62 years ago, the Japanese imperial army unconditionally surrendered, finally bringing to an end the Second World War. Today, a delegation of the Japanese Mei Shin Kai group commemorated the end of the war together with the Chinese people in Nanjing – site of the Nanjing Massacre. The Chinese and Japanese peoples now live in peace, but the Japanese government still refuses to fully acknowledge and atone for the horrors its predecessors inflicted. In Germany, the Third Reich is dead and buried, but the Japanese leaders still maintain that the Imperial Japanese Army fought to liberate the Asian peoples and defend Japan. 62 years after the end of the war, the Japanese government should finally and irrevocably refute the Japanese Empire.
But the mood is changing. Today, only one member of Shinzo Abe's 16-member cabinet visited the Yasukuni Shrine. The number of members of parliament visiting the shrine declined from 62 last year to 46 this year.
Japanese schoolbooks should tell the truth about the war, instead of glorifying the Japanese Empire and instilling in young minds the repulsive idea that it may return in the future. Finally, to become a modern country, Japan should send the emperor into retirement and establish a republic. 62 years after the end of the war, 62 years after the emperor should have been deposed, he is still clinging to the Chrysanthemum Throne, driving his empress and his daughter-in-law-princess crazy.
Japan was only half liberated in 1945. The task remains unfinished.
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