Accuracy of the Nanking Massacre of Critical Importance - Case Study Example

Revising History: The Goal of Reconciliation Twentieth century warfare has seen the strategic elimination of enemy forces devolve into the wholesale devastation of nationalities and ethnicities through the practice of ethnic cleansing and genocide. While warfare can displace families, cities, and towns, genocide eradicates ethnicities, societies and cultures. It is alleged that in 1915 the Ottoman Empire attempted to eradicate the Armenians during World War I. World War II would witness the Jewish Holocaust at the hands of Hitler and the Nazis. Recent decades have seen the accusations of genocide echo throughout Darfur, Rwanda, and the Congo in Africa. One of the most controversial cases of genocide occurred in Nanking China in 1937-38 when occupying Japanese forces tortured, brutalized, raped, and murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese men, women, and children over a six-week period. Its limited duration and scale of devastation portrays it as one of the most intense periods of violence in world history. Yet, decades of denial by the Japanese government and conflicting first hand accounts have fuelled a debate in regards to the accuracy of the event, and it has even been questioned as to its authenticity. As the story continues to evolve and more facts come to light, historical researchers revise the history of the incident and are themselves targets of controversy and risk the accusation of being 'revisionists'. Psychological, cultural, and pragmatic forces delayed and minimized Japan's public acknowledgement of their involvement in the Nanking massacre and have routinely impeded the historians' efforts to adequately record the event. History is not a set of facts, but is a dynamic concept of evolving knowledge that is interpreted in the context of the past and re-evaluated in the framework of the present. Terms such as genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacre, and atrocities suffer from semantics and the diverse subjectivity of worldviews can characterize an event to a nation's advantage or disadvantage. Determining when an excessive use of force crosses over into genocide can make, "Politicians, scholars, relief agencies, and distinguished judges at international tribunals regularly agonize over whether to apply the label".1 States may suppress information or produce disinformation in a self-serving attempt to protect their image and self-interests. Historical scientists grapple with these complexities as they attempt to draw a clearer picture of past events, and suffer when activists rewrite historical accounts based on their own political or social agendas. The Nanking Massacre has been a victim of all these factors. Recent English publications have revealed considerable information about the massacre and brought it back into the public eye, though some of it has been met with the criticism of being 'revisionist'. There is little argument that something intensely violent happened in Nanking during the winter of 1937-38. As part of an inspection tour of Nanking in January 1938, a first hand account by Japanese Foreign Minister Hirota Koki reported, "Verbal accounts (of) reliable eyewitnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility is beyond question afford convincing proof (that) Japanese Army behaved in and is continuing (to) behave in (a) fashion reminiscent (of) Attila (and) his Huns. (Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians slaughtered, many cases (in) cold blood".2 Chinese civilians, many of them women and children were being murdered at the rate of approximately 7000 per day during the six-week period of brutality in 1937-38.3. Yet, high-ranking Japanese officials continue to question the authenticity of the Nanking Massacre and contend that the Japanese did not have "aggressive tendencies" in regards to their actions in the Pacific War.4 While 300,000 Chinese people may have died at the hands of Japanese soldiers and tens of thousands of women were raped, the Japanese failure to acknowledge the scope of the event has helped keep it off of the world stage and out of the public's eye. Indeed, public figures, such as Iris Chang, have proclaimed that an apology is insufficient and words must be matched with reparations.5 The scope and magnitude of the event and the repercussions that could result from reparations make the accuracy of the Nanking Massacre of critical importance, and revisionist history will be a critical component of that process. . The Japanese denial of the massacre at Nanking is rooted in the bias that the ethnic cultures held towards each other, and was further fuelled by the soldiers' commitment to duty that was an important part of their cultural norms. In essence, Genocide requires two social groups that have a well-defined culture or ethnicity. Their ethnicity is often expressed as a nationalistic prejudice against outsiders. Indeed, there has been considerable bias against the Chinese in Japan, and "the early history of Chinese immigration to Japan is one marked by a fairly high degree of suspicion, prejudice, and discrimination".6 Genocide and war atrocities are closely associated as the nature of genocide almost dictates that the action be carried out through the use of atrocities. This would require that the perpetrators view the victims as immoral, dangerous and subhuman. It would also require the perpetrators to have a strong sense of common cultural identity, history, and nationalism. In fact, Japan's military excesses of World War II have been partially blamed on the excessive nationalism, and it is still a concern today.7 This extreme nationalism gave the Japanese a sense of superiority that deemed their opponents as inferior human beings or even as animals. These ingredients could initiate a period of atrocities that would immediately rise to epic proportions. There would have been no need for orders that explicitly called for brutalizing and raping civilians, as the direction would have come from a common motivation and drive. It would have been unspoken, yet expected by the group. The failure of the leaders to discourage the soldiers or stop the brutality would act as tacit approval and justification for the program. This would apply to the action of genocide as well as the silence of denial. Though it was viewed as a rogue action that broke out into chaos, it was actually a planned and executed military operation. The officials at the top could keep the official reports secret, and the Japanese soldiers would have no need to be ordered silent as they would have no real conception that their actions were wrong. According to Staub (2006, p.872), "The profound changes in identity, values, views of themselves, and views of the victims and probably of human beings in general makes it extremely difficult for perpetrators of and passive bystanders to mass violence to acknowledge, presumably to themselves as well as others, that their actions were wrong".8 If a group is in a psychological and cultural position to inflict genocide or pursue war atrocities, then they will also be in a prime position to enter a period of denial. In addition, there would be a sense of duty and obligation that would prevent self-reporting if the participant began to feel empathy or guilt. "The essence of genocide is denial".9 Japan's denial of the Nanking Massacre was simply an extension of the same psychological and cultural shortcomings that instigated the action. Ethnic identification, prejudice, nationalism, an inability to view the action as wrong, and a silent sense of duty all contributed to minimize the possibility of self-reporting and perpetuated a long period of denial. People outside Japan would observe the evidence of denial by public officials and would challenge them to apologize, atone, or make reparations for the crimes committed against humanity. At this level, denial of genocide takes on a more pragmatic nature, as the war crimes have placed people at criminal and economic liability in a world that has the potential to pursue and convict war criminals. Modern war crime tribunals have their foundation in the post World War II environment. According to Garibian, "international law constitutes a legal order that may be called primitive in the sense that it tends to evolve a posteriori: the norms of international law arise in response to needs, rather than anticipating them".10 The world and its international organizations can pursue the deprivation of liberty, torture, and forced displacement or disappearance of people as a war crime and inflict severe penalties, which may include the death sentence as was implemented in the case of Iraq's Sadaam Hussein.11 However, they have little power to prevent it. Tools for collecting evidence and international tracking of suspects has also aided in bringing war criminals to justice after the fact, but the time and resources involved in building a case can overwhelm any half-hearted effort directed at that end. This is in the face of a legal system that is reactive rather than proactive, and nations and populations that have a natural inclination towards denial. Denial of genocide at the official level has a pragmatic aspect to it as it helps protect the state from a tarnished image on the world stage as well as acting as a buffer against international lawsuits. As new information is added to the body of knowledge and the body count is adjusted up or down, the revisionist versions begin to enter the public domain. Textbooks are a fundamental source of revisionist information, and have been at the center of a drive to keep the death toll low. The information contained in the official versions and in textbooks have a significant effect on public perception. According to Pitman (1992, p.14), "Ever since the war, younger generations have grown up in the belief that Japan was simply a victim of Allied aggression that culminated in the atom bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, bringing the brave Japanese to their knees".12 Author Masahiro Yamamoto read various versions of the revisionist textbooks and other works before commenting, "I reject the prevailing traditionalist interpretation of the incident because of some of its questionable theses as well as negative ramifications that are already obvious today and may become more serious in the future".13 It is clear that revisionist editions can clear up inaccuracies and offer a more complete picture of events that are shrouded in decades of secrecy or denial. The well-grounded fear is that nation-states that are in denial will compensate by giving the world a view that is far less serious than reality, with death tolls that are unrealistically low. Writing revisionist history has a viable function in the name of accuracy, but in the case of the Nanking Massacre the task takes on an enormity that may be overwhelming. In addition to the problems that have already been discussed, there is the additional issue that many of the people that were alive at the time are now deceased. Records may be incomplete or have been destroyed to protect the believability of the denial. Partial records may make it difficult to separate recounts of someone else's story from first hand eyewitness testimony. The rigorous Japanese denial, the chasm between the traditional view and the revisionist version, and the enormity of the issue makes the Nanking Massacre an event that calls out for further research and revision. In conclusion, there is no doubt that war crimes were committed in Nanking China by the Japanese in 1937-38. The question is not 'what'. The only uncertainty is 'how much'. Reliable sources have placed the death toll at over 300,000, while official Japanese policy has been to deny the authenticity of the event and the research. Reaching back over 70 years to reconstruct an event of this scope can be problematic. Witnesses have moved or passed away, records have been misplaced or destroyed, and memories have lost the reliability of temporal proximity. Years of official denial has removed and altered the incident in student textbooks and has produced generations of students who cannot acknowledge the authenticity of the event, choosing to believe that it was at best greatly exaggerated. However, a factual history and a potential for reparations points to the importance of correcting the historical record to reflect a more accurate recording of the death toll and events of the time. Denial goes hand in hand with genocide, and until the global community can act to prevent it, genocide will necessarily be a crime whose legacy will be written in revisionist history. Bibliography Andresses, Curtiss. A Short History of Japan: From Samurai to Sony. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Brooks, Roy. When Sorry Isn't Enough: The Controversy Over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice. New York: New York University Press, 1999. Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Eng, David, and David Kazanjian. The Politics of Mourning. Berkely CA: University of California Press, 2003. Garibian, Servain. “Crimes Against Humanity and International Legality in Legal Theory After Nuremberg.” Journal of Genocide Research 9, no. 1 (2007), 93-111. Kelly, Michael. “Genocide: The Power of a Label.” Case Western Reserve International Journal of Law 40, (2007-2008), 147-162 Krauss, Ellis, and T Pempel. Beyond Bilateralism. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. Mikolajczyk, Sasha, and Amir Mosa. “The Case Against Saddam Hussein Before the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT).” Zeitschrift für Internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik (8/2007). Pitman, Joanna. “Repentance.” The New Republic (February 10, 1992), 14-15 Staub, Ervin. “Reconciliation after Genocide, Mass Killing, or Intractable Conflict: Understanding the Roots of Violence, Psychological Recovery, and Steps toward a General Theory.” Political Psychology 27, no. 6 (2006). Tora-Morn, Maura, and Marixsa Alicea. Migration and Immigration. Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004. Yamamoto, Masahiro. Nanking. Westport CT: Praeger Publishers, 2000. Read More