It’s Wrong to Consider the Last War as “Democracy vs. Fascism”
----China Has No Right Discredit Japan As a Fascist Country
In the fall of 2012, both at the UN General Assembly and ASEN summit meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi warned that Japan’s stance on the Senkaku Islands was an “outright denial of the outcome of the victory of the world’s anti-fascist war and constitutes a grave challenge to the post war international order and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
These remarks by Yang Jiechi appear to depend on the Propaganda that was employed by the victorious nations.
However, as you will find in the following teachings from Master Ryuho Okawa, the last war cannot be considered in a two dimensional frame; “Democracy vs. Fascism.”
First and foremost, Master Ryuho Okawa teaches us in the book titled “Manifesto of the Happiness Realization Party” that:
The United Nations has approximately 200 member nations, and among them all Japan has long been either the number one or number two donor country in terms of financial support. As it stands now, Japan pays the bills and gets nothing in return. We are not even given a commensurate voice.
On the other hand, the five permanent members of the Security Council have veto rights. We want to say to these members: If you’re intent upon swaggering about and throwing your weight around, then you should pay your membership dues like everyone else. Their payments are outstanding, but they act like they own the place. Why is this so? It is because those countries won the war. In other words, the United Nations is a “Confederacy of Victorious Countries.”
The United Nations is, by no, means operating under the principles of justice and equality.
The last war was not simply a confrontation between democracy and fascism.
The standard characterization of the last war has been a confrontation between “democracy and capitalism,” with the prevailing thinking being that the democratic nations eradicated the fascist ones. This is the viewpoint found in the textbooks in the United States.
According to the historians, Japan, Italy, and Germany were evil countries. Therefore, in the end none of them could serve as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
However, insofar as we make a historical investigation into the facts, we find that we cannot necessarily say that the war was a confrontation between democracy and fascism.
Although Sir Winston Churchill of England joined with Josef Stalin of the Soviet Union in order to fight against Germany, what did Churchill say about this alliance at the time? He said, “I would join hands with the Devil himself in order to protect England.”
Churchill knew full well that Stalin was actually a devil. Yet, Churchill took the Devil’s hand in his own so that England could survive. Great Britain was on the verge of being wiped off the map. Rockets were launched from Germany in a ceaseless barrage, and England was on the brink of collapse, which is why Churchill allied with Stalin.
If you looked at how events developed thereafter, it is clear that the Soviet Union was also a totalitarian state. It was a case of two totalitarian states fighting against one another.
Thus, the last war wasn’t simply a case of “democracy versus fascism”— all of the factions were fighting one against the other.
Now, it is doubtful whether or not it was really a good thing that the Soviet Union was among the victorious nations. The communist system of the Soviet Union persisted for some seventy years, during which time a vast multitude of people were killed. We are told that some twenty million or even more people died at the hands of the communist state in Russia. We don’t know exactly how many people died, but a great number of citizens were purged, and the country was placed under the control of a single-party dictatorship.
In this sense, it is doubtful whether it was really a good thing that the Soviet Union ended up on the winning side after the war. It might have been better if Adolf Hitler had been a bit more powerful, and had trounced Stalin, and then had been defeated by the Allies. Stalin was able to survive, caused by a human error, which, I believe, led to the suffering of many people.
In this way, I think there are problems with these kinds of two-dimensional ways of thinking.
I also believe that Japan and Germany had quite different perspectives on their involvement.
To speak from a religious perspective, there were, without doubt, spiritual forces at work behind the scenes in Germany.
There was the traditional religion of the German forests. To speak in terms used by Happy Science, this religion was rather close to being that of the minor realm of heaven, as there is no doubt that the power of black magic was at work.
In the case of Japan, my own spiritual investigations have made clear that the gods of Japanese Shintō in the major realm of heaven were in favor of going to war, so if you’re looking to assign responsibility for the war, then you must assign it to the Emperor and to the Japanese gods.
At that time, the Japanese gods believed that if the religion of Japan were to spread throughout the whole world, then the world would become happy.
At the very least, if you look at post-war Japan, you can clearly see that the Japanese gods were not entirely wrong in this regard. When we examine the post-war prosperity that Japan enjoyed, I think it is obvious that the desire to hold a certain level of influence over the Pacific Rim region was not mistaken.
I believe that cause for repentance exists when we understand that Japan’s actions produced many casualties among the citizens of other nations. However, I also believe that it is mistaken to say that one side was completely correct and just, while the other side was completely evil and in error.
If we’re going to stick to that old line of thinking, then we can say that it was just as evil for the Americans to run roughshod over the various Native American nations. Can anyone explain why the United States was able to gain Hawaii and Guam? America has never formally apologized for the mass slaughter of Japanese citizens (during the Tokyo firebombing raids and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
In the end, I believe that all we can say is that the victors always change history to their advantage.
Although there are inevitably losers and winners in every war, the winners write the history books. Thus, if we want to revise history, and set the story straight, then I think it is important to make efforts in this regard.
As the Soviet Union’s victory lead to the death of a great number of citizens, purged under the control of a single party dictatorship, China, despite opening under the Deng Xiaoping’s control and economic reforms, still cannot be called a “democratic nation”.
The Chinese citizens are still under the oversight of the communist government. They are not given the right to know, freedom of faith, and freedom of speech, which are the most basic human rights in a democracy.
A Chinese activist, Liu Xiaobo, who demanded political reforms and the end of the single-party communist rule by proposing the Charter 08 manifesto, is still under arrest.
The communist government could not remain unaffected by the open disapproval of the protesters. They would invite the collapse of the regime. However, putting someone, who is against the government’s ideology into jail, or what was known as concentration camps in the past, is the very essence of Totalitarianism.
The Chinese communist government purges their own citizens, and it is reported the number of people, who have been purged by the authorities, is climbing up to sixty-five million. (It is reported about 20 million citizens have been purged under the Mao Zedong’s rule.)
In the lecture titled “What Is Global Justice” delivered on December 5th, Master Ryuho Okawa strongly criticized the Chinese government and said, “(the Chinese government’s) national interests are not the nation’s interest. They should put the protection of their people’s well-being first.”
In order for China to become a superpower, it must meet certain conditions. In that lecture, Master Okawa stated, “China should give its people the right to know. He noted that the screening of information for the convenience of government operations is a miserable thing to do to 1.3 billion people. Thus, China should give its people basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, and the right to know.” He emphasized the most important of all is “freedom of faith”. That our life is given from god is the very base of human dignity.
Japan is a democratic nation that values human rights, but in China, a great number of political prisoners like Liu Xiabo have been detained and will not come out of jail until 2020.
Is it not obvious that China is still a politically totalitarian state? The post-war international order has become more aware of human rights, which are only guaranteed in democracies. Until China takes strong actions to reform its one party rule, and allows basic human rights in recognition of the universal value of people worldwide, it has no right to denounce Japan as a fascist country.
Related
- Master Ryuho Okawa Preaches on “What Is Global Justice?”
In this lecture, Master Ryuho Okawa pointed out that the great superpower, America, is now going through a difficult phase. Since America has long been a key decision maker in setting the global standard for Justice, the world’s people are now losing their benchmark for fairness.
- China Is Not Entitled to Be a Permanent Member of the Security Council
Following the recent comments by Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Sept 30, 2012, accusing Tokyo of stealing the Senkaku Islands, the Happiness Realization Party issued a statement [Note], saying that China does not have any entitlement to a permanent seat on the Security Council.
- Does Xi Jinping's China Have a Future?
While Xi Jinping, soon expected to be the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, disappeared for two weeks, the anti-Japanese demos have been spiraling out of control in China, and large scale terrorist attacks targeting the U.S. have broken out the Middle East. Are these simultaneous protests against Japan and the U.S. a mere coincidence?
