[danjel]

[OT]

Phier: Oh, come on.

There is two sides to every story. Yes the Japanese were absolutely vicious in China. I don't deny this.

Yet, I have a problem with people pointing out such stuff with complete ignorance as to the causes of WWII from the Japanese perspective.

In the late Edo period, the declining power of the Tokugawa shogunate allowed for an opportunity to be taken by outside powers. This opportunity was initially taken by the Americans, who sailed frigates into Tokyo bay and threatened the shogunate with bLasting the *%$# out of Edo, until the shogun allowed the Americans unrestricted trade (including Opium, but the Japanese never really took it up) in Japan. While trade restrictions remained, in some ways (mainly due to cultural resistance), do you believe this is a fair and decent way for a nation to act towards another nation?

That was soon followed by the disbanding of the warrior class in Japan, and the castration of power from the Japanese people. Since that time, until WWII, the Japanese had an extreme dislike of particularly Americans (which survives today, btw). This was the cause of the war between the Japanese and the allies.

What about after the second world war? The Japanese people, like all Asians, were subject to a whole range of racist attacks in the Western World (I'm personally most familiar with the "White Australia" immigration policy in Australia).

Yes, the Japanese committed a number of atrocities before and during the second world war. But, every country has commited crimes against humanity at some stage, even if one is ignorant of what their own country has done. Winners write history.

[edit]
I remember that I've seen a movie about how Japan was opened up by the black ships. It wrote the Americans as heroes, it was a complete joke..

I agree with whomever said that movies about war should be written without consideration as to whom it would politically offend.
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[This message has been edited by danjel (edited 26 May 2001).]