Japan’s PM supports remilitarization while German chancellor faces up to the past
May 12, 2015
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2015 April 29 - May 12 [SOCIAL ISSUES]
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On May 8, 1985, then West Germany’s President Richard von Weizsacker delivered a historic address in the federal parliament marking the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. He stated that May 8 is the day Germans should recall the sufferings of war victims as well as reflect on the course of German history.
On that day in 1945, European peoples were finally released from Nazi rule trampling on human dignity. A Jewish man, who was on the train heading for a Nazi death camp at that time, writes in his memoirs: “I felt as if I was in a dream. The war really came to an end.”
It has been 70 years since the history of humankind changed significantly as peoples’ fighting defeated Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and militarist Japan. A variety of memorial events and ceremonies are taking place this year in many countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said recently, “There is no question of drawing a line under history… We Germans have a particular responsibility to handle what we perpetrated in the period of National Socialism attentively, sensitively, and also knowledgeably.”
What are Japanese leaders doing at the very time the international community, including Germany, is working to learn from the bitter lessons taught by the war? Japan’s ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic and Komei parties have agreed on all the texts of bills for war legislation. They aim to enact those bills by this summer.
The true purpose of the war legislation is to turn Japan into a nation which can wage wars abroad alongside the United States. It will allow Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to use armed force and engage in combat. The government led by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is trying to go back to the old ways in defiance of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.
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