7.4 Japanese national identity after war

As a Chinese, the excursion I expected the most and resisted the most is today’s trip to Yasukuni Shrine. In the whole exploration on Japan’s national identity after WWII,the discussion and reflection on the war is also the part interests me the most. 

Both Yasukuni Shrine and Yushukan Museum play an important role in portray Japan as a victim and hero during WWII. Yasukushi Shrine isn't inherently wrong since it was built during Meiji period and was to honor those who died during civil war for establishment of new government. However, adding war criminals make things more complicated. While Arlington is simply a cemetery, Yasukuni is a shrine, to be shrined is different from to be buried.  And those war criminals didn't die for the battle, but rather executed or still alive during the occupation. So by shrining them in the shrine, is an equivalent of shrining the war itself rather than "loyal and self-sacrifice" spirit. The Yushukan museum, whose name ironically taken from a Chinese text, offers an alternative narrative for WWII. If the English translation and guide can be somehow called objective, the Japanese version is trying to get away from the nature of the war, which is colonialism and invasion. It depicts Japan's position as leading Asia out of Western colonialism, and the victory of Russo-Japan war is the pride and inspiration for all Asian people. Soldiers are humanized again in this museum, through the things they used and the letter they sent back home during war. It is very complicated to summarize, as indeed, these soldiers and Japanese who died in the war were victims, but the same or even larger fatality happened in other Asian countries as well, and they were not those who start this. By such narrative given by a nation and displayed in a public or travel spot, it is a way to honor and to justify the war and invasion.

Because of national pride an nationalism, it is hard for right-wing to acknowledge or apologize for the things Japan did during war time. So by shrining war-criminals and other soldiers died for the war, history is justified, and crimes are excused. However, individuals and government can be somehow separated. Soldiers and commoners were victims, because some of them didn't know what was happening, and they simply had no choice but to align with the militarist government. Even in this way some may still argue that every individual during wartime somehow contributed to invade and genocide by money, by labor or by directly participating in the war. But still, combine individuals and government together, is a way to depict the whole as unconscious and forced to do so, which is not true.  And by doing this, there is no space for reflection on why the war happened, why other Asian countries should suffer, and at least, why Japanese own people have to die in this war. As a war museum, it will be better if the main theme is to value peace, rather than to victimize the whole nation and serve nationalist sentiment.