| Hiroshima
Atomic Bomb Museum: historical explanations |
The first gallery of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum (more properly known
as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum) is a series of historical explanations
of the events leading up, and following, the bombing.
To this very day
the Japanese public has been kept largely in the dark about their country's
role in the war, which at the time was painted as a war against Western
Imperialism with the goal of creating a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere".
My own understanding of all these events is this: Western powers
like England, America and Germany exhibited a consistent pattern of treating
the Japanese as inferiors, and this largely contributed to Japan attacking
the West, and continues to affect Japanese society to this day because
of the way the West treated the defeated nation.
The historical note below illustrates some of these points.
A number of Western countries took advantage of Chinese weakness in the
19th and early 20th centuries to carve out little enclaves within China,
and dictate terms to the emperors. Perhaps the worst example
of these colonial practices was the British "Opium Wars" in which they
virtually forced drug addiction onto the Chinese population.
Japan, whose own culture was based on that of the Chinese, was horrified
to see how that once revered nation was being treated. To avoid
the same fate, Japanese governments pushed through extraordinary modernization
efforts, in order to bring Japan up to equal status with the Western powers.
Feeling stronger, the Japanese pushed for the same economic concessions
in China which the Westerners had granted themselves. In additional
efforts to join the Western "club" the Japanese joined with them in efforts
such as the suppression of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion. The
defeat of the Russian fleet by the Japanese in 1905 made Japan feel even
more strongly that they should be treated with respect. They
continued to act in ways which they hoped would lead to their acceptance
- for instance, most New Zealanders would be very surprised to learn that
in World War One a Japanese battleship escorted New Zealand troop ships
to Europe. And many Americans don't know that Admiral Yamamoto,
the head of the Japanese navy who devised the attack on Pearl Harbor, was
trained in America. |
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| But all of Japan's
efforts were wasted, because the West refused to see them as anything other
than inferior. Upset by this, the Japanese turned from a pro-Western
to an anti-Western stance, and tried to take what the West would not give
them. |
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| The museum is very
honest about Japan's aggression, and even gives special emphasis to the
role of Hiroshima in the fighting. If the Japanese today are
ignorant of what happened in this period, then this museum certainly can't
be blamed. |
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| The museum seems
to give a more balanced and honest assessment of the war than even Western
histories paint, since it spells out the actions and motives not just of
the Japanese, but also of the European and American military and political
leaders. |
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| The government of
Hiroshima City has been very active ever since the war in the cause of
nuclear non-proliferation, writing protest letters to the relevant foreign
government each time an atomic test blast has been performed. |
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| As you've just seen,
they have also been active in educating the Japanese about these events. |
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| Japanese society
still seems to have some strong xenophobic elements, and to be pre-occupied
with the superiority of the Japanese people.
Western culture also
continues to consider itself superior, and keeps Japan at arm's length.
At the end of the
war, the American government of occupation shoved a hastily-composed constitution
down the throats of the Japanese, by which they were forced to forever
renounce their right to wage war. One result of this is the
charade that Japan officially has no army, navy or air force, only "self-defence"
forces (which happen to be among the most powerful in the world).
However, they are effectively unable to leave Japanese territory, and cannot
even take part in United Nations operations.
It's all very noble
to renounce war forever, but if it's such a great thing, then why hasn't
the West done it? And why was Japan made to renounce war when
the Germans weren't? The brutality of the Nazi holocaust was
greater than anything which the Japanese ever did, and yet it seems that
the Japanese were treated differently because Germany was felt to belong
to the Western "club", and Japan wasn't. |
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