Inoculating Japan Against Pacifism May Take A While

(from http://qjphotos.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/self-defence-force-land/)

Even if studying Japanese history is made compulsory, he said, students will remain as ignorant as ever about the war as long as schools continue to give modern Japanese history the brushoff. 

The youths interviewed for this article also said their education on the war, if any, boiled down to simply underlining that it was brutal, with the result that many were left with an almost instinctive aversion to war.

They also seemed aware of a few specifics about the fighting Japan engaged in during the first half of the 20th century.

“It’s like how you flinch at cockroaches,” said a 26-year-old former SDF member who spoke on condition of anonymity. “To many Japanese, war is something so cruel and evil, and responsible for so many deaths, that they automatically turn away from it and don’t think about it.”

This mindset seemingly ran deep among his former comrades at an SDF training school who, despite their purported patriotism, often voiced a reluctance to fight.

“Some of them said they would run away if there was a war,” he said, disappointed. 

Keio University student Yamamoto noted that all she was ever taught about the war was that it was brutal. But she believes, like the ex-SDF serviceman, that war is not that simple. It is much more multifaceted — and even necessary — from a political and diplomatic standpoint, she said.

Yamamoto said she doesn’t believe that today’s Japanese can think of war in diplomatic terms. Even in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, the Japanese, unlike the Americans in September 2001, would probably not be able to justify going to war, she said.

The eloquent 19-year-old was emphatic that she has no intention of glorifying war and that she is absolutely opposed to its recurrence, from a human rights perspective. But she nonetheless stood by her position that there are circumstances under which the nation must overcome its anti-war mindset and embrace the strategic importance of war to protect its people.

“Should Japan be involved in a war, it means the well-being of its citizens will be significantly jeopardized. Our economy may collapse. Or countries like China — for example — may take control of our government (and) deprive us of free speech,” she said.

(Japan Times)