japanese do what they do. It also helps when the Prime Minister makes apologies for the hurt caused to others when he does visist the shrine like today.

[Dromikaites]

Humm, I don't really buy this East vs. West diference in philosophy especially when we're talking about a major incident in the history of mankind. Especially when partly the war crimes performed by the Japanese army had to do with cultural diferences (like in "a soldier who surrenders is forever dishonored so we can treat him whichever way we want") and with the idea of the divine origin of Japan, the Japanese people and the imperial family.

The situation is similar to the fact the Nazi war crimes had to do partly with the Nazi ideology. If you wonder why I say only partly and not totally is because both in case of Germany and in Japan there were Germans and Japanese who didn't commit any atrocities. The other part responsible for the war crimes is to be found inside the perpetrators' psyche.

Because ideology/beliefs/culture had a contribution, the best way to reduce the probability of that happening again in the future is for the victorious powers to deal with that ideology/system of beliefs/culture. That was taken care of in Germany (with executing the main war criminals and with the de-Nazification) but, surprisingly enough, not in Japan. I say surprisingly because, on the other hand, the Japanese "benefitted" from receiving the visit of 2 atom bombs.

Hanging the emperor, making Japan a republic, executing the war criminals and scattering their ashes in an unknown location (like it was done with the war criminals convicted at Nuremberg), de-Bushido-ing the Japanese culture would have probably been a better approach considering the current events (the visit to the Yasukuni shrine or the downplaying of Japanese war crimes in school textbooks).

On the other hand the Chinese and the Koreans could move one step forward from merely protesting. Freezing some Japanese assets and expelling some Japanese diplomats would send a more clear message about what is acceptable or not. UK, US, Australia, New Zeeland and the Netherlands are among the nations whose citizens were victims of those 10 war criminals, therefore they might help by joining in.

[MoROmeTe]

10 criminals among the millions honoured... And Japan still only has an army for defensive purposes. So it seems a bit excesive to say that those 10 take precedence over the others and that honoring them somehow makes Japan a revisionist, morally bankrupt state. As long as the criminals did really sacrifice their lives for Japan I believe visiting the shrine is OK. Maybe building another one mentioning the names of those who were the victims of the war criminals would make it easier to swallow for the outside world...

[Shadow_Imperator]

Japan, likewise German, have every Goddamn right to honour those that died for their country. As has been said, shun the cruel and unjust action of those found culpable of such crimes without remorse. But for the majority, who fought for faith, family and fatherland (and in the Japanese case, the Emperor), their people should be able to freely honour the sacrifice of their ancestor as they wish, minus the petty foreign protests...

Does Australia kick up a stink about the Turks honouring the dead at Gallipoli? No, we allow them to honour their dead as they allow us to honour ours. We pay our respects to the fallen, and in some cases side by side. Does the Greek and Armenian genocides affect our ability to comiserate with the Turks over our mutual losses? No, however, that doesn't justify what the Turks did to others (Greeks, Armenians, Kurds ect), that is not Australia's problem.. Maybe the Austral/Turk relationship with Gallipoli should be a model for others to follow in terms of honouring the men and women who were casualties in wartime...

The Japanese have a different believe and understanding of life and death than much of the western world, it is a difference we should respect and understand. Understand the fact, that Japanese are Japanese, and that they are different.

[danzig]

The shrine existed before WW2 no? That being the case this is a non issue imo and something China and South Korea make too much of. Yeah so there are war criminals listed there, Im sure there are a bunch of German war criminals buried in various graves in Germany should people stop going to visit *other* graves or memorials because of it? The PM isnt going to pay honor to those who are war criminals, he is going to pay honor to war dead the fact some of those dead are horrible people is really irrelevant. To put it in an American pov, Im sure there are some names on the Vietnam memorial who in life were horrible people and did some nasty stuff in Vietnam...should people stop visiting THAT because of those few?

Id be more concerned with the museum part which according to one of those links is a bit of a revisionist history lessson. Especially if it denies things like Nanking Massacre.

[Dromikaites]

The issue is not about honoring the dead soldiers. The issue is about honoring the dead war criminals.

Now I'm not an expert of the Japanese culture but I happen to know that the Japanese culture was preventing them from accepting unconditional surrender. Two A bombs later the culture didn't stand in the way of signing the unconditional surrender anymore. Brute force can go a long way. Do you really think that there would have been any war criminal enshrined in the Yasukuni temple in case of the Chinese occupying Japan instead of the Americans?

The Japanese have a different believe and understanding of life and death than much of the western world, it is a difference we should respect and understand.

We might understand the Japanese point of view in order to correct it. Not everything a culture or a religion has is worth of respect and deserves protection. Otherwise we would still have Aztec human sacrifices and ritual burnings of the Indian widows.

Understand the fact, that Japanese are Japanese, and that they are different.

Understand the fact there's nothing the Japanese cannot learn to do, provided there's enough pressure applied. It may start with expelling their diplomats and freezing their assets and it might end with dropping a few more A bombs (preferably on the temple). But trust me, the Japanese are intelligent people and they will learn new ways of looking at life an death if somebody is determeined enough to use the teaching methods they best respond to

Contrary to what you seem to think, the Japanese economic miracle proves they're very quick learners provided they have the right motivation. It's up to the countries that are offended by the presence of the war criminals in the temple to create the motivation and deliver the lessons to the Japanese.