This article examines Japan’s traditional concept of shame and honor, contrasting it with the damage caused by Asahi Shimbun’s reporting on the comfort women issue.

Drawing on historical examples, this article argues that Japan’s traditional sense of shame underscores the gravity of the reputational damage caused by false reporting.

2017-06-23
This is a continuation of the previous chapter.

Forebears Who Felt Shame for National Humiliation

Ideally, the president of the Asahi Shimbun should commit seppuku on the rostrum of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Neither Asahi Shimbun nor its defenders seem to understand that they have spread misunderstandings throughout the international community that can only be cleared to such an extent, and have placed upon the Japanese people a level of “shame” that cannot be erased without going that far.

In 1808, during the period of national seclusion, the British ship Phaeton entered Nagasaki Harbor, captured two Dutch trading post employees, and conducted a search within the harbor, in what became known as the Phaeton Incident.
At that time, the Nagasaki magistrate, Matsudaira Yasuhide, ordered the British ship to be driven off, but ultimately yielded to its threats.
Ashamed of this failure, Matsudaira Yasuhide committed seppuku immediately after the British ship left Nagasaki.

This is a typical example of the Japanese concept of “shame.”
It is said that in his farewell letter he wrote: “Though my personal disgrace may be of little consequence, to have reached a point where the shame of the realm has been revealed to a foreign country is an inexcusable failure.”
One can feel his anguish at having exposed not his own shame, but the disgrace of Japan to a foreign power.

Of course, one might say that it was not necessary to go that far.
Even so, it should be clear how gravely acts that brought humiliation upon the nation were regarded.

The Japanese have, before we realized it, stopped speaking of words such as shame and honor.
Yet even now, Japan’s honor continues to be damaged by articles published by Asahi Shimbun, and the nation is being exposed to shame before other countries.

What angers me most of all is the impact on children.
When I recall my own childhood, merely thinking that I had been born Japanese, and born male, filled my chest with pride.
But do children today feel such happiness simply from being born Japanese?

When a comfort women statue was erected in Glendale, California, local elementary schools reportedly took their pupils to see it, where teachers explained it to them.
Since the plaque beside the statue states that “two hundred thousand women were made sexual slaves,” it is natural that the explanation emphasized “how terribly Japan behaved.”
The children of Japanese expatriates living there could not even raise their faces.
Thinking of how they must have felt listening to their teachers’ explanations makes my heart ache.

This manuscript continues.