STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  Approaching a Political Fukushima: Turning a Pacifist Nation into a Military State!!

 

Admittedly,   Japan is in a state of geopolitical and financial tension.

  Japan has to deal with China’s aggressive policy toward the two islands in dispute as well as a nuclear North Korea.

  Also, there is MUCH PRESSURE on Mr Abe who has to initiate structural financial reforms in order to attract foreign investors.

So why am I writing this blog?
 

In a recent WSJ article  (July/18/2013),   Abe’s top military advisor,  Mr Marahisa Sato,  was quoted as follows in a recent speech:

  Mr Sato read a letter from a WWII Kamikazi pilot to his young daughter,  Sato reaffirmed the following WWII Japanese Military Sentiments that brought Japan to an ignominious unconditional surrender on board the American destroyer “Missouri”:

“Don’t see yourself as a fatherless child.  I will always be looking out for your safety.”

Then Sato added his own words of military encouragement:
"We have people we want to protect.  We must have the resolve to hand this nation to the next generation."

In a Casablanca-like-parody,   I ask the Bogart question of Mr Sato:  Of all the quotes,  in all the world that you could have used,  is this the most appropriate one to use now,  in a new 21^st century generation of peace-loving Japanese youth?  

 

Mr Sato,   in case your memory is faulted or failing,  I can play for you  the litanies of atrocities that Japan committed against China;  the Phillipines;  Vietnam;  Indonesia; Burma and US,  British, Dutch, Russian prisoners of war et al.

  Mr Sato,  I think you are smart enough to get my point.

Please retract your statement!   It neither serves the interest of your people nor expresses the sentiments of a New Japan that is arising as a major player in the world stage.

 

It would be easy for me to describe in detail the atrocities conducted by Unit 731 under the DIRECT ORDERS of EMPEROR HIROHITO but I will not.

  You can read about those biological warfare atrocities in my thirty year old novel called,  Blood Heat.

  It is time that you built up Japan’s Self Defense Force.

  But there is a Warning of Caution.

  If nationalism is couched in the language of ‘military aggression’ or any other form connoting past excesses committed before and during WWII,  you will be held accountable by many of us, who had lost family during the Japanese incursion into “Manchukuo”;  the “Rape of Nanjing”; and the “occupation of Shanghai”.

I do not ask for an apology or even contriteness on your part or any other senior Japanese official.   But I do demand the courtesy that any senior state official would grant citizens of another nation who had lost family members before and during the awful WWII,  initiated by Japan.

Many Americans are becoming aware of the atrocities that the Japanese soldiers wantonly committed against American POWs as well as other allied nations.

  Your quote heralds an attitude that can quickly calcify into outright militarism.

  I would remind you of your great literary figure,  YUKIO MISHIMA.

As you know better than I Mr. Sato,  Mishima’s literary works, like “The Temple Of The Golden Pavilion”, “Runaway Horses” and other books, demonstrate the brilliance of a post WWII Japanese novelist who was affected by the “Carpet Bombing” of Japan by General Curtis LeMay and Bob McNamara [who admitted in the excellent documentary film, “FOG OF WAR” that both he and Lemay were ‘war criminals’].

But like present day Japan,  Mishima turned his literary endeavors into ‘developing himself physically’.   In that ‘narcissistic pursuit’,  he became so imbued with the notion of a resurgence of Japan as a military power with the Emperor presiding over the New Japanese Empire post WWII that he committed Seppuku— self-disembowelment with a knife.

Mishima’s legacy is well portrayed in the excellent 1985 film by Paul Schrader called, “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” that it was banned by your right wing militaristic faction of the political body because the film portrayed Mishima as a ‘self-avowed homosexual’.

 

Well,  Mr Sato,  the issue is clearly not Seppuku nor Mishima’s talents and questionable homosexuality….. the issue is more simple….

HISTORY!!!!
If you begin with militarism,  you will end with militarism.

  And although,   the USA and it’s allies are presently engaged in war game maneuvers with your country- never doubt for a moment that our American memories are long and forgiveness is limited and our will to war has been tested more than we wish.

  But if history will repeat itself,  as Santayana opines,  then as an American writer and ex-senior military/civilian government official,   I urge you to take heed and practice the famous restrain that the Japanese are so well known for.

 As we say in English, the ON  –burden—is on you,  Mr Sato. 

 We Americans await your response,

Domo Arigato!!
 Thank you. !!!

And DOZO [ please] forgive my American impertinence!!!

Hai!!

  Yes!!!