Interesting, this. I’d be delighted if I was Mr Hills. Japanese translation coming out in about a fortnight, and the book’s headline news. Couldn’t wish for better publicity. And full of lies, gossip and half-truths? It’ll fly off the shelves.

I think that Ben Hills was the correspondent for either the Orstralian Financial Review or Lord Rupert of Wapping’s – “Australian”.

(I believe he is married to a Japanese lady).

He/she.. has a chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind.

or just short of dosh.

but then I’m sure that berocca or the Irony Chef can put me straight on that one.

I heard his radio interview this morning – netwise.

appalling.

pulp fiction methinks….:roll:

stop – me-go-beer-now!! – (byeeeeee.)

remora.

From Ben Hills website:

On February 13, 2007, the Japanese Foreign Ministry called a Press conference in Tokyo to denounce the book as “insulting to the Japanese people and the Imperial family.” They made no specific claims of factual inaccuracy, and contented themselves with deeply inscrutable statements such as saying that the book contains “..disrespectful descriptions, distortions of facts, and judgemental assertions with audacious conjectures and coarse logic.”

With my publisher in Australia, Random House, we stand by the accuracy of the book, and have told the Japanese government that there will be no apology. I reminded the representative of the Japanese Ambassador in Australia, Hideaki Ueda, that this country is proud of its long tradition of free speech, and will resist any attempt by government – particularly a foreign government – to censor or suppress information to which its citizens are entitled.

For four months the book has been on sale in Australia and the US without a word from the Japanese government. Now, however, Kodansha plans to publish it in Japanese in Japan, so that for the first time Japanese people will be able to understand how their Crown Princess has been persecuted by the Imperial Household bureaucrats, and driven into a state of deep depression. It is blatantly obvious that the government is trying to prevent this happening, but Kodansha has said that it will not be bullied, and plans to publish regardless, in March.

As far as I am concerned, the only apology that is due is that the Imperial Household Agency should get down on its knees and apologise to Princess Masako for its treatment of her.

I think it’s great that the book was published, though I’m kind of shocked that it will be released in Japan. Here in NYÇ it has prominent placement in the Barnes and Noble window in Union Square.

The publication of this book kind of reminds me of a cross between the Andrew Morton Diana book and the Bix book on Hirohito. The fallout will be interesting.

Thanks for posting, Danny. This is a very interesting story and I’m keen to see how it develops.

“But I strongly believe that some things do not need to be told or written. Is this book one of them? I can’t answer that.”

The older I get, the more I think we really do have to let all stories be told. This doesn’t mean we are comfortable with them all (witness my outburst a month ago or so), but I think it’s usually more important to tell a story than not to–in the long run. We owe a debt to the men and women who put pen to paper thousands of years ago to leave us just a scrap of their daily lives so we have different view points of history. It’d be terrible if all we were ever handed was the “official” version of history. Thank goodness for graffiti, shopping lists and even trashy books. They all do reflect the culture and what is going on in people’s minds, whether we like it or not.

well… I could probably get in trouble for talking about this…

but people are NOT terribly happy here at the Embassy. The ‘minister-cousellor’ mentioned by Mr Hills has an understandable headache. The sad fact is that writing the letter and presenting it in person to this guy has only generated insane amounts of publicity for the book, thereby having the opposite effect to what the Imperial Houshold Agency wanted.

I mean, doesn’t someone think these things through? I know it doesn’t happen here at the Embassy, once an order comes through from Tokyo, it is to be obeyed and pity the fool who puts their hand up to say “wait a minute.. maybe this isn’t such a great idea”.

I’ll try an get a copy of the letter, but this is not considered a ‘political’ issue. I will have to visit the ‘cultural’ section.

It’s hard to muster any sympathy for Masako. After all, her education was financed by Daddy’s salary from Chisso, the company which dumped mercury into Minamata Bay and caused the agonizing deaths and cripplings of thousands – the Minamata disaster.

And after Chisso was found to be at fault, what did Masako’s Daddy’s company do? It hired yakuza to viciously attack the victims and their advocates, including a famous American photojournalist, who produced a heart-breaking book of photographs of the victims.

The spawn of an industrial criminal marrying the spawn of a war criminal: that’s Masako and Naruhito.

“As far as I am concerned, the only apology that is due is that the Imperial Household Agency should get down on its knees and apologise to Princess Masako for its treatment of her.”

Errr.. Who does he think he is? How could an un-known Australian get sources close to the imperial family…Can he even speak Japanese? It seems like another anti-Japan propaganda book written by a righteous foreigner.

UPDATE: Kodanska caved into pressure from J-govt and foreign ministry and Imperial family, and will not publish book on March 16, as contracted to. But news tippers say that another publisher in Tokyo has come forward and hopes to get book out in Japanese ASAP.

There’s been a pretty resounding ‘yes’ on that one from the global community throughout the second half of the 20th century, be it accountability for slavery, the murder of aboriginal people, the list goes on.

I have not seen one case that would support that. If you could link to something that proves that perhaps that would help.

About Hirohito being a pawn, I truly do believe that. I think Hirohito had more power then even he realized. Could he have prevented the war if he saw fit? Absolutely. But as well, Hirohito was an emperor who wanted nothing to do with being an emperor. He was a scientist and researcher at heart. The man didn’t even know what the hell was going on, in my opinion, in the war situation as his military commanders did.

There is no doubt in my mind that Hirohito was a tool used by extremists to control a nation.

I think for the most part, you all have lost the plot. First off, in no way should this book have ever been written. It is an out right attack on the Royal Family and I resent the fact that you people find it to be interesting.

Ben Hill has crossed the line with this one and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some retribution sought out on his behalf from the Right.

The last politician who spoke out against the royal family had it in for himself.

One Japan-based reporter who was misquoted in the book, along with others, apparently, wrote this open letter about the issue back in December.

In preparation for a final word on this book and on Mr. Hills, I just tried to check out the open letter at the other end of the link provided to find out that it has been replaced with the following statement.

UPDATE FROM ERIC JOHNSTON FEB 19, 2007

Eric Johnston wishes to extend his thanks to everyone on the Debito.org list who wrote to him with messages of support over the “Princess Masako’’ book. There have been some new developments since his initial post, and he is looking into what, exactly, happened and why. Once the facts are known, Eric will write to Debito.org again and update everyone.