Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, Shinto priest and nationalist spokesman (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
One often comes across Shinto priests speaking out on matters that concern right-wing nationalism. Sadly this is not balanced by the number of Shinto priests who speak out in favour of environmentalism, human rights and universalism.
In the current controversy concerning the film Unbroken, Shinto’s voice has been prominent in attacks on the portrayal. Unfortunately the stance simply draws attention to Japan’s abysmal record of evasion concerning the wrongs of the past. In the report below a Shinto representative utters a barefaced lie in denying wartime cannibalism, since there is plenty of evidence of this being carried out by Japanese soldiers. Not only is it well documented, but there have been confessions by perpetrators.
There is an account of one such incident in Ian Buruma’s excellent The Wages of Guilt, which compares memories of the war in Germany and Japan. Commenting on the striking difference between the two countries, Buruma notes that the US never fully dismantled the trappings of State Shinto (which include Yasukuni and the emperor system) because of Cold War considerations.
One of the most moving incidents in Buruma’s book is an account of a handful of Japanese participants at a conference in Nanking to consider the infamous massacre of 1937. Afterwards one of the Japanese teachers present changed into the garb of a Buddhist priest and remorsefully prayed for the victims. Could one imagine a Shinto priest doing this? Buddhist sects have officially apologised for their compliance in Japan’s wartime actions. Shinto on the other hand is closely aligned with revisionists and nationalists.
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Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken’ sparks Japanese boycott calls due to WWII torture claims
By Douglas Ernst – The Washington Times – Friday, December 12, 2014
Angelina Jolie’s film “Unbroken,” which depicts the life of World War II hero and U.S. Olympian Louis Zamperini, is facing a boycott campaign in Japan over claims made in the 2010 Laura Hillenbrand book it used for inspiration.
A publicity shot from Angeline Jolie's 'Unbroken'
Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, a nationalist-leaning educator and a priest in the traditional Shinto religion, is part of a campaign to get the film — and possibly the director — banned in Japan because of claims that some Japanese resulted to cannibalism during the war. “There was absolutely no cannibalism,” Mr. Takeuchi said, The Associated Press reported Friday. “That is not our custom.”
In Ms. Hillenbrand’s book, she says, “Japan murdered thousands of POWs on death marches, and worked thousands of others to death in slavery, including some 16,000 POWs who died alongside as many as 100,000 Asian laborers forced to build the Burma-Siam Railway. Thousands of other POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism.”
Mr. Takeuchi’s message for Ms. Jolie was for her to study history, AP reported. He asserted that Japanese war criminals were charged with political crimes — not torture. “Even Japanese don’t know their own history so misunderstandings arise,” Mr. Takeuchi said, AP reported. He currently heads a research organization called The Japan Culture Intelligence Association.
“Unbroken” will be released in the U.S. on Dec. 25.
We really need more Shinto priests to speak out in favour of environmentalism, human rights and universalism, as you said. Spirituality and morality aside, Shinto shrines are one of Japan’s major tourist attractions, and ultranationalism does not really go well with building relationships with patrons overseas! How can us non-Japanese who follow a Shinto path to some extent encourage Shinto’s leaders to be more open-minded and enlightened in their views?
Thanks for the thoughts, Trellia, and I can only suggest that ‘gaiatasu’ (outside pressure) may prove one means of affecting the Shinto leadership. Japan has been saved from itself several times in the past by outside forces, and hopefully forums such as Green Shinto will have an effect… Let’s hope so!!
I hope so too. I have a lot of respect for what Green Shinto is doing and has achieved :) Keep up the excellent work!
I would like to point out 2 or 3 things about this.
” conference in Nanking to consider the infamous massacre of 1937. ”
There is a lot of problem concerning the Nanking issue. And the first one is the number ov victims and the reasons why they were killed :
– At that time, they were 100 000 (ethnicaly only) chinese soldiers in Nanking, but when the japanese arrived, the leaders fled in a hurry and most soldiers were trapped in it. It is believed many of them disguised themselves as civilians, which is cowardice. Japanese soldiers knew it and obviously panicked a lot, because attacks could come from anywhere now that it was come to this. If one don’t blame american soldiers in Irak, he has 100 times less reasons to blame them.
– The total number of Nanking inhabitant at that time was barely 200 000, meaning on 3 ou 4 chinese civilian, 1 could have been military personel.
– Communist China claim IJA killed 200 000 to 300 000 people at Nanking. Their is no proof of this, and many photos they presented as proof were discovered fakes. Also, to kill 200 000 people, IJA should have destroyed everything and bring down every runaway, civilian, woman and baby, the massacre should have been more intense than in Attila campaigns or when US is bombing randomly civilians. So the numbers claim by China are fake.
– Even if Japan had killed 200 000 or even 1 000 000 civilian chinese (and they didn’t) they would not match what the Communist Party did to it’s own citizens. They killed enough chinese civilians to make a country of dead bodies, 30 000 000 at the verry least. Meaning Pekin is just saying racist shit to make chinese people forget their own problems didn’t came from the evil japs, but from a barbarian leftist ideology of effisciency in great scales left unproven despite centuries of trials. Horrors who happened in China, chinese did them to themselves.
” Afterwards one of the Japanese teachers present changed into the garb of a Buddhist priest and remorsefully prayed for the victims. Could one imagine a Shinto priest doing this? Buddhist sects have officially apologised for their compliance in Japan’s wartime actions. Shinto on the other hand is closely aligned with revisionists and nationalists.” ”
Shintô (putting aside strange theories on their origins such as the 12 tribes of Israel) is in first place an ethnic / national / folk religion and Kôdô is a government imposed Dogma. What those Shinto priests are doing is not surprising, even if they are wrong, because they try (unconciously or not) to protect their country and beliefs by all means. Maybe some of them might not be well informed too, and just can’t imagine their folk doing that kind of stuff.
People reading and writting this site seems mostly americans, so it’s something you might not understand verry well… since you are one of the youngest country and have a “roman national” composed hastily, unlike oldest countries. Like Japan, England, France and China. Those countries older countries’ population, especially Japan and China, put great faith in this kind of national folklore. It’s what makes them a nation. If it suddenly disappear, what will happen to Japan ? Shinto priests know religions of the World are in a major crisis, so they are verry greedy, and not willing to let go of their official dogma.
You guys know “death” is a spiritual pollution in Shinto ? I mean, even for normal people, it’s “dirty”, right ? Izanagi was particulary shocked by seeing his wife’s dead body, not being sublimated in death, but rotting away in Yomi ! It happen to everyone, and every religion has it’s own way of dellusioning the ego. Buddhism recalled you will join the cosmic cycle of life and death, so there is anyway reincarnation. Christianism hate the body and love the spirit (or rather an hypothtical “soul”), so it think people go in hell or heaven… some christians also seems to believe they will become angels in Heaven… wich is nowhere to be found in the Bible, but whatever.
There is a story of japanese folk custom in the Munakata series of Hoshino Yukinobu. In this story, a village elder try to hide away the facts about a special matsuri who happens after great period of starvation. It is thought sometimes, in small villages in Japan, people seek to hide the facts of the past, trying to forget. It’s verry good (even if sometimes quite preposterous) you should try to read it. ;)
This Takeuchi Mutsuhiro lying may be doing a similar approach, conciously or not. ;)