On Tuesday, Japan's Defence Minister resigned over comments he made about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Giving a speech on Saturday, Fumio Kyuma said that the deployment of atomic weapons was inevitable. Japan being the only nation to have been subjected to a nuclear attack, widespread outrage at his remark was perhaps equally inevitable. The sting is in the fact that Mr Kyuma represents Nagasaki in the Japanese Parliament.
Japan's position towards nuclear weapons is that there is no justification for their use. Mr Kyuma has brought further shame to the administration of Shinzo Abe which, ten months in office, is limping under the weight of sundry blunders, scandals and embarrassments.
However, in his apparently thoughtless comment, Mr Kyuma touched upon an element maybe not considered enough in the debate - that the nuclear strikes weren't just in an effort to end the American/Japanese conflict, rather they also served as a show of strength to Russia, of whom America was growing suspicious and didn't want involved in the Pacific War.
Japanese politicians rarely mention the atomic bombings, as the issue could harm relations with the USA. Mr Kyuma, in his defence, stated that he was merely describing what America's position would have been at the time of the attacks. This is not to suggest that he's playing lap-dog to the USA - in January this year, he came under fire from his colleagues for suggesting that the American led invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
On the other side of the planet,
The National Army Museum displays a work by
Gerald Laing. Titled "
Truth or Consequences", the painting shows an image of Tony Blair next to one of the London bus of July 7th. When viewed from a different angle, the painting morphs into George Bush next to a picture of Baghdad in flames. The title (apparently a "scathing critique" according to an
unnamed source) refers to the idea that Blair knew claims of weapons of mass destruction were false, the "consequences" being events like July 7th, as if one was an inevitable effect of the other.
While Laing's statement may seem similar to Kyuma's on the surface, there is an important difference - Laing oversimplifies the Iraq conflict and the reasons July 7th happened, whereas Kyuma's voice argues from the broader historical context of a world at war.
Moreover, Laing's message is inconsistent - is it an attack on Blair, or Bush and Blair? There seems little point in having Bush in such a controversial work if he isn't going to at least draw some criticism.
If, by placing Blair next to the bus, the implication is that July 7th is a direct consequence of the Iraq conflict, then what are we to make of Bush and Baghdad? What is the Iraq War a direct consequence of? It's tempting to say 9/11, and it certainly makes sense in the context of the 7/7 image - if the London bombers are to be believed that what they did was inevitable because of what the British Government did, then shouldn't similar ears be given over to the New York hijackers? Did 9/11 happen as a result of Western foreign policy, or do "they" really hate our freedoms? Laing doesn't put the same questions to the American public as he does to the British. Perhaps using 9/11 for political purposes (heaven forbid) would be tasteless and too controversial for Britains leading pop artist, but in that case, "
Truth or Consequences" rings like a cyncial, ill-informed nudge and wink.
These are two similarly insensitive statements with different pedigrees. On the one hand, a blunder, albeit contextually accurate, is shamed out of the public eye, on the other, a half baked idea is displayed in a museum. In a funny way, I prefer the latter, but it would be better still if it actually said something constructive.
Labels: anger, culture (shock), Japan, politics
