It has been 73 years since Japan was defeated in the Second World War.
A decade makes a sea change, but many decades do not seem to be enough to change Japan’s attitude towards its sinful past.
In pursuit of overseas expansion in the previous century, Japan occupied Korea militarily and imposed harsh rule for over 40 years.
As it tried to eradicate the Korean nation and wipe out Korea, Japan ordered Koreans obey the Japanese law or die and enforced an outrageous, murderous and predatory policy. As a result, at least a million Koreans were massacred, 8.4 million young and middle-aged locals conscripted, and as many as 200 000 Korean women forced to serve Japanese troops as sex slaves.
Japan also seized Korea’s precious cultural assets and exploited a colossal amount of natural resources as military materiel.
Even so, Japan has embellished, if not denied, such wrongdoings in the past.
The twist of historical facts goes too far under the Abe regime.
Abe describes the past aggression as an act taken in accord with the past environment and an inevitable option for the survival of the insular nation, and openly claims that Japan’s new generations that have nothing to do with the past war should not be destined to continue to apologize.
Riding a wave of militarism, the authorities are taking the lead in visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, rewriting history textbooks and whitewashing past crimes in the international arena. An incredible sum of money is being spent on military buildup.
Japan’s attitude toward the past is a sharp contrast to Germany’s.
In 1969, former West German chancellor Willy Brandt apologized to the victims for Nazis’ war crimes. In May 1985, West German president Richard von Weizsäcker said that ignorance of the past leads to ignorance of the present and those trying to forget unethical acts are likely to be influenced by new bad things.
At present, German schools are obliged to refer to what Nazi Germany did in history lessons and the past wrongdoings are generally dealt with by media and symposiums.
Japan should realize that they can never erase its sinful past by whitewashing and ignoring historical facts and that there will be no present or future of Japan without past.
It is destined to redress its sinful past.
URL:http://www.pyongyangtimes.com.kp/?bbs=27347
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