How about you?

As for the textbooks, the central government should remove itself from it completely. Education is a local issue.

This is turning into a really fascinating discussion. Thanks everyone for taking time to read and think about things so much!

but good post, Marie

Persons like Nakayama apparently think that it is enough to prove that no kidnapping by military and police occurred, and then automatically that the comfort women would be dissolved.

Tachibana Takashi has pointed out (in relevance of the Yanagisawa remark) that there is a problem that men about 50 years old in Japan can’t understand the gender issue properly and are stuck with very old values.

When you enter university and when you begin to read history on your own, then you find out that something is wrong in this explanation. Whether you became more progressive (left) or you begin to identify with what the right wingers are saying is up to each person, I think.

I’m not particularly well informed about this issue but as much as I appreciate many aspects of Japan, I have always gotten the sense that people in general (which is to say that there are always exceptions of course) have comparatively little interest in matters of history (in all areas – global, domestic, pop culture, and so forth). It seems that people are geared more towards effecting constant change in the social landscape. This can have positive economic effects but also limits discussions on serious matters to more recent topics.
I’m not very familiar with the Japanese education system, but I was under the impression that many teachers are rather left-wing and bitter about the role that the Emperor played during the war. They express themselves often in this respect by not singing the national anthem. Do these same teachers go beyond making symbolic gestures and actually take the initiative in teaching their students some of the historical events that cause them to hate what Imperial Japan represents in their eyes? Or are they limited by rules that force them to adhere strictly to a narrowly-defined curriculum or by pressures to “teach to the exam”? I honestly don’t know and would be interested in finding out more. It would seem that it shouldn’t be very difficult for a teacher who is principled enough to refuse to sing the national anthem at school ceremonies to at least briefly introduce some of these controversial issues using third-party resources (such as newspaper clippings, independent books, and websites). (All this is not to say that I don’t agree that the textbook issue itself is cause for some concern.)

Forget that contrition from Japan would help improve its relations with its East Asian neighbors, Japan has US soldiers to die for it the next time Japan pokes a stick in a Chinese or Korean eye.

You Americans – always butting into other countries’ bu…hey, get your boys over here so they can be killed! Our Chinese neighbors are being mean to us again!

Sometimes, it seems Tokyo acts more like a defendant in court—”Comfort women? Prove it!”—than an interested participant actively trying to get uncover the historical truth.

Yes I agree. If my neighbour broke into my house and stole all my stuff. And then if they later get caught, and fail to fully compensate me for my loss, less apologise properly, the important thing is that now they know they did the wrong thing (although I would only be assuming, and putting my faith in them that they have learned their lesson), and I should stop seeking for compensation and apologies as a sign that they have actually changed their ways.

I should be less seeking of the outward signs of their true repentance, less seeking of the compensation for the material losses. I should try my best to just forget about the losses and the stress that it has caused me.

I should be a more forgiving person.

Yes, the problem in this world is really that people aren’t forgiving enough and have no faith that people will not repeat their past miskates.

Thankyouverymuch.

Not apologising completely is just a face-saving game on Japan’s part. Whether people were raped or not, modern Japanese understand that that would be wrong today. Just like modern Australians understand that stealing people’s children is wrong – sure it’s a terrible thing, but it doesn’t mean that today’s Australians are responsible for, or think doing such a thing would be ok. Are Mao’s descendants going to apologise for killing millions of Chinese? The best we can do is as worldwide community agree that doing such things today would be wrong. Apologies are irrelevent.

Get over it and start living in the present. Everyone’s bored of hearing about old wars and who was right. Everyone’s ancestors have contributed to terrible things. Most Japanese books, movies and video games just speak of how terrible war is. Isn’t that enough? Do you really need an apology?

The apologies keep coming partly because the LDP has no party discipline or official stance on these issues and because either the government or successors take actions that render their heartfelt apologies as insincere.