The Korean Dilemma

[Double Edge]

You don't get it. The Americans litterally destroyed SHINTOISM. That one photo proved to the the Japanese people that the MacArthur was the new God. Whatever the Americans did from the point on was litterally the word of God to the Japanese. It was not until the 60s that a new generation of Japanese not accustomed to Shintoism that they adopted the American outlook on government and that it is not the be-all, know-all of human dictate that the Japanese was accustomed to.

To the WWII generation, it was litterally a War of the Gods and their God lost. As for the American apology, you don't expect a God to apologize.

Had watched a documentary that gave the reason i quoted. The emperor is still alive and well in Japan. If he represents Shintoism, then its alive too

[Officer of Engineers]

MacArthur may not be a military genius but he did understood the Japanese. Remember the shock the Japanese people experienced when they heard the Emperor surrendered. Most Japanese never seen the Emperor except on movie screens and he dwarfed the others by riding on a horse or others were bowing before him. The Emperor can do no wrong. Here you have this one picture where MacArthur dwarfed Hirehito and dictating terms. Shintoism died that day and was replaced by MacArthurism. The God Emperor was dwarfed and subserved to Douglas MacArthur.

Hirehito dared not ask MacArthur for an nuclear apology. Neither did anyone else.

[Double Edge]

MacArthur orders end of Shinto as Japanese state religion

On this day, General Douglas MacArthur, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific, brings an end to Shintoism as Japan’s established religion. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine.

On September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, MacArthur signed the instrument of Japanese surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies. Before the economic and political reforms the Allies devised for Japan’s future could be enacted, however, the country had to be demilitarized. Step one in the plan to reform Japan entailed the demobilization of Japan’s armed forces, and the return of all troops from abroad. Japan had had a long history of its foreign policy being dominated by the military, as evidenced by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye’s failed attempts to reform his government and being virtually pushed out of power by career army officer Hideki Tojo.

Step two was the dismantling of Shintoism as the Japanese national religion. Allied powers believed that serious democratic reforms, and a constitutional form of government, could not be put into place as long as the Japanese people looked to an emperor as their ultimate authority. Hirohito was forced to renounce his divine status, and his powers were severely limited—he was reduced to little more than a figurehead. And not merely religion, but even compulsory courses on ethics—the power to influence the Japanese population’s traditional religious and moral duties—were wrenched from state control as part of a larger decentralization of all power.

State Shinto : A Religion interrupted

How'd it happen and who dunnit.. It's amazing how Shinto gets incorporated into the state. Loses religion status and takes on an ideological tone

In September 1945, Japan surrendered. The United States General Headquarters, led by General Douglas MacArthur, was responsible for forging a new government in Japan. General MacArthur and his allies knew they couldn't ban Shinto if they wanted freedom of religion in Japan – a bedrock of their desire for Japanese democracy.

Emperor Hirohito was announcing he was not a divine being in human form. Across the territories formerly occupied by Japan, people were threatening to set fire to the Shinto shrines built by the Imperial regime: more than 400 in Korea alone. MacArthur had to do something.

The State Department's solution was an elegant bit of comeuppance. After decades of the Imperial government claiming freedom of religion through the loophole of their "non-religious" Shinto, the US banned those practices for the exact same reason: because they were non-religious. The US identified a set of practices the Imperial government had introduced to Shinto, and declared them off limits. They distinguished the government's "ritual" Shinto from religious Shinto, and then effectively banned non-religious Shinto.

State Shinto officially ended with "The Shinto Directive." This official order defined what the US saw as ideologically motivated practices and gave a name to them: State Shinto. These practices were outlawed as a "perversion" of religious Shinto. After the Shinto Directive, nobody was forced to go to shrines or bow to images of the Emperor. Priests were allowed to preach and perform funerals again, and the state was banned from supporting Shinto rituals.

There's a lot of murkiness around this designation, and plenty of controversy in the world of Shinto historians. Many reject it outright as an American invention. Lots of conservatives want to restore the emperor to the center of Shinto practice. Lots of pacifists and leftists want to strip him even further away, which is why there are always controversies around state visits to Yasukuni Shrine, or religious ceremonies performed by the Emperor. That's why there's contention when the emperor's family has a wedding or a funeral.

In spite of this controversy, Ise shrine is run by members of the Imperial Family and is headquarters of the Association of Shinto Shrines. This organization still advocates reverence for the emperor.

[Officer of Engineers]

So, to answer your question, one does not expect an apology from a wrathful god who had just unleashed his fury on two Japanese cities. Not so with the Koreans and the Chinese. They were not on the losing side.

[Double Edge]

Perhaps not, so we can expect the harping at imperial Japan's policies to continue for another two generations at least. That is until memories of the war fade and people of that generation pass

[Officer of Engineers]

Perhaps not, so we can expect the harping at imperial Japan's policies to continue for another two generations at least. That is until memories of the war fade and people of that generation pass

I wouldn't count on it. Some memories just don't fade. Tito forced a bunch of people to live in harmony and for a while, they were only Yugoslavs. You know what happened then.

There are Indians who will never forgive the British.

In this case, this new Korean generation knew that their grandmothers were raped by the Japanese and not only this new Japanese generation refused to apologize but insult these Korean grandmothers by calling them paid comfort women, ie prostitutes, instead of rape victims. I don't see this hatre dying anytime soon.

[Double Edge]

I wouldn't count on it. Some memories just don't fade. Tito forced a bunch of people to live in harmony and for a while, they were only Yugoslavs. You know what happened then.

Ah, but see that is a conflict that had been brewing for centuries. Can you say the same about Korea & Japan?

There are Indians who will never forgive the British.

yes and i always point out how they conveniently ignore the invaders that came before. why ? no memories and no interested parties instigating

As i said i don't know what the euros did but you don't see this kind of animosity over half a century after ww2 concluded and they went through it twice. Not to mention all the little wars they had prior. Both WW1 & 2 targeted civilians in Europe. The amount of people that got sucked into them over there is very scary

The Koreans have accomplished much since their war, but what keeps them in this prison

In China's case its the CCP that constantly makes a point of it for selfish reasons. Do the Koreans also have museums of national humiliation ? China only lost a few port cities to the euros, a large part of the country was still in their control but China's reaction is far worse than India here. Because we don't have pols harping on about the past. The people will not allow them to pin their failures on things that happened in the past

The weird thing in China is more Chinese died in their own wars and mismanagement than anything all foreigners could have done to them. Taiping had 50 million dead over 25 years. And the great leap forward killed a lot too. Nobody challenges these figures. The only way to kill that many people without nukes is famines

In this case, this new Korean generation knew that their grandmothers were raped by the Japanese and not only this new Japanese generation refused to apologize but insult these Korean grandmothers by calling them paid comfort women, ie prostitutes, instead of rape victims. I don't see this hatre dying anytime soon.

I find it too one dimensional. Comfort women is a ww2 thing, where is the history of long term subjugation where their culture got dumped on for decades.

[Gun Grape]

I find it too one dimensional. Comfort women is a ww2 thing, where is the history of long term subjugation where their culture got dumped on for decades.

Modern times you can go back to the 1910 Annexation of Korea by Japan and the end of the Korean Empire. So just in the 20th century you have Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945. But they have been going at it since at least the 16th century.

Koreans use to be taught in school that the Japanese Islands were once uninhabited. Then the Koreans started sending their "Defective" people (mentally ill, child rapist, murderers) there and that's where the Japanese came from.

There is no love between the two nations

[Double Edge]

ok, so there is a longer troubled history here and ww2 is the most recent reminder. Makes sense

The comfort women is just a symptom of a deeper underlying problem. Ready to come up on any pretext

[astralis]

DE,

The weird thing in China is more Chinese died in their own wars and mismanagement than anything all foreigners could have done to them.

that's a truism anywhere. how many people die in US gun violence and the US opioid crisis every year, and what is the response? vs the death toll from 9-11.

[zraver]

In this case, this new Korean generation knew that their grandmothers were raped by the Japanese and not only this new Japanese generation refused to apologize but insult these Korean grandmothers by calling them paid comfort women, ie prostitutes, instead of rape victims. I don't see this hatre dying anytime soon.

That old truism is breaking down. We are starting to see limited, but real Japanese involvement in anti-missle joint exercises.

[Gun Grape]

That old truism is breaking down. We are starting to see limited, but real Japanese involvement in anti-missle joint exercises.

Only because they have a shared threat. And all three countries use the Aegis system. Only the US and Japan have SM-3s. South Korea will be able to pass on early detection info.
Don't think for a minute that Japan will fire at any missile that isn't on a path to land in Japan.

[zraver]

Only because they have a shared threat. And all three countries use the Aegis system. Only the US and Japan have SM-3s. South Korea will be able to pass on early detection info.
Don't think for a minute that Japan will fire at any missile that isn't on a path to land in Japan.

They legally can't right now. However Abe wants to modify article 9. Nothing heals old wounds like a new danger. 3 years after the last bomb fell away from the belly of a B-17 the residents of Berlin saw American and British planes as a sign of salvation. WWII US aces taught WWII German aces to fly jets in Arizona, current Vietnamese political and military officials who grew up under American bombing want closer military ties to the US too offset China.

[Officer of Engineers]

That old truism is breaking down. We are starting to see limited, but real Japanese involvement in anti-missle joint exercises.

Even if true, there are 25 million North Koreans who don't mind seeing Japan burn.

[Double Edge]

They legally can't right now. However Abe wants to modify article 9. Nothing heals old wounds like a new danger.

You could say Abe has benefited from ongoing tensions. Longer it drags out more feasible it becomes to make changes

What i wonder is for how long is the US going to do the fighting for Japan ?

Japan can't deploy any where. If this continues for the next fifty years then the US will still be stuck there