Japanese Museums: Liberal Or Conservative?
July 4th, 2007 by James
Here’s an interesting chart shorting Pacific War-related Japanese museums by their political leanings, according to Pacific University student Megan Jones’ Exhibits of Opinion: How Japan’s World War II Museums are used to Further Political Agendas:
| Conservative | Kaiten Tokkotai Memorial Museum (opened 1968) Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots (opened 1975) Yamato Museum (opened 2005) Yashukan (at Yasukuni Shrine; opened 1961, renovated 2002) |
| Middle ground, with a “right wing tilt” | Hiroshima Peace Museum |
| Liberal/Left | Okonoshima Toxic Gas Museum (opened 1988, one room exhibit hall) Osaka Peace Museum (Japan as victim and aggressor) Kyoto World Peace Museum (opened 1992, Japan as victim and aggressor) Nagasaki Atomic bomb museum (opened 1996, good context) |
More on this chart and how it was compiled can be found at Professor Jonathan Dresner’s blog.
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I tend to agree with Dresner’s contesting of the Hiroshima Museum. It starts off with a clear depiction through a series of photos and explanations of just what Japan was doing in Asia that got everyone so mad, and makes it clear to anyone who reads them that Japan was doing some rather nasty things. The main area of dioramas and models is more “right wing” if you consider “victim mentality” to be right-wing, but it’s churlish to find fault with that – it’s a memorial to those who died, after all.
Those “conservative” museums: kamikaze and naval tech museums, the Yushukan (not Yashukan as Dresner has it: it’s also seidan (聖断) not seiden) are conservative? Well what a surprise there. Well well well. Never would have guessed. Basically, with a war museum, you’re going to get pretty polarised views either way, depending on why the thing was built. Of more interest would be how normal history museums treat war memories. How places that are built to show a general, neutral, history are or are not distorted.
Overthinker,
I am a right wing nationalist. You have no sound logic to stand on when you condemn Japan for what she did through- out greater east asia. What Japan was doing was liberating asia from Western Imperialism. People like you seem to not be able to understand that.
Of course our museums are conservative, common sense. The same could be said about the Enola Gay being on exhibit in the United States at the Smithsonian Institute.
“I am a right wing nationalist. You have no sound logic to stand on when you condemn Japan for what she did through- out greater east asia. What Japan was doing was liberating asia from Western Imperialism. People like you seem to not be able to understand that.”
Are you insane? Have you heard of the Nanking Massacre? That’s some wonderful liberating you’ve done there. There were atrocities committed by both sides in the war, and this outright denial and insistence that you were ‘liberating’ other countries is outright asinine.
This is why I loathe right-wing nazis of any nationality. And yes you’re an ignorant nazi. You’re no better then those Neoconservative Republicans of America who still believe that the Iraq war is justified and ’spreading liberty and democracy’. To think that you can even justify your military actions in Asia, really its a joke.
Japanese and American politics = Fascism and Imperialism.
Liberalism and progression is the way.
I didn’t notice McTojo’s comment before, but it’s quite amusing in a way. Liberating Asia from Western imperialism? Certainly – by replacing it with Japanese imperialism. All Imperialist Conquerors are Equal – but some are more Equal than others…? McTojo is just getting carried away with the rhetoric and ignoring the reality. Some of the nutcases like to claim that because much of the colonial apparatus crumbled after WW2 that Japan did succeed in liberating Asia. This is needless to say a very self-serving view of history.