Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Japanese way

Unlike a Penitent Germany Japan resolutely refuses to de-glossify its past. Probably one of the most cruel campaigns in the history of Civilization, the Japanese WW2 campaign encompassed most of Asia. But Korea and China had a special place in the hearts of the Japanese. A special place reserved for its worst forms of cruelty.
Japanese War Crimes
The not so famous but equally tumultuous Japanese version of Nuremberg
Japan's incapability to learn from and accept its past

The disgusting and unforgivable hate and supremacism of the Nazis, is almost matched at times by the incredible havoc the marauding Japanese wrecked on these two nations.
“I express my sympathy for the hardships they suffered and offer my apology for the situation they found themselves in.”Yasukini Shrine
Says Shinzo Abe. !!!. "they found themselves in" Indeed. The oldest trick in apologies. Would be funny if only the issue weren't quite as disgusting.

Shinzo Abe's apology for an apology

Instead of offering even a modicum of penitence, the Japanese have indeed chosen to make it a rallying point for jingoistic Nationalism and Premier after Japanese Premier has paid homage at the contentious shrine of Japanese "War heroes" instead of at the very least ignoring it.
Japanese ongoing work at rewriting and glossing over their history

Even the Sangh attempts at changing the curriculum in India weren't as blatant. The Japanese run roughshod over their war crimes, comfort women, treatment of POWs and a hundred other indignities

Incredibly roundabout ways of absolving itself of responsibility.

It is well know that the Japanese are an emasculated nation. A nation where people commit suicide because of their inability to say no. In a spectacularly schizophrenic hedonistic milieu also run some of the hardest feelings of Racism, Casteism and Cultural Conservatism.
Probably the world's most closed cultures, the Japanese are neither understood nor willing to be. In a increasingly global world where the Indians and the Chinese cut costs 10 times better than them, Germany beats them in quality, the US in productivity and never having been a center of creativity, invention or innovation and mostly dependent on incremental modifications to existing concepts, the Japanese are the verge of imploding. And are already mostly irrelevant
Its time the Japanese realise that there is a world out there that would never miss them. And what is fast becoming the world's most powerful country would rather it didn't exist at all

It is indeed time that the Japanese re-invent themselves and get over their collective hang-up. At the very least they ought to have their own classical music !!

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