New Zealand ‘comfort women’ statue could jeopardise diplomatic relations, Japan says
Posted by defenestrate_urself@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 47 comments
SomeDumRedditor@reddit
Japan need to realize absolutely nobody outside Japan other than weebs thinks they were the good guys in WWII.
The Japanese need to come to terms with the fact they did monstrous shit to multiple nations, full stop no “but on the other hand.”
Japanese exceptionalism combined with historical revisionism is an absolute joke and while it helps their internal cohesion it undermines them as a people and world-facing society.
Fucking sperging out over a statue in remembrance of something your people factually did and continue to downplay/deny is beyond ridiculous.
JoelMahon@reddit
hey, please don't insult weebs like that
however it does baffle me that I could travel to Japan, meet nothing but kind people (to even a foreigner like myself), have plenty of progressive options (e.g. no trouble finding vegan foods, even in the boonies),and yet the very same people (or at least a decent chunk of them) support these regressive governments with backwards views.
I will say I agree with Japan being in part a victim, I've heard a million arguments for why the nukes were morally justified, from how other attacks done by all sides were worse, to how it was the only way to get an unconditional surrender and I still haven't been convinced.
but also, despite them being in part a victim, they did absurdly terrible things and it's terrible that they at a governmental level and large part of the population still resist acknowledgement of that.
fionnuisce@reddit
The nukes were bad, but the alternative was a ground invasion and that would have been worse I guess
BioSemantics@reddit
Japanese civilians, in many cases, were absolutely victims. The Japanese government? Japanese society? Not a chance. They set out to do a colonialism like many other imperial powers during that time and they reaped what they sowed ultimately.
The nukes weren't even the worst thing the US did to Japan. The fire bombs killed more people and destroyed more stuff. The nukes were just a shock. A sustained bombing campaign is expensive and risky to trained personnel, but if all it took was a single bomb to take out a large city, then things changed. Suddenly, the US could wipe out the Japanese population in a month or two, rather than years of bombing campaigns followed by costly ground invasions.
As the reasoning behind the use of the nukes, well the standard explanation is that they would it would be expensive to bomb the Japanese into submission and it would have taken 1M+ American troops to do the job ultimately. This explanation works on paper, but the likely more important explanation was the US was worried about the Soviets getting into the war with Japan and claiming it for their own. The Soviets were much more willing to throw people into the meat grinder, and Japan would have been a meat grinder.
No2Hypocrites@reddit
So USA used nukes to save their own army. Because it's ok to kill as many civilians as possible as long as American army is unharmed?
Who will punish USA for their colonialism and imperialism and for their genocide of indigenous Americans?
NearABE@reddit
The nuclear bombs gave severe burns, internal burns on organs, and radiation poisoning. The horror is not just the dying. It is weeks later when victims are not quite dead yet.
reflexive-polytope@reddit
The most baffling part is that, unlike, say, Turkey, Japan doesn't lose the slightest bit of respect for their historical revisionism.
civodar@reddit
Same with Croatia. Beautiful country, lovely people, wonderful place to visit, and yet majorly revised the atrocities they committed and romanticizes their Nazi past. I don’t know why some countries get a pass, it only allows them to continue pushing a false while giving fascism an easier time of taking hold again.
No2Hypocrites@reddit
Depends on their usefulness to the western alliance. Japan was and is very useful for USA so who cares? Turkey was also very useful but they are leaving USA's orbit so past atrocities can now be used against them.
Nobody cares about Croatia in international arena.
reflexive-polytope@reddit
What makes the case of the Ustaše particularly damning is that they committed all those atrocities in the name of Catholicism, a religion that preaches salvation for all of humankind.
civodar@reddit
Yeah, it really adds that extra level of depravity. There were priests who were murdering people like Miroslav Filipovic, I don’t know how someone can stray so far from the things they supposedly believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_Filipovi%C4%87
This guy was the chief guard at a concentration camp and the things he did there seemingly for fun were absolutely horrific. He was hanged after the war and wore his robes during it.
LardHop@reddit
It's the same everywhere tbh. I have a coworker who's one of the smartest software developers I've ever known and a pretty chill and nice dude as well.
and he voted for Trump. I can't fucking understand.
salzbergwerke@reddit
Yeah sure, nothing but kind people when going as a foreigner to one of the most racist countries in the world.
agentchuck@reddit
FWIW... The two atomic weapons were massive losses of civilian lives. Estimations between 150k-250k. But the death toll in China in WW2 is generally counted around 14M. Even the Japanese government, with all their reasons to low ball it, estimates 3 million. And this is aside from all the other non murderous atrocities. And the overwhelming majority of those affected were civilian.
So sure, they're allowed to say they were victims. But they handed out somewhere between 10x to 40x the victimization to others.
JoelMahon@reddit
you can just say you didn't read my comment
agentchuck@reddit
I was agreeing with you and adding context to your answer to provide scale. Perhaps my use of "FWIW" made it sound like I was disagreeing.
It's not just that they did terrible things, they did terrible things on the scale of the holocaust.
hemareddit@reddit
I don’t know if it’s Reddit or just the internet in general, or even just humans in general, but on this site I regularly come accross people arguing (or at least trying to) with those who agree with them.
KalzK@reddit
No true weeB would say Japan were any kind of good during WW2.
Familiar_Control_906@reddit
As a weeb, I know they are ful.of shit for not acknowledging the atrocious crimes they commit in china and Asia in general. All weeks know that
A_Rogue_GAI@reddit
Regular reminder that the LDP was founded by Nobusuke Kishi and a coalition of "reformed" fascist government officials and sympathizers, and is, to this day, largely run by the descendants of those individuals.
evil__brain@reddit
Let's just tell ourselves the truth. The United States allied with European and Japanese fascists at the end of WW2.
1nfam0us@reddit
That's not really true in Italy. The wartime alliance was primarily between the US and various mafia groups in the south. Some Italian fascists joined the Americans as the resistance became less about opposition to fascism and more about opposition to Germany.
True out and out alliance between the US with right wing and fascist forces in Italy didn't come to be the primary axis of power until operation Gladio and the shadow war between the US and USSR.
Square_Radiant@reddit
At the end? Boy, have I got some news for you about who armed Hitler's inasion force
haggerton@reddit
Or who bankrolled Japan's colonization of Manchuria.
onespiker@reddit
Soviets put a lot nazis in the East German government to run it and also into KGB.
wombatstylekungfu@reddit
True. If the only guy who knows how to repair cars used to be a Nazi, what are you gonna do?
Guaire1@reddit
So did the soviets. One of the most important parties in East Germany was the NDPD, who was created to represent the interest of former members of the nazi party, the whermatch and the middle classes of nazi germany.
Abd thats without mentioning operation osoviakhim.
lordgoodsaar@reddit
Is that why neo-fascist parties in Germany are by far more popular in the previous East Germany?
Mr-Anderson123@reddit
Thats a more recent phenomenon (started in 2010s). Since reunification up until the 2010s, eastern Germany was a bastion of the SPD and the left party
imunfair@reddit
Seems like a weird thing to have in New Zealand. I totally understand the South Korean edition of the statue, just not sure why they'd want to put a copy in a country that Japan didn't occupy/abuse.
ynthrepic@reddit
I'm not familiar with the background, but we have a very significant Korean community in New Zealand.
wombatstylekungfu@reddit
Interesting. Is there a reason for that?
Responsible_Set_8218@reddit
From what I've gathered, New Zealand introduced a new immigration policy that was beneficial to Koreans and other Asians in the 90s. https://teara.govt.nz/en/koreans/print
wombatstylekungfu@reddit
Thanks!
woolfonmynoggin@reddit
Because the victims moved all over the world including NZ. Think for one second
imunfair@reddit
That's silly reasoning. Monuments are generally placed where things happened, not in random diaspora locations.
fishling@reddit
The number of monuments that exist where things didn't happen show that you are wildly wrong here.
For an obvious example, every war memorial in the continental US for wars/veterans after 1900 (e.g. WW1, WW2, etc) are not placed where things happened.
imunfair@reddit
Monuments to veterans of a war usually get erected in the country the veterans are from, even if the war was fought overseas, because the impact and honor are due on home soil.
The only examples anyone has given that fall outside this rule are holocaust memorials, but that's not surprising - normal rules don't really apply when it comes to them.
civodar@reddit
Naw, there’s an Irish famine memorial in Ontario Canada and a Holocaust memorial too. I’m pretty sure America has multiple memorials for the famine and the Holocaust as well.
It’s because so many immigrants from those parts came over and shaped the country after experiencing those tragedies, I’m sure the same is true for NZ.
Hell, there’s a Choctaw monument in Ireland.
It’s honestly not that weird, you just gotta get out there more.
GravelPepper@reddit
Username checks out
reflexive-polytope@reddit
If there's a Holocaust Memorial in the US (which, just to be clear, I don't oppose at all), then why can't there be an acknowledgement of the suffering of comfort women in New Zealand?
speedyspeedys@reddit
There's a holocaust memorial in New Zealand as well.
floydianvergil@reddit
Does it really matter if it makes sense to you or not? A symbol of Acknowledgement for reminding crimes against humanity, what's wrong with that?
WillListenToStories@reddit
Japan having a hissy fit over actual history is not a good look. They did tons of horrible things during their East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere era, pretending otherwise is absolutely pathetic.
nw342@reddit
They deny their crimes all the time, and gloss over a lot of their 1900-1945 history.
WillListenToStories@reddit
Ugh, I know, it's such gross and pathetic behaviour. Like how fragile are you that you can't even acknowledge your own history? So weak.
nw342@reddit
we didn't punish Japan enough for their crimes in ww2. Not executing the top brass and emperor because "the Japanese people would be sad" was a huge mistake.