5 Deadly Sins of Abe’s Historical Revisionism
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One: Suppression of Press Freedom
Two: Attack on Academic Freedom
Three: Revisionist Domination of the Public Space
Four: Japan’s Isolation in East Asia
Five: Persistent Misogyny and Renewed Gender Backlash
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"5 REASONS WHY A STATE FUNERAL FOR ABE IS A BAD IDEA"
"5 FATAL FLAWS OF ABE'S REMILITARIZATION DRIVE"

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Hi everyone. Today I am going to talk about former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s notorious penchant for historical revisionism, and the lasting damages it has inflicting on Japan and Asia.

Historical revisionism, the attempt to glorify Japan’s imperial past by putting a positive spin on or even by fabricating post-truth interpretation of its wartime record, is as old as Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi’s brand of postwar conservatism, but it is no exaggeration to say that its resurgence as a political cause in the post-Cold War era went hand in hand with Abe’s own ascent to power. As a youthful politician Abe was the prince of the revisionist camp, and once in power he was its uncontested standard-bearer. It was during the government of his mentor, Junichiro Koizumi, notorious for his yearly visits to the Yasukuni war shrine in the early 2000s that the forces of the revisionist backlash that comprised of rightwing politicians, like Abe, media and opinion leaders, and a range of groups and associations, including the religious right, came to occupy the mainstream of the ruling LDP. Then after a brief stint in opposition, it was after Abe’s return to power in December 2012 that historical revisionism became the official policy of the Japanese government.

Following in Koizumi’s footsteps, prime minister Abe made a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where the Class-A war criminals as well as the soldiers who died fighting for imperial Japan are enshrined as deities, as if to celebrate his first year back in power in December 2013, earning him a rare public rebuke from Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador in Tokyo. He also sought to undermine and overwrite the two, landmark war-related apologies of his predecessors, namely, the Kono statement on the comfort women, also known as the “sex slave,” issue and the Murayama statement that provided an official apology to the Asian victims of Japanese colonial rule and aggression by the then prime minister on the 50th year anniversary of the war end. Since December 2014, Abe’s LDP made it an official policy of the Japanese government to propagate revisionist views of history not only in Japan but also worldwide, in an attempt to “restore Japan’s honor and interest” –only to do the exact opposite. Eventually, Team Abe came to realize that he could only get away with rewriting history within the boundaries set by his US masters, and he would win praises from them for being “pragmatic” and “realistic” in exchange for the compromises he made as he prioritized Japan’s US-dependent remilitarization drive, but the damage was done by then and Japan has still not recovered from it to date.

Historical revisionism, as an attack on truth, is pernicious in itself, but government authorized and sponsored historical revisionism is even worse as it is nothing other than a coordinated assault on the values and institutions of the liberal democratic order by the state authority itself. The lasting damages caused by Abe’s historical revisionism are many but let me pick five that remain all extremely serious even after Abe departed.

One: Suppression of Press Freedom
When the government attacks the truth, it invariably launches an attack on press freedom. We have seen all that with Donald Trump, and as Steve Bannon famously quipped, Abe was “Trump before Trump,” so Abe actually did it before Trump. He had a particular focus on two of the most influential news organizations in Japan, NHK, the public broadcaster, and Asahi, the liberal-leaning newspaper. Abe had his henchmen in NHK appoint an obscure former business executive with no background in the media as its chairman in 2014, who at his very first press conference at the job opined, wrongly, of course, that “comfort women existed in every country that fought wars” and criticized Koreans for demanding reparation for wartime forced labor. He caused further controversies by noting that NHK will have to broadcast the government’s official position on its international programs. Thus, Abe followers took over and critical coverage of the government disappeared from NHK news overtime.

Abe’s hatred of Asahi was well known as he was obsessed with the false notion that the comfort women issue was an Asahi fabrication and that it was responsible for spreading this “falsehood” abroad. If only Asahi was that influential. His government, nevertheless, singled it out as having published articles in the past that relied on the false Yoshida testimonies about the comfort women issue, though in truth, all Japanese media did at the time, alongside stories from truthful and reliable sources. Succumbing to pressure, Asahi belatedly retracted these articles and apologized, but it was never the same since. Abe’s attack dogs in the rightwing media and SNS also launched a vicious personal attack on a former Asahi reporter, Mr Takashi Uemura, who covered the comfort women issue in the past, with bomb threats and worse, leading to the loss of jobs and threats to his family members. Comfort women stories became and remain a taboo, and the paper’s political coverage became a pale shadow of its former self.

Two: Attack on Academic Freedom
From around autumn 2014, the historical revisionists were emboldened enough to reinforce their overseas campaign, as has been depicted by the widely acclaimed documentary film, Shusenjo, and even Japanese diplomats were mobilized to lobby, pressure, and smear journalists and academics, they thought, were defaming Japan. I personally became a target of such a campaign, too, for that matter, as I know that an assistant press secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs and the minister in charge of public relations at Japan’s embassy in Washington urged foreign correspondents in Japan not to interview me since I apparently lack any credibility.

The revisionist attack on the historians were much more serious, and this led to the publication of an “Open Letter in Support of Historians in Japan” by Japan scholars worldwide that ultimately gathered 464 signatories. The overseas revisionist campaign clearly backfired and alerted a great number of Japanophiles to the vicious nature of the movement that Abe government encouraged, if not instigated. Its domestic campaign, however, persisted and as Team Abe eyed on the revision of the constitution and sought to silence critical scholars, they strategized to take public research funds hostage as a means of intimidation. A rightwing LDP parliamentarian, Mio Sugita, an Abe protégé known for her anti-feminist and anti-LGBT remarks and activities, repeatedly slandered feminist scholars’ research on the comfort women issue funded by public research funds as anti-Japan fabrication on Twitter and other media platforms in 2018 in a blatant act of dog whistle politics. Sugita has not only gotten away with it so far but was promoted to her first junior minister post by prime minister Kishida last month.

Three: Revisionist Domination of the Public Space
There are plenty of other examples of media organizations and journalists sidelined or muzzled and the pressure on academics to stay out of politically sensitive topics both in teaching and research has become considerable. Much the same goes to schools, public halls, and arts, too. The cancelation of the “After ‘Freedom of Expression?’” art exhibit that included the Statue of Peace that symbolizes the victims of sexual slavery at the Aichi Triennale in 2019 became a cause célèbre that amply demonstrated the fact that the public space in Japan was now at the mercy of rightwing, revisionist, and usually invisible, mob who can force fearful officials and organizers into submission with angry phone calls and cyberbullying tactics. In a society that tends to be conformist and risk-averse to begin with, it matters that the revisionist view was endorsed by the holders of state power. Anything that goes against historical revisionism can potentially get stigmatized and canceled as biased and overly politicized and shunned by the mainstream society today.

Four: Japan’s Isolation in East Asia
The fact that the government-sponsored revisionist view has pretty much become the mainstream view in Japan is often ignored but is alarming. The youths have not been given proper opportunities to learn about Japan’s wartime past, and it worries me greatly about their future in the region. Those of the older generations are often even worse since they have learned to dismiss criticisms about the country’s inability to face up to its human rights abuses and atrocities as “anti-Japan” propaganda, taking their cue from Abe and his entourage. The problem here is Japan’s inability to update its relations with its neighbors by casting away its false sense of superiority as an honorary white country surrounded by backward Asians at long last. Let’s not pretend that racist sentiments towards fellow Asians are barely hidden behind Japanese revisionist assertions.

What this means is that the dominance of the historical revisionists at the centers of power and even in the broader society has also been a major impediment that stands in the way of a more effective foreign and security policy for Japan in the region. Of course, there are many other reasons why it’s hard for East Asian countries to get along, but the US alliance managers who have at times frowned upon Abe’s indulgence with revisionism but chose not to face the fact that it was an integral part of his political agenda and part and parcel of his remilitarization drive that they embraced, should perhaps start confronting their own prejudice against the Asians as well.

Five: Persistent Misogyny and Renewed Gender Backlash
Last but not least, the salience of the comfort women issue in the revisionist campaign that Abe led reveals their yearning for a regime of militarized patriarchy, where women know their place. The comfort women issue is, after all, an issue of gross violation of the human rights of women by the militarist state, and the fact that Abe and his colleagues in power fail to acknowledge the issue for what it is should make us all worried about the kind of remilitarization and “security” that they have in mind. Yes, it’s a vision that remains utterly sexist and sorely lacking a gendered perspective, to be blunt. “Womenomics” was marketed precisely when Abe started to be seen as an enemy of women, and while it worked to a degree as a PR exercise, it delivered precious little in the end. Japan remains among the least gender-equal society in G7, in Asia, and in the world at large, particularly in the fields of politics and economy. Abe and his government were consistently less popular among Japanese women for a very good reason. Few will be missing him.

In sum, it would be a shameful act of contemporary historical revisionism to honor Abe with a state funeral. Rather, we should assess Abe’s legacy for what it really is, and quietly bury Abe’s signature historical revisionism, together with its accompanying illiberalism, racism, and sexism, so that we can have a brighter future of mutual respect and understanding in Asia. Thanks for watching.

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September 16, 2022
Koichi NAKANO, "Progressive! Channel" (https://www.youtube.com/c/ProgressiveChannelKN/featured)

Reproduced by courtesy of Koichi Nakano Ph.D.