The narratives of Japan as the hero are most evident in the Yushukan Museum. Within this museum there are personified stories that portray the Japanese soldiers as heroes. One of these is a note written by a lieutenant general to his wife. He states, “I will live the eternal noble cause as the guardian divine spirit of the state.” Narratives like these are pushed while there is no mention of the suffering that Japan’s actions caused. The museum attempts to justify wartime Japan and even tries to argue that the war was beneficial to Japan and the rest of Asia. In addition, it cites Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War as a catalyst for greater Asian growth, as it inspired other countries to also gain independence. Again, pushing this narrative that early-20th-century Japan was a heroic nation leading its people and continent on to a better future.
In turn, both Yasukuni and Yushukan also play to the Japan-as-a-victim narrative. They honor and glorify those who died in the war, which, in and of itself, doesn’t deliberately contribute to this narrative. However, when combined with the fact that they also portray wartime Japan as heroic, enshrining these people becomes a story of how a benevolent Japan that just wanted the best for Asia became victims of the Allied Forces.
From a Japanese perspective, Yasukuni and Yushukan do not portray Japan as an aggressor. As argued by James J. Orr in his book The Victim as Hero, this is a very deliberate choice. For one, adhering to the victim consciousness expunges some of Japan’s responsibility for its wartime actions. Additionally, it cultivates anti-militarization sentiments by inducing fear of becoming war victims again. However, the shrine and museum do portray Japan as the victimizer from the perspectives of Korea and China, who were the main victims of wartime Japan. By glorifying Class-A war criminals, Japan is playing into a role of an unapologetic and cold-hearted aggressor.
Looking towards America, I find the Enola Gay Exhibition and the Arlington Cemetery as very similar in their purposes. They are both meant to be objective portrayals of history, free of any false narratives or political jockeying. Martin Harwit, the director of NASM, simply wanted to tell the story of the atomic bombs and their consequences with the Enola Gay exhibit. This was of course met with a lot of backlash and attempts to alter its narrative, but the original intent was one of historical accuracy. Similarly, the Arlington Cemetery is simply a cemetery that happens to hold the bodies of Confederate soldiers. It wasn’t created for a specific political or religious purpose; it is merely a relic of history. The same cannot be said for Yasukuni Shrine and the Yushukan Museum.
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