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NEWS Comments to the BKK:



May 29, 1998


                                                 



                                           Postbag 


                          We have not taken responsibility

                          I strongly disagree with the Bangkok Post
                          editorial ("Sins of the past visit the
emperor",
                          May 28) that suggests former British
                          prisoners of war are instruments of a
                          jingoistic tabloid press and that "even if the
                          war is long over, nobody appears to have
                          told them". To me, the soldiers' message
                          rings clear. We as Japanese have not taken
                          enough responsibility for our past.

                          In schools, heavily censored textbooks gloss
                          over the part about the rise of imperial
Japan.
                          National discourse about World War Two is
                          largely limited to Hiroshima and Nagasaki
                          being nuked by the Americans, a valid but
                          incomplete discussion. And getting the
                          Japanese government to even talk about
                          addressing their dark past is the political
                          equivalent of pulling teeth.

                          A public revolving fund sponsored by the
                          Japanese government, voluntarily supported
                          by Japanese corporations, organisations and
                          everyday citizens, with the specific goal of
                          raising money to compensate those who
                          suffered under the Japanese during WWII
                          would be a politically symbolic gesture and a
                          concrete way Japan could begin to address
                          the past. Perhaps there are too many people
                          to compensate every individual who suffered,
                          but I am inclined to think that it is not what
                          the Japanese government gives, as much as
                          how and why.

                          The point is that any action on the part of
the
                          Japanese must be accompanied by genuine
                          sincerity and a renewed commitment for
                          peace, not reluctance. No amount of money
                          can make up for the anguish, the agony and
                          the grief these soldiers and other have
                          suffered. If we as Japanese do not
                          understand that, we understand nothing.

                          Ehito Kimura