Unable to leave history in the past...

Originally Posted by The Idle Biker

I also worked in Japan for a spell and I sensed no sense of national regret about WW2 there. So I sympathise totally what happened in Japan last week, but I do try and avoid Japanese products too, albeit an almost impossible task.

Im really struggling with that sentence. How do you sense national regret? Are you expecting weekly buletins on the tv or radio saying they deeply regret the past? or is it the polar opposite and there are weekly celebrations of their atrocities? Maybe, much like the Germans, they have moved on.

[Bibio]

to be honest i think Ed was trying to make the point of 'forgive and forget' with his statement. but boycotting goods on the grounds of 'your brother beat up my cousin 20 years ago' attitude is a bit archaic these days. after all its not as though the British haven't committed any atrocities now is it.

[carelesschucca]

And our country is a pure as the fresh snow!!! We've never committed any crimes against humanity... EVER!!!

[timwilky]

What happens north of the border, stays north of the border

Of course we have reasons to hang our collective heads in shame. but I would have thought in the 20th century we were a much enlightened nation. We had signed up for rules as how we would treat prisoners and expected our opponents to "play" by the same rules. However to their shame, they did not.

Modern Japan, like modern Germany is a different country to that before the the wars of the 20th century. However both of them share a legacy that some of their great industrial companies made use of slave labour and the management failed to stop the associated brutality taking place on their premises.

Originally Posted by Ed

Then David you might as well ask about events closer to home - the Battle of the Boyne, 12 July no??? - and a whole host of other events in Scottish and Irish history which are still commemorated today.

I'm with TW on this.

But the whole point of what I wrote was that these people are suffering - terribly - and having a rather blinkered approach doesn't help.

Yeah and come to glasgow during marching season and see the hassles with it. I wish that they could be forgotten but hey there will always be blinkers no matter what generation because people think that its okay to continue it.

We should consider ourselves luck in a sense that we don't have major natural disasters otherwise we may find ourselves without much help at all.

Originally Posted by The Idle Biker

I stayed there all day and the only race of tourists that didn't respect the solemnity of the place were the Japanese. I promise you they chattered and laughed and took photos all over the place like it was Disney World.

Errr don't all Japanese / Chinese people do this? They are obsessed with laughing and cameras. Their other obsession is with pigeons, it's very odd... While working in London for the few years I did all I saw was them photographing pigeons or picking up the odd pigeon feather, showing everyone, laughing at it then taking a photo of that to.

Originally Posted by keithd

Im really struggling with that sentence. How do you sense national regret? Are you expecting weekly buletins on the tv or radio saying they deeply regret the past? or is it the polar opposite and there are weekly celebrations of their atrocities? Maybe, much like the Germans, they have moved on.

Course not, it's hard to sum up in an internet post. Lot's of isolated personal experiences like for instance - one group of middle management lackies I visited had paintings of Kamakazi Zero fighters planes around their boardroom. I really didn't like much about the culture in Japan at all. Happy for them to move on, just hope they don't forget.

For f**ks sake- if you look back far enough (and it only needs to be 100-200 years in some cases), every country has pretty much committed atrocities on someone- whether it's within their own borders or outside that (ie an extended part of an empire).

Do you think the British have a squeaky clean history?

The USA?

Jeez- just drop it. Stop blaming people for the sins of their ancestors.

What's happened in Japan is really, truly awful- think of your own home town being swept away by the sea. People just like you and me.

Unbelievable.

Calm down Donal! Its a debate, and nobody is saying anything other than how awful the situation is over there.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by The Idle Biker

Course not, it's hard to sum up in an internet post. Lot's of isolated personal experiences like for instance - one group of middle management lackies I visited had paintings of Kamakazi Zero fighters planes around their boardroom. I really didn't like much about the culture in Japan at all. Happy for them to move on, just hope they don't forget.

So how about our Government supporting flights of Spitfires up the Thames?

Or the guys that privately fund the preservation of various other warplanes?