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Worshipping war criminals

TheStar.com - Worshipping war criminals

Shrine to soldier deities at centre of Asians' anger and fears of a return to WWII fervour

MARTIN REGG COHN
ASIA BUREAU, TOKYO

Dressed in ceremonial silk robes, the Shinto priest claps twice and bows deeply before reciting prayers.

This religious purification rite, enacted daily for the devout, embodies traditional Japanese reverence for the spirits of 2.4 million war dead enshrined in the historic Yasukuni Shrine.

War criminals are no exception.

In fact, the souls of more than 1,000 Japanese convicted of war crimes — including 14 designated "Class A" by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal — are worshipped here.

Six decades after World War II, more than 5 million people make the pilgrimage annually to the shrine's leafy grounds, blanketed in chrysanthemums and swirling in controversy.

Today, people keep coming to commune with the dead. No one is buried within the shrine's precincts, but the spirits of the war dead are there forever.

And as the 60th anniversary of war's end approaches, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's insistence on repeating his annual visits has provoked furious reactions in China and South Korea.

Tens of thousands of Chinese protested on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai this year when Tokyo approved new textbooks sanitizing Japan's wartime atrocities, reviving grievances about the shrine.

Koizumi publicly expressed remorse for Japan's aggression, but his defiant announcement that he would keep visiting the shrine prompted China's visiting vice-premier to storm out of Tokyo in a sharp diplomatic rebuke.

The standoff has not only soured relations across East Asia, it also has focused attention on the resurgence of Japanese nationalism at home.

Renewed fascination with Japan's wartime adventurism is drawing young and old, politicians and priests, into an unusual debate: Does history count for less than faith and tradition?

Known as Kami, or deities, the war criminals were secretly enshrined in 1978 by the private Shinto religious foundation that runs Yasukuni. The priests make no apologies for safeguarding their spirits.

"History is something that has to await the verdict of future historians," argues Shingo Oyama, a priest and designated spokesperson for the 136-year-old shrine.

He is quick to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the international tribunals, insisting: "You can't prove that they are war criminals."

Indeed, the shrine publishes its own version of events, referring to World War II as the Greater East Asian War. Conveniently overlooking the attack on Pearl Harbor, it states that "Japan was forced into the conflict." In the aftermath, "the precious lives that were lost in these incidents and wars are worshipped as the Kami."

Praise is showered on those "who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces .... These martyrs are also the Kami of Yasukuni."

Inside the sprawling grounds of the shrine, lined with ginkgo and cherry trees, a war museum showcases the exploits of kamikaze pilots and downplays the infamous 1937 Nanjing massacre, asserting casually that "Chinese citizens were once again able to live their lives in peace."

Such sentiments are echoed by a growing number of Japanese, raising alarm bells among analysts and opposition politicians who sense a return to wartime chauvinism.

Many critics place the shrine at the centre of the revival.

"I feel it's going back to the days of the old imperial army," says Masahide Ota, an academic and lawmaker from the opposition Social Democratic Party.

"This is a sort of tool for reviving nationalism among the Japanese people. And it's all connected with the textbook issue."

The country is clearly split.

The speaker of Japan's parliament, backed by former prime ministers, urged Koizumi to exercise "utmost caution" before visiting the shrine again.

Business leaders also expressed concerns and recent public opinion polls show about half of all Japanese now opposing any more visits.

But Ota believes the recent opposition to prime ministerial pilgrimages merely reflects sensitivities about Japan's trading relationship with China, rather than any introspection about the country's past.

"Young people don't know anything about the last war," he says, but "they're always interested in the samurai spirit" of Japanese warriors from earlier eras.

"I'm afraid Japan will make the same mistake again."

Indeed, there is growing sympathy for the notion that the convicted war criminals were blameless victims, scapegoated by the victors of World War II who imposed their will upon Japan.

"A lot of people want the prime minister to keep visiting the shrine," says Narui Hiroaki, 43, who has come to worship for the first time.

"Worshipping the war criminals is not necessarily a bad thing," adds the computer salesman, whose father fought in the war.

"A war criminal doesn't necessarily equal a villain."

Inside the waiting room, ordinary Japanese are shown a propagandizing video that replays grainy footage of the war-crimes tribunal and condemns the legal process as unjust, vowing: "We won't forget."

A family has brought a newborn baby to receive priestly blessings, while others line up to enter the inner precinct where the prime minister makes his pilgrimage.

A priest wearing a pointed Eboshi hat with a slim chinstrap leads us to a large fountain where he stops and ladles water into his hands in a cleansing ritual.

We shuffle in slippers past a large, unadorned wooden courtyard to an altar under slate roof tiles, where the priest prays with green sprigs and blesses the faithful.

On cue, people clap their hands twice and the ritual concludes with the drinking of sacred sake from orange cups.

The pilgrimage brings tears to the eyes of many visitors who are deeply affected by the experience, reinforcing the arguments of Oyama, the shrine's spokesperson, that they were right to enshrine the war criminals.

Dismissing appeals from some opposition politicians and critics that they reverse their 1978 decision to enshrine the war criminals, Oyama is adamant that the spirits have reached their final resting place.

"Even if the deities were removed or split off, the spirits will still remain in the original shrine," he insists.

"Souls and spirits are not things. What has been enshrined as a deity cannot be moved because of political pressure."

Additional articles by Martin Regg Cohn

July 24, 2005 at 12:38 PM in Japan | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home