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euphoria@kbin.social to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 843 points –
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Interesting cultural paradigm for a people that spent centuries genociding others.

I love Japanese architecture and Japanese food. And I've watched my fair share of anime and read my fair share of manga.

Anyone who doesn't know how terrible Japanese culture is to outsiders needs to educate themselves, there's a reason they sided with Hitler. That culture never really went away like it did for Germany. Talk to an actual Japanese person, who went to school in Japan and see how much they know about their war crimes, and then talk to a German.

Hell correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't one of the most infamous examples of this that the government refuses to admit the unit 731 existed?

When I was in uni, a Japanese friend told me Korean comfort women are cash grabbers and Japan has done enough even though it is "in the past".

I don’t think it’s that worse than other countries tbh. It’s amplified by the fact that it’s an island so foreigners are scarce and a lot of them are there for weeb tourism and may not be the best to interact with, but racism is a constant in most countries all around the world.

They do need to acknowledge their war crimes though, sure. I agree Nationalism is definitely a bigger issue in Japan than in most other countries.

It’s amplified by the fact that it’s an island so foreigners are scarce

First off, in these times, being an island doesn't mean anything, so that is not an excuse actually. Second, I have heard that their own policy regarding taking non-Japanese in made them a bit more isolated.

In modern times it might not matter (or rather, it matters less, refugees still have to move to the closest country and distance by sea does matter), but it mattered in the past and they grew up as a very isolated society (which in turn had them spawn those laws you’re talking about).

So, I knew a girl who went to a Japanese international school in my South East Asian home country where the Japanese did some utterly horrendous things during WWII. She told me the school took them to a war museum kinda place on a field trip and basically shouted at them like "LOOK AT WHAT YOUR PEOPLE DID!" until the whole room of grade school kids were crying about how sorry they were. So at least outside of Japan there seems to be some (perhaps over the top) education about the atrocities committed by the Japanese government to Japanese students, but I agree, most of the Japan educated Japanese people I've spoken to are just vaguely aware that they did some bad stuff before they got nuked.

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It's quite simple when you realize that the non-Japanese aren't people

Centuries? I knew their bad period started roughly around the Meiji Era and stopped after WWII, in regards to killing people, but that hardly constitutes centuries

stopped after WWII

That's what they and the Western governments legitimizing hyper-nationalist holocaust-deniers like Abe for geopolitical reasons want you to think, but in reality there's still a lot of fuckery going on, to use the technical term.

Can you point to something I can read on this? I don't want this to sound like "I doubt what you're saying", I just know little about Japan after WWII and didn't think full scale genocides were going on. Of course, even after the wars, Japan does not have the best record regarding, uh, being nice to other ethnic groups.

Not the op, but since you seem serious, I think a better way of wording it would be, "spent centuries at war and attempted to genocide a few cultures". So, aside from the fact that most of the history of Japan is just waring states and almost never ending infighting, you can look into the Imjin War for Japan's first attempt at conquering the mainland in the 1500s. It would also be worth looking into their conquest and/or eradication of the Ainu, Emishi, Ryūkyū Kingdom.

Hey, thanks for the recommendations. I wasn't aware of the Emishi. I'll definitely look into it.

Well the 12th century and the Sengoku period were probably worse than the early Meiji period in terms of violence.

Are we attributing Roman war practices to modern Italy too?

No, I don't think modern Italians have time machines to go back in time and train the Romans. Also, the Romans were actually competent, so it is unlikely that they were trained by the Italians.

Yes, but I wouldn't call it genocide. I don't know, I'm not defending them for their crimes in the past century, but the original comment is a little hyperbolic.

The modern (yamato) Japanese people replaced the previous inhabitants of Japan. I don't think it was a deliberate genocide, but at the end of the day the Emishi / Jomon cultures were wiped out.

Edit: Also, I was talking about violence in general, not genocide.

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