Arama They Didn't

gyaru liime_arix
5:52 pm - 08/15/2011

LDP leader Tanigaki, former PM Abe among 50 politicians to visit Yasukuni Shrine

More than 50 members of the conservative opposition Liberal Democratic Party—including current LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and—visited Yasukuni Shrine on Monday.

Visits by senior politicians to the Tokyo war shrine on the anniversary have often inflamed relations with China and South Korea and are closely scrutinized around the region. The Shinto shrine honors the 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo, and is seen by many as a center of Japanese revisionism.

However, neither Prime Minister Naoto Kan nor any members of his cabinet visited Yasukuni on Monday, for the second year in a row. Last year — when Kan was still new at the helm and trying to improve ties with Japan’s Asian neighbors — was the first time since the end of World War II that the entire Japanese cabinet avoided visiting Yasukuni on Aug 15.

Instead, Kan officially laid a wreath Monday morning at a different war memorial in Tokyo that is not associated with Yasukun.

source
Leave a Comment
aoi_shiroyama 15th-Aug-2011 10:51 pm (UTC)
everytime I hear of them visiting this shrine it totally creeps me out
ohprecioustime 15th-Aug-2011 11:11 pm (UTC)
-_-
confusing situation,since one way it has 2.5 million war dead,and even though they were on the wrong side like ennemies,they still are soldiers and soldiers follow orders,so if they die it's not like they knew in the future they would have lost the war and therefore if ppl wanna go here and pay respect to the soldiers that died than fine

but the war criminals should have been put somewhere else

like is visiting the shrine,the same as paying respect to war criminals or can't the PM just saying his paying respect to the soldiers
liime_arix 16th-Aug-2011 12:35 am (UTC)
As with the Shinto religion, once the body has been enshrined, it cannot be removed. Since it's so many people, you're praying for all.
liime_arix 16th-Aug-2011 01:31 am (UTC)
I forget to add on...

Since it's so many people, you're praying for all, when you do visit, it kinda is like paying respect to the war criminals. I mean it's one thing if you're a civilian, but if you're part of a political party, why would you do something that'd cause even more strain on your relationship between neighboring countries. Especially when there's another site that you can attend to pay respect.
tomoeicemaiden 15th-Aug-2011 11:25 pm (UTC)
Glad he was wise enough not to start a shit storm this time around too. He's already knee-deep in it now.
hyphensaregreat 15th-Aug-2011 11:57 pm (UTC)
lol It's like they KNOW it pisses off China and Korea and they're doing it to troll them.
lovebum4life 15th-Aug-2011 11:58 pm (UTC)
I'm glad the PM isn't participating in this dumbass visit
kochan_addict 16th-Aug-2011 12:53 am (UTC)
The whole deal with Yasukuni is down right ridiculous.
People should get over themselves. The shrine houses 2.5 MILLION dead. a few bad apples doesn't mean the rest of the basket should go to waste.
gloris 16th-Aug-2011 01:10 am (UTC)
Agreed. IMO, regardless of their past crimes, the dead are just that, dead.

And I honestly found it strange for China to be so vocal about the visit when two of their former presidents had visited the shrine itself in '56 and '07 respectively.
kochan_addict 16th-Aug-2011 01:44 am (UTC)
Exactly. The dead are dead.
I'm jewish and don't give a rat's ass if someone decides to pray for Hitler in church (or whatever, I don't even know where you'd pray for him if you ever wanted to). What I care for is people following his words, not what people wish for his twisted soul. If people want to pray for his soul to find rest and be allowed into heaven for some reason, let them.
Same with the bastards buried in Yasukuni. What they did in their lifetime doesn't make them any less dead.

Eh, I don't understand China anyway so I'm not even going to try and figure that one out.
bluemonkey87 16th-Aug-2011 01:59 am (UTC)
Feel sorry for Korea and China with what happened with the comfort women and the rape of nanking. They never really got any decent closure for what happened. The japanese can freely deny the incidents or even support the events meanwhile in Europe anyone who denies the Holocaust goes to prison. Sure sucks for them. I can totally understand why they'd be bitter.
gloris 16th-Aug-2011 02:20 am (UTC)
Feel sorry for Korea and China with what happened with the comfort women and the rape of nanking. They never really got any decent closure for what happened.

I do, since the same happened to the women of my country during the Japanese invasion. And like all cases, they were also denied of closure for what happened to them.

But I guess, for me, anyone (politician or not) have the rights to pray for the dead. And even Class-A criminals deserve those prayers.
liime_arix 16th-Aug-2011 03:26 am (UTC)
And even Class-A criminals deserve those prayers.

That's a basic slap to the face for the victims and their family.
riidaaisbest 16th-Aug-2011 03:36 am (UTC)
It's in my opinion from my studies over the years that the reason why Japan was able to get away and not be punished in the manner that Germany was has a lot to deal with whatever the atmosphere was after WWII. There was a very significant power struggle that went on between the USSR and the USA.

For the USA, especially with the thawing of their relationship with the USSR for WWII cooperation and the lead up to the Korean conflict, has a lot to do with why Japan is able to deny incidents and the continual suppression of portions of Japan's history to being "properly" taught in Japanese schools. There's a lot of reasons for why they continue to deny it now, and one of the main reason is of the USA's doing.

(I'm American, not bashing the US for hateful reasons, it's just the overall analysis that has come to view after much study on both Asia and the USA)
sashwizzled 16th-Aug-2011 05:28 am (UTC)
God fucking damn, this comment just reminded me of an argument I got into with a girl about comfort women the other day - she SWORE she'd done 'research' and the whole thing was exaggerated and the comfort women there had done everything 'voluntarily'.

I wanted to kick her in the face tbqh
liime_arix 16th-Aug-2011 12:16 pm (UTC)
I would have kicked her in the face for you.
sashwizzled 16th-Aug-2011 12:28 pm (UTC)
She probably decided that Glorious Nippon couldn't possibly have done anything like that, Googled it and found the one article that backed up her opinion.

She also tried to argue with me a few weeks ago that there was no conclusive link between smoking and lung cancer. So she's an idiot.
czarny 16th-Aug-2011 11:43 pm (UTC)
Oh dear.
baka_tenshi 16th-Aug-2011 02:48 am (UTC)
um. those "few bad dead apples" raped, killed, and maimed numerous people for shits and giggles.

Edited at 2011-08-16 03:00 am (UTC)
kochan_addict 16th-Aug-2011 03:00 am (UTC)
No one says they weren't bad. Rotten apples still stink.
But as long as no-one is trying to revive their way of thinking and as long as no-one is praising the horrible things they did, or worse, trying to copy them, why on earth would you care if people offer a prayer for their miserable souls?!
They are dead, gone, not going to come back and do any harm. And whether you believe they are paying for their crimes in the after-life or not, wishing for their soul to find peace is not going to hurt anyone.

What's dead should be treated as such and IMO, the more people fuss over it the harder it is for everyone to go on with their lives.
Offering prayers to a collective of 2.5 MILLION souls, amongst which reside a few twisted ones, is not going to change what was done or what is going on now.
Learn from the past and make sure such horrors never happen again. That's what's important. Not whether the PM goes to offer his respect to people who died for their country or not.

At least, that's how I see it.
bluemonkey87 16th-Aug-2011 04:17 am (UTC)
Good point. Though it may be hard to learn from the past is they're not actually taught about what happened. That the thing with east Asians. It's all about honor and not losing face.
holly427jj 16th-Aug-2011 03:26 am (UTC)
*facepalms*
Idiots.
But at least the PM didnt go.
k0dama 16th-Aug-2011 04:23 am (UTC)
Thank goodness the PM did not go.

Though I appreciate why they can't remove the offending people due to shintoism, unfortunately no one who is mad about all this is all that interested in learning any more about Japan than they need.
liime_arix 16th-Aug-2011 12:15 pm (UTC)
I understand that they can't remove it (one Korean man has his name enshrined even though he's living). I just wonder why the opposition feels the need to go, while Kan his cabinet doesn't.
k0dama 16th-Aug-2011 04:25 pm (UTC)
because they're just DYING to find any and every way to provoke Korea and China to do something outrageously stupid to use an excuse to gain tracking in Japanese politics to pursue their agendas.

Edited at 2011-08-16 04:26 pm (UTC)
arcangelus 16th-Aug-2011 04:42 am (UTC)
i feel disgusted. unapologetic sinners. this is why we will never have world peace
sashwizzled 16th-Aug-2011 05:49 am (UTC)
I wouldn't have cared if the attention hadn't been being brought to it. That is to say, there are 2.5 million people interred there, so most people going to that shrine are not going there with the intent of being all, 'hey, Shinto Gods. I'm only here for the war criminals, okay? Forgot all those other guys'. They're praying for EVERYONE there. Not a problem with me.

However, with the attention being brought to it, I find it difficult to believe that there isn't some element of 'fuck you I do what I want' involved in this. Especially since they're fucking dressing up for the occasion. And using war crimes to say fuck you to a country to you subjugated? Ooookay, then.
angelachibayuy 16th-Aug-2011 01:39 pm (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with that shrine! Yes there are a few war criminals, but there are also hundreds if not thousands of others honored at the shrine. And if Japan had won, they wouldn't be criminals now would they? (Ever read the stories of how American soldiers, many highly honored, took home Japanese skulls and gold teeth?)

Seriously people need to get over it. It is a beautiful shrine, and yes there is the war museum that is left-backed and obvious propaganda but the shrine and its meaning should not be demonized. Go there before judging people.
sirigorn 18th-Aug-2011 04:51 pm (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the shrine itself... imo, the millions of soldiers who just followed orders are enough reason to let people pray there if they want to, even if there are war criminals there.

However. The museum on the grounds of the shrine is creepy creepy creepy. I visited it a few weeks ago, with a class, and I'm very glad I did. I had heard about Yasukuni before of course, but I'll admit I didn't know too much about the controversy. After haven't visited it (and I tried to keep an open mind) I can absolutely see where the argument is coming from - the museum IS hugely revisionist. The history that we read is revisionist too, of course, as it's written by the victors. But what disturbed me about the museum is that it utterly glossed over all of the atrocities caused by the Japanese during the East Asian Campaign. No mention at all of the Rape of Nanjing, for instance. It also takes no responsibility at all for anything done during the war - everything is portrayed as being the Americans' fault, or the Chinese's, or whatever.

So in light of the museum... I'd rather politicians didn't openly visit the shrine. I won't begrudge anyone their right to honor the war dead, but... if it's an official visit, find another place to do it.
Leave a comment
This page was loaded May 22nd 2013, 9:00 am GMT.