Obama’s Hiroshima visit: A compromise with history – Paris

Erna Paris on the Obama Hiroshima visit and the lack of apologies:

In Japan, the debate continues. Although the country has dedicated itself to “universal peace” by eschewing armed conflict and promoting nuclear disarmament, the historical narrative is darker with regard to war crimes.

While the United States account excuses the nuclear attacks in the name of a purported greater good, some prominent Japanese conservatives have denied that the well-evidenced crimes committed by their military even happened. Like his predecessors, Mr. Abe (whose party has been in power almost continuously since war’s end) has also visited a controversial Tokyo shrine where the souls of convicted war criminals are said to reside.

There are cultural differences, too. Mr. Obama embodies the American propensity to ignore the past and look to the future, while in Japan the bombings are commonly transformed into abstractions about universal peace with little historic specificity. These tendencies will doubtless facilitate the leaders’ desired focus on current geopolitical issues, such as North Korea, territorial disputes in the South China Sea and nuclear disarmament.

Earlier this month, Mr. Obama delivered the convocation address at Howard University in Washington in which he spoke about the political necessity of compromise. On Friday, he and Mr. Abe will exhibit a compromise with history itself.

Had either country followed the example of postwar Germany, whose leaders fully apologized for the Holocaust, there would be more substance to this historic visit.

Apologies and acknowledgments matter. Truth brings solace. It also reforms national memory, as Canadians discovered with the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Nonetheless, by virtue of making this symbolic trip to Hiroshima more than 70 years after the event, Mr. Obama has begun a long-overdue process of reconciliation. For this, we must be grateful.

In addition to the TRC, the apologies to Japanese, Chinese and Indo-Canadians for wartime internment and immigration restrictions such as the head tax and the ‘continuous journey’ requirement are part of that healing and recognition process.

Source: Obama’s Hiroshima visit: A compromise with history – The Globe and Mail