The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Postcolonial Japan: State, Shrine, and Honor for Ethnic Veterans, the Fallen, and their Bereaved

Abstract

After the Asia-Pacific War, a resurgence of the idea of Japan as a mono-ethnic nation, abetted by mythologies of Japanese war victimhood, made a full discussion of Asian suffering in that conflict problematic, healing painful, and reconciliation difficult. Orr’s chapter examines contradictions in Japanese treatment of veteran and bereaved families of Korean and Taiwanese imperial servicemen in two areas: commemoration of war dead at Yasukuni Shrine, a practice closely associated with militarism, glorification of war, and State Shinto; and efforts for reinstatement of state pensions and compensation to ethnic Korean and Taiwanese/Chinese for service in the imperial Army and Navy. The end of the US Occupation in 1952 left non-Japanese veterans disqualified for military pensions because they were no longer members of the mono-ethicized Japanese political community. Yet, due to the separation of church and state, Yasukuni was removed from this political development and continued its claim on these same ethnic Taiwanese and Korean veterans’ spirits, enshrining thousands of their number who died in imperial military service. Efforts for postwar reconciliation in the civic realm, namely the movements for pensions or compensation on the one hand and release from Yasukuni enshrinement on the other, and the evolving inclusive and exclusive Japanese responses to such efforts bring into view multiple sensibilities regarding national community and transnational healing.