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Just trying to follow you there. No one is saying that China or South Korea are perfect, but France, UK, Russia or the USA did not need to be perfect for Germany to extensively recognize its mistakes and transmit that acknowledgement to the future generations through its History classes and books.
I thought Germany apologized only for Holocaust. Have Germany apologized for its invasion?
I see your point, but the difference still exists. Westerners certainly love their parents too, but parents have a lower priority in their family life.
I'm not sure what the Westerners mean but I remember Rafael Nadal, a famous tennis player, had/has been living with his family for a long time.
I'm not sure what the Westerners mean but I remember Rafael Nadal, a famous tennis player, had/has been living with his family for a long time.
Are Spaniards Westerners?
Not westerners but more like Germanic/Anglo Saxon. For them taking care of old parents is if very low priority. Many hardly talk to them not to mention visit with gifts as often as they can.
Italians Greeks have similar family culture as Asians.
I thought Germany apologized only for Holocaust. Have Germany apologized for its invasion?
Well Japan can start apologizing for the massacres, the comfort women, the experimentations on human beings... and compensate the countries / people properly. Then you'll see how things go.
Can Japan issue a statement such as this one to both China and Korea?
"East Germany's first freely elected Parliament admits joint responsibility on behalf of the people for the humiliation, expulsion and murder of Jewish women, men and children".
"We feel sad and ashamed, we ask the Jews of the world to forgive us."
"We ask the people of Israel to forgive us for hypocrisy and hostility of official East German policies toward Israel and for the persecution and degradation of Jewish citizens also after 1945 in our country."
That's by the way a statement of East Germany after the reunification in 1990. Until then, they were denying this part of their History. It's basically what Japan is doing by refusing to recognize those war crimes.
Not westerners but more like Germanic/Anglo Saxon. For them taking care of old parents is if very low priority. Many hardly talk to them not to mention visit with gifts as often as they can.
How is it that you live in the West and yet utterly fail to understand so much?
How is it that you live in the West and yet utterly fail to understand so much?
The guy lives in Toronto, works for the Government of Canada on a comfortable civil servant salary, yet despises almost everything about Canada and its societal values. He even finds Canada's democratic elections to be useless. You can go to the Canada forum, take a glance, and find his laundry list of grievances against Canada and the West.
Yet, I always wonder, why does he continue to live in Canada?
Well Japan can start apologizing for the massacres, the comfort women, the experimentations on human beings... and compensate the countries / people properly. Then you'll see how things go.
Can Japan issue a statement such as this one to both China and Korea?
"East Germany's first freely elected Parliament admits joint responsibility on behalf of the people for the humiliation, expulsion and murder of Jewish women, men and children".
"We feel sad and ashamed, we ask the Jews of the world to forgive us."
"We ask the people of Israel to forgive us for hypocrisy and hostility of official East German policies toward Israel and for the persecution and degradation of Jewish citizens also after 1945 in our country."
That's by the way a statement of East Germany after the reunification in 1990. Until then, they were denying this part of their History. It's basically what Japan is doing by refusing to recognize those war crimes.
It's not that Japan can't, but that it won't. And the US, having nuked japan in the past, has its back now because japan is its little bi$ch in Asia.
Well Japan can start apologizing for the massacres, the comfort women, the experimentations on human beings... and compensate the countries / people properly. Then you'll see how things go.
Can Japan issue a statement such as this one to both China and Korea?
"East Germany's first freely elected Parliament admits joint responsibility on behalf of the people for the humiliation, expulsion and murder of Jewish women, men and children".
"We feel sad and ashamed, we ask the Jews of the world to forgive us."
"We ask the people of Israel to forgive us for hypocrisy and hostility of official East German policies toward Israel and for the persecution and degradation of Jewish citizens also after 1945 in our country."
That's by the way a statement of East Germany after the reunification in 1990. Until then, they were denying this part of their History. It's basically what Japan is doing by refusing to recognize those war crimes.
Oh I totally get what you are saying. Germany definitely did a lot in terms of showing remorse, and basically went above and beyond what was expected of them. I did my early schooling in Berlin after reunification (die Wiedervereinigung) when my parents were working for a German firm and can testify to the thoroughness of the German education system.
You have to understand that the German government initially did not want to open up topics like the Holocaust and WWII crimes for public attention. There were a lot of political pressure in the post-WWII years to put a quick end to the NSDAP war crime trials and de-nazification courts (Spruchkammer) In fact, open discussion about WWII and the Nazi era crimes did not really take hold until the 1968 student movements (68er-Bewegung) in the Federal Republic (west), when students openly demanded the government (and the older generations) to come clean about their NSDAP past. Because up until then, a number of key positions in the German government were still held by right-leaning politicians and administrators, many of whom were former officials and even war criminals under Hitler (e.g. Stuttgart's chief of police in the Federal Republic was a former NSDAP official who presided over the massacre of 10,000 Jews in Minsk in 1942 - after the war he was able to retain his position as an upstanding civil servant...). The official German stance at that time was to quickly "move on" from their dark past, and the vast majority of German citizens were more than happy to oblige. There were no individual admissions of guilt, no memorials, no public discussions - most people simply said they were "misled" by the Nazi leadership. 1968 was a turning point, in that it was the coming of age of the first generation who grew up post-Hitler, and these students demanded answers. It was much less an official admission of guilt (which took many more years), and more of a popular cultural and political movement initiated from the bottom up by university students in the Federal Republic.
I'm not familiar enough with modern Japanese history and culture to comment on how Japan dealt with these issues in the post-war era. In many ways, these discussions can't simply be a government apology or admission. Building monuments and memorials and museums would mean very little if the general public does not recognize the value in engaging and reflecting on their collective past. In Germany's case, it was not just an apology or admission by the government (which took years) but also by individual German citizens who must take collective responsibility for their tolerance of a fascist government - that was the defining turning point. People gradually realized that you can't just shift blame to a few villains like Hitler or Goering or the "Nazis" - YOU as an individual German citizen are also very much responsible for tolerating and even supporting the NSDAP regime. I think this kind of national realization takes lots of courage and persistence, and not something that every society or culture is willing to embark on (and I'm referring to both Japan and China's handling of their own history).
As for the current Sino-Japanese disputes, the German government does not want to take sides, and in fact, is quite bothered by China's persistent reference to the "German example" as a political tool to fuel ongoing anti-Japanese nationalism within China.
When Xi Jinping visited Berlin last year, the German government and Kanzlerin Merkel openly refused China's request to visit the famous Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. A Berlin official stated that "we don't like China constantly comparing [us] with Japan and going on and on about the war."
You don't think Americans have criticized US involvement in Vietnam and Iraq?
You obviously have not been paying attention.
No official apology from the US government though which is what people mean. But you probably knew that but ignored it. Again, where is the apology from the US government for Agent Orange (the effects of which are far worse than the nearly non existent radiation poisoning of the Atomic Bombs) or the concentration camps in the Philippines? Where is the apology to Iran over the coup against Mohammad Mosaddegh? Why did Clinton refuse to apologize to South Korea (an ally) when they demanded an apology for No-Gun Ri? Again, the US isn't really all that different from Japan or China when it comes to things like this. Well, the US did apologize to Guatemala for its STD experiments of course that is after 64 years after most of the victims already died freeing the US from offering compensation.
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