Andrew Cohen: Koizumi could have shown courage and leadership
[Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University.]
The other day Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan made a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine to observe the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was a last act of defiance against critics, including former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who asked him not to go.
Mr. Koizumi believed it was principled to go to the shrine, which honours 14 war criminals among the country's war dead. A less charitable view is that his annual pilgrimage -- he has gone for the last six years -- was a misguided expression of a leader who simply doesn't get it.
The prime minister, who leaves office next month, confirms his place in the pantheon of leaders who had an opportunity to achieve greatness and let it slip away. In repudiating Japan's imperialist past, he could have made history. Instead, he chose to deny it.
The Yasukuni Shrine has become a symbol of a country that refuses to acknowledge its atrocities in East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. This would be no more than a minor argument among historians were it not playing itself out today in damaging ways for Japan.
The impact of Mr. Koizumi's visit goes beyond hurting relations with China, Taiwan and South Korea, or colouring Japan's campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, which a country of its wealth, stature and spirit surely merits. It is about conscience and self-awareness. It is about who you are and what you want to be in this world as you aspire to play a larger role.
Mr. Koizumi has been an enormously successful politician, who might have taken a dramatic step toward addressing the demons of a people who still see themselves as victims. There is much he could have done. He might have asked the Diet, Japan's legislature, to issue a blanket apology, with legal and moral authority, to the victims of Nanking and the comfort women of Korea. He could have supported a program of meaningful restitution. He could have proposed erecting a memorial in Tokyo, like the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, and he could have made visits to Seoul and Beijing to show his remorse.
But Mr. Koizumi doesn't see it that way. His indifference to the past puts him on the wrong side of history, making him the world's newest tribune of lost opportunity.
He is in good company. Yasser Arafat, most famously, preferred to be a rebel more than a statesman. He could have had an independent Palestine in 2000 but walked away; Mr. Arafat, it was said, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
The difference between ignominy and greatness is seeing opportunity. George Washington could have become a dictator but chose to be something more glorious: the first elected representative of the world's first democracy. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 because he realized the unbearable moral burden of slavery. Franklin Roosevelt shrewdly moved the United States out of neutrality before Pearl Harbor because he saw the moral challenge of Nazism.
Harry Truman recognized the State of Israel, against the advice of his secretary of state, because he saw the urgency of a national homeland for the Jewish people. John F. Kennedy promised to send America to the moon, a risky prospect in 1961, because he thought man had to go and America had to lead. Lyndon Johnson gave the vote to disenfranchised blacks in the South, knowing it would eventually turn the region Republican, which it did.
Other presidents would have acted less imaginatively. Would Ronald Reagan have embraced civil rights? Would George W. Bush have gone to the moon? Probably not.
In opportunity, generosity. General Robert E. Lee could have refused to surrender and end the Civil War in 1865, ordering the remnants of the Confederacy to the hills to wage guerrilla warfare. He didn't. General Ulysses S. Grant could have demanded harsh terms of surrender. He didn't. Both saw a greater chance in an enduring peace....
The other day Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan made a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine to observe the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It was a last act of defiance against critics, including former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who asked him not to go.
Mr. Koizumi believed it was principled to go to the shrine, which honours 14 war criminals among the country's war dead. A less charitable view is that his annual pilgrimage -- he has gone for the last six years -- was a misguided expression of a leader who simply doesn't get it.
The prime minister, who leaves office next month, confirms his place in the pantheon of leaders who had an opportunity to achieve greatness and let it slip away. In repudiating Japan's imperialist past, he could have made history. Instead, he chose to deny it.
The Yasukuni Shrine has become a symbol of a country that refuses to acknowledge its atrocities in East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. This would be no more than a minor argument among historians were it not playing itself out today in damaging ways for Japan.
The impact of Mr. Koizumi's visit goes beyond hurting relations with China, Taiwan and South Korea, or colouring Japan's campaign for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, which a country of its wealth, stature and spirit surely merits. It is about conscience and self-awareness. It is about who you are and what you want to be in this world as you aspire to play a larger role.
Mr. Koizumi has been an enormously successful politician, who might have taken a dramatic step toward addressing the demons of a people who still see themselves as victims. There is much he could have done. He might have asked the Diet, Japan's legislature, to issue a blanket apology, with legal and moral authority, to the victims of Nanking and the comfort women of Korea. He could have supported a program of meaningful restitution. He could have proposed erecting a memorial in Tokyo, like the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, and he could have made visits to Seoul and Beijing to show his remorse.
But Mr. Koizumi doesn't see it that way. His indifference to the past puts him on the wrong side of history, making him the world's newest tribune of lost opportunity.
He is in good company. Yasser Arafat, most famously, preferred to be a rebel more than a statesman. He could have had an independent Palestine in 2000 but walked away; Mr. Arafat, it was said, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
The difference between ignominy and greatness is seeing opportunity. George Washington could have become a dictator but chose to be something more glorious: the first elected representative of the world's first democracy. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 because he realized the unbearable moral burden of slavery. Franklin Roosevelt shrewdly moved the United States out of neutrality before Pearl Harbor because he saw the moral challenge of Nazism.
Harry Truman recognized the State of Israel, against the advice of his secretary of state, because he saw the urgency of a national homeland for the Jewish people. John F. Kennedy promised to send America to the moon, a risky prospect in 1961, because he thought man had to go and America had to lead. Lyndon Johnson gave the vote to disenfranchised blacks in the South, knowing it would eventually turn the region Republican, which it did.
Other presidents would have acted less imaginatively. Would Ronald Reagan have embraced civil rights? Would George W. Bush have gone to the moon? Probably not.
In opportunity, generosity. General Robert E. Lee could have refused to surrender and end the Civil War in 1865, ordering the remnants of the Confederacy to the hills to wage guerrilla warfare. He didn't. General Ulysses S. Grant could have demanded harsh terms of surrender. He didn't. Both saw a greater chance in an enduring peace....