Yasukuni article and interview with Li Ying

[Roger Macy]

Mark Nornes wrote :-
it seems to me there are far more relationships to Yasukuni than we see represented in documentaries

One of the reasons I was sad to have to leave before the showing of Yasukuni' was because I have just finished reading 'Yasukuni: the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan's Past', edited by John Breen.  It says it came out in December, but I only recently saw it on the shelves and, since no one else has mentioned it, I thought I'd highlight it.  It has the form of an academic book with an editor and a range of contributors.  But several of the contributions are openly rhetorical, if not polemical, albeit from a range of political and geographic perspectives.  All of the opinions expressed on this list, and in the linked interview can be found in these essays, as well as several which tackle the religious focus more directly.  It would be a hard book to review without taking up Markus' point, directed at documentary films, as to whether a compilation of views produces objectivity.  Although my copy is riddled with disagreeing notes, I still found it enlightening.

But, this book, although having several Japanese contributors, is written entirely in English, whereas Li Ying's film is in Japanese.  What other country has the ideology of their war memorials turned over in a foreign tongue?  There's nothing uniquely unique in the denial by an influential sector of Japan of the damage inflicted by their militarism and colonialism.  I was confronted by this in Frankfurt at the weekend at the Jewish museum where there was on permanent exhibition a film called 'Let My People Go'.  This presented Israeli military action as purely defensive and heroic, and ethnic cleansing was privileged by victimhood.  Civilian and non-combatant casualties were simply factored out of the numbers quoted.  Nothing uniquely unique there either.  I mention it because it is presented in an eerily familiar way, as a transcendental conclusion to historical destiny.  Also because it was the only war memorial that I could find in Frankfurt.

Of course, it behoves us all to look to the victims of our own militarism, particularly if we support it. On the remarks in the interview about Germany's conscious decision not to conspicuously commemorate war dead, two points occur.  Firstly, there is an active movement in the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgr?berf?rsorge to commemorate Germany's war-dead where they fell, in collaboration with commemoration of their victims. This seems a humane response.  The Federal German consensus was particularly visible in the restoration of the Mariankirche at Dresden which had previously been left as a ruin by the GDR.  Not so long ago I went to a talk by the Anglican representatitive on the overseeing committee of the restoration that was specifically charged, inter alia, with commemorating those who fell at Dresden.  The talk consisted entirely of her hobnobbing with Chancellor K?hl etc.  So I asked 'How were the dead now to be commemorated?'  'Oh, she replied, 'not at all'.  In my opinion the restoration of the Mariankirche spectacularly succeeded but that she personally failed to see that she was behoven to take the commemoration of the Dresden fire-bombing home.
Ironically, the one place that takes up this idea is Yasukuni, although not unanimously.  I read in John Breen's book that Yasukuni's chief priest between 1946 and 1977, Tsukuba Fujimaro was instrumental in constructing the Chinreisha, dedicated to the war dead of Japan's erstwhile enemies.  Shortly after his retirement, the Chinreisha was enclosed from view by a high steel fence that has only recently been taken down.  The annual festival of the Chinreisha is 17 July (p9) or on 13 July (p150).  One hopes that, this time, Japan will not be alone in honouring the victims of one's own arms and need not feel humiliated.  Why don't we all select 13 July ?  I echo what Jasper said about the British comparison.  The inscription that the British prime minister sees every day is 'The Glorious Dead'.  All of them.

Thanks, if you got this far in reading my very uncinematic response to recent posts.  I also hope to get a chance to see the film.  And Nippon Connection was much appreciated.
Roger
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark Nornes 
  To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 8:17 PM
  Subject: Re: Yasukuni article and interview with Li Ying


  Now I see this. It's what I get for reading my inbox backwards!  


  On Apr 8, 2008, at 1:04 PM, Jasper Sharp wrote:

    I'm also of the opinion that the Chinese condemnation of these visits has more than a slight air of opportunistism about it. The war ended 60 years ago now, and I see a film such a Tokko as part of an interesting way of looking at how and why the world descended into such horrific madness on such a scale, of trying to get a clearer picture of "the fog of war" from a more detached time distance. The ongoing finger-pointing and acrimony in Asia does not seem helpful or healthy, and seems more motivated by contemporary politics. It might just be time to draw a line and move on as has been the case in Europe. 


  I feel something close to the sentiments Jasper writes. Condemnations of Yasukuni from the Japanese left feel knee-jerk; celebrations on the right are just as automatic?and all the while, I meet so many Japanese who really don't care much one way or the other.  I always wondered why the left didn't attempt to appropriate Yasukuni from under the right-wing's nose. Surely there should be a space for mourning the dead of such a horrible war. When I've mentioned that to anti-Yasukuni friends, they cannot even imagine it. And I think they can't imagine it because they need the place. Just as Chinese and Korean nationalists seem to need the place as well. The symbolic power of places like Yasukuni, Nanking, even Hiroshima, blind us to the more complex history they're actually embedded in. Just as Hiroshima gets all the attention and Americans are never asked to think about strategic bombing (or even Nagasaki!), it seems to me there are far more relationships to Yasukuni than we see represented in documentaries?where everything resolves neatly to right and left. The best piece I've seen on the shrine is Tsuchiya Yutaka's Does the Emperor Have War Responsibiity, and I sense that the new film may be similar. But maybe not? Can't wait to see this thing. But when!?!?


  Markus
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