Mayor Motoshima and the Historical Memory of World War II

Similar to the two earlier stories, the story of Mayor Motoshima is another one of historical memory: the memory of the A-bomb dropped on Nagasaki during WWII.  Although this memory has been maintained, it has to some extent taken on a commercial form: especially, as Field argues, in Hiroshima.  Like in the previous two stories, in this one, the person who challenged the historical amnesia was someone outside the mainstream.  Like Shoichi and Mrs. Nakaya, Mayor Motoshima came from a unique background: an illegitimate son, growing up as a foster child with grandparents; conversion to Christianity; early independence;  role in the war and the guilt associated with it. (Field, 247, 250)  Another plot of the story is the challenge to the argument of Japanese homogeneity.  The diversity of the society ranged from Christians to Shinto believers, believers in the Japanese war guilt in WWII and right wingers who denounced it, graduates of the elite universities from big cities versus people from small cities and peripheral regions, gap between the life of the Burakumin and the rest of Japan, different treatments of Japanese and Korean victims of the A-bomb, plus the author's autobiographical experience of growing up bi-racial in Japan and not quite fitting in anywhere.  Mayor Motoshima's criticism of the emperor coincided with the emperor's death and contrasted with the reverent treatment of the emperor by the mass media and the government, highlighting the ambiguity in the Japanese government's attitude toward the war years.

1. Theme story: Mayor Motoshima’s criticism of the emperor. 

Mayor's comment, Dec. 1988, that the emperor bore responsibility to the war.  Had he ended the war earlier, there would have been no Battle of Okinawa, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (178)  Later, he also called on official apologies to Korea, Aug. 1989 (263).

The Mayor's comments coincided with the national reaction to the pending death of the emperor and later the emperor's double, Shinto/secular funeral ceremony:

  • Daily media coverage in the latter half of 1988 (177)
  • "Self Restraint" practiced in the 6-7 weeks between emperor's death and funeral, assisted by police censorship. (187)

This contrast brings to question how to assess the emperor's role in WWII.  Although the emperor was the head of the state during the war, no official verdict of his role in the war was ever made.  

2. Mixed reactions to the mayor's remark on the emperor and diversity in Japanese society

The mayor received a diverse range of responses to his comments on the emperor:

Negative:

  • Death threats (181)
  • Right wing groups who moved into the city in vehicles equipped with loud speakers, Dec.1988. (185)
  • Charge against him by the Kyushu conference of the all Japan Patriots' Association, Dec., 1988, calling on Motoshima's resignation.
  • Opposition letters:

  • argue along platitudes or, raise controversial or repressed issues, e.g. the A-bomb or Tokyo war trial (207)

Positive (182)

  • Mayor of Yomitanson of Okinawa (Dec.), and chairman of the Japan Socialist Party.
  • Support letters sent to Motoshima (189- ) 
    •  challenges to the belief that Japan had changed (194-5, 197),
    • congratulations on his courage (198, 214, 217, 218)
    • remorse of complicity in war.(210)
    • responsibility for future generation (211)
  • "Nagasaki Citizens committee to seek free speech" (233) 

       Many also relate unfree speech in their daily lives, not just with regard to the emperor.  Many personal stories of people who wrote letters to Motoshima. Repressed anger that many found hard to express in public. 

Besides a conflict between the supporters and opponents of the mayor, the Nagasaki society was further divided into: 

  • Conflict between graduates of big national universities and not so great gradiates of a different one (e.g., conflict between aunt and environment because of peer envy, because uncle is graduate of Tokyo University.)
  • Life experience as biracial child in Japan, not fitting in in either the Japanese or American environment.
  • The Christian background of Nagasaki.
  • The Burakumin and their status in society. 

The Burakumin, people associated with leather cleaning and related matters, were the "untouchables" before the Meiji Restoration because according to Shintoism and Buddhism, taking life was not good.  The people who had to take lives of animals, called the  Burakumin, were considered unpure and therefore their jobs (butchers, drum makers, shoe makers, tailors of leather boots and jackets) were hereditary and they could not intermarry outside of their caste.  

  • The Koreans who could not be buried with the Japanese dead in the A-bomb blast in Hiroshima. 

 


Q: Why did many supporters praise Motoshima with courage to speak the truth, and some charged that nothing changed from before the end of the war? Why did it seem hard to speak the truth?

Q: Relating to the above question, comment on Norma Field's statement that the Japanese state exercised explicit and not so explicit coercion to make people believe the emperor was not responsible for the war, "suggesting conjunctions between wartime repression and the more subtle, apparently non-life-threatening forms of coercion that ensure the order and harmony crucial to postwar prosperity." (Field, 219)

Links:

http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/DOF/japan/captioned/god.htm

 where one finds wartime song of sacrifice.

http://vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/bio-obit/obithito.htm

 this is the obituary of the emperor.

http://www.japaneseimperialfamily.net/1947con.html

 Japanese constitution, 1947.