Non embraced defeat 67 years after World War Two

The Yasukuni shrine, located in central Tokyo, honors more than 2 million Japanese who died in the war, but causes resentment because it includes 14 convicted war criminals who committed atrocities across the region.

China said it would lodge a complaint with Japan after it detained five Chinese activists who landed on a disputed island on August 15 as tension between Japan and its neighbors escalated on the anniversary of the end of World War Two.

Amid a sudden outburst in nationalistic anti-Japan rhetoric, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak fueled it further with a demand for an apology by Emperor Akihito for the repression during colonial time.

The Yasukuni shrine has long been a source of tension between the two countries, but the visits today came amid a diplomatic deadlock that began last week after South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak visited the disputed Takeshima islands known as "Dokdo" in Korean, despite protests from Tokyo. That immediately prompted Japan to withdraw its ambassador from Seoul, ambassador Muto Masatoshi.

Maybe the Koreans used the division of a weakened Japan government as seen today with 2 cabinet ministers of the Democratic party who visited the Yasukuni Shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan imperialism. National Public Safety Commission Jin Matsubara and Transport Minister Yuichiro Hata were the first two high-ranking officials to visit Yasukuni Jinja since the ruling Democratic Party of Japan came to power three years ago.

Every summer, these hostilities are a customary pattern for neighbors nationalistic views. Time has come, though, for authentic reconciliation and cultural tolerance in north-east Asia. These photos were taken at Yasukuni Shrine Tokyo today August 15th 2012, the day when Pacific war ended with Japan defeat, we understand some here do not give up the fight 67 years after surrendering. A non embraced defeat from Japan and a continuing poisonous atmosphere between former belligerents.

A minority some people say, not sure and I see more young people than ever. The memories of uniforms hurt regional sensibilities, Korea, China, SE Asia, in Japan and in the western world. Duty of remembrance is rather seen in this part of Asia as a duty to create and activate anger among Asian nations. Apparently, good reasons to let the two big policemen monitor the region as here the Cold War is still on. And wait, we have not heard about north Korea nuclear bomb threats yet!

Still one has to understand the motives of ordinary people and families who, as one father under 50 and his son told me today, let's call him Hamada-san: "For us it is a day of remembrance, we were crushed in these war events, today we wish to offer our country peace and dignity and some Japanese politicians seem strong enough to defend Japan."

Invasions, war and peace and the impact on societies. Tolstoi was right...

1 minute of silence at 12:00 for the Japanese war victims 

Nationalists in black uniform

Ultra conservative Abe Shinzo former Prime Minister

Abe and his followers

Crowds invade the Yasukuni shrine

1 hour to go from the Tori to the shrine

Nationalists or more... they belong to Yasukuni donators

Like soldiers, they pay respect to the "boss"

Crowds continue their visit of the shrine

The Yushukan museum. Historically correct until Meiji Revolution 

Nostalgic of the "Kamikaze fighters"

Ipadding the fighter plane

When Japan and Germany were allied of the Axis powers

Indian nationalist Chandra Bose is venerated at Yasukuni

Maritime map of the Empire

Yasukuni "Gods" as portrayed by Yasukuni priests

This one was lost in translation time machine, awful.

More peaceful, an harmonious garden at the Chidorigafuchi, ten minutes walk from the Yasukuni and unrelated. It is the national Japanese cemetery for 353.000 unidentified war dead in the Second World War

A lot of police forces deployed at Kudanshita area of Tokyo

-Copyright © JLK 2012 August 15-

I add to this post on my blog this program "Une semaine en Asie : Nouvelles du Japon, "Patriotisme" de Yukio Mishima", aired on the French radio (France Culture) August 15th 2012. Text read by Bernard Lanneau (originally recorded in 1987)

http://lnk.nu/franceculture.fr/24k0

* Territorial dispute, news update. August 17th *

China-Japan: Japanese officials have decided to deport fourteen Chinese activists and journalists accused of illegally entering the country’s territory. They were seized when they landed on an island that Japan controls, but China claims.

South Korea - Japan: About the dispute between Japan and south Korea after South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak visited the islands, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said that his country wants to deal with the dispute calmly, under international law and proposed to the South Korean government that the country take the case to the International Court of Justice. South Korea’s foreign ministry dismissed the proposal.

Genetic mutations affect animals of Fukushima
Scientists say

According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, widely covered by world media since a few days, Japanese researchers observed an increase in leg, antennae and wing shape mutations among butterflies collected after the Fukushima accident. The team confirmed the link between the mutations and the radioactive material by laboratory experiments.

"It has been believed that insects are very resistant to radiation" lead researcher Joji Otaki of the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, told the state-funded BBC. "In that sense, our results were unexpected" he added. The Japanese team collected 144 adult pale grass blue (Zizeeria maha) butterflies from 10 locations in Japan two months after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.

"By comparing mutations found on the butterflies collected from the different sites, scientists found that areas with greater amounts of environment radiation were home to butterflies with much smaller wings and irregularly developed eyes."

Nature cannot lie... a French scientist told me that small animals would be the first visible victims of the atomic radiation, here people all remember this Japanese magazine publishing photos of a cow with 3 eyes after Chernobyl!


An other butterfly effect is the political responsibility of what seems to become an outrageous secret maintained by the "Japanese atomic village" critics say: The "collusion" between industry and politics in Japan, as the Kurokawa Parliament investigation committee stated in its official report recently.

Critics add that people are not told in Japan about the responsibilities of the LDP in the Fukushima atomic accident. Because it happened under the DPJ. But critics add, the LDP ruled the country for 50 years! LDP since 2009 is in the opposition while the ruling DPJ is the result of a scission from the LDP.

I read: "The LDP is the architect of Japan's nuclear policy and doesn't want any plants to be turned off", writes August 12th commentator Philip Brasor in the Japan Times.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fd20110522pb.html

A couple of weeks ago indeed, 1994 Literature Nobel prize Oé Kenzaburo talked in Tokyo in front of foreign media, extensively, about the connection of the atomic industry with LDP ex prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone -whose daughter married Kajima construction family who built the first nuclear plants according to French sources-

Nobel prize Oé also talked about a former Yomiuri Shimbun (the biggest paper in Japan) president Shoriki: "Working with the CIA, [Matsutaro] Shoriki promoted the peaceful use of atomic energy as a means of "fighting fire with fire": Make the Japanese people tolerate America's nuclear deterrence policy by selling them on nuclear energy" Brasor writes.

As an other sign of what current opponents to the Japanese atomic energy calls a "collusion", here is an other article this time from The Liberty Times from Taiwan, about this political construction of the atomic energy in Japan following Japan surrender August 15th 1945. The article was published 3 days ago on the web in Chinese and English:


《中英對照讀新聞》Japan govt, media colluded on nuclear：Nobel winner 諾貝爾獎得主：日本政府與媒體聯手推動核能發展

Nobel-winning author Kenzaburo Oe said Japan’s post-war government and media colluded to give nuclear power a stranglehold.

曾獲諾貝爾獎殊榮的作家大江健三郎表示，日本戰後政府與媒體沆瀣一氣，讓核能在電力市場取得壟斷地位。

The 77-year-old laureate with anti-nuclear views said the media magnate who controlled mass circulation Yomiuri Shimbun had used his newspaper to promote atomic power, in concert with one-time Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone.

現年77歲、持反核立場的這位諾貝爾獎得主說，手中掌握了發行量廣大的「讀賣新聞」的媒體鉅子利用他的報紙來宣傳核能發電，與前首相中曾根康弘採取一致行動。

"（Nakasone）said because this country does not have resources, Japan would need to find a new source of energy, which the United States had already invented," Oe told reporters in Tokyo.

「（中曾根）說因為日本資源短缺，所以必須找到新的能源，而美國已經發明了這種能源，」大江在東京向記者表示。

Nakasone had pushed for nuclear power in the 1950s, and held a number of ministerial posts before becoming prime minister in 1982.

中曾根自1950年代起即大力推動核能發展，他在1982年出任首相前，也曾數度擔任部長級職務。

"The United States offered the know-how, the machines and the fuel -- which became the very first bit of nuclear waste now causing a big problem for us -- for free to Japan."

「美國免費提供給日本相關技術、機器與燃料，而這些燃料後來就變成了第一批現在讓我們很頭大的核廢料。」

Yomiuri tycoon Matsutaro Shoriki -- who had briefly led the government’s science and technology agency -- "jumped at this opportunity" and unquestioningly promoted the technology, Oe said.

曾短暫擔任政府科學技術廳長官的讀賣新聞媒體大亨正力松太郎則「立刻抓住這個機會」，毫不質疑地大力推廣這項科技，大江表示。

"The structure of the Japan in which we now live was set at that time and has continued ever since. It is this that led to the big tragedy" of Fukushima in March 2011, said Oe.


http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2012/new/aug/12/today-int7.htm?Slots=BInt