The White Peril 白禍

The anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender always brings controversy over visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where fourteen men convicted as Class-A war criminals by the international tribunal are enshrined along with fallen military personnel. Yesterday, former Prime Minister Koizumi went, but of the sitting cabinet, the only member to make a pilgrimage was Sanae Takaichi, State Minister for (of all things!) Okinawan Affairs. The Mainichi also ran an article citing high-ranking sources stating that Emperor Hirohito believed that including the fourteen Class-A war criminals in the enshrinees at Yasukuni was a diplomatic error: "While the Shrine gives repose to the souls only of those who died in the war [itself], this would change its nature," and "[This move] will plant the seeds for deep-rooted trouble in the future with nations that were affected by the war."

I've always been of two minds about the Yasukuni issue. I have no trouble explaining why I disagree with the shrine's official position. (This is from the English site.):

According to the faith conveyed to us by the mythical accounts of the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, the Kami, Izanagi and Izanami, in giving birth to the country of Japan, also gave birth to the people. This is to say that the Japanese islands and people are both born from the Kami. Therefore, the soul of man is identical with the Kami. And so long as this universe continues to exist, the soul of man can be nothing else than eternal.

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Isn't it a fact that the West with its military power invaded and ruled over much of Asia and Africa and that this was the start of East-West relations? There is no uncertainty in history. [!] Japan's dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and it was sought after by the countries of Asia. We cannot overlook the intent of those who wish to tarnish the good name of the noble souls of Yasukuni.

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To bring an end to war is the earnest wish of mankind. Regardless of whether we can realize this or not, the act of despising the souls of those who offered their lives for the national community by those who were left behind is no more than extreme ingratitude of a people without a country.

Note the way this allows the administrators of the shrine to have it both ways—positioning Japan as in line with the rest of mankind in desiring world peace while justifying the practice of honoring those who presided over Unit 731 and the Rape of Nanking. Japanese theology regards the souls of good and evil alike as passing into the next world-—fine. But that doesn't mean it provides a good defense for failing to draw moral distinctions among their actions while they were alive in this one.

On the other hand, one can visit a house of worship without necessarily buying into the full line pushed by those people in charge of it. Koizumi's stubbornness about making pilgrimages to Yasukuni always struck me as politically unwise, but his positions on the WOT, economic liberalization, and individualism were enough to convince me that he wasn't a closet Tojo fan. Koizumi probably does believe that you can perform rituals at Yasukuni without letting all the kami off the hook for their war conduct. Not so sure about others, including those on the cabinet.

Speaking of conflicting religious conceptions, this (via Instapundit) strikes me as very worrying, though hardly without precedent:

A Roman Catholic Bishop in the Netherlands has proposed people of all faiths refer to God as Allah to foster understanding, stoking an already heated debate on religious tolerance in a country with one million Muslims.
Bishop Tiny Muskens, from the southern diocese of Breda, told Dutch television on Monday that God did not mind what he was named and that in Indonesia, where Muskens spent eight years, priests used the word "Allah" while celebrating Mass.

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A survey in the Netherlands' biggest-selling newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday found 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people polled disagreed with the bishop's view, which also drew ridicule.

Huh? Words refer to ideas, and ideas have consequences, to coin a phrase.

It's one thing for Christians in a mostly non-Christian country to call God by the best local equivalent. Professor Bainbridge says, "Words matter. To a person of faith, no word matters more than the name of God," but in my experience, there is some give there. For example, Japanese Christians also call God 神様 (kamisama: kind of like "God, Sir"). However, those I've meet are keenly aware of the difference between their god and the Japanese kami themselves. And Dutch, presumably, already has a perfectly good word for "God." The substitution of "Allah" would presumably imply to the average listener that the speaker was mindedly shading it with the conception of God in Islam. I'm not sure what can be accomplished through that at this historical moment except the beclouding of distinctions between religions that it would be wise to keep in mind.

So we're back to discussing the difficulties of talking politics politely. Eric says:

I've noticed that the louder and more opinionated a person is, the more likely he is to see a political disagreement with his position as a personal attack. Perhaps it's because he's put so much of his persona into it by being so loud. I think these types are best dealt with in blogs, where insults and ad hominem attacks tend to be self discrediting, WHERE YOU CAN'T SHOUT ANY LOUDER THAN THIS, and the loudly opinionated boors are reduced to inferior-looking lines of text.

Real life is another, very ugly matter.

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I've always had friends who disagree with me, but things are getting a little ridiculous where it comes to meeting new people. When I meet new people, I often wonder about the advisability of telling them what I think, especially if they show signs of being in kneejerk group agreement on a given issue.

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Is there a duty to publicly disagree when that can turn an otherwise enjoyable social event into an ordeal?

I haven't lived in the States for years, and I frequently socialize in groups in which I'm the only American. Most of the time, conversation stays neutral: life in Japan, where else everyone has traveled, the wretched weather (usually not a bland topic in Tokyo, actually).

If talk turns to politics, people tend to register the stock surprise that a gay man could possibly be "right-wing"—-not the way I characterize myself, of course, though I try to resist the temptation to bore my dinner partners senseless by explaining how being a libertarian is different—-but I generally find that keeping an even tone and having a sense of humor gets me a fair hearing. In the overwhelming majority of political discussions I've had, I've been the only person to the right of Hillary Clinton but have been treated respectfully, if not always amiably.

One does at times, though, encounter people for whom it's not topics but positions that count as intrusively "political." More than once I've heard someone venture placidly over the rim of his gin and tonic that the Iraq invasion was terrible (or that America is turning into a police state, or that it's awful how Israel and its allies gang up on the Palestinians), clearly expecting the remark to be no more controversial than "What about all this rain, huh?" If, instead of murmuring assent and passing to the next pleasantry, you respond that you supported the invasion or that you haven't noticed anyone's opinions being suppressed in the US or that Israel happens to be the only liberal democracy in its neighborhood, you're accused of being an agent of acrimony--hijacking an innocuous discussion and trying to turn it into a political debate.

Well, okay. Frankly, I don't like conversations that give me indigestion any more than the next guy. Having been brought up the old-fashioned way, I avoid being the person to bring up politics (or religion) among people I don't know very well. But surely once a topic has been put on the table by others, it's fair game. I'd generally be happy to let these things pass were it not for the fact that they come from the sort of people who maintain that Americans are complacent and ignorant about the state of the world because we're not exposed to dissenting views!