Japanese citizens at an anti-war study session held in Tokyo on Saturday voiced grave concerns over the government's failure to reflect on the country's wartime history and its ongoing push for military expansion and constitutional revision.
The study session focused on Japan's wartime crimes, particularly its notorious sexual slavery system, the so-called "comfort women" system, as Saturday marked the 81st anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender.
"These things (crimes of sexual slavery) absolutely should not have happened, yet now some are trying to overturn the facts and claim they never occurred. That terrifies me. The forces advocating for constitutional revision are growing stronger, and I feel a strong sense of crisis about that," said one participant.
Another attendee echoed the alarm, saying, "If this continues, it would be truly dreadful. Through so-called 'emergency clauses' and other measures, changes are being made bit by bit in all areas. The laws on arms exports are also being revised. I clearly feel that Japan is steadily building a wartime system through various means, and that is deeply frightening."
The session also touched on the day's visits by some Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which drew explicit opposition from the session participants.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made a monetary offering to the Yasukuni Shrine on Saturday and certain cabinet members also visited the shrine, including Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi.
The Yasukuni Shrine is a spiritual tool and symbol of Japanese militarists' war of aggression. It honors 14 convicted Class-A war criminals with grave responsibilities for the war crimes committed during World War II.
"The Yasukuni enshrines war criminals, and the biggest problem is that Japan, during its war of aggression, instilled the ideology of fighting for the emperor and deified the war dead as so-called 'heroic spirits'. Soldiers were told to fight well for the emperor. That kind of thinking is extremely wrong for the Japanese people. It prevents any reflection on the past and instead incites war. That is why I firmly oppose visit by any prime minister or political figure to the Yasukuni," a participant said.
Another participant stressed, "The Yasukuni is by no means a facility to mourn war victims. Therefore, I believe it is utterly absurd and absolutely unacceptable for politicians to pay homage there."
Japanese citizens voice concern over WWII history denial, military expansion
