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2014 November 5 - 11 TOP3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Fuwa: Abe is Japanese version of Neo-Nazi

Japanese Communist Party Social Sciences Institute Director Fuwa Tetsuzo on November 3 delivered a lecture entitled “Think about Japan’s past war, using a scientific view” at the 41st Akahata Festival. He said that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is seeking to overturn the post-war international order.

At the beginning of the lecture, Fuwa said that the international community is paying close attention to what kind of position the Japanese will take in celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII next year. He went on to say that as post-war generation lawmakers are broadcasting their unrealistic war-glorifying views in the political world in Japan, it is becoming more important than ever to have an objective understanding of Japan’s past war based on historical facts.

Fuwa pointed out that the Liberal Democratic Party had traditionally shown its reluctance to face up to Japan’s past war. In the early 1990s, however, a group of LDP lawmakers started to openly justify the war. He explained that this move came just after Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei in August 1993 published a statement admitting the Japanese military’s involvement in the comfort women system and apologizing to the victims, and later in the same month at a press conference Prime Minister Hosokawa Morihiro recognized the war as an act of aggression.

Also in the same month, the LDP established its committee to investigate historical issues, said Fuwa. Two years later, the committee released a report which justifies Japan’s war as a just war for Japan’s self-existence and denies the Nanjing Massacre as well as the forcible recruitment of comfort women by military officials. Abe Shinzo, who had just won his first election at that time, took part in the committee. In 1996, a nationalist group was formed to create new history textbooks. The following year, young ultra conservative lawmakers launched another group in support of the textbook reform campaign, and Abe was installed as its secretary general, according to Fuwa.

Fuwa noted that Abe has been in the center of this movement. “These new wave lawmakers, who are trying to justify the aggressive war, took over the LDP leadership and now make up the Abe Cabinet,” he pointed out.

Fuwa stressed that this is similar to nationalistic movements in European nations and deserves to be called a Japanese-version of Neo-Nazism. Abe is trying to overturn the post-war international order which was formed based on the remorse over the turn to fascism and aggressive wars by militaristic nations, Fuwa said. He concluded that Japanese people need to take on the responsibility to bring down this ultra-rightist administration in order to secure a peaceful future for Japan, Asia, and the rest of the world.