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Leaving Asia? The Meaning of Datsu-A and Japan's Modern History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Pekka Korhonen
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History is a cumbersome science. Scholars work diligently in amassing data, reading original sources, and creating plausible narratives regarding the past. That is, however, of scant use for mitigating and resolving international conflicts, such as those presently involving Japan and its neighbours. As Ernest Renan observed in his famous 1882 essay Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?: “L'oubli, et je dirai même l'erreur historique, sont un facteur essentiel de la création d'une nation.” The importance of forgetting the past or getting the facts wrong lies in the fact that at the bottom of political formations great injustices and even massacres can often be found, and directing public attention to them is not conducive to integrating a nation as a peaceful unity. Renan had legal precedents for his idea of forgetting as the basis of a nation. One French massacre that Renan refers to was Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris in 1572, when several thousand Huguenots were killed. The Edict of Nantes in 1598 granting amnesty for Protestants included also a decree that all parties extinguish from their minds the memory of all that had happened during the decades of religious fighting. Renan's problem was how to create stable nations, but the phenomenon can be observed also in international politics. If Renan had wished, he also could have taken up the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the 30-years War, and which contained not only a decree for all parties to place into “perpetual Oblivion, Amnesty, or Pardon” all hostile acts that had been committed during the war, but also prohibited litigation processes related to lost property and most debts, so that “perpetual Silence” would fall on public memory of the war. The emphasis was on forgetting the past and moving on towards reconstruction of a functioning regional state and trading system, rather than keeping war memories alive by trying to sort out injustices, perpetrated to some extent by all parties.

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Research Article
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Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 50 , December 2013 , e2
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References

Notes

1 Early versions of this article were given as lectures in City University of Hong Kong and Waseda University in 2007, and a more developed one in Kyoto University in 2012. Thanks to Joseph Cheng, Yamaoka Michio, Ito Kimio, Ochiai Emiko and Takeuchi Rio for useful comments. Thanks also to Mark Selden and Sven Saaler for important advice during the editorial process.

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3 “Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation …” See here

4 The French text Édit de Nantes here: [22 February 2014].

5 The original Latin text, as well as historical German, Swedish, French and English translations can be found at Die Westfälischen Friedensverträge vom 24 Oktober 1648. Texte und Übersetzungen Acta Pacis Westphalicae. Supplementa electronica, 1 : http://www.pax-westphalica.de/; a modern English translation here: [22 February 2014].

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