OT: Nanking the film

[Mr Punch]

Not to go off topic, but this one big reason I'll never apologize for my country dropping the A-boms on Japan.

I don't think it is necessarily off topic - we're talking about strong emotions and human reaction, but you see mate, we can't even have a conversation about this because you already decided I'm a Japanophile (whatever you define that as - ostensibly a racist term itself)...

BTW, great point Diego, but unfortunately I'm not sure modern Japanese people would give themselves a chance to assess things in that way. Dunno, some would.

[1bad65]

...we can't even have a conversation about this because you already decided I'm a Japanophile (whatever you define that as - ostensibly a racist term itself)...

And where did I say that?

[Mr Punch]

The Harry Truman/reasons for the A-bomb thread.

You saw the name Harry Truman and went off in a frothing rage over what you decided I was saying instead of reading it and bothering to pause to understand it for a second, when I wasn't actually a million miles away from your position. I bet you didn't actually Google what I thought you might be interested in Googling either did you? The bit about Truman and his decisions for the bombings: you assumed that I was talking about hindsight, for some reason not thinking for a moment that he'd considered the decision very very carefully for some time before the attack...!

Anyway, it makes interesting reading (the main site you'd come up with if you were to Google what I suggested): it would help you to put your argument in perspective without having to change your opinion. Assuming you don't start frothing again...!

It's understandable, mind. I froth every time I look at anything about Nanking. And I froth every time I have to deal with some dumb **** in the school I work in where of course any discussion of their history books is not done. The worst thing isn't the out-and-out racists but the complete lack of any sense of a place in the world even among knowledgeable, intelligent, nice people: naivety is still unbelievably rife.

They really really don't know. And it's not getting any better.

Of course I don't blame the people any more than I blame my forefathers for the atrocities of the British Empire... I know they weren't personally involved. But I do blame them for their lack of interest. If I point out our policy of starving approx 30 million Indians in the famine of 1876 in response to anybody's tripe about the Empire essentially being a force for good, I expect some reasoned discussion and some thought: if I point out anything about Nanking over here to the vast majority of the people - that's it, I'm a ****ing pariah.

Anyway, I'm in danger of rambling.

[1bad65]

It's not a racist term.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgENINXPrAM

[Jimbo]

I don't know if Japanese people in Japan are so much in denial about it, but rather keep in mind, for a long time the massacre in Nanking was not taught in Japanese history books, from what I have heard.

Japan has some horrible history in its past, but every culture has examples of a horrible past. People like to make convenient comparisons, and it seems to be human nature to omit or try to lessen the horrific acts of their own ancestors. We can say the Japanese made the Nazis look tame; I doubt anyone would say that if they were one of the Jews in the Nazi camps themselves. Horrific acts of torture and murder are a part of America's past. One example: the whites who killed native Americans, killed native women and cut off their breasts to make pouches. Anyone can say this doesn't compare to the Japanese, but torture, murder, degredation and human monsters know NO national or racial bounds. If you were one of those women, or that were your mother/wife/daughter/sister, how would you have felt about it?

As an American of Japanese descent (3rd generation, grandfather arrived Stateside in 1890s) I have been blamed for Pearl Harbor ad nauseum. There are still a lot of people today who blame all persons who are Japanese for the war, even if they were not born then, or not even born in Japan! I will NOT excuse what the Japanese *Imperial Army* did during the rape of Nanking and the war!! But to blame the Japanese people in general now for what happened 60 to 70 years ago, is pretty sad. They need to be educated about it, just as we all should be educated about our pasts, both the good and the bad.

[sanjuro_ronin]

War makes animals of us all, some more than others it seems.
The shocking thing in Nanking was the degree, the quantity of atrocities commited.
Truly horrible and unexcusable.
I don't have issues with stuff like this being "rehashed" regardless of the consequences, its good for ALL to be reminded of what war does to people, of how life can be viewed as worthless and people be treated as less than human.

Those that don't learn form the past are fated to repeat it.