The Land od the Rising Yen

they — we must learn the ways of foreigners; we
must learn how to be an alien in a gigantic, momentous, historic manner.
Victory over China in 1894 and victory over Russia in 1905 were not only
victories but also proofs that force was to be trusted, force was a successful
means of achieving one’s ends. 1945 spelt a bitter and very different lesson,
but this new moral, too, was drawn with alertness. Yet, the fact remains: in
her fascist era Japan imitated the Nazis; the Nazis were bestial and brutal so Japan imitated their brutality, too.
    This explanation contains a grain of
truth but far from the whole truth. The brutality of Japanese soldiers was
exercised against prisoners of war and the civilian population of occupied
lands with relish, and was not simply ‘put on’ as a result of superior orders;
it was not just an act of copying half-heartedly some distant, European
original: it came from the heart; it sprang from true, deep-seated convictions.
    How? And why?
    Let us dispel, first of all, the
hostile notion — nursed mostly though not exclusively by Russian propaganda —
that brutality was natural to the Japanese and that’s how they always behaved:
that the Japanese, far from being a sweet and gentle people, are cruel and
bestial, and their true nature comes out whenever it has a chance. It is, first
and foremost, the Russians of all people who have good reason to remember
Japanese chivalry. Perry had one great rival in his attempt to force Japan’s gates: the Russian Admiral Putyatin. The Admiral’s ship, Diana, sank in
Japanese waters after a storm caused by an earthquake. Putyatin and his crew
were at the mercy of the Japanese whose country they had tried to humiliate and
subjugate. Yet the shipwrecked sailors were treated with chivalry and kindness.
Putyatin himself paid tribute to Japanese generosity and related that he and
his men received all the assistance and supplies they needed and that
winter-shelters were constructed for them on orders from the Japanese
government. 4 Again, all records agree that
during the Russo-Japanese War the treatment of Russian prisoners was exemplary,
indeed generous.
    What happened, then, to the Japanese
who could behave with admirable discipline and kindness in 1905? And who seem,
once again, to be kind and generous people today? Surely, more than just a
change of allies? (Japan had, of course, no allies in the Russo-Japanese war
itself but had an alliance with Great Britain at the time.)
    Part of the explanation lies in the very
discipline to which Japanese soldiers were always subjected — even during the
time of General Nogi. They had too much discipline. Japan even today (as we
shall see in greater detail in the next chapter) is an authoritarian society
without an authoritarian government. Children have to obey their elder brothers
and girls even their younger ones; women their husbands; husbands their
fathers; fathers their bosses; and — before the war — all of them had to obey
the Emperor, who was divine. Suddenly these slaves to so many masters, these
people who had obeyed all their lives, gained real authority: power over life
and death. There is no worse master than the former slave: there is no crueller
oppressor and avenger — even if he avenges himself on the wrong victims. One
may understand him; one cannot acquit him.
    General Nogi in 1904-5 demanded
discipline from his troops but taught them chivalry; the officers of the Second
World War demanded even blinder obedience but taught them the moral code of the
Nazis, extolled brutality and called humane behaviour criminal softness. The
officers treated their own men with extreme cruelty and they were encouraged,
indoctrinated to pass on this inhuman treatment to those in their power.
Oppressed minions want to kick someone: so long as they can kick
innocent victims they feel relieved and this relief makes their oppressors
safer. Some natural decency — it could be argued — might have acted as a check.
It did not. They were far away from home; they were free of shame. What they
did so far away did not really count. The Japanese were not the first people in
history who accepted a double moral code: one for their own folk, another for
inferior breeds.
    Their most savage and evil behaviour
was reserved for prisoners of war. They had been taught throughout all their
military career, indeed all their lives, that once they put on uniform and
swore allegiance to their divine Emperor, their lives did