It is not easy to combine a commentary on the New York Mosque with an additional comment on “Genbaku no hi” , but I am going to try anyway.
Just because you understand why the Japanese are the way they are-does not mean you are endorsing what they did. However, there will be no closure on either side until both sides have walked a few km’s in the other person’s shoes.
Judging by the amoung of commentary I have gotten on the previous post, I think it is important to state that-as a dedicated Japanophile-I still support the decision by the United States to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think deep down a lot of Japanese realize that too-even if they publically cannot admit it. But I also think people on the American side of the Pacific underestimate the change that has taken place in the Japanese people. The people who live in Japan today are no more responsible for what happened in 1945, than I am for American slavery. At some point people have to move on-when I do not know. Can any amount chagrin change the past? No it can’t. But I would submit the Japanese have learned from theirs more than we have learned from ours.
Exhibit A:
Please note that Prime Minister Kan DID NOT go to Yasukuni, which is the equivelant of Arlington. That is a big deal. I think it because he is pragmatic and also willing to take on the folks in the black vans. He apologized to Korea. The US has never done that-unless you count the Korean War as an apology for TR’s active and one sided support of Japan taking over Korea. ( Something well documented in the book Imperial Cruise).
I can hear you saying, “Times were different then”. Yes they were-and times are different now. We need to make allowances for that.
Japan is a great country and I have nothng but respect for its people. That does not, however, mean that I don’t understand their idiosyncrasies.
What does all this have to do with the Manhattan Mosque controversy?
Simple-the Muslims have every right to build the facility on private property that has been legally obtained. Whether its appropriate or not is another matter-but the Constitution is clear about freedom of religion. I am no fan of Islam or Arabs-but the President’s statment was the only one he could make.
As “James J. Wells” pointed out in one of my favorite movies, “We rely on you people in the press (the teabagger movement) to behave responsibly. But when you don’t, there ain’t a lot we can do about it. However today, I am going to issue a statement. You won’t like it very much. It is going to say that the Muslims are not the most sensitive and smartest people we have ever encounterd. But they haven’t done any thing wrong. It’s going to say that Sarah Palin and Newty Gingrich were real wrong to raise the ruckus they did about a clear cut legal issue. You may not want to print it-but it is going to end up in the paper”.
As Spike pointed out,
“One day you restrict where Muslims can build a mosque, the next day you’re drawing lines on where someone else can build a temple for followers of another religion, be it Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, whatever. It’s as simple as that.
So as an American, as someone who was born in New York City and lived there for 40 years, as a Jew, as someone who lost friends killed on 9/11, I support the right of the Muslim community to build this mosque in this location.
And all of these people who are screaming about this, no matter how loudly they may proclaim their patriotism, simply do not understand the United States, its laws or what Freedom really means.”
That sums it up pretty well. We either do what we say we believe or we are no better than those we condemn-like the Japanese.