Eight 15-year old Singapore students at a leadership camp named their team “Hitler” because they claimed they admired Hitler’s leadership qualities. They also considered him 'cool' and 'handsome'.
They are now required by the Singapore Education Minister to research on what Adolf Hitler had done.
The Minister stated that since they weren’t thinking or aware of the dark aspects of WWII history, rather than chew them up, he prefers that they present their research to their schools. A sensible approach, Minister.
BTW, 'Hitlerjugend' means Hitler Youth.
One writer to the Singapore news online, The Electric Newspaper, that broke the Team Hitler’s news, bemoaned that Singaporean teachers and students appeared either ignorant of or unconcerned about the evils of Adolf Hitler. He criticised their history teacher for making only one adverse comment on Hitler, that was restricted to the Nazi leader’s military error in invading Russia. He wondered why no mention was made of Hitler’s responsibility for millions of deaths in a world war, as well as the systematic murder of millions of innocent Jews.
I can provide the answer quite easily, though I must state beforehand that I support the Singaporean Minister's action - people should read up to be aware of what evil had walked on the surface of this Earth.
The fact of their ignorance, lack of concern or apathy towards Hitler and Nazi-ism is no different to the West’s ignorance, lack of concern or apathy towards the Japanese WWII atrocities and the provocative visits by the Japanese PM to the Yasukuni shrine to worship Japanese war criminals whose remains are housed there, war criminals not unlike the Nazi variety, who were responsible for the most barbaric form of atrocities against the Chinese, Korean and other Asian people during WWII.
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Whenever the Chinese and Korean people raised Cain over such visits or rightwing Japanese attempts at historical revisionism, western bloggers would without fail criticised the Chinese (but remain silent about the Koreans) for not letting go of the “past” and going over the top in their anger against what they see as a harmless visit to the shrine by Japan’s foremost politician.
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Several even defended the Japanese PM's visits with their ignorance and lack of understanding of what the Japanese had barbarically done during WWII. One stated that only Chinese aged 80 and above may have a genuine reason to be angry at the Japanese. Can anyone beat this asinine comment? Unbelievable as it may be, the answer is in fact yes. Another stupidly averred that the PM's visit to the Yasukuni shrine was a sincere demonstration of "peace".
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Those western bloggers, mainly Americans (most of whom are always trying to find something to criticise China anyway) would then attribute the whole uproar to either Chinese jealousy of the better-off Japanese (Koreans conveniently left out here or the entire argument would collapse like a house of cards) or a Chinese government manipulating the Chinese people’s outrage to divert attention from China’s domestic problems (again, Koreans omitted from the allegation).
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Not once have I read (admittedly I haven’t visited all western or American bloggers blogging on China and Japan, though I have read quite a few) any note of sympathy or understanding for the Chinese outrage, or revulsion and concern or anger at the Japanese PM's provocative visits or the sinister attempts at historical revisionism to obscure Japan’s evil past.
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So, why should that western writer wonder why Singaporeans, whose grandfathers had suffered untold miseries at the hands of the Japanese military, showed the same lack of awareness of Nazi-ism as westerners had shown towards the Japanese WWII evil?
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The Yakashuni shrine contains more than those responsible for the atrocities of war-time Japan. In any case, the Prime Minister visits it on his own personal capacity - there ought not to be a law restricting the religious belief of anyone just because they're the prime minister.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Western sympathies lies with Japan simply because Communist China killed more of their kind than the Japanese ever dreamt of. And while modern Japan bears little resemblence to war-time Japan, Communist China is still being ruled by the same party that killed millions during its rule. And at least in Japan there is open debate and discussion of what happen in the 30's and 40's, such is restricted in China.
Japan's PM Koizumi signed the Visitor's Book at the shrine in his official capacity as the Prime Minister of Japan.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether China killed her own people, or the USA killed her own natives to the point of being a genocide, it doesn't hide the evil fact of Japan's WWII atrocity.
While I agree with you that today's Japan does not resemble yesteryear's Japan, and very few fair people would declare she does, the frightening fact is that there have been persistent & ongoing attempts at historical revisionism of school textbooks coupled with the provocative visits by the PM. These are forces at Japan's highest political level.
Everyone knows the PM has been "pushed" to do so by Japan's rightwing "kingmakers" who are attempting to whitewash their evil past. Unlike Germany, they aren't prepared to acknowledge their dark history.
You are quite incorrect to suggest that there is "open" debate on Japan's evil past. Certainly there are righteous Japanese who raised the issue from time to time but these people are never given the due media exposure.
When a Japanese publishing company wanted to translate and publish the book "Rape of Nanjing" by American (the late) Iris Chang the political forces descended upon the publisher and the intention was aborted.
Be that as it may, the westerners, or should I say, American bloggers have shown also a particular bias against the Chinese because they believe China will be their future enemy. But this fear or bias shouldn't hide the fact of a sinister connection between a barbaric history and an evil attempt to whitewash a horrendous record that's as dreadful as the atrocities of Naziism. To condone Japanese militaristic revivalism is akin to condoning Neo-Naziism.
And don't forget the Koreans are equally pissed off with such Japanese "sneak attacks" at the Truth. So, the "evil" of the Chinese government doesn't hold water.
But back to my contention, the apathy shown by American bloggers towards Japanese evil past is no different to the Singaporean apathy towards Naziism - both aren't correct, but both are realities of the environment. My post shows these relationships.