Nippon Kaigi and friends exposed, at last

I recently wrote this piece on the Japanese revisionist lobby Nippon Kaigi: "En finir avec Nippon Kaigi, le lobby révisionniste japonais" (Rue89 - 2014/11/02*)

That's in French, because if my compatriots are not much aware of what happened then or what's happening now in this region, they are used to debates about revisionism, including about France's own troubled past.
 
Furthermore we love to legislate about it. Our constitutionalists are not so happy with our 'memorial laws', because legislators have no business writing history (particularly the way they did in 2005 about colonialism!), but I like the fact that the negation of the Holocaust is considered a crime (Gayssot Act, 1990), and that a European treaty backs it**. 

Fundamentally, I want more people, more media, more human rights groups, to stand for Japan, globally. I want the anti-Japanese wave to become pro-Japanese, and the true anti-Japanese forces to be exposed. 

Remember that Shinzo Abe is not anti-Korea: he needs Koreans to continue playing his game and waging anti-Japanese campaigns. Korea must be resolutely pro-Japan by supporting the Japanese democracy, the Article 9.

Japan will triumph against Imperial Japan when, by its own initiative, it resolves the Imperial Japan sexual slavery issue, and gets rid of Nippon Kaigi and its avatars (see "'Comfort Women': No Resolution Without Resoluteness. From Everyone, Please."). This, of course, can't happen without a profound grassroot change.

Across the globe, the international community must speak up for Japan and against its enemies, and Nippon Kaigi is the perfect vehicle to expose Shinzo Abe and his friends: their agenda cannot be clearer, beyond rewriting history, they want to get rid of Japan's peaceful post-war democracy, to restore the Imperial regime, to cancel peace treaties and human rights laws... These are the guys who pretend to defend Japan and terrorize anybody who stands for the truth because they say they bring shame on Japan. The time has come for them to feel the shame, and to be rejected by their own people.


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* initially on my French blog: "En finir avec Nippon Kaigi" (blogules - 2014/10/30)
** see "Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime, concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems" (Treaty 189)

Article 6 – Denial, gross minimisation, approval or justification of genocide or crimes against humanity

1    Each Party shall adopt such legislative measures as may be necessary to establish the following conduct as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without right:
distributing or otherwise making available, through a computer system to the public, material which denies, grossly minimises, approves or justifies acts constituting genocide or crimes against humanity, as defined by international law and recognised as such by final and binding decisions of the International Military Tribunal, established by the London Agreement of 8 August 1945, or of any other international court established by relevant international instruments and whose jurisdiction is recognised by that Party.

2    A Party may either

• a    require that the denial or the gross minimisation referred to in paragraph 1 of this article is committed with the intent to incite hatred, discrimination or violence against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these factors, or otherwise 

• b    reserve the right not to apply, in whole or in part, paragraph 1 of this article.

Mirrors are abominable

Long time no post about revisionism in Japan, eh*?

I just passed by one of those distorting mirrors over the web, and saw something interesting.

Here, when I mention 'distorting mirrors over the web', I'm not referring to revisionist propaganda, but to the way information can be altered along it virtual journeys.

And when I say that I saw something interesting, I'm not referring to my female self (NB: that's not the first time a translator or a journalist mispells my name as "StephaNIE" or thinks "Stephane" is a girl's name**), but to a 10 year old video that remains scaringly relevant.

I must pause here: I can't help but think about my favorite piece of literature, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", where Jorge-Luis Borges redefined fiction and prefigured our internet's pervasive maze of hoaxes, facts, fictions, and mirror sites. When The Great Blind Librarian wrote "mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of men", he simply couldn't imagine that they could also change their genders.

Now where was I?

Here. And there. Marking a pause, precisely. Because Shinzo Abe kindly decided to hold his own horses***, I seized the opportunity and updated my miserable French blogules, recycling in one single post**** the "Abeignomics" series I'd just shot in broken English on this excuse for a blog. The story was later adapted as a Tribune in the French news website Rue89: "Le Japon prisonnier de son extrême droite révisionniste" (May 20).

What I came across was a short post in The Moderate Voice, where William Kern wrote: "In the latest in a series of similar criticisms from around the world on the Abe government, Rue 89 Stephane Mot writes in small part – and I do mean small, since she goes on for a full 1200 words". A long quote ensues, from the similarly titled***** translation of my Rue89 Tribune in Worldmeets.us, the non-partisan journalism project Kern founded after working for the IHT in Paris.

I clicked the link to read the translation... and at the very last line, found out that an "I" had unfortunately fallen over my name, like a guillotine over my proud stephanehood.

But again, that's not the interesting part... Ill-chosen words, sorry. I meant that's not the point - gaah, forget it, just watch the video Worldmeets.us kindly picked to go with the translation.

It's called "Japan's Dirty Secret" (23 May 2003), by Mark Simkin. This ABC News journalist, who spent four years in Japan, manages to raise quite a lot of issues in less than 20 minutes.



The focus is on Unit 731: as a former torturer flies to Harbin to apologize to Chinese survivors, Simkin tells everything about the dark side of today's Japan, without sparing the US, who by clinching the infamous deal with Shiro Ishii, prevented justice from happening, and Japan from facing its past, paving the way for revisionists such as Shinzo Abe.

If you think Japan can do without formal apologies for the crimes committed under Imperial rule, think again. All Japanese citizens should watch this non distorting mirror if they want to save their peaceful democracy, and prevent further abominations from happening.

Stephane (without an I)
NB: that's my fault. I changed Abenomics into Abeignomics.
An "I" for an "N"?

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* already eight days ("Silver lining, darker clouds"), time really flies.
**  So far, the Asia Times remains the only one to have dubbed me "Stephan".
*** "ABE forced to back down a bit. For the moment. Next PR stunt: KIM Jong-un" (May 15)
**** "AbeIGNomics - Shinzo Abe a fait son coming out: il est bien le pire ennemi du Japon" (blogules V.F., May 18)
***** "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a Threat to Democratic Japan (Rue 89, France)" (Worldmeets.us, May 31), "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a Threat to Democratic Japan (Rue 89, France)" (The Moderate Voice, May 31)

UPDATE 20200406 - Rue89 link updated to new NouvelObs URL.