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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Two
Spring 2003
Rape of Nanking -
Page 6
by Jennifer Butt
In addition to the attempt to discredit and ostracize anyone who dwells upon historical events that are sensitive to the Japanese government, revisionists have repeatedly risked their careers through a reckless disregard for other people's work and the rules of the academic world in order to achieve their goal of a Japanese history void of Japanese war crimes and misdeeds. In 1985, prominent revisionist Tanaka Masaaki, whose book on the Rape of Nanking contained reprinted passages of a Japanese general's diary, was found to have "tampered with the diary and altered its content in over 900 locations" (Yamamoto 242). Since his "unbelievable ethical violation," Tanaka has strengthened his revisionist stance, expressing no sense of wrongdoing on his part and still maintaining that the Rape is a fabrication (Yamamoto 243). Dishonesty has also prevailed outside the academic world. The Shochiku Fuji Distribution Company cut a thirty-second scene concerning the Rape from a Bernardo Bertolucci film biography of Pu Yi (Chang, Rape 210). Bertolucci, after becoming aware of the unapproved alteration of the film, stated that "not only did the Japanese distributor cut the whole sequence of the 'Rape of Nanking' without my authorization and against my will, without even informing me, but they also declared to the press that myself and the producer, Jerry Thomas, had made the original proposition to mutilate the movie, . . . [which] is absolutely false and revolting" (Chang, Rape 210). The distributors defended their actions by claiming that the scene was "'too sensational' to be shown in Japan" and that "the remov[al] [was] 'out of respect for Japanese audiences'" (Chang, Rape 210-11). While Tanaka and the Shochiku Fuji Distribution Company did not ultimately face severe consequences despite their unethical actions, others, such as former justice minister General Shigeto Nagano, have prematurely ended their careers by making controversial statements about the Rape. Nagano, who within days of his appointment as justice minister in 1994 stated that the Rape was a fabrication and that Korean comfort women were "licensed prostitutes," was forced to resign after violent reactions to his statements across Asia (Chang, Rape 203). It is apparent from the collective actions of revisionists that they are willing to resort to unethical actions and career-risking moves in order to whitewash a shameful portion of Japanese history from mainstream Japan.
Based upon the actions and recorded statements of Japanese revisionists, it is clear that they hope to erase any reference to and memory of the Rape of Nanking and other Japanese war crimes, which they perceive as detrimental to the national pride and identity of younger generations. Revisionists hope to achieve this goal by risking their careers to ensure that the revisionist spirit and notions are kept alive in younger generations, harassing and ostracizing those who seek to recount a history that is deemed a fabrication by revisionists, and working to eliminate the minuscule references to the Rape in textbooks that, according to a study that analyzes their grammatical structure, already tell "less than the frank truth" (Barnard 527). It is clear that the debate between progressives and revisionists over the validity of the Rape and how Japan ought to handle its past war crimes is not confined to the walls of the political or academic worlds. Rather, it involves young Japanese students who will ultimately lead Japan, and decide whether to continue the willful amnesia of the revisionists or accept the wealth of evidence supporting the existence of the Rape, and offer an apology that progressives believe will better Japan. An August 1995 survey conducted in Japan, which shows that "nearly half of those polled felt that Japan had done enough to compensate for its actions" (Jenkins 57), only solidifies the continuing damage and influence of Japanese revisionists. It is frightening to think that sixty-five years after the Rape of Nanking, Japan has still failed to acknowledge and apologize for their war crimes in World War II, which holds the danger of setting a precedent for how other countries might deal with their war crimes.
Works Cited
Barnard, Christopher. "Isolating Knowledge of the Unpleasant: the Rape of Nanking in Japanese high-school textbooks." British Journal of Sociology of Education 22 (2001).
Chang, Iris. "It's History, Not a Lie." Newsweek (20 Jul. 1998).
---. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II . New York: Basic, 1997.
Fogel, Joshua A. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography . Berkeley: U of California P, 2000.
Horowitz, Carl F. "Atrocity Exhibition." Reason (June 1998).
"Japan and Its Past." Christian Science Monitor (24 May 1994).
Jenkins, Russell. "The Japanese Holocaust." National Review (10 Nov. 1997).
Kaiyuan, Zhang, ed. Eyewitnesses to Massacre: American Missionaries Bear Witness to Japanese Atrocities in Nanjing . New York: Sharpe, 2001.
Pitman, J. "Repentance." New Republic (10 Feb. 1992).
Rabe, John. The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe . Trans. John E. Woods. New York: Knopf, 1998.
Seabury, Paul, and Angelo Codevilla. War: Ends and Means . New York: Basic, 1990.
"Shigeto Nagano." U.S. News & World Report (16 May 1994).
Yamamoto, Masahiro. Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity . Westport: Praeger, 2000.
Yoshiaki, Yoshimi. Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II . Trans. Suzanne O'Brien. New York: Columbia UP, 1995.