Originally posted by Yeager
While we are on the subject, there are quite a few educated scholars, including american historians, that think american policy towards japan started the whole japanese militarist movement that resulted in japans quest to expand their sphere of influence and military power as well as that pre-emptive act of self defense one sunday morning not all that long ago. Not that I agree with the theory.
And yes, the chinese are justified in their anger. japans military was brutal to china.
Japan's military was brutal to everyone. What they did to china was a warmup. Have you ever read anything about what they did in the Philippines? Their "purification" program to weed out the "un-Asian" people in the islands, and breed the women with Japanese soldiers to restore their "pure Asian blood" to the islands?
That said, it wasnt all of them. Just like no one beleives that EVERY German soldier or pilot in WWII was a war criminal. And just like Germany has learned to live with its past and move forward, Japan needs to be able to do the same. Asian values are different than Western values, its sometimes hard to understand their way of thinking. I still after 8 years of exposure have trouble grasping some of the more subtle things. What I do believe is that the Japanese people should not be required to spend the lives of every generation apologizing for what happened 60 years ago. A fourth generation is now here since the end of the war, and its time for some people to learn to let go. You dont have to forget in order to forgive.
I brought this thread up not to bash on Japanese for hiding the truth, or to bash the Chinese for their reaction. We all hide things we are embarassed about. And they arent LYING, they just arent telling it all in an elementary school textbook. I dont remember much in my textbooks about the slaughter of Indian tribes as we moved across North America. Pretty much all the textbooks said was that they were here before us. I watched a documentary recently that said almost 2/3rds of European middle school students had never heard of Auschwitz. I dont know for sure that this is true, I've never been a European middle school student, and I dont know who did the survey or how the information might have been skewed (if it was). I'm sure there is some truth there or there would have been nothing to find.
Basically, what I'm saying is, there is no reason for anyone from any nation not to be proud of who they are and where they come from. What seems to be lacking is an education that teaches what we have in common, AND teaches a more personal history at the same time. We dont have to be generic to have things in common. Its also a sad fact that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This is supposed to be the "information age", and here we are making the same mistakes all over again.
