Japan in the Fifteen-Year War - Essay Example

Japan in the Fifteen-Year War Japan is usually depicted as an ethnically homogenous nation. This is largely because of government that has censored many accounts of the war in Japan history. Recent practice, however, as in the telling of oral histories from those involved in the fifteen-year war belie this impression. This paper tries to disprove this notion of Japan homogeneity, presents proofs of some people living in Japan territories during that war, and tells of their participation in the war effort of Japan. Some five groups as represented by five oral story tellers are presented here to describe their experiences. The image of Japan homogeneity does not seem to hold true for Japan during the Fifteen-Year War because Japan is actually multiethnic and only hold a monoethnic myth.1 Japan has never been a country for which the description ‘homogeneous’ or ‘mono-ethnic’ would be appropriate, according to William Wetherall. 2 In his words - The tendency to deny that Japan is a complex, heterogenic, multi-ethnic society is the major source of anxiety and anguish for passable minorities who wish to be members of Japanese society without submitting their ethnic souls and acquiescing in the myth that they, if they pass, become as pure as those who would reject them if they did not. For those who cannot pass, there are constant reminders, verbal and nonverbal, that they lack the ethnic, usually racial emblems deemed essential to "Japanese" identity. 3 The so-called Japans homogeneity is only found in books because they were censored from time to time. Therefore, one cannot say there was real Japan homogeneity of social groups. Despite their habitual censoring of events and realities of the past in whatever publications government could hold off, the truth tends to manifest in the very same avenues that they tried to control: publications. The truth still manages to manifest in some publications through the authors. The accounts given by Wetherall 4 are very much telling. In sum, there is no evidence to show Japans homogeneity although that is what the government would like the public to know. More attempts to reveal censorship and hide the presence of their ethnic tribe of barkumin or eta are discussed by Stephen Murphy- Shigematsu.5 He declares that since there are not supposed to be minorities in Japan, these topics are not legitimized. This suppression of information accordingly contributes to the ignorance of some Japanese claims of minorities within Japan. From Murphy- Shigematsu - The largest minority in Japan, the Burakumin, are said to be physically and linguistically indistinguishable from majority Japanese but exhibit the political and cultural traits of an ethnic group. They are as many as three million descendants of the Eta, a subclass legally distinguished during the Tokugawa period (1600-1868) and until their emancipation in 1871.6 Outside of these tribes, there were a range of ethnically diverse people that lived on Japanese territory and had participated in the Japanese war effort - proving that Japan was a multi-ethnic nation. There was just racial discrimination for these people by the pure-blood-conscious Japan. They included the Koreans who were forced to labor, and the Okinawans who had to commit group suicides, but which accounts were forcibly muted from Japanese history.7 Wetherall’s accounts 8 place all periods of Japanese history as having witnessed ethnic conflict along Japans northern, southern, and western frontiers. He records - “Run-ins between Yamato peoples and Ainu or other northern groups are well attested, as is the friction between main islanders and the peoples of the Okinawan islands. The animosity engendered by the Japanese-dominated pirates who preyed upon East Asian seaports is also well known. Two failed invasions of the Korean peninsula at the end of the 16th century left scars still visible in present-day Japan/Korea relations.” 9 Japan was a multi-ethnic nation at least during the fifteen Years War. It is only that she is not accommodating of its subjects when it comes to meaningful Japanese citizenship. George De Vos and Changsoo Lee 10 in “The colonial experience. Koreans in Japan” particularize that citizenship in the Japanese perspective does not bestow full Japanese citizenship even if Korea was annexed to Japan in 1910, thereby making all Koreans as Japanese subjects. It seemed to be settled that “the true Japanese citizenship is based by birth and on family lineage legally registered.” 11 This confirms Wetherall’s 12 earlier contention that there is Japanese group-concept like they are a particular distinct race of a higher class that they grudgingly standby to check who becomes Japanese citizen. As subjects of Japan, these Koreans participated in the Japanese war effort and suffered much. Under the national Manpower mobilization Act of 1939, Korean laborers and military draftees were said to be involuntarily brought to Japan to work in the munitions plants, in coal mines and at other forms of hard labor.13 At the end of the war, however, they were still discriminated. 14 Okinawans, for their part, have suffered much psychological and personal damage wrought by the Japanese army. In the Battle of Okinawa, they did much to participate in the war effort. Unfortunately in Japanese history, this chapter was also obliterated.15 To depict that Japan was not made up of a homogenous population, different groups are shown here as having experienced the war differently. Stories told in oral history by Haruko & Theodore Cook 16 register about 3 million Japanese dying in a conflict that raged for many years causing untold death and suffering to millions in Asia as well as pain and anguish to families around the globe. The book records over 70 oral interviews with Japanese and Koreans who recount what it was like during those times and how they survived. Five of them are summarily discussed here - One story was about a Korean guard, Kasayama Yoshikichi. (The Japanese name implies that he is supposed to be Japanese, being a Japanese subject). He was technically a civilian employee conscripted like most others of the Japanese Army for the lowest tasks including the guarding of captives. And yet after the war, he was charged and convicted for committing crimes against the Allied prisoners. A second story was by Ahn Juretsu, a Korean who spoke of forced labor. He was one of those 1million men brought to Japan to work in the coal mines, on construction sites at a time Korea was a colony of Japan and there were no human rights, no pay, yet they were treated as slaves. A third oral story in “A war comes home to Okinawa” was by Miyagi Kikuko, a Japanese high school student-turned-nurse who spoke of the involvement of their Lilly Corps when the Battle of Okinawa broke out in April 1945. About 2,000 high school students, both male and female, were mobilized to serve in the war where more than half of these died. In the throes of war, Miyagi learns that she had been indoctrinated well enough with many things that she found were not true. For example, since she was Japanese, that one has to sacrifice one’s life for the emperor no matter what happens; that Japan is great and invincible; that no Japanese surrenders; that Americans are evil. In the battlefield where she served the wounded soldiers for Japan, she had experienced all of these to be running counter against what she had been taught. Miyagi was Japanese but if she knew of Okinawan Kinjo’s statements about group suicide, she would agree it was not right to kill oneself for somebody else. She also had witnessed that the Japanese could surrender when the conditions warrant, and could lose a war, too. Miyagi also found that the enemy can have a heart even in war times and not ruthless and savage as painted by her own people. She discovered she held a lot of beliefs that had to be corrected. In the same chapter, “Now they call it ‘Group suicide,’” is the story of Kinjo Shigeaki, an Okinawan, who was only 16 at the time this story unfolded. To avoid capture by the enemy, people were forced to live in a small area in a village called Aharen. The sergeant gave them two bombs each where one was to be thrown to the enemy and the other was for gyokusai (group suicide). In a fight against the Americans and the Japanese, the people in the hamlet were told that there was no other path but death. One half of 300 survived to be captured by the enemy. But before that, father, mother, brother, sister helped each other die. Kinjo was said to say later - “During the war, there was no phrase “shudan jikutsu” (group suicide). There was gyokusai, however, a grandiose militaristic euphemism signifying the ‘crashing of jewels.’ Meaning people giving up their lives joyfully for their country rather than succumbing to the enemy or falling onto their hands. It was only after the war, especially in the 1950s that ‘group suicide’ came into use. It’s a term only subject to misinterpretation. The state now wants to say these deaths were ‘voluntary deaths.’ But that isn’t the way it was. The people of Okinawa never killed themselves on their own initiative.” A fifth oral account in the same chapter on “War comes to Okinawa” was by Ota Masahide, who recounts his life as a straggler. He and his troops fought side by side with the Japanese. As a subject of Japan, he thought he was supposed to stand for what Japan stood for until he found out – from stories after the war - that he and his people were not counted as one of them and that they were still Okinawan. Ota Masahide says - “Until then, we’d receive education to make us the emperor’s people. We thought we were just the same as the Japanese that we’d fought together as one. Now though, Okinawan soldiers and members of the Okinawa local defense forces talked about how terrible it was, how they’d been bullied. I myself had seen Okinawan mothers thrown out of caves and food snatched away from them countless times. Why is such a thing happening? – the thought still struck somewhere in my brain. Yet I wondered, what’s the difference between Okinawans and the people from outside the prefecture? For the first time I began to be awakened to differences in our cultures. I began to see that I was an Okinawan.” According to Murphy-Shigematsu, after the war many stayed in Japan but the post-war San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1952 designated them as foreigners, 17 hence they lost their Japanese nationality. “Wolves at the back door,” 18 is also an account of Okinawans who had been involved in the war. It discusses an oral history project where elderly Okinawans provide personal accounts of the Battle of Okinawa and its aftermath to elementary school children. In a careful analysis, Matthew Allen, the author, shows how these narratives challenge the official Japanese account of history. He would say later on that the actions of the Japanese military demonstrated that they were deceitful, ultimately betraying Okinawan’s trust that they would be protected. According to Allen - “While housed within the nation-state of Japan, in practice, Okinawans were designated as disposable people. Okinawans died not simply because of war, but also because they were Okinawans, despite their attempts to be loyal Japanese subjects.’19 “The Colonial Experience” by Changsoo Lee and George De Vos 20 confirms what all along had been narrated in the oral histories in Japan at War: the harsh and ruthless rule up to attempts to protest. In August 1910, Korea was said to be annexed by Japan that continued to rule it until Japans surrender to the Allied Forces in August 1945. 21 For the first ten years Japan ruled directly through the military where any Korean dissent was ruthlessly crushed. A nationwide protest against Japanese colonialism started in March 1919, however. After that, Japanese rule relaxed somewhat, allowing a limited degree of freedom of expression for Koreans. 22 The truth about this terrible war of the past should help to teach for a future of peace. In the first place, Japanese obsession for a pure-race can be self-deceptive even as their government has tried many times to obliterate events from Japan history. Besides making the lives of minorities more difficult, it is said Japanese beliefs about being unique often nurture an inability to relate to others. The monoethnic myth on Japan is said to be contributing to what a number of recent writers refer to as Japans separateness in the world. Experiences of people belie this monoethnic myth because as she pretends oneness, she at the same time practices discrimination as exemplified in her concept of “pure” citizenship. Oral stories should be able to force Japan to see herself and through public opinion be forced to accept the truth. Only then will she be able to change so as not to repeat history. Endnotes 1 Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu. “Multiethnic Japan and the Monoethnic Myth.” Journal of the Society for the study of multiethnic literature of the United States. (MELUS), Vol. 18. 1993. 03 Feb 2006 . 2 William Wetherall. 1981. “Public Figures in Popular Culture.” Identity Problems of Minority Heroes.” In: Changsoo Lee and George De Vos (Ed.) with contributions by Daekyun Chung, Thomas Rohlen, Yuzura Sasaki, Hiroshi Wagatsuma, and William O. Wetherall. Koreans in Japan. Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Chapter 12, pp. 281-303 (text), 406-413 (notes). Yosha research. 02 Feb 2006 . 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Murphy-Shigematsu (1993) 6 Ibid. 7 Haruko & Theodore Cook. 1992. “Japan at War: An Oral History.” ISBN: 1-56584-039-9. New York: The New Press/WW Norton: 02 Feb 2006 . 8 Wetherall (1981) 9 Ibid. 10 Changsoo Lee and George De Vos. 1981. “The Colonial Experience, 1910-1945.” In: Koreans in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 31-57. 11 Ibid. 12 Wetherall (1981) 13 Haruko & Theodore Cook. (1992) 14 Several oral stories. In: Haruko & Theodore Cook. 1992 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. The stories, however, are in different chapters of this book. 17 Murphy-Shigematsu (1993) 18 Matthew Allen. 2003. “Wolves at the Back Door: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres,” pp. 39-64 in Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power, edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. 03 Feb 2006 . 19 Ibid. 20 Lee and De Vos (1981) 21 Haruko & Theodore Cook. 1992 22 Various oral stories. In: Lee and De Vos (1981) References Allen, Matthew. 2003. “Wolves at the Back Door: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres,” pp. 39-64 in Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power, edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. 03 Feb 2006 . Haruko & Theodore Cook. 1992. “Japan at War: An Oral History.” ISBN: 1-56584-039-9. New York: The New Press/WW Norton: 02 Feb 2006 . Lee, Changsoo and George De Vos. 1981. “The Colonial Experience, 1910-1945.” In: Koreans in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 31-57. Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen. “Multiethnic Japan and the Monoethnic Myth.” Journal of the Society for the study of multiethnic literature of the United States. (MELUS), Vol. 18. 1993. 03 Feb 2006 . Wetherall, William. 1981. “Public Figures in Popular Culture.” Identity Problems of Minority Heroes.” In: Changsoo Lee and George De Vos (Ed.) with contributions by Daekyun Chung, Thomas Rohlen, Yuzura Sasaki, Hiroshi Wagatsuma, and William O. Wetherall. Koreans in Japan. Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Chapter 12, pp. 281-303 (text), 406-413 (notes). Yosha research. 02 Feb 2006 . Read More