The Ryozen Gokoku Shrine is not a name that springs to mind when thinking of Kyoto, yet it draws a continual stream of visitors. The reason is that it houses the grave of Sakamoto Ryoma, one of the great heroes … Read the rest
Category: Yasukuni (Page 2 of 4)
Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar by Akiko Takenaka
published by the University of Hawaii Press and in the Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Press.
Book description from the Press:
This is the … Read the rest
The Yasukuni controversy continues to rumble on.
At the same time as prime minister Abe was telling the world of Japan’s peaceful nature, he sent an offering to Yasukuni Shrine and sanctioned a visit by his wife. The public face … Read the rest
Actions speak louder than words. While prime minister Abe was making a carefully coded statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2, three of his cabinet ministers were allowed to visit Yasukuni JInja. Legitimising the shrine that … Read the rest
Four recent articles have highlighted the growing danger of right-wing extremism in Japan.
First Murakami Haruki, Japan’s leading novelist, spoke out against the whitewashing of Japan’s record in WW2. “After the war, it was eventually concluded that no one was … Read the rest
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 … Read the rest
The divisive nature of Yasukuni Jinja is highlighted each year on the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in WW2, when the shrine acts as a symbolic rallying point for extremists. An article in The Japan Times below illustrates to what extent … Read the rest