FIFTY-TWO years after the atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, took human history to an apocalyptic edge, the only two cities to face the fury of nuclear fission are demanding an apology. Not from the United States but from their own national government. Not for themselves but for their neighbours next door.
This is an unexpected twist in the tale of two cities. Since the end of World War II, Japan has flaunted the image of a "victim". Now, the real victims, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which together lost over 250,000 people in the bombings, are telling the world that Japan was as much "victimiser" as "victim", perhaps more. And that it's time their government said so. Conventional wisdom is the US dropped the bombs in response to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour in '41. But 'hibakushas' (A-bomb survivors), mayors, scholars, historians, journalists and students in the two cities are attempting to place things in perspective.
They say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki paid the combined price for Pearl Harbour, and the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army in South East Asia—Korea, the Philippines, China, and all the way up to the northeastern part of India bordering Burma. Aggressor Japan, they say, got what it deserved.
"The bomb was dropped for what we did there," says Sunao Tsuboi, a 'hibakusha' who has been hospitalised seven times in the past 52 years. Adds Suzuko Numata, another victim: "Japan caused as much agony to others in the region as the US did to us but they never got their due."
When Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened, the immediate reaction in Southeast Asia was joy and relief: it was freed from Japanese aggression. But despite blinding evidence, Japan has only made small apologetic noises with no talk of compensation. It has always denied having used biological weapons. It has also denied the existence of Unit 731, where mustard gas, whose long-term impact is matched only by the A-bomb, was produced. Hatsuichi Muraki worked at the poison gas facility in Okinoshima, now a museum. Today, two years after being ejected as the museum director for his leftwing views, Muraki says: "Japan's crime in using chemical weapons was as big as America's."
Last month, 108 Chinese victims of germ warfare filed a suit demanding acknowledgement of the damage and individual compensation of 10 million yen each. Of the nearly 30 war-damages suits filed in Japanese courts, this is the first in connection with chemical weapons.
Japanese war veterans are also uncomfortable with the real version. Last year, the seven billion yen Nagasaki museum got off to a rocky Another start when it included a permanent exhibit on Japan's role as aggressor in Asia. The rape of Nanking got a 30-cm square photo and 10 seconds of video time. Veterans weren't happy. They said the picture was taken from American propaganda material and got authorities to replace it with a softer picture taken just before the massacre. But the controversy served its purpose.
The Japanese Diet adopted a resolution two years ago, marking the 50th anniversy of the end of World War II, "recognising that Japan carried out those acts in the past, inflicting pain and suffering upon the people of other countries, especially in Asia." But analysts feel the resolution obscured Japan's true role.
SAYS former Nagasaki mayor Hitoshi Motoshima: "We as a nation are far from clean. The atrocities committed by the Imperial Army are far more serious than the atom bomb being dropped on us. But we have never adequately apologised or compensated the victims because Japanese ethical standards are lower than the rest of Asia's." It is this notion that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are currently out to correct. Because although the two cities have been telling the world of the horrors of nuclear weapons for half-a-century now, the world is not any lighter of them. Worse, Japan's past is increasingly playing havoc with its present status as a "peace state".
It is against this backdrop that the cries for apology and compensation are reaching a crescendo. Says Nobuto Hirano, son of an A-bomb victim, a teacher at an elementary school in Nagasaki, and an organiser of the Kuala Lumpur exhibition: "We can't share with the Asian people a pacifist movement to abolish nuclear weapons unless we gain their trust and surmount this obstacle." In a straw opinion poll, eight of nine students of international studies at Hiroshima University felt Japan was more victimiser than victim. "We've emphasised the victim part too much," says Toshihiki Hanai.
The change of tack is an admission that 52 years of peace-tourism hasn't had the desired impact on the N-powers. The two cities hold elaborate, tear-jerking anniversaries each year. Its mayors dash off telegrams to whoever conducts a nuclear test. It holds a conference of mayors of the world every four years.
Journalist Murray Sayle calls this "municipal pacifism". But the current remorse achieves many purposes. It helps Japan to rebuild bridges with Southeast Asia. It takes the battle for the abolition of N-weapons to a newer, broader plane. And, as Akira Tashiro of The Chugoku Shimbun points out, it offers new generation Japanese a more balanced understanding of the runup to the bombings.
It's also a way out for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are getting isolated in the peace offensive. Mayors of both cities condemned the July 3 subcritical tests by the US and repeated their position at the peace declarations on the anniversaries of the bombings last month. Though the official spokesman wouldn't comment, Prime Minister Ryutoro Hashimoto says the US was well within its rights to conduct tests as they didn't come under CTBT.
Japan is under the American nuclear umbrella, and condemning the tests won't go down well. But Hiroshima mayor Takashi Hiraoka says it's time Japan dunked the US-Japan Treaty and signed a multilateral security treaty. In recent years, mayors of both the cities have been tendering their own apologies to the peoples of Southeast Asia. But this year, Nagasaki dropped the term "our apology". City elders like Prof. Nobuyuki Arai say such an effort is the responsibility of the central government.
But Tokyo refuses to bite the bait. The central government has also been cool to requests from municipal offices of the two cities to sponsor A-bomb exhibitions in other countries. India has been chalked up for November. But the most the government has done so far by way of cooperation is to have Japan's consul-general attend opening ceremonies of the displays.
Clearly, it takes two to tango. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are doing it well, thank you.
