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The Trap of an Official Apology: the Power of Civil Society in Promoting Reconciliation

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Abstract

More than 70 years after the end of the Second World War, warring nations have not completely achieved true reconciliation. For decades, official state-sanctioned apologies have been considered a useful tool to help rebuild broken international bonds, but their effectiveness in fostering national reconciliation remains debatable. On the contrary, more and more studies seem confirming civil society’s role in facilitating people’s reflection upon the most rending aspects of their own past. With civil society involvement in the discussion of Second World War responsibilities still limited in Japan, this paper recalls the experiences of Germany and Italy and the difficulties they encountered in shaping a constructive discussion on war responsibilities and reconciliation to argue that the Obama-Abe exchange of official visits in Hiroshima and Pearl Harbour in 2016 represents a crucial step forward in relaunching the debate on the Japanese Second World War narrative. In particular, this article claims that the wording and the images used by Shinzo Abe and Barack Obama could become, if well framed by national media and the official debate, “agitators of memory” pushing civil society to further and more deeply engage in this crucial discussion for the future of Japan.

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Notes

  1. This project was funded by a grant linked to the Research Grant Program of the Koeki Zaidan Hojin Toyota Zaidan (公益財団法人トヨタ財団), The Toyota Foundation. For this research project, “Embedding the Apology in the Media: How Civil Society contributes to Reconciliation”, a documentary titled “Civil Society and Reconciliation. Voices from Post-War Japan, Germany and Italy” has been produced. Part of the interviews appearing in this paper have been used for the documentary as well.

  2. US President Jimmy Carter visited the atomic bomb memorial in Hiroshima in 1984, but he travelled to Japan 3 years after he had left office.

  3. Beyond that, it is important to emphasize that by silencing war narratives Japan and the United States managed to build a strong bilateral relationship that for some scholars represents a form of reconciliation.

  4. It is interesting to point out that both Pelosi’s and Kerry’s visits have been organized in a G8/G7 context, respectively. Further, two other U.S. Presidents have visited the Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, but neither was in office at the time of their visits: Jimmy Carter visited on May 5, 1984, long after he had left the White House, and Richard Nixon went on April 11, 1964, four years before he won the presidential election.

  5. The Hiroshima attack at the end of the second world war on 6 August 1945 killed an estimated 80,000 people soon after the blast. By the end of the year, the death toll had reached 140,000. Japan surrendered nine days later, on 15 August, less than a week after the US dropped a second atomic bomb, on the western port city of Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people.

  6. Although this attitude characterizes the way in which Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Pearl Harbour was framed in Japan and the United States, it is important to remind that the same visits raised lots of criticism in Asia. Indeed, several critics in China and South Korea described Abe’s decision as arrogant as it explicitly neglected Japanese aggression closer to home in Asia, which remains a source of friction and concern for both Japanese-Korean and Sino-Japanese relations. It clearly goes beyond the scope of this paper to comment on these claims. At the same time, to mitigate this source of criticism, it is fair to stress that the two visits to Hiroshima and Pearl Harbour are not only closely linked to each other, but they are also the consequence of a series of successful bilateral diplomatic negotiations. Cfr. note 60.

  7. Professor Giovanni Sofri, Department of History, Bologna University, interview with the author, July 11, 2018. (Translation from Italian to English made by the author).

  8. Laura Fontana, European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, Paris, interview with the author, July 11, 2018. (Translation from Italian to English made by the author).

  9. Mrs. Marzia Luppi, Fondazione Fossoli, Director, interview with the author, July 9, 2018. (Translation from Italian to English made by the author).

  10. Ibid.

  11. HE Sergio Romano, Italian Ambassador (retired), interview with the author, July 10, 2018.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Dr. Christoph Classen, Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, interview with the author, July 6, 2018. (Translation from German to English made by the author).

  14. Dr. Juliane Wetzel, Centre for Research on Antisemitism, Technical University, Berlin, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.

  15. Mr. Alan Posener, Journalist, Die Welt, interview with the author in Berlin, 4 July 2018.

  16. Dr. Christoph Classen, Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, interview with the author, July 6, 2018.

  17. Mr. Alan Posener, Journalist, Die Welt, interview with the author in Berlin, 4 July 2018.

  18. Dr. Juliane Wetzel, Centre for Research on Antisemitism, Technical University, Berlin, interview with the author, July 5, 2018.

  19. Newspapers excerpts exposed at the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, in Germany, visited by the author on 7 July 2018.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Mrs. Marzia Luppi, Fondazione Fossoli, Director, interview with the author, July 9, 2018.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Dr. Christoph Classen, Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, interview with the author, July 6, 2018.

  25. HE Sergio Romano, Italian Ambassador (retired), interview with the author, July 10, 2018.

  26. Mr. Shigeaki Mori, hibakusha, Hiroshima, September 29, 2018. (Translation from Japanese to English made by a Japanese native speaker).

  27. Ibid.

  28. Ms. Chieko Kiriake, hibakusha, Hiroshima, September 28, 2018. (Translation from Japanese to English made by a Japanese native speaker).

  29. Mr. Takashi Hiraoka, former mayor of Hiroshima, Hiroshima, September 28, 2018. (Translation from Japanese to English made by a native Japanese speaker).

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

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Astarita, C. The Trap of an Official Apology: the Power of Civil Society in Promoting Reconciliation. East Asia 37, 21–43 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12140-020-09330-1

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