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◆The Memorial Museum of Emperor Hirohito

◆The Memorial Museum of Emperor Hirohito

The Memorial Museum of Emperor Hirohito (shōwa tenno kinenkan) is now
being constructed within the precinct of the National Shōwa Memorial
Park (kokurisu shōwa kinen kōen) in Tachikawa, a city in the western
suburb of Tokyo. The initiative in this project has been taken by the
Japanese Ministry of Land and Transportation (kokudo kōtsu shō) and
more than 1,4 billion yen (approximately 14 million US dollars) has been
already allocated from the national budget.
The aim of the project is, according to the broacher of the Shōwa Seitoku
Kinen Zaidan, or the shōwa sacred-virtue memorial foundation, which
curates the exhibition at the museum, to remind the public of “Emperor
Shōwa who, by deciding to end the war, saved our nation” and of his
“generous heart which has always been the fundamental source of
comfort and vigor for his subjects and made post-WWII Japan prospered.”
It also claims that the museum is necessary to honor the Emperor who
“cherished peace and nature.”

Was Emperor Hirohito, however, really the Emperor who cherished peace
and nature? He is now claimed to have been nature-friendly because he
planted some trees at the annual Shokujusai ceremony. (Shokujusai is
Arbor Day; shokuju lit. means planting.) However, for each single tree he
planted at the ceremony, hundreds of trees were displaced or
demolished. Isn’t it nonsense to honor him as “the emperor who
cherished nature” and spend 14 billion yen out of the tax?

Emepror Hirohito’s love for nature does not appear to be sincere. Then,
how about love for peace? The Emperor, as the Japanese military
almighty, led the way in the war of aggression in the Asia Pacific and killed
tens of thousands of people in the area. Without taking any
responsibilities for the past war, he had remained at the throne even
after the war. Why, then, a museum in honor of a peace-friendly emperor?

The Ministry of Land and Transportation is a branch of the Japanese
Government. It is the first museum that are going to be built in the
memory of late Emperor Hirohito by the Government and the project
clearly expresses the Japanese official views towards the Emperor and his
era. It defines how the Emperor should be understood and his time be
remembered by the public. The perverted notion of the “emperor who
cherished peace and nature,” which the Government uses to legitimatize
the construction of the museum, made it obvious that even 60 years after
the war, the Japanese Government is still incapable of facing its war
responsibility.
by sosidan | 2005-07-29 23:39 | ◆ENGLISH
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