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【标题】日本的历史健忘症 Japan's Historical Amnesia
【来源】《洛杉矶时报》
【链接】http://articles.latimes.com/1999/mar/01/local/me-12877
【翻译】dakelv
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】此译文版权归译者和Anti-CNN共同拥有。转载请注明译者及出处。
【译注】这是1999年华裔美国作家张纯如所著《南京大屠杀》的日文版本即将在日本发行之际美国《洛杉矶时报》刊登的一篇评论文章。虽然时隔近十年，这篇文章的观点仍然没有过时，因为直到今日日本仍然没有诚实地面对历史，仍然拒绝承认其在二战对中国和亚洲人民所犯下的滔天罪行。同样是战犯，德国前纳粹从来没有停止过被在全球范围内追剿的命运，而二战中双手沾满中国人鲜血的日本战犯却一直逍遥法外。值惨绝人寰的南京大屠杀71年纪念之际，重拾此文，愿日本政府能正视历史，对自己国家在二战时所犯下的罪行低头认罪，以告慰南京大屠杀30万冤魂以及其他战争受害者的在天之灵。
【译文】
日本的历史健忘症
1999年3月1日 《洛杉矶时报》评论
两年以前，（美国）司法部开始把那些被认为在二战期间犯有罪行的日本人的名字加到战争罪犯嫌疑人的名单上。这个名单有很多用途，其中之一就是把不受欢迎的外国人拒于美国国门之外。司法部长期以来一直保存着曾经参与纳粹种族灭绝行为的或者涉及其他战争罪行的人的名单，但是出于某种不为人所知的原因，华盛顿在此之前并未致力于辨认日本战争嫌疑犯，而一个私立研究组织认为这些战争罪犯中有几百人现在仍然在世。现在美国政府要求日本政府在此事上予以合作，但是得到的却是日本政府的沉默。司法部特别调查办公室主任艾力·卢森堡说，日本甚至拒绝向美国提供战争罪犯名单上的12个日本嫌疑犯的出生日期。
作为美国的盟国，日本的这种反应是反常的，但是这种反应与日本一直以来不愿承认其武装部队和秘密警察在二战以前和二战期间所犯罪行的态度却并无二致。德国 -- 至少是1991年统一以前的西德政府 -- 非常坦诚地把纳粹时代德国所犯罪行这一严酷的事实坦白地摆在其人民的面前。而日本则基本上逃避了这种责任，原因之一是其右翼民族主义者在政治上一直有很强的影响力，
几十年以来，日本的教科书一直回避其在朝鲜、中国、菲律宾和其他被占领的亚洲国家所犯下的野蛮侵略罪行。即使在今天，日本的教科书仍然一直漠视这段战争历史。直到1992年，东京才终于承认日本军队曾征招数千名亚洲妇女作为慰安妇。美国作家张纯如所著《南京大屠杀》记录了1937年日本屠杀30万中国人的史实，其日文译本原定于下月在日本发行。现在，由于出版商受到右翼极端分子的威胁，这本书的出版被无限期延后，
乔治·桑塔纳亚所发出的 “不能记住过去的人注定只能重复过去” 的著名警告是放之四海而皆准的。但是日本的问题不是不能记住过去，而是其战后一代甚至被剥夺了了解过去的机会。日本不愿意正视其历史，这不仅对于日本的受害者来说是一种侮辱，对其本国人民来说也是一种可悲的伤害。
【原文】
Japan’s Historical Amnesia
March 01, 1999 in print edition B-4
Two years ago the Justice Department began adding to its list of suspected war criminals the names of Japanese who are believed to have taken part in atrocities during World War II. The list is used, among other things, to bar undesirable aliens from entering the United States. It has long held the names of Germans and others who were involved in genocidal Nazi activities or otherwise implicated in war crimes. But for reasons that are unclear, Washington had not previously sought to identify Japanese suspects, several hundred of whom are thought by one private research group to still be alive. Now there is a U.S. request for cooperation from Japan’s government, and it has met with silence. Eli Rosenbaum, the director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, says Japan has refused to provide even birth dates for the dozens of Japanese suspects now on the list.
This is an unusual way for an ally to act, but it is also consistent with Japan’s institutionalized reluctance to acknowledge the extent of the crimes committed by its armed forces and secret police before and during World War II. Germany, or at least the West German government before reunification in 1991, forthrightly brought before its people the harsh truths about the crimes committed during the Nazi era. Japan, in part because right-wing nationalists continue to wield strong political influence, has largely evaded that responsibility.
Japanese textbooks for decades all but ignored the aggression and brutalities committed in Korea, China, the Philippines and other occupied Asian countries. Even today, the texts treat wartime activities obliquely. It wasn’t until 1992 that Tokyo finally admitted that thousands of Asian women had been dragooned as sex slaves by Japanese troops. A Japanese translation of the American author Iris Chang’s “The Rape of Nanking,” documenting the 1937 orgy of mass killings of as many as 300,000 Chinese, was scheduled to be published in Tokyo next month. Now publication has been indefinitely postponed, after right-wing extremists made threats against the publisher.
George Santayana’s well-known warning that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it is universally valid. But Japan’s problem isn’t so much that it can’t remember its past but that successive postwar generations have largely been denied the chance even to learn that past. Japan’s reluctance to honestly confront its recent history continues to be an insult to its victims and a grievous disservice to its own people.
[ 本帖最后由 dakelv 于 2008-12-12 23:56 编辑 ] |
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发表于 2008-12-13 13:46
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