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Thursday, October 20, 2005
brainwashed.
Note before reading this: this is only a book review, ie. i didnt write it with any anti-jap or pro-jap sentiments. it is how i felt after reading the text, just like for all other book reviews.
have to clarify first cos there are some japanese reading my blog.. hehe... i love you guys ok? ;p
remember the japanese right-wing history textbook that caused quite a stir sometime back? well, just found a website (via undercover in japan) that has the english translated pdfs of the said textbook. well, me being a kaypoh singaporean, have to read it rite?
let's see what the text has to say about the 2nd world war..
"Japan forced military administrations onto the Southeast Asian countries it occupied. The leaders of the independence movements in these countries cooperated with the Japanese military in order to achieve their independence.
After Japan lost the war and withdrew from these countries, these colonies gained independence by themselves within 10 years or so."
The independence here, refers to Asian countries having sovereign independence of each nation, ie. for Asians to drive out Western powers. Well i dunno if japan actually asked whether we wanted british off our land then, but i thought singaporeans were quite comfortable as it was then, no? well, *shrugs* if they say so.
"The Japanese military drove away the Western powers which had long controlled the Asian countries ... Their actions awakened the long-dormant spirit of 'making their homeland their own nation by their own hands.
We greeted the Japanese military advancing into the Malay Peninsula with joy. When I saw the defeated British military in flight, I felt an excitement which I had never before experienced.' "
this were words from a malaysian independence activist. adding to this general malaysian sentiment (the only sentiment suggested by the text), it went on to say that Indonesians welcomed Japan as liberators...
"They [indonesians] secretly waited with hopes for the Japanese advance southward.
... locals gathered in the streets and welcomed the Japanese with joy. Japan was an army of liberation that had chased the Dutch away."
the text didnt mention anything about the comfort women... but here's an interesting account regarding how they dealt with labour shortage in the war.
"... unmarried women worked in factories as "volunteer corps." "
well, it was in double quotation in the text. not sure what that means, but i am NOT suggesting it has anything to do with the comfort women issue.
"Feelings of guilt about the war:
From the outset of the occupation, the GHQ strictly censored all discourse in newspapers, magazines, the radio and movies. Using the mass media, the GHQ propagandized the illegitimacy of Japan's war. This propaganda, along with the Tokyo Tribunal, fostered a sense of guilt among the Japanese toward their own country's war and influenced the postwar Japanese perspective on history."
there you go. that's the truth. we were all brainwashed by the american's propaganda.
well, according to the textbook that is.
whether this textbook is right or wrong (well it has to be right, cos it is a right-wing text wat ;p) we, who have not been through the said period, can't really comment. we can talk about it till cows come home, sleep, wake up, go out again, and still won't reach a common ground. like some qtrs say, it is their word against ours, their accounts vs ours. so no one knows for sure.
my purpose of writing about this is well, it does show some interesting alternative interpretations to the war, doesn't it? well at least for me, it was an interesting read.
read it here (via undercover).
posted by winz at 9:45 AM
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1 Comments:
This is total distortion! Thanks for the website. I will print them out.
The Japanese should be ashame of their act of changing history. It is a shame that they cannot even admit their mistake.
No wonder they say the Germans are different from the Japanese. At least they admit the war past.
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