Wartime Responsbility Unaddresed  
June 28, 1999

Wartime Responsibility Unaddressed

TOKYO (AP) -- After years of controversy, Tokyo now has a national
museum chronicling the events of World War II. But it is a portrait
cleansed of Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and almost any direct reference
to the front lines.

The transformation of the Showa Hall museum, which opened in March,
from a war memorial into a bland exhibition of wartime life shows how
difficult it still is for Japan to reckon with its past.

Half a century after Japan's surrender, debate still rages over
attempts to designate the widely used national flag and anthem as the
nation's official symbols. Attempts to bolster the role of Japan's
postwar military meet heavy criticism, and historians still battle
over whether the imperial troops committed atrocities abroad.

The roiling passions aroused by the Japan's role in World War II has
proven too much for the museum, according to Hirokazu Ishida of the
government agency overseeing the $101 million project.

``The people on the left wanted wartime responsibility addressed,''
he said. ``The people on the right protested they didn't want an anti-
war memorial. It became impossible to display anything historical
about the war.''

By the time the museum opened, a decade after the project began,
officials had backed down from plans to deal with the responsibility
issue, and instead settled on the safer theme of the hardships
suffered by civilians at home.

Food-rationing tickets are exhibited next to worn-out letters sent to
troops. Black-and-white movie footage shows people digging bomb
shelters.

The only exception may be a large photograph that shows a part of
Tokyo razed by U.S. airstrikes. But there is no caption that speaks
of the bombing.

Interviews with survivors of the war are replayed on monitors. But
none of the survivors are soldiers. Shown instead are their children
and wives, who remember being lonely, afraid and, most of all,
hungry.

Not surprisingly, the toning down of the museum's message hasn't
pleased activists on either side of the issue.

A Tokyo-based group representing veterans' families, which pushed for
the museum, says the museum fails to do justice to the war, which
left nearly 2 million Japanese dead, 672,000 of them civilians.

``It's like touching the elephant's leg and thinking you've seen the
elephant,'' said Hitoshi Nakayama, an official with the association.
``You have to talk about the war.''

On the other side, Hidehiko Ushijima, a professor at Tokai Women's
College, says the museum reflects how Japan has never fully dealt
with the emperor worship and glorification of death that were wartime
pillars of the Japanese psyche.

``Japanese people are still blind to what the war meant,'' Ushijima
said.

To pacifists, the site of the new museum, which has so far attracted
44,000 visitors, has disturbing rightist and militarist undertones.
It is within walking distance of Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto memorial
that has been highly controversial for including war criminals among
its enshrined.

Even the museum's name has been criticized.

Showa, which means ``bright peace,'' refers to the 1926-1988 reign of
wartime Emperor Hirohito. But the museum has nothing displayed on
Hirohito, except newspaper clippings of his radio address to the
people announcing Japan's surrender.

Hirohito's responsibility for wartime actions remains a major topic
of debate in Japan.

Mainstream opinion tends to hold Hirohito as a largely powerless
figurehead who couldn't block the decisions of his generals. Many
leftists and pacifist groups, however, argue that he should have
accepted responsibility for the war, and that by failing to do so
made it harder for the rest of the nation to own up as well.

None of that controversy is outlined at the Showa Hall.

``It seems superficial -- like they just put things up in a pretty
way,'' said Hiroko Takabayashi, a 58-year-old bar owner who was
strolling through the museum recently.

Kazuo Ohashi, a pacifist, was so outraged by Showa Hall he has filed
a lawsuit with his supporters accusing the government of misusing tax
money to build it.

``It's a sham,'' Ohashi said. ``The museum contains nothing about the
war.''

His lawsuit is pending in a Tokyo court.
 

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