Chapter 11 10 Searching for Japan's Conscience

When we speak in general terms of how, how the Japanese are, such statements tend to obscure certain truths.Just as we cannot generally say what the Chinese are like, because among the Chinese, there are not only heroes like Zhang Zizhong who devoted themselves to the war of resistance and died heroically, but also traitors like Wang Jingwei who betrayed the country for glory and left a bad reputation for thousands of years.Similarly, among the Japanese, there are not only politicians like Ishihara Shintaro and Nakamura Can who make racist remarks unscrupulously, but also visionary politicians like Murayama Fuji and Toshiro who stick to their conscience and sincerely apologize.

In the sixty years since the end of the war, countless Chinese and Japanese have been silently working hard on the difficult task of friendship between China and Japan, and selflessly radiating their weak and precious light and heat.They sowed hard, but they did not expect to have abundant fruit.In a sense, they are looking to the future, sowing and cultivating for future generations. We cannot arbitrarily exclude and deny all Japanese, otherwise we ourselves will become the racists and narrow nationalists we want to criticize. Let us set foot on the land of Japan to find the conscience of Japan scattered among tall buildings and busy traffic.These Japanese conscience and Chinese conscience complement each other, and the peace and friendship between China and Japan will be created in their hands.

The Japanese painters Osato Maruki spent 15 years painting a huge picture of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, vividly showing the tragedy of the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima.This work caused a great sensation when it was exhibited in the United States and Europe. However, once, an American professor said to Maruki: "Mr. Maruki's Hiroshima atomic bomb drawing is very good, but as far as I know, the Japanese army carried out a tragic massacre in Nanjing, China. Why don't you draw What about a painting of the Nanjing Massacre?" Maruki Furi was not angry at the American professor's doubts. On the contrary, he began to collect materials on the Nanjing Massacre based on the artist's conscience.Only then did he discover how bloody and brutal the Nanjing Massacre downplayed by the Japanese government was.As a Japanese, Maruki felt ashamed and ashamed; as a painter, Maruki was determined to express this history unknown to ordinary Japanese people with a brush.

Therefore, it took eight years for Osato Maruki to finally draw a "picture of the Nanjing Massacre".On this huge picture, we heard screams, we smelled blood, and we also saw the artistic conscience of Japanese artists bravely facing history. On August 15, 1969, at the side of the Yasukuni Shrine, a man wearing a vest with "Against the Yasukuni Act" written on his chest was distributing leaflets.The leaflet reads: "Because it is the families of the war dead, so oppose it! War is not a great cause!" The old man's name is Ogawa Takeman.He joined the Japanese army in 1942. Since 1943, as a military doctor in North China, he has worked in Shijiazhuang Hospital and Beiping First Army Hospital.

On that day, Takeman Ogawa didn't know what kind of attack he would receive, but he still dared to stand up alone and risked his life to go to the Yasukuni Shrine.He decided not to go with his comrades who opposed the Yasukuni Shrine, but to bear the will of many officers and soldiers who he had personally witnessed to die, and to tell the truth of history to all those who regard the war dead as heroic spirits and regard war as a great cause .His heart transcends twenty years and resonates with the pain of those who died without healing. Standing on the streets of Tokyo, Takeman Ogawa said to those deceived compatriots with tears in his eyes: "The Yasukuni Shrine Act respects the war dead as heroic spirits, praises their legacy, and passes on their great achievements to future generations, so as to bring Idolize the war dead and glorify the war as a great cause. I lost two younger brothers in the war and I wrote a suicide note myself preparing to die in battle. As a military doctor, I also looked after mummies due to war malnutrition The people who died, witnessed the shooting of soldiers fleeing before the battle, saw the hysterics, suicides and madmen who wanted to escape the war, and felt how tragic and inhuman the reality of war is. So I had to cry out 'don't Heroic spirits are created!!''Don't repeat the tragedy of war!!'"

As a military doctor, Takeman Ogawa experienced the cruelty of war first-hand.On the ground in Beijing, right in front of him, he watched as seven Chinese peasants were beheaded and fell into a pit he had dug.A Chinese with a severed head fell into the pit and shouted "Japanese devils!" with blood on his head. The military police stood on the pit and shot at the Chinese, and then ordered Xiao Chuan to say: "Mr. Military Doctor, please confirm Death." The gendarmes stood on the pit, and at the bottom of the pit were the bodies and heads of seven Chinese, and Xiao Chuan had to go down into the pit to confirm that the pulse of the murdered had stopped beating.

Many years later, Takeman Ogawa came to China again as a peace envoy. In 1981, Takemitsu Ogawa participated in the Sino-Japanese joint service for peace held by the Capital Church in Beijing.When praying, Takeman Ogawa said in Chinese, which is not fluent: "We can only apologize, we can't say 'let us forgive each other'. It should be a doctor who saves lives, but assists in killing; people who have to save people Pastor, you are dying. I am an accomplice. When you pray for peace, don’t you think about the war that Japan started. Now the one who is most responsible for the war crimes is myself. I will not confess this, You can’t talk about the language of the Bible.”

For more than half a century after the war, Takemitsu Ogawa has been unwavering in his criticism of militarism and his call for peace.He believes that love and conscience are indispensable qualities of human beings, and only love and conscience can dissolve hatred. On July 29, 1950, the Chinese government took over 969 Japanese war criminals from the Soviet Union, including generals, assistant officers, lieutenants, and non-commissioned officers. They all committed crimes on Chinese soil. Heinous crimes such as burning, killing, looting, and looting. This group of murderous demons is uneasy about their future fate. They worry that the Chinese will "treat others in the same way" and treat themselves in the same cruel way.However, to their surprise, the Chinese government carried out humanitarian reforms on them in the Fushun and Taiyuan War Criminals Management Centers based on the reform policy of "hate the crime and not the person".

In the past, under the influence of militarism, this group of war demons completed the transformation from man to devil; now, under the education of pacifism, they have completed the return from devil to man.After these war criminals were released and returned to Japan, they established the Japanese "Chinese Returnee Liaison Association".Many people have become defenders of peace who love peace, oppose war, maintain Sino-Japanese friendship, and wage an indomitable struggle against Japanese racist forces. Among the numerous non-governmental organizations in Japan, the "China Returnees Liaison Association" is one that has tirelessly engaged in Sino-Japanese friendship over the past many years.

A community of good causes.Among this group of peace guards who have "from human to ghost" and "from ghost to human", there are senior generals such as Shigeru Fujita, head of the former Lieutenant General of the Japanese Army, Saburo Endo, former lieutenant general staff officer of the former army base camp, and their transformation is symbolic. significance. From the first day they returned to Japanese land, these senior generals who gave orders in the war of aggression against China were determined to drive the members of the "China Returned Federation" to actively participate in anti-war peace activities in Japan by making full use of their unique identities and positions.Even though they were old, they still worked tirelessly to take the lead in participating in the anti-war lectures, exposing the heinous crimes committed by the Japanese invading army in China with their own personal experiences and what they heard and witnessed.

In 1958, Liu Lianren was discovered by local hunters in the deep mountains of Hokkaido.This villager in Caobo Village, Gaomi County, Shandong Province, was captured by the Japanese invaders in 1944 and taken to Hokkaido as a slave laborer. In 1945, he fled to the mountains and lived in caves that could barely accommodate him for 13 years.At that time, the Kishi government of Japan not only failed to apologize and compensate Liu Lianren, but instead slandered him as a "spy". Members of the "Federation of Chinese Guilds" stepped forward to uphold justice for Liu Lianren. On the one hand, they criticized the indifference and cruelty of Japanese officials, and on the other hand, they actively contacted the Chinese government.Finally, with the efforts of all walks of life, Liu Lianren was finally sent back to China smoothly. When the Japanese education department tried to revise textbooks and distort history, it was the Japanese scholar Saburo Neaga who fought against this countercurrent without thinking about his own life. Saburo Ienaga is a professor at the Tokyo University of Education in Japan. The Japanese high school history textbooks written by him are objective and fair in describing historical facts, and have been widely used by Japanese schools after the war.However, in 1957, the Japanese Ministry of Education suddenly announced that Saburo Ienaga's "New History of Japan" failed the examination and approval.The Ministry of Education asked Saburo Ienaga to revise his description of the "Nanjing Massacre" and the "July 31 Unit". Saburo Ieyaga was inexplicably surprised by this result.On June 12, 1965, he filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court against the Ministry of Education's violation of the Constitution and the Basic Education Law, hoping to use the law to defend the dignity of history. Unexpectedly, this marathon lawsuit has been dragged on for 32 years, after three prosecutions and ten judgments by Japanese local, high and supreme courts.As a serious historian, Saburo Ieyaga devoted the rest of his life to this arduous lawsuit.What kind of courage and perseverance is needed for a lonely individual to face a huge government agency for a long period of thirty-three years! On August 29, 1997, the Supreme Court of Japan made a final judgment on the "Textbook Litigation Case", adjudicating that the textbook revision agency was illegal in deleting the description of the "July 31 Unit" Accounts of atrocities are legitimate.On the whole, the lawsuit ended with the plaintiff Ie Yong Saburo winning. Saburo Ienaga embodies the conscience of a historian and educator. His serious, objective and fair attitude towards Japanese textbooks inspires that we, as victimized countries, should pay more attention to our own history textbooks. In Japan, there are always a group of people who stick to justice and conscience. Whether facing the attacks and insults of conservative forces, or the indifference and ridicule of ordinary citizens, they are still determined to tell the true history and reflect on the war persistently. of evil. Among them were Toshiro Toshiro, a veteran of the Chinese invasion who exposed the atrocities committed in the Nanjing Massacre, and Motoshima, the mayor of Nagasaki who said bluntly that "the emperor has an inescapable responsibility for war".Dong Shiro was caught in a ridiculous lawsuit and was punished for telling the truth; Motoshima and others were shot by right-wing terrorists and seriously injured.What they paid was the price of reputation and life. Nagasaki was one of two cities in Japan that were hit by the atomic bomb.As the mayor of Nagasaki, it is easy to fall into a psychological circle of self-pity.However, Motoshima, who served as the mayor of Nagasaki for 16 years, began to reflect and criticize Japan's emperor system and militarism ideology from the tragic fate of Nagasaki. Motoshima and other mayors publicly criticized the emperor's war crimes in the parliament and said: "Japan has invaded China for 15 years, and the Japanese army is the emperor's army. It is only natural that the emperor should bear the responsibility for war crimes." On January 18, 1990, a killer fired a shot at Motoshima and others in front of the city hall, and Motoshima and others were seriously injured.The murderer was caught on the spot.At that time, the gunman was only 1.5 meters away from the main island and so on, and aimed at his heart.Because the bullet hit the fifth rib, Motoshima and others survived. Later, the police found out that the murderer was a member of the far-right group "Zhengqijuku", which has links to many important Japanese politicians. Motoshima and others jumped out of the lonely case of Nagasaki City to look at the issue of the atomic bomb. He pointed out: "The Japanese emphasized that the atomic bomb should not be used, but at that time the use of the atomic bomb was inevitable. The Japanese army did very bad things, such as Massacres, sexual violence, etc. Are the Chinese buried alive in Nanjing less painful than those who died in the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? In a sense, many of the victims in the atomic bombings died in an instant Yes, but those civilians in Nanjing who were forced to dig their own pits and bury themselves were even more depressed and terrified. The atomic bombing was cruel, but we Japanese cannot say that only the atomic bombing is the most cruel, and the atrocities committed by the Japanese army are not cruel.” A true brave man of diminutive stature, Motoshima won the respect of conscientious citizens of Nagasaki and became one of Nagasaki's longest-serving mayors.After the assassination incident that year, the citizens of Nagasaki spontaneously formed a guardian association to defend the mayor, and launched a signature campaign across the country. A total of 300,000 people signed against the assassination incident.The news media also reported on this matter. The focus of the media reports was not the emperor's responsibility for the war that Motoshima talked about, but the protection of freedom of speech, that is, freedom of speech should not be stifled by violence. After retiring, Motoshima and others gave speeches everywhere, from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south.He said he would dedicate his life to the peace movement. A team of Japanese lawyers is active in many Chinese civil compensation cases.Some of them have silver hair, but they still walk fast.Some of their members have long been well-known lawyers in Japan, and they can earn huge income by handling a case, but they choose these claim cases that not only do not get legal fees, but even have to pay for themselves to help the plaintiffs.It is undoubtedly a risk for them to take over such a case, not only the risk of their career as a lawyer, but also the risk of being reviled as "traitors" by Japanese conservative forces. They are Japanese, they are successful, they are middle class.Most people's parents or relatives have no direct relationship with the war of aggression against China.So why do they stand up and stand with the aging comfort women, laborers and germ warfare gas bomb victims? Toshitaka Onodera, head of the legal team, believes that their choice is neither out of politics nor the law, but out of conscience.Over the past ten years, the initial group of thirty lawyers has grown to more than six hundred.They say that they are the true patriots of Japan. Kazuko Kawaguchi, a lawyer at the Tokyo Women's International War Crimes Tribunal and also defending Wan Aihua, a victim of sexual violence in China, often travels from Japan to China and back to Japan from China.Through the study of a series of litigation cases, she found that the emperor had an inescapable responsibility for the war. Kawaguchi Kazuko believes that although the Japanese army quickly burned the archives after the surrender, there is currently no definite evidence that the emperor ordered the soldiers to massacre and rape, but many indirect evidence can be found.For example, the Emperor is the "Grand Marshal" and the highest person in charge of the army. He should know that there are comfort stations, and he only needs to say a word to stop them.The emperor’s younger brother was a soldier, and he directly commanded the battle at the front. Of course, he would know about the atrocities committed by the Japanese army. At the same time, the attendants around the emperor also recorded the massacre and rape in Nanjing in their diaries. It is hard to imagine that he did not report to the emperor.During the war, the Emperor attached great importance to reports on the actions of the Japanese army by the Western media. At that time, the Western media had a lot of reports on the atrocities committed by the Japanese army, and the Emperor could also know what the Japanese army did in China.Therefore, from the above evidence, it can be determined that the emperor committed an inescapable war crime. The voice of justice is not above the temple, but the voice of justice is always among the people. Matsuoka Ring, an ordinary female teacher in Osaka.In 1988, she went to Nanjing for the first time and met survivors of the massacre.Since then, she has held a memorial meeting for the victims of the Nanjing Massacre in Japan every August 15th.In order to find out the historical truth of the Nanjing Massacre and educate Japanese teenagers, she worked tirelessly and was not afraid of threats. She used her spare time to interview Japanese veterans who had personally experienced the Nanjing Massacre. ——The Testimony of 102 Former Soldiers of the Japanese Invasion Army.Every interview is a difficult spiritual journey. To open the rusty locks of the hearts of veterans, a deft and tenacious key is needed. Suzuko Yoshioka lived in Korea and Manchuria as a child.After the war, he returned to China and worked as a teacher for thirty-two years.In teaching, she felt that she should tell her children the history of Japan's harm to Asian countries, "as a 'manchurian citizen', I also participated in the harm." After retirement, Suzuko Yoshioka founded the "Peace and Human Rights Children's Center", a library that collects history textbooks and various war-related materials.Yoshioka found that today's Japanese textbooks are returning like wartime textbooks, which is a rather dangerous trend.In the middle school history textbooks during the war, the reason for the Marco Polo Bridge Incident was that "the Japanese army was attacked by the Chinese army during the drill and was forced to fight back"; in a textbook today, it is expressed as "the Japanese army was attacked during the drill."Although I dare not blatantly say that I was attacked by the Chinese army like in the wartime textbooks, the intentional distortion of the historical truth is obvious. There is a small "Peace Museum" in Nagasaki.Yasutoshi Takashi, a professor at Nagasaki University and an expert on French literature, is one of the supporters of this library.He introduced that the founder of the museum is Pastor Masaharu Oka.Oka Masaharu once served as a non-commissioned officer in the Japanese Navy and served in the army for eleven years.When the mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki rose, Masaharu Okako began to think about the emperor's responsibility in the war.However, when Oka Masaharu began to express this point of view, he was besieged and beaten by militarists, leaving a scar on his cheek that would never be healed for life.After the war, Masaharu Oka was determined to atone for his sins, and as a member of parliament, appealed to those foreigners, mainly Koreans and Chinese, who died and were victims of the atomic bombing. In 1984, Masaharu Oka began to deeply investigate this buried history and presided over the publication of the journal "Atomic Bomb and the Koreans".After Masaharu Oka passed away in 1994, everyone stepped up the establishment of a museum in memory of him.In 1995, this distinctive "Peace Museum" finally officially opened. The vitality and creativity of a nation lie in its self-critical spirit.In Japan's national character, there is no doubt that there is an unwillingness to reflect on and evade guilt, but there are also many Japanese politicians, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens who are concerned about the ills of Japanese society and Japanese culture, as in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes". Like the child in my life, I bravely spoke the truth. Yosuke Nakae, the former Japanese ambassador to China, has devoted himself to the friendship between China and Japan for many years. He is a Japanese who dares to expose his shortcomings.Having worked in the diplomatic circle for many years, Yosuke Nakae discovered that Japan has not opened its mind to the world, and Japan only regards diplomacy as a stage for gaining its own interests.He pointed out in a speech: "From the perspective of Asians, Japan has indeed provided capital and technology, but for Asian countries, it does not think of solutions like relatives do, but only acts according to the face of the United States and European developed countries. Because I don't have any political beliefs, I don't get the trust or respect of the Asian countries. In the Pacific War, the neighboring countries were ravished like that, but they did not reflect on the position of the perpetrators and acted sincerely. Apologize, so everyone hates him and is regarded as an arrogant and annoying guy." How many people in the bureaucracy of the Japanese government have listened to Nakae Yosuke's heartfelt words? Tokuma Utsunomiya, a famous Japanese activist, once answered a reporter's question "Why do you like China?" without hesitation, he said: "If you like Japan, you must like your neighbors and neighboring countries, right?" This is Utsunomiya The reason why Dema rejected all official positions and devoted himself to the cause of Sino-Japanese friendship is that he can be called the real "uncrowned king".In the Liberal Democratic Party, like Don Quixote, he has been campaigning for Sino-Japanese friendship for decades.Tokuma Utsunomiya is the first person who can analyze Japan before and after the war. Utsunomiya Tokuma advocated that "politics and the rule of the people must be realized for all citizens, in accordance with the will of the people, and all for the people", which is an urgent appeal to the younger generation.Tokuma Utsunomiya believes that dedicating himself to criticizing the real situation in Japan and promoting the cause of China-Japan friendship is a truly patriotic act. Those extremists who use the banner of patriotism are actually doing harm to Japan and other Asian countries.He once recalled his youth: "Because my father, Utsunomiya Taro, was a general of the army, I studied in the Army Junior School since I was a child. Because of this experience, I knew in detail the collusion between bureaucrats and warlords. I He studied at Mito High School and Kyoto Imperial University under the old system. He was also very enthusiastic about socialism at one time. Therefore, he has a clear understanding of the integration of bureaucracy and socialism and the forced establishment of a war economy system.” Tokuma Utsunomiya pointedly pointed out: "Japan has no democracy, nor is it a democratic country." He pointed out in his book "bureaucratic socialism" that "the emperor's bureaucracy" and "Meiji bureaucracy" are semi-feudal bureaucrats. The semi-feudal bureaucracy was stained with the influence of socialism, and as a result, Japan was led to the "totalist alliance" and destroyed.Moreover, it also formed the biggest cancer when rebuilding Japan after the war. Morimura Seiichi is a well-known Japanese novelist. He resolutely gave up writing novels at the peak of his creation and spent a lot of time and energy searching for witnesses and physical evidence of the crimes committed by the Japanese Bacterial Warfare Forces, patiently persuading members of the 731 Forces to tell the truth , and finally completed the book "The Devil's Feed", which exposed the crimes of the 731 Unit. Morimura wrote in the book: "What is really terrible is the fact that the people who committed this cruel crime are not another kind of people like us. It must not be forgotten: we are also on the extension line of Unit 731 People. In case of another war, under the same conditions, we will continue to commit the same cruel demonic deeds.” What he wants to do is to cut off the devil’s claws and make peace the cornerstone of life. Morimura said frankly: "Exposing the mistakes made by the motherland is accompanied by pain. We endure the pain and tell the facts of these mistakes to the next generation, so that they will not forget the precious sacrifices made by the older generation as their memories fade. But something that should be learned. The real reason I wrote "The Devil's Feast" was not just to expose the brutality of the invading army and expose its crime itself, but to pass the truth on to the next generation so as to prevent the Japanese Repeat the same mistakes. I believe this is the duty of those who experience war." After the publication of "Devil's Satiation", Seiichi Morimura received several threatening letters from violent gangs.He had to wear a bulletproof vest when he went out.Still, Morimura said he has no fear or regret. In addition to exposing specific war crimes, many Japanese scholars have also deeply reflected on Japan's modern history and cultural traditions. Yoshihide Takeuchi is a rare scholar among Japanese intellectuals who has the spirit of reflection. He believes that Japanese fascism is a kind of backwash of modern Japanese decadence. In this sense, "the main body of tragedy is in modern times."Another Japanese scholar, Ito Toramaru, developed this point of view, and further pointed out that the reason why Japan launched a war of aggression was not only an ideological error, but the fundamental reason was the overall modern Japanese "culture" since the Meiji era.The Japanese worship the West as an "advanced country" and despise China as a "backward country".The introspection of the two scholars has already touched the spiritual structure of the "slave" and "slave master" of the Japanese.In front of the strong, many Japanese were willing to be slaves; but in front of the weak, they turned into slave owners. In Japan, a country where the democratic system is not yet stable and imperialism, militarism, and nationalism prevail, it is arduous and necessary to strive for democracy, freedom, and peace.Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe said in a speech: "With my weak body, in the twentieth century, I accepted the sufferings of the victims accumulated in the abnormal development of science, technology and transportation in the twentieth century...and to all human beings. a noble and humanistic contribution to the healing and reconciliation of At the Nobel Prize for Literature Award Ceremony, Oe Kenzaburo’s speech was "I am in an ambiguous Japan". Japan", which is full of profound meaning.A Japan that is at a loss in the gap between Eastern and Western civilizations, a Japan that can neither be a Caucasian nor a yellow race, a Japan that has lost its individuality and loves face, isn't it "ambiguous Japan"? Kenzaburo Oe clearly opposed the emperor system and believed that the emperor had committed unforgivable war crimes.When the emperor wanted to award him a cultural medal, Oe Kenzaburo refused without hesitation.Many royalists therefore demonstrated and abused at his door. As Kenzaburo Oe said, "symbiosis" is the hope of Asia.He said worriedly: "Can Japanese writers in the future come to China as friendly guests and be warmly welcomed?" hope. It is said that during the war of aggression against China that year, many Japanese soldiers who burned, killed and looted had works by Lu Xun and Lu Xun in their backpacks.Oe Kenzaburo believes: "This terrible contradiction must be resolved today." He called on Japan, which is in the "fourth closed country" period, to have more intellectuals with conscience to stand up and speak out for justice. "I don't want another war between China and Japan, and I don't want future Japanese soldiers to carry my works in their backpacks." Can literature break the ice between hearts and achieve communication and exchanges?This is a question Oe left for the people of China and Japan. Sino-Japanese friendship is not only the cause of the Chinese people, but also the cause of the Japanese people; it is not only the cause of politicians and intellectuals, but also the cause of ordinary citizens.Only with sufficient information exchange can misunderstanding and suspicion be avoided.Only constant interaction and communication between the two sides can create permanent peace. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan more than 30 years ago, many Japanese non-governmental organizations, enterprises and individuals have been working hard to promote the friendship between China and Japan.There are also many Japanese friends who have been paying attention to China's poverty alleviation, environmental protection, Hope Project and other public welfare projects, and some even donated their life savings selflessly.They are the conscience of Japan, and they are messengers of peace.These Japanese love Japan, but also love China.They deeply know that they should face their neighbors and treat their neighbors as themselves.They also deeply know that those conservative forces who refuse to allow the Japanese to realize spiritual modernization and democratization will eventually bring unimaginable harm to Japan, and a new round of great tragedy to the Asian people. Know the history and look forward to the future; confess your sins sincerely and make progress hand in hand.This project is by no means just for our neighbors, but also for Japan and the Japanese people.This is the only way out for peace in Asia and the world. The Chinese nation is not a nation whose sight is obscured by blood, and the Chinese people are willing to be friends with all those who strive for peace. No matter what, we should all fight for it. For our tomorrow, for our children.