Apologists for prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni like to pretend it’s a purely religious matter or a purely Japanese matter. I guess German rightists used similar arguments about Catholicism’s compliance with the Nazis.
One of the most vocal groups in support of prime ministers visiting Yasukuni, not surprisingly, has been the War-Bereaved Families Association. In this respect it’s of interest to note the article below which highlights that: 1) even some Japanese Shintoists are opposed to the secret enshrinement of the war criminals; 2) both the previous and the present emperor have shown their disapproval; 3) the enshrinement of the war criminals is viewed as a symbol of Japan’s lack of atonement for the shocking war crimes committed in East Asia.
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Group tells Yasukuni Shrine to ditch convicted war criminals
AFP-JIJI, KYODO Japan Times OCT 29, 2014
Visitors take in some of the 30,000 paper lanterns illuminated during a festival at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on July 13. A chapter of the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association is asking Yasukuni officials to remove the names of war criminals enshrined there. | REUTERS
An influential group that represents families of the war dead is urging Yasukuni Shrine to remove the names of the convicted war criminals currently enshrined there, an official said Wednesday.
A chapter of the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association passed a resolution at its annual meeting Monday, calling on the shrine’s governors to delist the names from the 2½ million Japanese souls honored there.
The change would enable “the Emperor and the Empress, the prime minister and all Japanese people to visit Yasukuni Shrine without discomfort,” an official from the group’s chapter in Fukuoka told reporters. Similar calls have been heard over the years, both inside Japan and overseas.
The names include that of army Gen. and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Nationalists, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, argue that the Tokyo shrine is no different from war memorials in other countries, such as Arlington National Cemetery in the United States.
The Yasukuni Shrine. A group representing families of soldiers has asked that the names of 14 war criminals be removed. Credit Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But the secret addition of World War II leaders to the Yasukuni list in 1978 caused Emperor Hirohito, known posthumously as Emperor Showa, to cancel a planned visit, according to a memo by one of his aides. His son, Emperor Akihito, has never visited the shrine.
Japanese politicians stoke anger in China and South Korea whenever they visit the shrine. Those nations suffered at the hands of Japanese aggression in the first half of the 20th century and regard visits by political leaders as insensitive triumphalism.
A small [but alarmingly powerful and influential] section of the political right believes Japan is unfairly criticized for its wartime past, saying the international military tribunal that convicted the leaders was practicing the justice of the victors and that Japan’s empire-building was no different from that of the European powers.
The issue has soured ties with Japan’s neighbors and even prompted a scolding from the United States when Abe visited the shrine last year. Japan’s leader has not held formal talks with either China’s President Xi Jinping or South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye since they came to office.
Abe’s visit to the controversial shrine came amid a near-crisis in relations with Beijing, strained by sparring over the sovereignty of an island chain in the East China Sea.
On a spiritual level each kill is criminal. To fustigate the fact that some pretended war criminals are here enshrined is pure insolence. The US army with their bombs devastated entire towns murdering their innocent inhabitants. No one put the blame on them. Hence, I think Shinto and the Yasukuni Shrine should not be blamed by others who understand very little to Japanese faith and concepts.
Everyone to their own opinion of course, but as Green Shinto has repeatedly argued, Yasukuni is not a purely religious matter since it has been made into a political space exploited by the nationalist rightwing for reactionary purposes. You only have to read the scholarly accounts of John Breen and John Nelson to understand that, though I suspect you have not bothered. If you wish to close your eyes to that, I personally believe you are complicit in whatever ensues, much as the German middle-class closed their eyes to the consequences of the rise of Hitler. (And for what it’s worth, many right-thinking people have indeed put the blame on the US command for the fire bombings of Tokyo and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)