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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
For more than five decades after the end of the World War II, Japan articulated an official identity as a pacifist, anti-nuclear nation both domestically and in the international arena (its formidable Self Defense Force notwithstanding). Since the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, however, the debate over revising Japan's “Peace Constitution” intensified. In particular, Article 9 of the Constitution, by which Japan renounces offensive war, has been under attack by politicians proclaiming the goal of becoming “a normal nation”, and the present Abe administration has prioritized Constitutional revision. Along with politicians and the citizenry, many intellectuals and artists have spoken against the possibility of Japan identifying itself as a “nation that wages war”–thus rejecting its assumed role as advocate of peace and foe of nuclear arms. In June 2004, Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo, along with artists and intellectuals Inoue Hisashi, Komori Yoichi, and Kato Shuichi and others, formed the Article 9 Association, which advocates “protection” or preservation of the present Constitution.
[1] Susan Sontag, “A Mature Democracy,” The New Yorker September 24, 2001, p. 32; Susan Sontag, “Real Battles and Empty Metaphors,” The New York Times, op ed page, September 10, 2002. Maher's statement was: “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building – say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.” Arundhati Roy, “Come September, ” in Roy War Talk (Cambridge: South End Press, 2003), 46-47. (Originally a talk given on September 18, 2002)
[2] “’Jiko sekinin’ iitateru Koizumi seiken no mujun,” Shukan Asahi, April 30, 2004, 27-29.
[3] Gitta Serenyi, The Healing Wound: Experiences and Reflections, Germany 1938-2001 (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co.2001), xix-xx.
[4] See, for example the curtailing of testimony by expert witness Fujime Yuki during the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery in Tokyo in December, 2000.
[5] Arai Shinichi, “Sokan no Ji,” writing on behalf of the Japan War Responsibility Resource Center, Senso Sekinin Kenkyu, sokango, 1993, 2.
[6] Taguchi Hiroshi, “Bungakusha no Senso Sekinin Tsuikyu,” in Ajia ni taisuru nihon no senso sekinin wo tou, Minshu hotei junbi kai, ed. Dainiki senso sekinin, vol. 1. 1998, 31.
[7] Odagiri Hideo, Watashi no mita Showa no shiso to bungaku no gojunen, vol I (Shueisha, 1988), 289-290.
[8] Suzuki Yuko traces the history of the slogan by carefully following press coverage. Suzuki Yuko, “Ianfu” mondai to senso sekinin (Miraisha, 1996),25-26.
[9] Nishikawa Nagao, Senso no seiki o koete: gurooobaruka jidai no kokka. rekishi. minzoku (Heibonsha, 2002).
[10] Hagiwara Takuya, “Kokush kyoiku e no ichi kosatsu,” Doto, October 7, 1944, 4-15. See the first issue of Zenya, on the theme of culture and resistance, Zenya, Sokango, Autumn, 2004. Zenya is carrying forth its pre-war legacy by continuing the tradition of the sponsoring lecture series and public forums. The sense of overlapping yet transitional time expressed in the credo is reflected the inclusion of an unusual combination of modernist and postmodern visual images.
[11] Yamashiro Tomoe, Toraware no onnatachi, (Komichi Sobo, 1986). See especially vol. 1. Muhyo no hana I I for vivid documentation of everyday life for an anti-war “thought crime offender” in what was intended to be “the number one woman's prison in the Orient.” Ibid., p. 56.
[12] The collaborative work by Tsurumi Shunsuke et al, Tenko, still remains the best overview. See Shiso no Kagaku Kenyukai hen, Tenko, 3 vols. (Heibonsha, 1959-1962).
[13] Shimizu, Kiyoko, “Josei. Senso. Jinken” Gakkaishi sokango hakkan ni attate, Josei. Senso. Jinken, Sokango, May 1998, 3-4. See also Okano Yayo, “Jugun ianfu mondai ga terashidasu watashi” no shoso, Ibid. 62-92.
[14] Nagao Yuzo, Ed., Waga uchinaru senso sekinin : Ajia Taiheiyo senso. Watanabe Kiyoshi no kokuhatsu sekinin.
[15] Nagao, pp. 2, 111
[16] For a sophisticated discussion of such historiographical questions, see Saul Friedlander, ed., Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution, (Harvard University Press, 1992).
[17] Giogio Agamben, Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive (New York: Zone Books, 2002) 12.
[18] Regarding Adorno's famous pronouncement, see Klaus Hofman, “Poetry After Auschwitz - Adorno's Dictum,” German Life and Letters 58:2 April 2005, 0016-877 (print); 1468-0483 (online).
[19] See Nara Yoshitomo, Slash With a Knife (Little More, 2003), Nara, Who Snatched the Babies (Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2002), Nara, Lullaby Supermarket (Last Gasp, 2003), Nara, I Don't Mind if You Forget Me (Tankosha, 2001). Among the essayists for the catalog accompanying Nara's 2003 show, Nothing Ever Happens, Deborah Harry best captures the sensibility of Nara's little girls. Harry's essay “Insist on Little Girls” stands apart from much of the English language commentary:: “… I knew this guy Nara had a keen insight. No cute, coy innocents these. No Keane paintings pleading for sympathy. / These girls had ideas, intentions. They knew the truth, like art does,…” See also Leonard Nimoy's bold graphic, and cf. Ingrid Schaffner's discussion of Yoshida Kenko's Essays in Idleness in “Idle Reflections on Yoshitomo Nara's Pop Art.” Nara Yoshitomo, Nothing Ever Happens (Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland: Perceval Press, 2003) pp. 81, 86. 57-61. Perhaps it is no surprise that Blondie, the rock singer, would be most simpatico with Nara, who thrives on rock music and works closely with the language of rock.
[20] Nara Yoshitomo, Nara Note (Chikuma Shobo, 2001).
[21] See Foil vol. I, “no war,” (Little More), April, 2003. According to the editor of Foil, when he called Nara to ask whether he wanted to join in the venture of going onsite to Afghanistan, for the anti-war issue of Foil, Nara replied “It's not very persuasive to say one is anti-war from a far away safe country. We might not be able to do anything, but let's go.”
[22] Suh Kyungsik and Takahashi Tetsuya, Danzetsu no seiki shogen no jidai: senso no kioku o meguru taiwa (Iwanami Shoten, 2000).
[23] See Suh Kyungsik, Purimo Reebui e no tabi (Asahi Shanbun, 1999) and Takahashi Testuya, Sengo sekininron (Kodansha, 1999).
[24] Suh and Takahashi, Danzetsu, pp.5-9.
[25] Mori Tatsuya and Kang Sang jung, Senso no seiki o koete: sono basho de katarareru beki senso no kioku ga aru (Kodansha, 2004)
[26] This reference to the use of color may bring to mind the red dress in the film Schindler's List. However I am referring only to Nara here. Regarding American consumption and commodification of the Holocaust, see Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (New York: Houghton Mifflin: 1999).
[27] For a discussion of the moral universe of Primo Levi's “Gray Zone” see Levi, “The Gray Zone,” in Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (Vintage International, 1988). See also Agamben, Remnants, pp.20-21
[28] Mori and Kang, Senso, p.31.
[29] Ibid., pp.56-7.
[30] Ibid., pp.74-75, 79-80.
[31] Ibid., p.285.
[32] LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). pp. 40-42.
[33] Suh Kyungsik, Hakari ni kakete wa naranai: Niccho mondai o kangaeru zahyojiku (Kage shobo, 2003).
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