2024-01-12
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s latest book, Henken Jizai: Who Buried Shinzo Abe?
This book is the latest in a series of volumes collecting his celebrated columns from Shukan Shincho, but the original text has been polished further, making it even easier to read.
He deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature for this book alone.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world.
An Inhuman Newspaper Lies Even to Disparage His Majesty
Islamic studies scholar Akari Iiyama’s analysis is sharp and lucid.
In Rethinking Islam, Iiyama brilliantly cuts down Japanese scholars who, in recent years, have portrayed Islam as a “benevolent religion” unrelated to terrorism.
I was stationed in Tehran when Ayatollah Khomeini was there.
As someone fond of alcohol and women, a world in which a girl may be taken as a wife as soon as she experiences her first menstruation and may be stoned to death if she commits adultery lies beyond my comprehension.
Without even mentioning Junichi Ishida, adultery is also part of culture.
What is most unforgivable is the prevalence throughout the Arab world of suicide terrorism inspired by the teaching that “if you become a martyr, seventy-two blonde, blue-eyed virgins will be waiting for you in heaven.”
I can understand why Iiyama cannot forgive scholars who ignore Islamic clerics who have transformed religious conviction into terrorism.
She has now cut the Asahi Shimbun to pieces as well.
In one article, the Asahi claimed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “the same as Japan’s past invasions of Korea and China.”
Russia is the guilty party.
At a time when “today’s Ukraine may be tomorrow’s Japan,” the Asahi tries to shift the issue and turn it into criticism of Japan.
“Using the shock caused by people being brutally murdered to impose one’s own ideology as though it were justice is an act against humanity.”
(The Sankei Shimbun column “A Thunderous Rebuke to the Newspapers!”)
Japan did not bombard pitiful Korea, then covered in human waste, with artillery shells.
On the contrary, Japan built schools, railways, and electrical infrastructure.
The same applies to China.
Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Party breached the Yellow River dikes and set the city of Changsha ablaze.
Three hundred thousand people drowned in the Yellow River.
The Japanese Army repaired the breached dikes and dispatched boats of every size to rescue those who were drowning.
The Russian troops that attacked, destroyed, and plundered villages more closely resembled Chiang Kai-shek’s army.
Reporting white as black is truly inhuman.
There is one more thing I would like Iiyama to read.
It is an Asahi Shimbun editorial published on the fiftieth anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan.
It was written by Seiki Nemoto, and it begins with the worn-out lie that “Okinawa was sacrificed as a disposable stone.”
If Okinawa had been sacrificed, who dispatched the kamikaze aircraft?
Who sent the battleship Yamato into battle with only enough fuel for a one-way voyage?
Without answering these questions, the editorial invokes Emperor Showa’s words from September 1947: “I hope that the military occupation of the Ryukyu Islands will continue.”
It then says, “Look, even the Emperor took the initiative in abandoning Okinawa.”
It sounds entirely plausible.
History, however, shows that the meaning of those words was precisely the opposite.
MacArthur soon announced that the islands south of thirty degrees north latitude, including Okinawa, would be removed from Japan’s administrative jurisdiction and placed under United States administration.
Truman pushed this still further and, in October 1948, issued a presidential directive stating that “these islands shall remain permanently under United States jurisdiction,” just like Guam and Hawaii.
The United States had been obsessed with Okinawa as a strategic base in the Pacific since the time of Perry.
Knowing this, His Majesty was distressed by the prospect of “Okinawa being incorporated into United States territory.”
His Majesty, however, had already become a mere symbol and possessed no authority.
Even so, he hoped at the very least that Okinawa would remain “occupied territory” rather than become United States territory.
If it did, it could someday be returned to Japan.
That was the meaning of the phrase “continued occupation.”
The late Kazutoshi Hando deliberately interpreted it in a sinister manner.
He wrote plausibly, as though His Majesty had said during a meeting with MacArthur, “I will give you Okinawa, so remove all United States military bases from mainland Japan.”
The Asahi editorial was written by exploiting Hando’s deception, which had neither evidence nor verification.
In the manner of a conquering king, the editorial also cited High Commissioner Paul Caraway’s statement that “Okinawan autonomy is a myth.”
That, too, is a lie.
He poured money, technology, and assistance into Okinawa in an effort to make it more attractive than Hawaii or Guam.
The people’s eyes lit up, believing that their towns would recover their vitality, but nothing happened.
The people of Okinawa bore resentment because their family members had been killed.
They could not bring themselves to agree wholeheartedly with the United States.
Moreover, many of Okinawa’s leading figures were of Chinese descent or descended from pirates.
The leaders pocketed American funds, while antibiotics and other modern medicines were diverted to mainland Japan.
“Autonomy is a myth” was an expression of affection for such Okinawans.
The Asahi Shimbun is filled with lies that disparage even His Majesty.
If I were not Iiyama, I would challenge her to do something about the Asahi.
(Issue of June 2, 2022)