Japan and its war-time past - Politics of Memory or historical whitewash?

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Far East, grade: 2, Loughborough University (Politics, International Relations and European Studies), course: The Asia-Pacific in Global Politics, language: English, abstract: 'Remembering is never a quiet act of introspection or retrospection. It is a painful remembering, a putting together of the dismembered past to make sense of the trauma of the present.' Homi K. Bhabba (Y. Igarashi 3 2000) When we observe Japan and how it deals with its history, the question occurs if Japan tries to whitewash its wartime past or if there are any other reasons behind is. The aim of this essay is to discuss this question. In the first part of it I will try to outline the known fact of the Japanese contribution on the World War II as a kind of approach to this sensitive topic. The second part will be dedicated to the role of the 'International Military trial for the Far East' in the accounting of the wartime past within the Japanese society. The third part will deal with the sensitive issue of the so-called comfort women and how official Japan deals with this topic. The controversial topic of historical textbooks and how they try to show the role of Japan during the war will be the subject of the fourth part and in the last part I will discuss how the Japanese society in general sees the Second World War and the fact that executed war criminals are still worshiped by the Japanese community.