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CounterPunch
March 15,
2003
The Fire Last
Time
Remembering
the Tokyo Air Raid
by ADAM LEBOWITZ
Some of the fiercest Pacific War land battles
between armies -- John Dower's "war without mercy"--occurred
over the summer of 1944. The Allies' "island hopping"
campaigns over the long South Pacific archipelago culminated
in the capitulation of Guam, Saipan, and Tenian. Landing strips
were built for the B-29 superfortress and the US Air Command
commenced to strike "soft targets" on the main island
of Japan. This past week marked the 58th anniversary of the
first such "shock and awe" attack.
At about a quarter after midnight on
10 March 1945 the first sirens went off as small canisters of
fire were scattered in the densely populated eastern section
of Tokyo. Writer Saotome Katsumoto was twelve-years old at the
time:
"A belt of fire swept over from
Shita-machi. It became a raging stream running over streets
and stabbing through houses, joining together with others until
it transformed the landscape into a phenomenal hell."
He remembers flames shooting from the
windows of the houses lining the evacuation route. He saw one
B-29 at close range dropping countless fires, slowly floating
towards a diagonal route towards him and turning over and over
like a dice as it hit the ground nearby; someone burnt beyond
recognition tried desperately to extinguish one; in another moment
a glimpse of a young girl of four or five becomes a blur as her
figure is suddenly engulfed in smoke. That night the foray of
over 300 bombers and dropped a payload of 1700 tons over Tokyo.
The all-clear sounded a little before noon but the fires were
whipped by a strong north wind and continued. All told about
100,000 lay buried in the scorched earth or afloat in the city's
canals with one million homeless. Saotome comments: "There
is no record of that number of soldiers losing their lives in
a battle of similar length." The air raids would hit Tokyo
again and all of Japan's major cities become similar battlefields
until surrender in August.
This modern carnage has been recorded
by the modern art of photography, but in my opinion another medium
captures meaning better. The emaki, or rolled-painting,
has been used to exhibit pictorial narratives in Japan since
at least the 8th century, particularly epic stories known as
monogatari ("The Tale of Genji" is the most
well-known). Monogatari are special because they embody
an organic versimilitude, an essential truthfulness that appeals
to the observer. The deep, almost maroon vermillion red color
motif of the Tokyo air-raid emaki is the functional signifier,
alluding to the "hell scrolls" (jigoku-e) of
ancient times and also fitting Saotome's description precisely
(the lightbulb in Guernica anchors the event to the 20th
C and is an interesting foil).
Post-attack photography of the city highlights,
in my opinion, another aspect: the psychology of the victors.
The charcoal-colored effigies of once legitimate human activity
recall most of the preserved corpses encapsulated in the volcanic
ash of Vesuvio. In other words, the strategy of the victors
appears to declaim, "Not only your government but your society
too is ash, gone, a 'non-starter', 'history'." So it may
probably come to the city of Baghdad; however, it is a strategy
doomed to failure because those swearing jihad in their hearts
and minds will not soon forget the memory of a destroyed and
desecrated metropolis.
Koizumi:
A Chochin Before the Wind
The image of fire was also brought to
mind this past Monday the tenth in an evening newscast. Prime
Minister Koizumi and his Foreign Ministry appear ready to "carry
the chochin" for Bush, commented anchor Kume Hiroshi
of News Station. A chochin is a traditional round
paper lantern lit by a candle; in feudal times when an imperial
or shogunal progress came trooping the color of authority through
a populated area, a few guys proceeded them waving these lanterns
shooing people out of the way. Today these comic-bully characters
are stock in period drama. It is an apt description for the
Prime Minister who signaled his continuing support for the US-sponsored
UN resolution authorizing force by announcing he would place
phone calls to the "middle six" undecided nations.
He made this announcement on the tenth.
The ledge upon which Koizumi sits at
present is becoming to resemble Tony Blair's. While it could
be argued that Japan's position vis-à-vis North Korea
would be strengthened by US support there are growing quarters
of domestic dissent. He appeared to have lost some potential
political allies from other parties, or at least strengthened
the resolve of those already in opposition, by announcing his
pro-US stand most clearly last month standing lone with Australia
at the UN-member speak out. This was made prior to any formal
clarification of position in the national Diet, and there is
now relentless criticism in the news media for not making his
case to the public. This was reflected last weekend in the demonstration
at Hibiya Park in Tokyo that drew 40,000, and on 2 March when
7,000 gathered in Hiroshima to spell "NO WAR-NO DU"
in a park.
Even the elders within his own party
have been advising he reconsider his position, including Reagan's
buddy former-p.m. Nakasone Yasuhiro. In fact the only former-p.m.
vocally supporting Koizumi is his immediate predecessor Mori
Yoshiro, whose year in office will remembered primarily for his
professing the divinity of Japan--the famous "God's Country"/Kami
no Kuni statement--and for his Taftian-burlesque bulk in
golf togs when he refused to interrupt his golf game after being
notified that a US Navy submarine had accidentally collided with
Uwajima Fisheries High School training craft off the coast of
Hawai'i. Faced with this kind of opposition (and current economic
troubles), and perhaps even chastened by former-UNHCR Ogata Sadako
warnings of a humanitarian disaster, Koizumi appears to have
backed-down materially if not rhetorically on an attack on Iraq,
refusing any financial support for military action but pledging
to help in the "rebuilding" (his caricature gracing
his party's homepage www.jimin.jp amusingly illustrates his current
situation) .
FireBlame-Irony
A conflagration, a human-induced disaster
on the scale of Tokyo and possibly Baghdad usually accords blame
to more than one individual; not only to the those ordering the
ordeal, to those pushing the buttons, to those who design the
weapons themselves, but also to the leaders of the defeated.
Hussein has not accepting a dignified retreat. Some blame should
also go to us brave citizens of the Republic for being loath
and cold in agitation following the coup-d'etat of November 2000.
Finally the lack of reflection on national experience distributes
some blame to the current Japanese administration as well for
not openly questioning the proposed military tactics, despite
the uncertainties of the DPRK situation.
In fact, the only people who might be
blameless are the people in Baghdad, the women floor traders
on the Baghdad SE; the players in the 12-team strong professional
soccer league who fondly remember knocking-out Japan in the 1994
World Cup prelims; the 12-year-olds dutifully studying English
in class. Especially the young; they are truly the brave in their
dedication to daily routine, doing their best with the double
axe of economic hardship and threatened conflagration overhanging.
So well they were portrayed in an extended series of the NEWS
23 program with anchor Chikushi Tetsuya entering the schools
and slums around Saddam City; in the same situation I would be
(as Dr. Evil might have it) "a frigging basket case".
To suggest to this distressed population they find the energy
and will to engage in open conflict with authority ranks with
the highest hubris.
Novelist and critic Nosaka Akiyuki's
position in an essay from last summer on the Hiroshima atomic
bombing was similar. Most pointedly he avoided condemning the
US but rather levels his plain-spoken fury at Japan's war-time
authority who with their delusions and dithering refused a "window
of opportunity" to countenance surrender offered by the
Potsdam Agreement. The result: The younger adolescents of that
city and Nagasaki just under the age 16 draft age became "history",
although it was they who were certainly "doing their best"
for their country, balancing schoolwork, household chores, and
the community service of auxiliary fire brigade. The problem
is that their leaders did not reciprocate in kind.
Irony is rarely absent from history,
and yet this essential element of self-reflection appears to
be absent in the current Japanese leadership as they continuously
"raise the chochin lantern" for the Bush administration.
Should war commence this stand will be remembered and will live
on as a particularly infamous irony in the latter part of human
history.
Adam Lebowitz
teaches at Nihon University and has lived in Japan for 12 years.
Click here to read MIT Prof. John Dower's fine rebuttal to the
"Iraq as Japan" argument from the Boston
Review. A free download of
the English translation of Ikezawa Natsuki's On A Small Bridge
in Iraq with fine photos by Motohashi Seiichi is available
at http://www.impala.jp/iraq/main.html
Adam Lebowitz can be reached at: noriko-adam@tokai.or.jp
Yesterday's
Features
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream (Interview)
Jason Leopold
Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. Opposed 1989 UN Investigation of Saddam
for Human Rights Violations
Josh Ruebner
An
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The
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Carlos Fuentes
The Insulting Insinuations of the Bush Regime
Fareed Marjaee
The Road to Jerusalem Goes Through Baghdad
Rick Giombetti
The Savagely Soft Underbelly
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