Tokyo fuhrer Shintaro Ishihara has paid his annual respects to Japanese war criminals at Yasukuni, saying Japan’s current government “is not Japanese” for choosing to stay away.
Talking to the media, he was characteristically outspoken:
[The DPJ cabinet aren’t visiting to pay their respects?]
“Shouldn’t Japanese pay their respects? That lot aren’t Japanese!”
Ishihara is of course a long time visitor to the shrine.
Yasukuni Shrine enshrines the souls of Japan’s 2,466,532 pre-1951 war dead; the major issue surrounding political visits to the shrine is the fact that in 1978 the souls of 14 Class A war criminals were explicitly enshrined as “martyrs.”
Other dubious fixtures at the shrine include a statue celebrating the sacrifice of kamikaze pilots, a statue honouring an Indian war crimes tribunal judge who insisted the USA was responsible for the war, and a revisionist war museum glorifying Japan’s attempt to “liberate” Asia.
The actual content of the shrine is determined by its own religious administration and various private groups. Due to the constitutional protection of freedom of religion and the post-war separation of Shinto and state, it is said to be impossible to compel the shrine’s administration to remove the war criminals.
In the eyes of critics, political visits to a shrine which goes to great lengths to honour fascists and mass murderers constitute a celebration of same, and since 1978 even the emperor has refused to visit the shrine out of concern over the enshrinement of war criminals (although he does despatch emissaries).
Since 1978, visits by politicians have taken on a strong foreign policy dimension, with Sino-Japanese relations ostensibly heavily influenced by whether an administration conducts visits.
PM Kan and his cabinet refrained from visiting Yasukuni at all, which can either be interpreted as a harmless diplomatic gesture of contrition to their overly sensitive Asian neighbours, or a slavish display of the subservient foreign policy they have become notorious for.
The urn containing the war criminals ashes would make a nice chamber pot, lol.
Why is it wrong to pay your respects?
They (war dead) were a product of their time, place, and growth. It’s common to say, ‘all are victims of war’.
I worry, when humans are so willing to condemn, judge, and permit ethnocentric global policemen propaganda to alter human perception into silent majority delusion.
There’s nothing wrong with Ishihara.
There is something stinky about so many strong opinions. There is something wrong with not seeing global history, across all of space and time.
What victory does a foreign state achieve when it can decide how you think?
The Japanese people have as much right to honor the uniform as those nations with public relations that appear less spotty.
How does this fool stay in office?
HEY ISHITHARA! YOU SUCK!
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?bill156
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You know rather than seeing Ishihara killed I’d rather see him kicked out of politics to try to do stand up comedy where he is the boke. Seeing him humiliated on stage while attempting to get a laugh out of people is a lot better job for him than politics. Frankly at first I wanted to kill the man but then I thought killing will just make it worse. Lets demote him to washed up comedian.