Comment by jpatokal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpatokal | Hacker News Reader

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Japan has apologized repeatedly, paid significant war reparations and signed peace treaties where both South Korea and China essentially agreed to treat the case as closed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements...

Also, the vast majority of Japanese school books do cover the war in unflinching detail; however, unlike China and South Korea, Japan approves a whole range of school books, which have widely varying views. There are Communist textbooks, pro-North Korean textbooks and, yes, far-right textbooks. One particular series, which led to riots and violence in 2005, ended up being used by 0.039% of Japan's schools:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_cont...

The reason the issue lives on is in very large part because, for political reasons, China and South Korea refuse to let it die. This doesn't excuse the occasional Japanese right-wing nutjob denying anything happened etc, but then again, we don't blame Germany when some random neo-Nazi targets a synagogue.

I'm talking more about the average response of individuals, a government apologizing doesn't mean as much if many citizens and some prominent politicians still deny or downplay it all. I'm talking about the average individual and people's emotional responses, vs government apologies and official stances.

I've yet to meet anyone that has studied in depth at school or remembers it. Most people if they remember or know about it at all, say they studied the "Nanking controversy" as a brief paragraph on one page.

In general people's responses are more of the downplaying or sweeping under the carpet type. I think this plays into worsening the relationship. No quiet contemplation, acceptance of what happened or pause for thought in general.

I've met the son of the rape of a Korean comfort woman forcibly brought to Japan, he grew up as Zainichi in Japan. He's lived a life as an outsider and has to hear people suggest that these things didn't happen. As if he shouldn't exist. So then instead he hears mention of financial reparations and lists of apologies. Which don't really count for much when it sounds like "I said sorry, why do you still care about this issue?"

I just wish people here were more compassionate.

I don't expect German individuals to say sorry for WWII, why should Japanese be held to a different standard?

Neither do I, but I don't expect their prominent politicians to deny the facts, or average German people to discuss the 'controversy' about the concentration camps. Or for people to state that a lot of bad stuff happens in war, so you know people should just forget about the nazis and stop having a problem with it, and anyway it was so long ago, you know?

Some things are just inappropriate to say, it's about sensitivity.

In general there's not really a time limit on at what point it is appropriate to start expecting Jewish people to forget about concentration camps. And in the same way I think that there should some reasonable level of education about the events here. Just so that people know about it and know when not to say hurtful things.

It's something that should be taught and remembered and learned from. And whilst it's also not appropriate to continually labour the point, I also don't think it's at all appropriate that the average Japanese person really knows little to nothing about what happened, to the extent of denying it in some cases. You don't really hear many justifications or downplaying of nazism from average German citizens, but you really do hear downplaying of it all here.

There are so many people in Japan absolutely incredulous that anyone in China or Korea should possibly still have any kind of problem with the war, whilst not being aware of the things that happened.

I cannot imagine hearing anyone from Germany say without ill intent that they still don't understand why the events of the war are such a big issue for people that actually experienced it.

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