Poll: The Nanjing Massacre

[boringanarchy]

Dicussion time:
What do you think of the ignorance of this in western society?
-Why do you think that ignorance exists, and what could be done to remedy it?
Do you think Japan should admit to the events that transpired, rather than denying all knowledge of them?
Would it be ethical to punish the descendants of those involved for the crimes committed?

Your assumption that Westerner's are completely ignorant of the Rape of Nanjing is rather insulting. This was taught in my high school and college history classes, it's not something that is completely unknown, give us a little credit.

See above

They have admitted, several times. They don't deny it, they have admitted and apologized on several occasions.

Holding someone guilty for the sins of their fathers is absurd and ridiculous. Did those people rape and pillage Nanjing? No, so why are they being held responsible. Perhaps reparations from the gov't, but not direct punishment on the people.

 

[Silent Anima]

What do you think of the ignorance of this in western society?

A lot of people do know about it, it was a terrible, terrible thing.

Why do you think that ignorance exists, and what could be done to remedy it?

I don't think that there is as much ignorance as your implying. I learned about it in high school so that is probably the best solution.

Do you think Japan should admit to the events that transpired, rather than denying all knowledge of them?

Yes, it was a horrific occurrence and should be acknowledged as such.

Would it be ethical to punish the descendants of those involved for the crimes committed?

No, the sins of a father do not pass on to their sons. Anyone that says otherwise should be backhanded for stupidity and ignorance.

While the Rape of Nanjing was a disaster beyond imagination, these kind of atrocities are hardly uncommon. For example there is actual Holocaust, what the Nazis did to the Soviets, what the Soviets did to Eastern Europe, the Rwandan genocide, the Armenian genocide, the Crusades. This kind of crap happens...

I think this is the best answer so far on this topic. It's straight to the point... And exactly what I was going to say ANSWER STEALER!!! In all seriousness though, tragedies like this should not be ignored and Japan should indeed admit to the atrocity, especially since we all know it happened anyway. Nowadays our schools are having entire units dedicated to teaching children about these genocides, so the knowledge is out there. As for punishing the descendants; they are innocent of the crime ,as they themselves did not commit it. If we punished them we would be no better than those who did commit the crimes.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Chinese Holocaust... do you mean the Cultural Revolution?

*looks up*

I remember that. China called it an 'accident' and successfully pissed off Japan.

Read about it in a book "Lost in Planet China". Funny, but very informative.

 

[SckizoBoy]

The Chinese side of it is generally overlooked, yes, but it is very much overshadowed by WW2.

I hope you mean 'overshadowed by the rest of WW2' when you say that.

Being of Han Chinese descent, the Sino-Japanese conflicts are something of a very taboo subject around me (family from both sides were lost to the Japanese: see Hong Kong [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_Hong_Kong]), primarily because I admire a number of cultural features of modern Japan. Time was I irrationally hated anything that was remotely Japanese or Japan-related, and I objected to anime on grounds of principle (and, let's put it bluntly, racism).

While what the Japanese did to Hong Kong is nothing compared to Nanking, the scale of death, rape and destruction (psychological and physical) is such that I find it no better, since we are reduced to arguing cold statistics, none of which makes pleasant reading.

However, despite all this, I find myself in the unenviable position that I almost despise the fact that I'm Chinese. National pride be damned, I don't know who was worse for China: Japan; or Mao.

And I don't even think those two were the ultimate culprits of the shit China was subjected to. If you can convince me that Chiang Kai-Shek did anything of value to China, I wouldn't know whether to congratulate you, or smash your face in. Hell, even a lot of Taiwanese hate him.

/righteous bullshit.

EDIT: And now that I've come off my high horse:

What do you think of the ignorance of this in western society?

A lot of people do know about it, it was a terrible, terrible thing.

Why do you think that ignorance exists, and what could be done to remedy it?

I don't think that there is as much ignorance as your implying. I learned about it in high school so that is probably the best solution.

Do you think Japan should admit to the events that transpired, rather than denying all knowledge of them?

Yes, it was a horrific occurrence and should be acknowledged as such.

Would it be ethical to punish the descendants of those involved for the crimes committed?

No, the sins of a father do not pass on to their sons. Anyone that says otherwise should be backhanded for stupidity and ignorance.

While the Rape of Nanjing was a disaster beyond imagination, these kind of atrocities are hardly uncommon. For example there is actual Holocaust, what the Nazis did to the Soviets, what the Soviets did to Eastern Europe, the Rwandan genocide, the Armenian genocide, the Crusades. This kind of crap happens...

is a fair summary of my sentiments.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I knew a bit about it, I barely remember it from school, where it was taught for about 15 minutes.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Firstly, before you finish reading this, even this paragraph, I'd like for you to vote in the poll. One of the things I'd really like to bring to light here is the ignorance of western society in this respect. Not ignorance as in stupidity, but ignorance as in lack of knowledge. Anyway, if you'd be so kind as to vote now, that would be great, and now, on with the rest of this topic.

I'm not going to tell you anything about the Chinese Holocaust, but instead ask you to look it up. Just typing in "Chinese Holocaust" or "Nanjing Massacre" should give you a few pages with substantial information.

Dicussion time:
What do you think of the ignorance of this in western society?
-Why do you think that ignorance exists, and what could be done to remedy it?
Do you think Japan should admit to the events that transpired, rather than denying all knowledge of them?
Would it be ethical to punish the descendants of those involved for the crimes committed?

I knew about those incidents.
I'm not an expert and I can't recite everything, but I'm aware of the actions Japans did in China. From what I've gathered, the act of rape can be considered an act of 'fertilizing' the soil for future developement in the region and eventual intergration into the nation, since all children born out of the hideous crime will be half Japanese.
- I don't know anyone that has any knowledge of those events (in person, the internet is huge).
- The fronts in Europe and Oceania after Pearl Harbour in World War 2 were romantisized - aye, that's the word - they bacame some sort of a fetish for people to look back and 'admire'. Have you seen the amount of movies, games, books and other media glorifying that era and comemorating it?
The same should be done with this. But the essential problem is that there were no heroic acts (as far as I know) in these atroceties. Therefore, like any other holocaust, the screams of the dead must echo through all of out hearts.
- Japan will never acknoledge them. Moreover, Japan is now a democracy and I'm not certain that the current people should be punished for the crimes of the monarchy that existed in the time of the war.
-The descendants? Absolutely no. Like any reasonable man, and the bible actually stands with me on this, every punishment for a crime is ought to be given to the commiter of the offense.

 

[dyre]

The West knows mostly about atrocities that happened in the "West," which is understandable. I'm sure most Chinese people in China don't know about the Bosnian genocide. Being Chinese American with a mom born in Nanjing, I've obviously heard of it, but I don't think it's especially necessary to educate people about every massacre that's happened.

That said, Japan should absolutely admit to the massacre, but Japan's a pretty proud and fairly xenophobic nation, so I don't see it happening. No matter though, China is much more powerful than them, has a growing economy where Japan's has sort of stagnated, and certainly doesn't need some hollow Japanese apology.

Of course, it would be unethical to punish people for the crimes of their fathers, though China did block Japan's entrance as a permanent member of the UN security council awhile back

 

[TheIronRuler]

Of course, it would be unethical to punish people for the crimes of their fathers, though China did block Japan's entrance as a permanent member of the UN security council awhile back

I had now idea about that.
Do you have any link from a news site about this? I'm interested.

 

[thiosk]

The rape of nanking, as it is typically taught in the US, was not glossed over in coverage of the leadup to world war 2.

I think, once bombing a society back to the stone age and occupying their nation for 65 years, that we can forgive.

Spoiler: this guy was wayyyyy worse for the chinese, anyway

 

[loc978]

Yes, as an American who took a world history class in high school, I know about many Japanese war crimes in World War 2, chief among them the Nanjing massacre (and the Bataan Death March, let's not forget that one... my grandfather never did). I've never encountered this ignorance you speak of, except in people who ignored all of their schooling anyway. These things are well known in educated circles, and were taught to those in uneducated circles... they just choose not to retain knowledge. A remedy for said ignorance would have to come by changing the culture the ignorant live in. Ignorance is still "cool". It shouldn't be.

Additionally, I think that the Japanese government should follow the lead of Germany in acknowledging that these events did happen and teach them in schools. If they don't, well, we can laugh at them the way we do any holocaust denial enthusiasts.

I do not think the people of Japan should be made to pay reparations for the crimes of their overthrown former government 70 years after the fact, though, no.

 

[dyre]

Of course, it would be unethical to punish people for the crimes of their fathers, though China did block Japan's entrance as a permanent member of the UN security council awhile back

I had now idea about that.
Do you have any link from a news site about this? I'm interested.

It was from awhile ago. I'm not sure if it actually came to a vote, but I think the impression was that it was proposed that Japan might enter the Security Council for its massive monetary contributions to the UN, but China was just like, "not gonna happen." There were also massive protests in China when they learned that Japan might go for it (I think Japan had major support from the US and partial support from Europe)

Here's a link
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-05/08/content_440128.htm

Yeah yeah, it's from China's propaganda newspaper, but they wouldn't lie about not supporting Japan, lol.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Yes, as an American who took a world history class in high school, I know about many Japanese war crimes in World War 2, chief among them the Nanjing massacre (and the Bataan Death March, let's not forget that one... my grandfather never did). I've never encountered this ignorance you speak of, except in people who ignored all of their schooling anyway. These things are well known in educated circles, and were taught to those in uneducated circles... they just choose not to retain knowledge. A remedy for said ignorance would have to come by changing the culture the ignorant live in. Ignorance is still "cool". It shouldn't be.

Additionally, I think that the Japanese government should follow the lead of Germany in acknowledging that these events did happen and teach them in schools. If they don't, well, we can laugh at them the way we do any holocaust denial enthusiasts.

I do not think the people of Japan should be made to pay reparations for the crimes of their overthrown former government 70 years after the fact, though, no.

To tell you the truth, I didn't learn this at school. My curiosity and a two week session of history books and th internet were my teachers.
There's hardly any discussion about these topics here, since it's all damned propoganda.
I hate my high school.
I wouldn't know about any crimes against American/British/Australian POWs, since this isn't one of those countries. It's a sad fact, but most people don't care here. They have their own problems, like the possibility of a Palestinian country being formed in September.
So...yeah.

 

[Apollo45]

I was taught this multiple times in high school and college. The details weren't necessarily all there, but I knew that they killed civilians, I knew they raped women, I knew the name, etc.

What do you think of the ignorance of this in western society?

I don't think there's as much of an ignorance about this as you think. A lot of people in the West might not know about when when compared to, say, the Nazi holocaust or even the American Civil War, but that's largely because it didn't affect the West at the time. Not to downplay the events, but a death toll of 200,000 isn't much compared to the 6,000,000 killed by Hitler over the course of the war, or the millions of troops (and civilians) that were killed on either front by both sides. Things like this have happened throughout the world, and most people, no matter what country you're from, would be hard pressed to name all of them, or even the majority of them. Again, that's not to downplay the seriousness of what happened - of course it's a tragedy, and of course it's reprehensible that it happened at all - but that's how things work. You can't know everything, so you tend to focus on the things that affected you and your country.

-Why do you think that ignorance exists, and what could be done to remedy it?

With reference to what I mentioned above, I don't think there's a need to remedy it. If we were made to 'learn' (and by learn I mean memorize, seeing as most schools (across the world) have been focusing on 'learning' for tests and not actual knowledge for a while now) everything that ever happened, we would never get out of high school. Focusing on the basics and the consequences of choices is what should be done, and in the West this equates to focusing on the Nazi Holocaust instead of the Chinese Holocaust.

I'm betting similar sacrifices have to be made across the world; do you think students in Japan, or anywhere in Europe, know much about the atrocities committed against Native Americans since the Americas were colonized (Many of which could be considered much more devastating than this)? Or if students in Africa know intricate details about how Stalin killed 20+ million citizens of his own country? Again, we can't be forced to learn everything, and therefore have to stick to what has affected our country the most, with basics on other areas thrown in when possible.

Do you think Japan should admit to the events that transpired, rather than denying all knowledge of them?

Of course, and they have. But, as has been stated, their culture is different than ours. We can't force them to do what Germany has done since the end of WWII, and in many ways they don't need to. Look at their culture now as compared to then; a lot of things have changed.

Would it be ethical to punish the descendants of those involved for the crimes committed?

No. Nothing can change what happened, but the people on both sides are different now than they were then, and the effects of the event aren't (that I know of) continually ruining people's lives for the generations. That's not to say victims shouldn't be helped, but the people of Japan shouldn't be blamed for what their former government and their ancestors did.

 

[SilentCom]

I've learned about this incident in one of my classes. This isn't something any country would want to own up to. They may admit to it given some time.

 

[loc978]

Yes, as an American who took a world history class in high school, I know about many Japanese war crimes in World War 2, chief among them the Nanjing massacre (and the Bataan Death March, let's not forget that one... my grandfather never did). I've never encountered this ignorance you speak of, except in people who ignored all of their schooling anyway. These things are well known in educated circles, and were taught to those in uneducated circles... they just choose not to retain knowledge. A remedy for said ignorance would have to come by changing the culture the ignorant live in. Ignorance is still "cool". It shouldn't be.

Additionally, I think that the Japanese government should follow the lead of Germany in acknowledging that these events did happen and teach them in schools. If they don't, well, we can laugh at them the way we do any holocaust denial enthusiasts.

I do not think the people of Japan should be made to pay reparations for the crimes of their overthrown former government 70 years after the fact, though, no.

To tell you the truth, I didn't learn this at school. My curiosity and a two week session of history books and th internet were my teachers.
There's hardly any discussion about these topics here, since it's all damned propoganda.
I hate my high school.
I wouldn't know about any crimes against American/British/Australian POWs, since this isn't one of those countries. It's a sad fact, but most people don't care here. They have their own problems, like the possibility of a Palestinian country being formed in September.
So...yeah.

As much as Israel is a part of western society, you still live in a war-torn nation surrounded by religious tension and controversy. It's perfectly understandable not to be taught these things in your country.
Completely unconscionable in the huge, soft country I live in, though.

Spoiler: totally off topic addendum

Also, massive credit to your military. I've had the shit scared out of me by some IDF guys before... and my old Krav Maga instructor makes me feel about as combat effective as a little girl.

 

[Wintermoot]

not that much.
I did read about Unit 731,s human experimentation,s.
-The ignorance exists because no country would want to admit doing something like this

 

[Therumancer]

Firstly, before you finish reading this, even this paragraph, I'd like for you to vote in the poll. One of the things I'd really like to bring to light here is the ignorance of western society in this respect. Not ignorance as in stupidity, but ignorance as in lack of knowledge. Anyway, if you'd be so kind as to vote now, that would be great, and now, on with the rest of this topic.

I'm not going to tell you anything about the Chinese Holocaust, but instead ask you to look it up. Just typing in "Chinese Holocaust" or "Nanjing Massacre" should give you a few pages with substantial information.

Dicussion time:
What do you think of the ignorance of this in western society?
-Why do you think that ignorance exists, and what could be done to remedy it?
Do you think Japan should admit to the events that transpired, rather than denying all knowledge of them?
Would it be ethical to punish the descendants of those involved for the crimes committed?

Yes I have heard of it, and mention it quite a bit in connection to Japan in a lot of things. I do not think the western world is all that ignorant of it either.

I do not think that the descendants should be punished for the crimes of their ancestors in any way, shape, or form. To me that is a stupid question. On the other hand I think Japan should be made to acknowlege it's own war crimes.

As I've mentioned in other threads, Japan's current culture and history is heavily based off of Americanization. The way they view Samurai, Ninjas, and even their own history is based off of western fantasy and misinterpetations that they took as their own to a very great degree. This is why their pop culture translates so ell to an American audience, it's basically a slightly differant spin on our own stuff. They even teach a lot of stuff that is fairly preposterous as fact in their schools, and when it comes to war crimes, they pretty much don't say much about it... to Japan it's like it never happened.

I can see why China would be peeved about their refusal to even really acknowlege Nanking, as an American I am however more concerned over things like "Unit 731"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Seriously read that. I'd imagine 99% of Americans have never even heard of that, and most that have probably remember it from an X-files episode.

See, I'm a ruthless bastard who will look at American "War Crimes" and pretty much say "war sucks" and put most of them into context for why we did them. I might not make any apologies, and explain to people where they get the details wrong, but I don't flat out deny that they ever happened or act like they should be surpressed from the history books. I will for example defend why we gave small pox infected blankets to Native Americans in a big picture sort of way based on what people knew at the time and the harsh realities of that situation and time period as opposed to what we might say from out comfortable homes looking back at things with an unreasonable amount of detachment, but I don't say it was a nice thing, or try and pretend it never happened.

Simply put, I think forcing Japan to acknowlege the truth in a clear way should be considered punishment enough. No need to punish the descendants, but one should make them learn about it, and have the way the world sees it spelled out rather clearly. They might disagree, and even come up with some very good answers in the long run, but the point is it should not be avoided.

Of course I will also say that one of the reasons why Japan has a love-hate relationship with America is not just the culture, but also the fact that we keep them alive. See the US has Japan under occupation, no matter how we might present it. Their SSDF is nothing compared to the forces we base there, using Japan as our major foothold into the eastern world. The reason why Japan hasn't been the victim of some genocidal payback for crimes that go back even before World War II is because we're there to protect them, not just in a "we're allies" type of way which might not matter, but in the fact that there are some rather massive forces based there.

Aside from China it's also important to understand that the Japanese belief in their own superiority over "lesser races of man" also extended to Korea. I once read parts of a Manga called "Island" which was from Korea, where in addition to the comic there was some notations from the creator (with photographs) explaining the inspiration for parts of the story, namely Japanese medical experiments on Koreans during "World War II". I had heard of Nanking, I had heard of Unit 731, but at the time I read that I was not aware of this little tidbit, or to the extent they victimized Koreans. A bit of fantasy turned into me learning something new but unpleasant... sadly I never finished the series.

http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/TRT5.html

http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/japanese-government-should-apologize-koreans-t22523.html

"Fun" stuff... and yeah, really it's not surprising these guys have that entire area of the world ready to lynch them. At least the Nazis were defeated, and then the remnants were by and large hunted down. In Japan they got by relatively unscathed, and in exchange for their good fortune they refuse to acknowlege anything even happened it seems.

 

[Spade Lead]

I had not previously heard the term "Chinese Holocaust" but I was aware of the Nanjing Massacre and the fact that similar events occurred at other places.

Yeah, the term "Chinese Holocaust" is backwards. We don't call it the German Holocaust. It is just the Holocaust. If anything, it would be the Japanese Holocaust. And on the subject of Japan's atrocities, yes, I was very aware of the rape of Nanking, and many other atrocities similar to it. Ever heard of "The Bataan Death March?"

 

[MetroidNut]

I knew of the Chinese Holocaust and Unit 731 (though not necessarily under those name) from my World History class. And based on the poll results - assuming they're accurate - I'm not so sure there is widespread ignorance, at least in America and Europe. It's pretty fucked up that Japan still refuses to admit to any of its war crimes, though.

That said, the descendents of the offenders did nothing wrong - even the denial isn't really their fault; they were brought up in a culture that denied the atrocities. They can't really be blamed for following along.