While I was in Japan I got my hands on a Japanese
history textbook. But this isn't an ordinary Japanese textbook. It's a very political one, and if you look
inside you'll see a version of history that is very different from the one the world knows. An example is the Nanking Massacre, the 1938
event in which Japanese troops murdered tens of thousands of Chinese civilians. To the world this this massacre is considered
one of the most infamous war crimes commited by the Japanese during their takeover of Asia,
but in this textbook it basically gets no attention It's referred to as the "Nanking Incident"
and the only attention it gets in this book is basically disputing the facts. There's no mention of the hundreds of thousands
of Korean women who were forcibly brought over to serve in brothels on the front lines
of the Japanese wars. They're these comfort women that are a huge
part of Japanese history, but they don't show up in this book. When I was in Tokyo for a Borders story, I
actually visited the people who publish and write this book. It's this group of old Japanese men who are
part of this lobbying society that basically try to push a different historical narrative
into Japanese schools, and they've been quite successful. This textbook publishing society is one of
many expressions of a rising Nationalism in Japan This is Makoto Sakurai. He's the public face for the Japan First Party. This group launched just a month after another
rightwing faction across the Pacific Ocean took power of the White House, proclaiming
a like-minded message. "America First! America First!" Within the first five minutes of Sakurai,
and even through a translator, I could tell that this guy would get along great with Donald
Trump. Sakurai's Japan First Party hasn't won any
elections yet, but other Nationalists in Japan have, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
in 2012. He has surrounded himself with advisers and
ministers from some of these fringe groups, who are now influencing policy. Up until now these guys, and yes most of them
are guys, have been known for driving around in their decked out vans preaching the restoration
of Japan's pre-World War II greatness. Their agenda is similar to nationalist movements
in other countries: they want to restore strong military, they call for the deportation of
Koreans and limitation to the little immigration that Japan even has. I chased after these guys and filmed them
for an afternoon, watching them spar with the Tokyo police. This yearning for a return to some ill-defined
golden age is the basis of many far right Nationalist movements around the globe The main historical fixation of these Nationalists
is the 1860's, when Japan underwent a massive transformation, giving the Emperor lots of
power which he used to rapidly educate the people, grow the economy, and develop a massive
military. Japan became an economic and military powerhouse
in just a few years and over the following decades, they did what powerful countries
did back then: they started expanding, committing horrific atrocities like mass genocide in
the process. By the mid-1900s, this aggressive expansion
brought Japan into a natural alignment with Hitler's Germany, who was doing the same thing
in Europe. And then, at the height of the Japanese empire... The bomb was exploded above the city and in
the towering mushroom, Japan could read its doom The U.S. and Allied powers won the war. They came in, dismantled Japan's military,
and wrote them a new constitution that ensured they'd never get so powerful again. To the Nationalists, this was the moment that
everything was lost. Japan was brought to its knees, stripped of
the pride and national values thousands of years in the making, emasculated by these
western powers who were now occupying their country In Tokyo there's this huge controversial shrine
called Yasukuni. It's where all the people who died in the
wars under the emperor are memorialized, including all those who died in World War II. After Japan lost the war, a huge trial was
held. Thousands were convicted of war crimes and
thrown into jail and even some were hanged. And what's tricky about this very beautiful
shrine that I'm walking through, is that over a thousand of those war criminals are enshrined
here, and are prayed to every day. But a lot of Japanese people have a different
narrative about what happened after the war. According to this narrative, the tribunals
after World War II were not an impartial exercise in justice, but rather an emotional backlash
against the atrocities that had just occurred during the war. So, the fact that they're here in Yasukuni
doesn't bug a lot of these people. In fact, they revere them and they worship
them for their sacrifice to the emperor. All of the symbolism and the memorials point
to a glorification of the imperial period, not necessarily an apology for it. The shrine is at the symbolic heart of the
Nationalist narrative, censoring any mention of atrocities and glorifying the imperial
age as worthy of restoration. Upon leaving the shrine, I come across a rightwing
group that was visiting the shrine to pay tribute to the spirits. So it's tempting to draw parallels with what's
happening in Japan with Nationalism and what we see happening in the U.S. and Europe, with
figures like Donald Trump. But while that parallel works for a little
bit, it breaks down really quickly, and the differentiating factor that is the most important
for understanding the difference is a word that we've heard a lot lately. "Populism" Many of these movements in the U.S. and in
Europe have been led by outsiders, populists who want to dismantle the establishment. in Japan that's not the case; people like
Shinzo Abe are through and through establishment politicians. There isn't a disruptive figure who's coming
in from the outside and winning elections. While the rise of rightwing nationalism is
similar between Japan and the United States and the West, it's still fundamentally quite
different and it appears that the rise of a Japanese Donald Trump is still a ways off.
This seems to be a common thread among nationalists all over the world. In Britain, France, America, Germany etc nationalists claim that other countries are allowed to take pride in their culture and history, but they alone are made to feel shame. They don't realise that everyone says that.
The simple fact that every country has its shameful historical moments and people who criticise it. No one country is being singled out for attack, these kinds of historical debates happen everywhere.
Don't let the anime fool you.
Japan is one of the most xenophobic cultures alive today.
Rising? They are Uyoku Dantai ε³ηΏΌε£δ½ and they have been around since the 1960s.
Rising? Isn't the party in power center right nationalist?
What did that man at 6:33 shout?
I find this video to be incredibly pretentious and up its own ass making grand and definitive declarations starting off by criticising a history text book - ok go read about columbus or manifest destiny in a US history text book, doesnt mean the country has a rising right wing nationalism right now
Relevant: 1985 BBC Arena documentary, The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima
Rising? I thought it was always there.
Except this shit fest you're describing is the best shit fest you could be apart of.