Abstract
The attribution of blame and its acceptance or denial is an inherent feature of international conflict. When one nation injures another, its representatives usually invoke excuses or justifications, apologies or challenges, according to their identification with or disdain for the victims. Northeast Asia’s “memory problem” is based on particularly bitter disagreement about blame and responsibility within as well as between nations. Common ideals of honour, dignity and nationalism intensify this disagreement and impede its resolution.
Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
—John Donne Meditations XVII
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© 2010 Kazuya Fukuoka and Barry Schwartz
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Fukuoka, K., Schwartz, B. (2010). Responsibility, Regret and Nationalism in Japanese Memory. In: Kim, M., Schwartz, B. (eds) Northeast Asia’s Difficult Past. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230277427_4
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