 The main building of Yasukuni Shrine The Yasukuni Shrine (靖國神社 Yasukuni Jinja; lit. "peaceful nation shrine") is a Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Japan. As of October 2003, its Book of Souls lists the names of 2,466,495 Japanese and former colonial soldiers (Korean and Taiwanese) killed in war.
History
The shrine was originally constructed in June 1869 by order of the Meiji Emperor to commemorate the victims of the Boshin War. Originally named Tōkyō Shōkonsha (東京招魂社), the shrine was renamed as Yasukuni Jinja in 1879. The shrine has performed Shinto rites to house the kami (spirits) of all Japanese and former colonial soldiers (Korean and Taiwanese) killed in conflict since then.
After Japan's defeat in World War II in September 1945, the US-led Occupation Authorities ordered Yasukuni to either become a secular government institution, or a religious institution that is independent from the Japanese Government. Yasukuni chose the latter. Since that time, Yasukuni has been completely privately funded.
The Shrine's website has been continually attacked through SPAM and Denial-of-service attacks from countries such as China and South Korea. In 2004 alone, the server was overloaded five times. The most recent attack occured at 9:00 P.M. on January 1, 2005 and was coordinated through internet chat rooms and forums.[1] (http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/new/osirase.htm)[2] (http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/news/20050106ia02.htm)
Controversy
The shrine has become increasingly embroiled in controversy as a symbol of the Japanese imperialism and nationalism of the early 20th century, a controversy stirred up partly by the shrine's continuing defense of Japanese colonial acts as both necessary and justified: a pamphlet published by the shrine says "War is a really tragic thing to happen, but it was necessary in order for us to protect the independence of Japan and to prosper together with Asian neighbors." The shrine's English website similarly claims that "Japans dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and it was sought after by the countries of Asia." The shrine runs a museum on the military history of Japan, but neglects certain important transgressions made by the state during World War II, most notably the Nanjing Massacre. The shrine is a focal point for Japanese World War II veterans and right wing movements, and provides access to its facilities on a regular basis. The museum also contains a section on kamikaze pilots and has some interesting pieces of military hardware such as a Zero fighter.
About 1,000 POWs executed for war crimes during World War II are enshrined here. This was not a political issue back then as Yasukuni was supposed to enshrine any Japanese War casualties. However, the controversy exploded in 1978, when it was revealed that 13 Class A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, who did not engage in combat were also enshrined as "Martyrs of Showa" together with other executed POWs. The shrine has further angered many with its defiant defense of the war criminals; the same pamphlet mentioned above also claims: "Some 1,068 people, who were wrongly accused as war criminals by the Allied court, were enshrined here." The shrine's English-language website refers to those 1,068 as those "who were cruelly and unjustly tried as war criminals by a sham-like tribunal of the Allied forces." After the revelation of 1978, the Japanese emperor stopped paying visits to the shrine and this has remained the case ever since.
The controversial nature of the shrine has figured largely in both domestic Japanese politics and the country's relations with other countries in the region in the years since 1978. Three Japanese prime ministers have caused an uproar by visiting the shrine since then: Yasuhiro Nakasone in 1985, Ryutaro Hashimoto in 1996, and especially Junichiro Koizumi, who visited four times, in August 13, 2001, April 23, 2002, January 15, 2003 and January 1, 2004. Visits by prime ministers to the shrine generally provoke official condemnation by nations in the region, especially the People's Republic of China and South Korea, as they are seen as condoning Japan's military aggression against those nations during World War II. Visits to the shrine also are controversial in the domestic debate over the proper role of religion in government: LDP politicians insist that visits are protected by the constitutional right of the freedom of religion and that it is appropriate for government officials to pay their respects to those fallen in war. However, they refuse any proposal that a non-religious memorial be built for Japan's military dead so that those wishing to honor them do not have to go to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Many visiting the shrine see it as an act of remembrance and not reverence, with Prime Minister Koizumi stating that his controversial visits are to ensure that there will be no further wars involving Japan.
To date, China has been the most vocal critic of the shrine, but because the issue of Yasukuni is heavily tied to Chinese politics and viewed through a filtered media, most people in China are unaware that the shrine existed prior to World War II, or that it also serves to honors colonial soldiers from Korea and Taiwan. Culturally speaking, while the Japanese view that a person's crime(s) is absolved after one's death, in Chinese culture, death does not translate to forgiveness. In response to the criticism, Koizumi said: "Why keep blaming the dead for the crimes they committed when they were alive?"
Further Reading
- Breen, John. "The dead and the living in the land of peace: a sociology of the Yasukuni shrine". Mortality 9, 1 (February 2004): 76-93.
- Nelson, John. "Social Memory as Ritual Practice: Commemorating Spirits of the Military Dead at Yasukuni Shinto Shrine". Journal of Asian Studies 62, 2 (May 2003): 445-467.
For more about Yasukuni's controversy, see:
- Ijiri, Hidenori. Sino-Japanese Controversies since the 1972 Diplomatic Normalization. China Quarterly 124 (May 1990): 639-661.
- Yang, Daqing. Mirror for the future of the history card? Understanding the history problem in Chinese-Japanese Relations in the Twenty-first Century: Complementarity and Conflict, edited by Marie Söderberg, 10-31. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002.
See Also
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