On October 17, the new Japanese Prime Minister sent an offering to the Yasukuni Shrine.
The Yasukuni Shrine enshrines the name tablets of top war criminals who were punished by history as they started wars of aggression against humanity and wrecked world peace in the last century.
The Prime Minister’s offering of tribute to the shrine, which is a symbol of Japanese imperialism, is an explicit denial of Japan’s past unethical crimes and a serious challenge to the international community.
It can never be regarded as an annual or common event for the incumbent head of government to do such a thing at the time when the international community is raising voices in demand of an apology and reparations for Japan’s past wrongs.
In the light of the behaviour of Japan that does not admit its heinous unethical crimes, far from apologizing for them, the tribute offering is a revelation of the sinister design to negate the sins, conjure the ghost of militarism and revenge its defeat in the Second World War and also part of its manoeuvres to realize the wild ambition for reinvasion it keeps harbouring no matter how much time passes. This shows that the current regime is as reactionary as the preceding governments that pursued the revival of militarism.
Saying that Japan was defeated as it was weak, successive ultra-right regimes of the country set it as a state policy to turn it into a military power and squandered a huge sum of money to that end.
They have also obstinately avoided the admission of its past wrongdoings and tried to cover them up. A typical example is their relentless denial of the crime concerning the sexual slavery for the Japanese imperial army which is the butt of international censure and rejection.
Another purpose of Japan’s denial is to evade the settlement of the past.
It calculates that if it keeps denying its history of aggression and crimes, they would sink into oblivion and it would be able to be freed from the responsibility for reparations.
History can never be changed or erased even if anyone keeps denying it.
Japan must break away from militarism and make sincere soul-searching and reparations for the past wrongs, instead of ridiculously scheming to invoke the ghost of militarism and wipe out the past crimes. Only then can it be forgiven by the international community including neighbouring countries and be its honourable member.
Apology and reparations for past sins are an inevitable fate of the defeated nation of Japan.
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