Yasakuni Shrine

I wanted to write a bit about Yasakuni shrine since I think our speaker’s description of it today was not given in the proper context and I have some personal experience with this topic. I have visited this shrine on a number of occasions and I have also visited the museum which is on the shrine grounds, it is one of only a few museums in Japan which include material about WWII. The museum has been highly criticized for not including the atrocities of the Japanese, but portraying only the positive stories of Japanese soldiers. In my opinion that is true, though the inclusion of a Japanese Zero and headbands of the kamikaze are not in bad taste in my opinion, the lack of a more balanced inclusion of history is. The shrine itself is by their own words a place where people can honor the, “souls of men who made ultimate sacrifice for their nation since 1853 … to 1951. These people, regardless of their rank or social standing, are considered to be completely equal and worshipped as venerable divinities of Yasukuni.” For Americans a similar parallel might be made the Tomb of the Unknown soldier which is a, “grave in which the remains of an unidentified soldier are interred, dedicated to the common memories of all soldiers killed in any war” Many people who worship at the shrine do so to honor common soldiers killed in WWII. The big controversy comes because of the more than 2 million souls enshrined about 1,000 are considered war criminals. The irreversible decision to include these people was wholly that of the monks at the shrine in the 60’s and 70’s and even during that deliberation there was great debate. It was finally decided by them that by the rules of inclusion at the shrine they could not exclude those criminals. There have been many publicized visits to the shrine by high ranking officials. A visit by the Prime Minister, Koizumi, in 2001 was widely reported in Chinese media and led to popular anger. That same year Koizumi met with China's President and agreed to make a symbolic trip to the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing to honor Chinese soldiers killed during WWII. Then Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine again in the spring of 2002 and it led to a diplomatic crisis between the two countries. Prior to that there had been protests of visits to the shrine, but this instance is what lights the fire under most Chinese people today. I think our speaker was right in saying that it’s a political move on the part of Japanese politicians. However, to paint a picture that the Japanese are unanimous in their support for the shrine is misleading. Emperor Hirohito refused to visit the shrine up until his death and the current emperor Akihito has also not visited. Many Japanese people today don't visit it. Yet strangely even the Dalai Lama has made a visit. There is actually a film called Yasakuni which is largely funded by Japanese and made by a Chinese director. I would love to see it, but haven’t been able to find a copy. It appears it is on Netflix.