Forgetting Japanese Fascism

Comments · 5K

• CF

  @cf2836 · 2 months ago · pinned

  I appreciate the amount of meaning you&apos;ve interwoven into this video, your core message, and the way it was delivered, in a form easy understand to casual internet audiences. <br>There&apos;s been many mega-popular videos made about japan and its history on youtube, most done with the quality and nuance of a weekend high school presentation. (five minutes on wikipedia)<br><br>I&apos;m a korean, born and raised here all my life, in one of the more conservative regions in the nation.<br>Although I am sure my understanding of asian history and japan was more comprehensive than most of those in the english speaking world, there were still many things I didn&apos;t understand.<br>The education I received heavily dissected the process of imperial occupation, exploitation, relational politics and independence movements, but it didn&apos;t offer the full picture of the world at that time,<br>and it hurried over many unsavory narratives of our own history.<br>The prejudice, and frankly overt racism towards japanese I have built up as a response to the history, and especially the Abe administration growing up was more damaging to me than anyone else.<br>A lot of that hate was built on reasonable causes, but also closed my ears and eyes towards the world at an important age.<br><br>Talking with japanese people, visiting japan, and reading its history helped expand my world.<br>Most of modern south korea, the cultural framework, the infrastructure, the mindset was made during the 3rd Republic, during the Military dicatorship of Park jung hee. <br>He was a graduate of the imperial military academy in manchuria, and also a heavily believer of the &quot;Restoration&quot; model of developing a country.<br>There&apos;s many points of overlap you can find in the two nation&apos;s modern history, more than it is comfortable for me to admit.<br>Many mutual grievances, such as long work hours, overpopulation, dropping birth rates, isolated youth, strict social systems, psudo-militaristic authoritarian nonsense, corruption, large cult organizations, the unwillingness, perhaps fear or reconciling with the blood-soaked past.<br><br>So the LDP is still in power. The world is rearming, none of the historic issues are resolved in a clear way, and probably will remain that way for the near future. What can the average person do?<br><br>What I can recommend is communication. <br>Not with nationalists on twitter. Why are we still using that platform anyway?<br>You can connect with so many people in unexpected ways if you have the willingness to listen.<br>I&apos;m not saying the past should be forgotten, far from it. You should also share your perspective to others, because there will be people willing to listen.<br><br>Thanks again for the video, Elliot.<br><br>PS.<br>A couple notes. Most historic records made by western travelers during the era of imperialism(and often after, but most prominently then) have a tendency to view &quot;native&quot; systems and culture with a critical lens, often depicting it as infantile, unreasonable or lacking in initiative. While some records can offer more objective perspectives, it helps to remember that people are always a product of their time, and cross-research.

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• 25

  @255lives8 · 1 year ago

  Sequel title: Polite Canada: How to Get Away With Genocide.

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• ST

  @stuckonaslide · 3 months ago

  what&apos;s crazy to me is how many of the imperial japan apologists are just weebs. like imagine liking cartoons so much you can excuse war crimes

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• CO

  @coltekr · 1 year ago (edited)

  I&apos;ll just say as a Japanese, it stopped being cool when the government and national TV aggressively started promoting &quot;cool Japan&quot;. It felt like post war propaganda. (I&apos;m from a generation that hasn&apos;t experienced the second world war, but the school I went to did teach about war crimes. It&apos;s the government and politicians that&apos;s kind of obsessed with glossing over it.)

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• SH

  @shaunbarrie2263 · 1 year ago

  Never forget that Canada also did residential schools and gen0cide against Indigenous peoples as well. We&apos;re not exempt from that brutality, but we have such a reputation for being polite and kind that we literally get away with murder.

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• V-

  @v-d-qb3rp · 1 year ago

  its not hard to find somebody in the Philippines who has a grandparent with horrific stories of war crimes by Japan

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• KA

  @kanin9176 · 1 year ago

  cold open with the cast of 4kids singing the national anthem was crazy

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• PH

  @phil331 · 1 year ago

  bruh our history classes were so bad. i feel like we just did the revolutionary war like every single year

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• AW

  @aw888492 · 1 year ago

  Many people only know 731, but they don&apos;t know that there is also Qiqihar 516. Dongning 543, Linkou 162, Dalian 319, Harbin 659, Mudanjiang 643, Sunwu 673, Changchun 100, Jilin 531, Bozi 8604, Nanjing Rongzi 1644. North China 1855, Jinan 1875, Singapore 9420, Taiwan 8702, there are at least 7 main forces like 731, and there are 63 more places all over China.

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• DI

  @DiasporaDoomer · 1 year ago

  Honestly, it&apos;s literally just the US deciding China being a geopolitical opponent is more important than acknowledging Japanese war crimes. That&apos;s about it.

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• PE

  @peach_total · 1 year ago (edited)

  i think a lot of ppl also don’t realize that until maybe a decade ago, the japanese anime industry had VERY little interest in the global market<br><br>watching anime in north america even up until the early 10’s was largely based around bootlegging, fan-subtitling, and illegal distribution

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• CO

  @cooolkitty · 1 year ago

  As a Korean who likes Japanese sub-culture, I always have complicated feeling for their extreme nieve position on the war crime. Anime always say that the &quot;All hates are bad. Don&apos;t be so sensitive for past things.&quot; It is very hollow message because at the same time, they are keep romanticizing their war crime as patriotism without even apologising to the victims. Thanks for the video. We need to keeping reminding that they still dodge the responsibility on national level.

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