A letter from Tom Goetz serving in Japan
december 2014 - whitewashing japanese history
Throughout the times of the Christian Church, people have read and referred to John 3:16 perhaps more than any other part of the Bible. More than the opening words of Genesis, In the beginning…, more than Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd… and more than 2 Corinthians 4:6, Let light shine out of darkness. If asked why, we can see that John 3:16 is the short version of the entire gospel message, in one sentence. It is this good news that I wish to share in this letter in light of our current dismal situation here at Hokusei Gakuen University.
As reported in a recent New York Times editorial, December 4, 2014, right-wing political forces in Japan, encouraged by the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, are waging a campaign of intimidation to deny the disgraceful chapter in World War II when the Japanese military forced thousands of women to serve in wartime brothels.
Many mainstream Japanese scholars and most non-Japanese researchers have established as historical fact that the program allowed Japanese soldiers to sexually abuse women across the Asian warfront—based on widespread testimony from the “comfort women.”
Now a political effort to treat these events as wholesale lies concocted by Japan’s wartime enemies is gaining traction, with revisionists trying to roll back the government’s 1993 apology for the coercion of women into prostitution. The Abe government, intent on stoking nationalistic fervor, was rebuffed earlier this year in its effort to have revisions made to a 1996 United Nations human rights report on this topic. But at home the right wing continues to hammer away at The Asahi Shimbun newspaper, seizing on the paper’s retractions of articles published in the 1980s and 1990s that focused on limited aspects of its coverage to deny the larger historical truth of the “comfort women” program.
The Abe government is doing something that could cause this country great danger later in pandering those demanding a whitewash of wartime history. “They want to bully us into silence,” Takashi Uemura, a former Asahi reporter, said in describing how ultranationalists have made violent threats against him and his family. Interestingly enough, this topic is more personal than we might think. Mr. Uemura himself is a respected teacher here at Hokusei. And what he has to say is most important; Japan must live up to its past.
But I would like to talk about a man who responded to the December 2, 2014, New York Times article, “Rewriting the War, Japanese Right Attacks a Newspaper.” While I do not know him personally, he did sign his name in the comment section for the article, and I think it is best to quote him word for word.
Menno Aartsen of Seattle, Washington, writes: “A few years ago, a friend brought me to Japan, somewhat inadvertently; the airline rerouted us through Japan, where we ended up spending a few days. He did not know Japanese troops had killed a number of my family, nor did he know my mother had been a comfort woman. She was a Dutch colonial resident of the Netherlands East Indies. While I have no independent proof, she told me, during one of her frequent nervous breakdowns, what the Japanese Imperial Army had done to her. She eventually attempted to commit suicide, and as this is illegal in Austria, where she lived at the time, my father brought her back to The Netherlands, where she eventually died of cancer.
"I have no reason not to believe my mother. I thought the Japanese were an honorable people, who had cleaned up their act after the atrocities of WW II. When I first visited Indonesia, my office manager took me to a North Jakarta Dutch war cemetery, where some of my family lies [sic] buried, and where I am told the tree the Japanese used to string them up may never be cut down. All I am saying is that the Japanese seem to have committed their fair share of atrocities, as is common in war, but for some reason are unwilling to put this to bed. Curious thing is the Japanese are largely Buddhist. The rules of Buddhism don't allow for the denial of one's past bad behavior—I know this because I am a Buddhist myself. Was I mistaken visiting a country, and forgiving a people, that has caused so much pain in my family?”
If your own mother told you this, what would you think? Would you think she was just making this up?
The keyword here is “forgiveness.” But forgiveness is second to another word, repentance. To repent means to admit, or “own up to” what you did that was harmful. How can anyone or group of people move forward unless admitting wrongdoing, asking for forgiveness, then accepting the forgiveness of others?
Here is another example. Nearly 2,000 years ago an angry crowd pointed their fingers at a modest man in his early 30s, accusing him of many bad things, the worst being that he was King of the Jews. We are talking about Jesus of Nazareth.
Who was Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus was the son of Joseph, a carpenter, and Mary. He grew up in both Egypt and then Nazareth in Galilee. When he was growing in wisdom, strength, and in favor with God and humankind, he noticed how hard life was due to the presence of Imperial Roman forces in the area known as Palestine. The phrase “All roads lead to Rome” was not a cute expression at that time. It referred to Roman taxation and the hard economic times. Was there no end? What could the 1st-century Palestinian Jewish leadership do? Nothing except cooperate with Rome and its plans. So Jesus began to teach and perform miracles, having assembled his disciples. This caught the largely negative attention of the local religious leadership to the point that killing Jesus and everything he stood for once and for all was seen as the only solution.
That plan failed. Yes, while Jesus did die on the cross, he rose up from the grave on the third day, victorious over death and everything that death stands for.
Why?
Let us once again consider John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him shall never perish but have eternal live.
So, how about us? The PC(USA)? What about Hokusei Gakuen University? What about this needless harassment we must endure and the bullying that goes on with innocent others?
On the political side, Mr. Abe, under criticism from China and South Korea and frustration in the United States, said in March that he would uphold the apology. In it Japan admitted that tens of thousands of women from South Korea and elsewhere were coerced into sexual slavery. This is where the historical truth stands, despite ongoing revisionist scheming.
But on the spiritual side, we have but one choice. We are to hold on not only to our resolve for academic freedom in the face of political pressure, but also to God’s unchanging hand, where salvation and eternal life dwells.
For a closing prayer to this letter, I wish to share a poem written by a 19th-century African-American Jennie Wilson called “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand.”
Time is filled with swift transition,
Naught of earth unmoved can stand,
Build your hopes on things eternal,
Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Trust in Him who will not leave you,
Whatsoever years may bring,
If by earthly friends forsaken
Still more closely to Him cling.
Covet not this world’s vain riches
That so rapidly decay,
Seek to gain the heav’nly treasures,
They will never pass away.
When your journey is completed,
If to God you have been true,
Fair and bright the home in glory
Your enraptured soul will view.
Build your hopes on things eternal,
Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Please pray for the Uemura family and Hokusei Gakuen University. We are spending in excess of $12,000.00 per month for added security. In addition to prayers, please consider setting your prayers into action by writing your representative in Congress entreating the U.S. Department of State to do something. What is happening here is little different from what is happening in other troubled spots of the world. If Japan really does turn its back on its own history, it is also turning its back on us and the Americans who served and died for the freedoms that Japan and America presently share. Polite, prayerful pressure is what's needed.
During this time of Advent and Christmas, I would like to thank you for being supportive of my work here in Japan. With the support you give me and the support given to others you make a positive difference in our world so that the love of God, as best shown in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, continues to serve as our model for peace and reconciliation wherever we may be.
Ubi caritas, et amor, Deus ibi est. Where there is caring and love, God is always there.
Thomas H. Goetz
Articles cited:
"Rewriting the War, Japanese Right Attacks a Newspaper," by Martin Fackler, Dec. 2, 2014 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/world/asia/japanese-right-attacks-newspaper-on-the-left-emboldening-war-revisionists.html
Following that article, the NY Times editorial board published an op-ed on the topic, "Whitewashing History in Japan, " by the Editorial Board, Dec 4, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/opinion/whitewashing-history-in-japan.html
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 247
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