Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:23 pm Post subject: Introduction to a Lost War
What purpose is there to giving historical events a name? Is this naming process influenced by the cultures involved?
I think that there can be a great purpose to giving historical events a name. Clearly, that is not the case for the Japanese concerning what we know to be WW2. Reading this introduction, i completely understood why the Japanese people wanted to repress the memories of the war time. I think that we give names to historical events partially to help us remember what and when they happened, but for the most part to help us come to terms with that event. In the case of WW2, americans are very public about the events and are willing to share their personal stories about it. I think that this is a completely valid way to deal with the war, but not the only one. The japanese people have taken another road, which sometimes is confused with denial. I do not think that the Japanese refuse to openly recount the war because they are trying to erase it from their history, in fact i think it is the complete opposite. I think that through their silence, and subdued reflection once a year, they show that these years in their history are moments to learn from. That even if the war is not talked about openly, they recognize the atrocities that war brings about, and war is not something they condone.
I think the next question is quite easily answered, that yes the process of naming historical events is influenced by the cultures involved. Two different cultures, american and japanese, processed and named this period in two completely separate ways.
I think that the culture surrounding events absolutely plays a role in their naming. The Manchuria "incident" for example gives the impression of blamelessness on the part of the Japanese. It was an event inflicted upon, or at the very worst a negative situation to which they had to respond, "incident" completely rules out the possibility of incitement, precisely what such a name would seem to be intended to establish. I did a bit of outside research and I could not find the name used officially for the Nanjing massacre by the Japanese, however I feel that I can say with some confidence that they would use neither rape nor massacre to describe it. I hate to use personal anecdotes in a history class, as they are so inexact, despite my reservations however, I will proceed. I lived in Japan for a number of years, and while I was not very old (I left when I was 12) I was aware even then of a tendency towards revisionism. If the subject of the second world war were to come up in a conversation with my friends native to Tokyo, the Japanese people were always, in their minds, entirely the victims, unjustly persecuted by the West. And while I never personally encountered this point of view, there does exist a faction of Japanese historians who claim the rape of Nanjing was more or less fabricated for anti-Japanese propaganda. Until I believe the seventies the events at Nanjing were not included, or at most made delicate and passing reference to, in all history textbooks available to students at Japanese public schools, and those which made clear the brutality and utter inhumanity of those two weeks were banned. So it would seems that there was some element of the Manchurian "incident" and the China "incident" which induced the military to downplay their responsibility in the formation of these events, and consequently those events which followed. The simple answer is of course that, in the case of the bombing of the Japanese rail line in Manchuria, the military was indeed fabricating a reason to occupy the region and making clear that they were responding to a threat rather than instigating a conflict, was critical to gain the approbation of the Japanese people and government. However perhaps we could view it as a more complex issue pertaining to the national idea of entitlement which went along with the notions of Japanese superiority.
Hardy, In response to your story, which i found quite interesting and appropriate, I wonder where this idea of the unjust persecution came from? Was this feeling generated by the government and their anti-western propaganda? Or was it a general consensus that the population came to on their own. I haven't the faintest idea as to the answer, but i think either way it shows a different side of Japan's response to the war.
Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:00 pm Post subject: Forum POst
I would definitely have to agree with Hardy...
I have mentioned about Japanese revisionism in textbooks and such in my essay, and its just horrible how Japan had done that and that now that that generation that is educated according to that distorted history is dominating Japan now...
I would definitely have to agree to the prompt, therefore, because a lot of war crimes, just by looking at Japanese example during WWII, are covered by there names. I think it is evidently crucial how one event is named after it is done.
Although the introduction says that it may be hard for an American to understand the Japanese perspective on war experience in their own country, I could kind of see where Japan was coming from. It's not unusual for a country to try and cover up their shameful past. We've seen this in American culture with vastly different accounts of the Native American massacre and such, although Japan did have a more non-confrontational attitude. It was interesting to hear your first hand experience with this subject, Hardy.
The names of Japanese wars reflects all that Japan wants to remember: the date each event began. Even endings weren't as openly talked about, a concept that struck me as a bit strange. An ending date would imply an outcome, a subject that was simply not discussed at the time. The Japanese tried their hardest to play like these wars never occurred, banning all forms of expression relating to the war. All that remains is the few personal anecdotes and lived on inside the Japanese survivors' heads.
I'd be curious to see what everyone else thinks about the way education changed when the shame of defeat set in on the Japanese? Do you think they would be so military focused even after their loss, or would Japan completely erase their failure until it was almost as if it didn't even begin with?
Giving a name to an historical event can be important, but it is not the most important thing to remembering the event accurately. Americans call the war we were involved in "World War II," which is a convenient label, but except for the "World"part, it does not really say anything. The war with Japan we usually label "the war in the Pacific," but what else would we call it, from our perspective? For the Japanese to label the whole 1931 to 1945 conflict the War in the Pacific is a different matter, very misleading. But the introduction to the Lost War does make clear that the Japanese do have other names for the war they fought, or parts of it, and some of these names are sensible enough.
But the problem of how the Japanese remember the war, and what they do not remember, is cultural, and does not involve names. The introduction to the Lost War skirts around onr big reason for the fragmented, disjointed memories of the Japanese veterans and their families. The Japanese government, from 1931 to 1945, did not want the Japanese people to know what was really going on, especially if they were not doing well.
I would agree with all of what has been said. I could try to make this post long by being redundant but that wouldn't get us very far.
Each war is unique to each person (or country in this matter) and is open to personal interpretation.
It seems that everyone is taking it more from a historical perspective, which in reference to the reading, it only makes sense to do that. But when I read the prompt, I took a step back and thought about why we give titles and names for things in general(to help me answer the question). I feel that giving names/titles to things gives them purpose and relevance. Not that titless events in history have no relevance, because there are so many events in history that were never accounted for. But it gives an identity to the thing or event that is being named. For example, in the Berlin Conference during the 19th century, all the European countries came together and divided up Africa as if they were dividing up a pizza amongst themselves. From a European prospective, Yes, it would be called a "conference" because it is seen as a civilized gathering of intellects discussing which parts of Africa they liked the best. But from an African's point of view, it wouldn't be see as or called a "conference," but a bunch of greedy men all in one room who somehow have the power and influence to decide the fate of a continent. So it might be better that historical events be named by those most affected by it.
I agree with everything that's been said, really, and I can see why Japan would refer to the events the way they do. Japan definitely isn't the only country that sort of "warps" their history, but I don't think that naming events in a way that sort of disguises what actually went on is a way of forgetting or pretending it didn't happen, more that it's just a way of trying not to draw attention to it. The saying goes that "those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it" and I think that's kind of true; it's not so easy to just pretend a historical event never happened, and doing so probably wouldn't be helpful anyways.
From the first time I learned about Nanjing Massacre, it has always been called that way. Maybe it’s because Taiwan was a part of China at that time, so our textbook stand point is very much the same as the Chinese. So I definitely agree that the naming process of history events is influenced by culture.
Also I remember a few years ago, the Prime Minister of Japan at that time did apologize for the comfort women. Before Japan had been trying to deny the existence of comfort women, but there were too many victims in China, Taiwan, Korea and other counties to prove it, and these countries had put pressure on Japan to admit and apologize. However, there are still many people in Japan who continue to deny the existence of comfort women, just like they have been denying the Nanjing Massacre.
On a side note, the Pacific War (as most people called it) was called 大東亜戦争(which if translate directly will be The Great East Asia War) by the Japanese government at that time.
In addition to what Isaac and Molly mentioned, one purpose to giving historical events a name is to remind us of incidents in an efficient way. Those events on this purpose are mostly named after descriptive words; however, the other purpose to giving historical events a name is to seal the past crimes of war. In this case, historical events are named after where the affairs take places. I figured that “the China Incident” is the second case. Japanese tendencies to shy from acknowledging their war crimes explain well why the third of five sons, one of the Japanese interviewees in the reading, had to hesitate to show his eldest’s picture of a Chinese, his arms bound tightly, and several shots of Chinese women with bound feet and wild Manchurian landscapes and why the Japanese anniversary of the day on every august 15 is not used to discuss the reasons of the war.
I agree that to give an event a name is to give it an identity and recognize its importance. Similar to Ting Chun, I learned of 1923 Great Kantō earthquake as "Kanto Massacre" with Korea's perspective.
In the reading I could see the different significance of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese mostly remembered their surrender and the pain of the war, like the title "The Fifteen-Year War" which emphasizes 1931 to be the beginning of the war.
The choice of one name over another, is, as many people have brought up, absolutely used to characterize an event in a certain way. The use of the term incident evokes a certain neutrality and blamelessness that rape and massacre do not. But even the very act of giving a name to a specific event or time lends it significance, regardless of what the name actually is and what sense that title actually characterizes the event with. I think there's a n tendency in the study of history to try to lay out a set of significant events that follow and beget one another and that would have begotten each other regardless of whatever else was happening in the realm of the smaller and less significant events. The butterfly effect is all good and well but it's really difficult to actually include the outwardly spreading effect of small events in a historical perspective. So giving a name to an event sets it aside as one of the ones that propels history, not just one of the ones that flows with it.
Joined: 15 Feb 2011 Posts: 7 Location: United States of America
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:51 am Post subject:
This chapter seemed to focus mostly on the way in which the Japanese thought and talked about their involvements in WWII. And according to the author there seems to be a culture of silence surrounding the Japanese actions in this time period. While there are memorials and days of remembrance of the dead, there are very few discussions of the reasons of the war and very few apologies for the countries that Japan invaded. The general idea is that japan should remember their losses but forget the horrific acts which harmed millions. On page 11 the author writes, "there is no concerted national effort to preserve, accumulate, and reconstruct the war from an historical perspective." He's observing a national lack of self-confrontation and remembrance.
The names put upon war-time events display hidden opinions and perspectives of those who use them. The author points out that the "fifteen-year-war" implies a leftist perspective of the war, taking into account the imperialist origins of it. "The Greater East Asia War" implies a "revisionist right" which maybe still sympathizes with the actions and intent of Japan at this time. The fact that there is still no official name says a lot about how Japanese think of this war. Or don't.
i definitely think that there is a purpose to giving historical events names. it helps us to remember the event, but the name can also shed some light on exactly what went on around that event. names of events, can bring up emotions about that event and can help people to remember the reactions to the event.
i think that the culture does play a part, as hardy was saying and as we saw in the reading the americans had a much more up front way of dealing with what had happened, so it would make sense for them to have named a lot of the events, what with them being discussed so often. whereas in japan, since their way of recognizing and dealing with what had happened was through silence i think that they would be less likely to come up with names, since they aren't really needed.
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