Five Days Commemorating the Victims of Japanese Atrocities

Day 2: The Rape of Nanking

This horrible incident came to prominence here in America in 1997, when a Chinese-American woman, Iris Chang, wrote a book about it, the subtitle of which is The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (See here.) Published on the sixtieth anniversary of the event, Chang said she was disturbed at how little had been written about it (at least here in America) and thought it ought to be remembered. I was dimly aware of it from Paul Johnson’s Modern Times, which was published in 1983, and perhaps also from the BBC’s World at War series, which I watched in the late 1970s.

The atrocities were part of Japan’s attempts to create a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere - the name itself came after the massacre, by the way - in which non-Asians would be expelled from the East so that Asians could run their own lives. This idealism quickly became nothing but an exercise in Japanese imperialism. Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in July of 1937 and had advanced to what we now generally call Nanjing by December. Once they had entered the city, the massacre occurred. See here for some of the details. Estimates of 300,000 killed and 20,000 to 80,000 women raped are suggested.

Anyone inclined to talk about how awful it was that we dropped an atom bomb on Japan should read about this massacre first.

Yes, some of the facts are in dispute here, regarding how many were actually killed, for example, and there are those in Japan who deny that any massacre occurred at all. However, there were neutral observers there, including a German businessman, John Rabe, who was actually affiliated with the Nazi party (and so nominally an ally of the Japanese) and who helped shelter many Chinese from danger.

Let me now talk about revisionism as it exists here in America and the West generally. As I mentioned yesterday, the impulse with revisionism is to excuse or diminish any atrocities committed by non-Westerners, while of course doing nothing similar for anything done by Americans. One problem with revisionism in connection with Japanese atrocities is that, although the motive is to revive the reputations of the Japanese (but never the Americans), there are other non-Westerners who don’t like this at all. Most of the victims of the Bataan death march were Filipinos. For today’s atrocities, the victims were Chinese. I know an older Chinese woman from Taiwan who still hates the Japanese because of what they did to the Chinese.

Another problem with revisionism is that, with respect to Japanese actions in World War II, it often ends up supporting right-wing parties in Japan that are in denial about what the Japanese did back then. The same thing can be said of the left’s alliance with Muslims: Islamic imperialism is downplayed (even when the victims were other non-Westerners), and those Muslims who are given the most respect are those who are the most reactionary, while those Muslims who want liberal policies are shunned.

Both of these problems are why self-critical leftism is needed, since the leftism that exists now goes astray, and it goes astray since its main intention isn’t the truth but merely to go against the conventional wisdom of those around them. It is only self-critical leftism that has a hope of actually gaining the truth.

Incidentally, there is an incident mentioned in the Wikipedia article about Ms. Chang's book (linked to in the first paragraph) that is so typical of the way media operates and why I’m so happy the Internet has come along. After the publication of her book, there were plenty of critics, one of them a staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle who pointed out some apparent factual errors. She wrote a letter in response, but they didn’t publish it. Yes, even though she was a famous author, they didn’t publish her letter. Today, if she were still alive, she could have a website where she could publish it. R.I.P., Ms. Chang.