Our responsibility to the past. The patience Japanese people shouldn't lose. This was uploaded in April 11, 2014. Noguti Hiromasa.						The dream like reality.
	Recently I happened to read the opinion in connection with the thing that Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam that Mr. Kuni Miyake wrote in JB with the title of "Don't Alienate Japan's Internationalist Conservatives". And it noticed there may be some difference between his opinion and my opinion. Thereupon, I decided to write my opinion. According to Mr. Mitake, on March 23, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. There prime minister Abe vowed that nations must face the historic facts. This spontaneous visit by Abe, contrary to the some neighbors' recent propaganda against him, for the moment looks to represent the genuinely humane pacifist feelings the silent majority of Japan have into the heart, Mr. Miyake says. It thinks that it would be so probably, as for this part. According to Mr. Miyake, During this visit, prime minister Abe stated that "the 20th century was an era in which there were repeated wars and repression of human rights though the world should be free from such phenomena, in the 21st century", moreover stated that "We would like to achieve peace, acknowledging historical issues in an open manner and passing down, to the future generations the lessons we learned from history". Those utterances seem to include his vow that it should accept the historic facts we pained Asian people or others in the Second World War, as humbly as we can.
			And, it seems that those utterances also include the mind to hope especially Asian countries' understanding the international circumstance that Japan was put on in those days. But, it seems that it shouldn't utter this hope openly at least now. We would have to wait patiently our salvation until the countries concerned understand our mind from the heart. This is the painful task for us certainly. But, it shouldn't look away from the truth with escaping into the selfish historical view. It is because the action like that would lead us to walk the road to hell. But, here it stopped referring to the other countries' historical view. It is because it finally is the problem the said country should solve. Anyhow, it doesn't seem that at least now we are in an environment able to show those countries a suggestion about how to understand each historical view even if our suggestion is proper. It needs to produce an relationship of mutual trust able to make honest conversation before talking with each about historical view though it is certain it isn't easy so.
	With respect to the incident where pages of copies of Anne Frank's diary recently were torn out in Tokyo libraries and bookstores, I heard that prime minister Abe stated that he hopes that this kind of regrettable incident would never happen again". Such an act of vandalism unprecedented in Japan gave the queer shock and uneasiness to the silent majority of Japanese who have no historical relationship with anti-Semitism. And, according to Mr. Miyake, various reactions about those comments reached Tokyo after the prime minister's visit. "For example, reportedly a senior rabbi, at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, praising the visit, stated that Abe's moving remarks and deeds is "an act of friendship and solidarity with the Jews of the past and the present" and stated that it showed that Anne's words would not give in to those who try to destroy her legacy" Mr. Miyake reports.
	However Mr. Miyake says that on the other hand, there are different views in South Korea. According to Mr. Miyake, one editorial in a major Korean paper stated "The problem is whether he is committed to world peace from the heart" by hinting that "the real purpose of his visit was the curing the anger of Jewish people around the world on the Anne Frank's diary incident", while commending the visit. Then, Mr. Miyake also explain that this editorial concluded that "If Abe wants to prove his sincere acceptance of the historic facts, he should have apologized to the Dutch comfort women, meeting to them because they were also sexually exploited, during the war, by Japanese soldiers". I feels sad of such utterance though it thinks that the utterance like this is not the silent majority's opinion of South Koreans. Certainly it may be that this opinion isn't wrong if it is seen logically. But if it sees it from Japanese people's feelings, it seems that it is too harsh opinion against the prime minister's tight schedule. It is because Japan had apologized to them and paid as compensation though by any chance, it may be not enough. Japan's public view and explanation about this kind of problems and compensation can be seen at "The Comfort Woman Issue and the Asian Women's Fund" and so on of "Digital Museum".
	* URL of the "Digital Museum": The English language edition is "http://www.awf.or.jp/e-guidemap.htm". The Japanese language edition is "Japanese edition http://www.awf.or.jp/guidemap.htm". But, if you can read Japanese, it would be better to read the Japanese language edition. It is because there may be the fails of spellings or the inaccurate translations in the English edition. Mr. Miyake says that "Shinzo Abe is a conservative internationalist and one of the most pro-U.S. parliamentarians" and that "his supporters include those conservatives from the center-right to the ultraright-wing". And he also says that the limited number of xenophobic ultraright-wingers, no matter how vocal they may sound in the media, are not as influential as they wish to be. I also think so at the moment.
			But it is unease that the too hard utterance against Japan may stimulate them increasingly. It is because a part of media, with taking up the hard utterances which are sent from the foreign countries, may change our guilty mind to the hatred. This never be good thing for people and each nation. If we try to get untied from the problems that our behavior in Second World War gave other countries' people the pain, it seems that we have to show our good faith, maintaining our prudent mind and intelligence with keeping our pride and the patience even if it is a painful task. And, in this case, our pride is nothing else but to be the fact that we kept on maintaining peace and prosperity without war for long after Second World War got finished. It thinks that we shouldn't forget the thing that our peace and prosperity are based on the Japanese people's intelligence and patience. And we should notice Japanese people tend to lose the patience because of terrible income differentials and the increase of nuclear families and because of the society which became too rich.
	By the way, Mr. Miyake says "In a nutshell, it is imperative for those who believe in the Japan-U.S. security alliance to comprehend the subtle but important difference between the "internationalist" and "xenophobic" conservatives". I also think it may be so. But, if the situation our intelligence and patience tend to be lost continues for long, it seems that it may be hard that U.S. comprehends the subtle but important difference Mr. Miyake says. Therefore I think that Japan needs to be the singular nation on the mind to maintain peace and to dodge war.
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