Did the Japanese learn anything from their militarism?
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About 25 years ago I was travelling by car driven by with the CEO of a Japanese company. It turned out that we were about the same age born around 1940.
I asked the unmentionable question “What do you remember about the war?” He remembered the Americans bombing his country and how friends of his had died. It struck me then that this generation of Japanese would become the captains of industry over the next few years with that memory in their hearts.
One of the good things to come out of the Second World War was the demilitarisation of Japan. This received a dent during the Iraq war and the term ‘pre-emptive strike’ has recently entered the vocabulary. The verbal war about various islands is, meanwhile, still on the boil.
Now the nationalist Mayor of Osaka, a generation or so younger than my friend, is justifying the Korean ‘comfort women’ saying our boys had to “get their oats”. It would not have occurred to him that if they had not invaded Korea the problem would not have existed.
With the Japanese economy on the slide it may be a chance for the mayor’s ilk to take over the country and go back to the “good old days”.
Richard Bowler
Bangkok
