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【原创翻译】美：抱歉日本 请不要拿靖国与阿灵顿相提并论
作者：爱你是命也是梦 发表日期：2014-01-21
Sorry, Japan: Yasukuni Is Not Arlington
美：抱歉日本 请不要拿靖国与阿灵顿相提并论
来自美国国家利益网站的文章http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/sorry-japan-yasukuni-not-arlington-9718
在美国人还沉浸在2013年的圣诞节的时候，日本首相安倍晋三精心策划并高调参拜了位于东京的靖国神社。
靖国神社供奉着日本在1945年战败后经国际法庭审判属于战犯级别的人物，并给予了他们特殊的荣誉，时刻提醒着人们日本在二战期间给亚洲人和西方人带来的巨大伤害。然而，安倍晋三对所有这些批评置若罔闻，并称他参拜靖国神社与美国总统访阿灵顿国家公墓性质一样，没什么区别。
这个比喻是极其错误的，阿灵顿国家公墓与靖国神社之间的巨大差异为我们解释了为什么这位首相对靖国神社的参拜如此具有挑衅意味。这两个地方无论历史意义与精神价值都相距千里，虽然两者都是内战的产物，但是靖国神社将焦点专注于第二次世界大战，并将自己的军国主义立场理想化，而阿灵顿国家公墓则是对国家、对民族悲伤记忆的祭奠。
阿灵顿国家公墓的前身是南北战争期间南军司令罗伯特·李的庄园，1864年联邦军准将蒙哥马利·梅格斯在占领庄园后将住宅周围的土地征收,建立了军人公墓，这样如果李的家人回来，他们将会被墓碑和服丧的寡妇环绕。梅格斯的目的就是让这座庄园成为为人们带来苦难的内战的象征。
不同于靖国神社，阿灵顿公墓埋葬着军人以及他们的家人，他们在此安息，与美同在。
靖国神社则完全背道而驰，它是建于1869年的宗教信仰的产物，目的是将神道教所提倡的以天皇为中心的思想植根到国家政体中。在靖国神社，从19世纪中期日本内战到二战结束，那些为天皇而战的人都被称为与天皇合为一体的神灵，这是对战亡的士兵的至高无上的奖励。
阿灵顿公墓则不同，这里不会区分性别、宗教和种族;而在靖国神社，只有那些迷信神道教、为帝国效忠的灵魂们能够与天皇同在，并且有许多超出常规的例外，二战后被执行绞刑以及死于巢鸭监狱的14名甲级战犯就是典型的案例，这里不能供奉一些日本的社会人士，也不能为无名人士设牌。
现如今的靖国神社是一座举行宗教仪式、进行节日表演的私人公园，在主殿的左边，常年落锁的大门后坐落着一座名叫镇灵社的小型神龛，用来安定帝国敌人的灵魂，以免他们对活人造成麻烦;四周是日本二战时不同的机构建立的一系列小型的神龛，包括臭名昭著的宪兵队。
此处还有一座用来美化日本战时行为的被称为游就馆的现代博物馆，展示着日本在战时的事件和技术，以“大东亚战争”及相关“事件”为甚。这些叙述规避了原子弹及日本战败相关事宜，吹嘘在被美国“骗”入战争后，日本是如何从西方殖民者手中解放亚洲等等，靖国神社的官网上更是美其名曰“还原日本历史的真相”。
与之相对，阿灵顿公墓没有着重于一场战争的荣耀或为战争找出一个说辞，而是为人们提供了一个可以进行哀悼和沉思的中立的平台，阿灵顿官网对事实的态度严谨而柔和，有埋葬的规则、有性能的概述、列出安息于此的名人、志在提供一个“美丽而祥和的地方”。
阿灵顿的精神支柱是它的无名战士墓，包括四个地下墓穴，分别安息着献身于一战、二战、朝鲜战争以及越战时期的美国人，是团体牺牲的典型代表。
靖国神社是不接纳无名人士的，为此，1959年日本政府在靖国神社千鸟之渊附近建立了一个公共公园，一个墓穴埋葬了成千上万的未知的士兵,水手,以及无数可能死于太平洋战争中的平民，类似于美国的阵亡将士纪念日，每年这里也会有一个官方仪式，由日本首相、一位皇室成员以及外国大使组成，将新的骨灰放入罐中。
最重要的一点，光荣退役是能否安葬在阿灵顿公墓的标准之一，那些被军事法庭审判、被判有战争罪或被定了重罪的人不能够葬在这里的。靖国神社就大不同了，除了那14个推动太平洋战争的重量级战犯外，神社里还供奉着数千个同时触犯了日本及国际法律的人们，最著名的当属曾负责管理巴达维亚/雅加达一个“慰安站”的青地鹫雄,他因强迫荷兰妇女充当慰安妇而于1946年被荷兰的一家战争罪行法庭宣判有罪，最终死于巴达维亚的一所监狱。
靖国神社的存在就是对远东国际军事法庭判决的否认。许多日本人持有这样的观点：日本帝国不应该按照西方的规则、价值观行事，远东国际军事法庭是“胜利者的正义”。为了强调这一点，日本在神社广场上建了一座当时印度法官拉达宾诺德·巴尔的巨大雕像，巴尔认为东京审判的裁决是不公平的，认为这只是胜利者对战败者的审判。
相比之下，阿灵顿公墓既不会对美国的军事、政策，也不会对安葬于这里的士兵个人做出任何有关道德或政治方面的评价，美国人不会通过拜访墓地来进行个人崇拜，与日本政客不同，美国的政治家们也不会到阿灵顿公墓就当前的外交政策发表言论。实际上，除了感谢他们做出的牺牲外，任何越矩行为都会产生适得其反的效果。但对日本保守派政治家而言，靖国神社已成为日本政界暗中表达挑衅行为和自主权的工具。
参拜靖国神社一直都是一种政治层面上的行为，在这里挑起战争被美化成为保护天皇的崇高的牺牲行为，天皇最初用此神话自己并加强国家的团结，而今，日本首相利用它彰显日本的独立、改写历史。
神社中的仪式、灵位和博物馆都聚焦于日本引起的太平洋战争，它是为日本帝国而生的，二战后再也没有士兵有进入神社的机会。它的存在是为了讲述这样一个“故事”：一个工业发达的日本将落后的亚洲解救了出来，亚洲同胞都应该对此心怀感恩。
今时今日，靖国神社的主要作用是反驳那些不接受这种说法的人们，它是对日本战后国际国内法律基础和平条约、日本宪法的无言否认，安倍以首相的身份公开参拜，模糊了日本政教之间的界线，将天皇重新神话，这两点都是现代日本合法化的中心。
靖国神社是为了宣告所谓的“胜利”而诞生的，神圣的天皇是对的，而战胜国却是错误的。靖国神社是没有悔悟和沉思的，那里只有肯定，在那里，日本不是战败国，“高尚、无私和勇敢”的日本帝国是为了新的时代而战的。
靖国神社是挑衅之地，这也是它与像阿灵顿公墓这样的纪念之地最大的区别。
原文：
Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe made a well-planned and well-publicized visit to the Yasukuni Shrine on Christmas Day in the United States. The Shrine gives special recognition to war criminals tried after Japan's surrender in 1945 and has long been an unhappy reminder of the vast damage Japan inflicted upon Asians and Westerners during World War II. Nevertheless, Abe brushed aside criticism by saying that going to Yasukuni is no different than an American president’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
This analogy is mistaken, and the differences between the two places explain why the Prime Minister's visit is so provocative. The two memorials share neither the same history nor spirit. Although both were the result of civil wars, Yasukuni now focuses on the idealization of the Pacific Theater of WWII, while Arlington records the continuing sorrow of a nation.
Arlington National Cemetery was created from the estate of General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederacy’s armies. Occupying Union Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs appropriated the grounds around the mansion in 1864 to use as a military cemetery. Meigs wanted to ensure that if the Lee family returned, tombstones and widows in mourning would surround their home. The intent was for Lee's estate to symbolize the pain and suffering caused by the South's engaging in the Civil War.
Unlike Yasukuni, Arlington is a cemetery. The bodies or ashes of those who served and their family members are interred on the grounds. The fallen will continue to rest there as long as the United States exists.
None of this is true at Yasukuni. It is a religious shrine established in 1869 to embed the supremacy of the Shinto faith, the divinity of the Emperor, and the centrality of the Imperial institution into the national polity. At Yasukuni, those fighting for the Emperor from the civil wars of mid-nineteenth century Japan through the end of the Pacific War were transformed into divine spirits to join as one with the Emperor. Here the common foot soldier was rewarded in death by becoming equal to the Emperor.
At Arlington, men and women of all religions and races are buried. At Yasukuni only Shinto is practiced and only the souls of identified and approved members of Imperial Japan's military who died on the battlefield can be apotheosized with the Emperor. There are many exceptions, such as the fourteen Class A war criminals who were hanged or died in Sugamo Prison after the Pacific War. Further, some Japanese social classes are not allowed; and the unknown are not represented.
Yasukuni is now a private park that hosts religious rites as well as festivals. To the left (south) of the main sanctuary, behind often-locked gates, is the Chinreisha, a small shrine which pacifies the souls of Imperial Japan’s enemies so that they will not cause trouble to the living. Encircling the property are a series of small memorial shrines created by various Japanese WWII military units including the notorious Kempeitai (Military Police).
There is also a modern museum, Yushukan, glorifying wartime deeds. The Yushukan displays memorabilia and technology of past conflicts, especially the “Greater Asian War” and related “incidents.” The narrative boasts of how Japan liberated Asia from the Western colonialists after the United States “tricked” Japan into the war. Little is said of the atomic bomb or defeat. The Shrine’s website states “the truth of Japanese history is now restored.”
In contrast, Arlington does not dwell on the glory of any war or push one interpretation, providing instead a neutral ground upon which people can mourn and reflect. Arlington’s website is subdued and factual. It reviews the rules for interment, outlines the property, and notes the famous people buried there. The grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, says the website, are to “provide a sense of beauty and peace.”
The spiritual center of Arlington is the Tomb of the Unknown, which consists of four crypts containing remains of an American from each of WWI, WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. These represent both the collective sacrifice and grief of the country.
At Yasukuni, the unknown cannot be deified. Thus, in 1959, the Japanese government created near Yasukuni Chidorigafuchi a public park that contains a crypt for the ashes of thousands of unknown soldiers, sailors, and likely civilians who died in the Pacific War. Every year, coinciding with Memorial Day in the United States, there is an official ceremony attended by the Prime Minister, a member of the Imperial Family, and foreign ambassadors to add new ashes to the ossuary.
Most important, one of the criteria for those buried at Arlington is an honorable discharge. Those court-martialed, tried for war crimes, or convicted of a felony cannot be interred. This is not the case for Yasukuni. In addition to the fourteen convicted war criminals who were found responsible for carrying forward the Pacific War, there are thousands who violated both Japanese and international laws. Notable is Washio Awochi (sometimes spelled Awachi) a civilian manager of a comfort station in Batavia (Jarkarta) who was convicted by a 1946 Dutch wars crimes tribunal (Case No. 76) of forcing Dutch women to be Comfort Women (sex slaves). He died in a Batavia jail.
Yasukuni is about rejecting the judgments of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. Many Japanese still believe that Imperial Japan should not be subject to the rules or values created by the West. The Tribunal is deemed “victor’s justice.” To emphasize this point, a large monument to the Tribunal’s Indian Judge Radha Binod Pal, who questioned the legitimacy its judgments, stands on a plaza at the Shrine.
Arlington, by contrast, makes no moral or political judgments about either American military policy or about the individual soldiers buried there. Americans do not visit the cemetery to worship them. And unlike their Japanese counterparts, American politicians do not come to Arlington to make statements about current foreign policy. Indeed, any effort to go beyond recognition of the sacrifices made by American would backfire internally as well as externally. But for Japan’s conservative leaders, Yasukuni has become a tacit political expression of Japanese defiance and autonomy.
A visit to Yasukuni has always been a political act. War is presented as a noble and glorious sacrifice preserving Japan’s Imperial institution. Originally, the Emperor used it to unite his nation with his divinity. Today, Yasukuni allows a Prime Minister to assert Japan’s independence and recast its past.
The rites, the grounds, and museum all focus on Japan's Pacific War. The Shrine is for Imperial Japan. No postwar soldier is allowed deification. The story Yasukuni wants to tell is that an industrially sophisticated Japan liberated a backward Asia and that their fellow Asians should be grateful.
Today, the Shrine serves mostly as a protest against those who do not accept this narrative. The Shrine tacitly rejects the international and national legal underpinnings of postwar Japan—the Peace Treaty and the Constitution. Abe making an official visit as prime minister to honor the selected souls at Yasukuni blurs the separation between Japan’s religious and political institutions and suggests that the Emperor has regained his divinity. Both are central to the legitimacy of modern Japan.
The Yasukuni Shrine is about declaring victory. The Emperor God was right, the victorious foreigners were wrong. Yasukuni is not about contrition or reflection, but about certainty. There, Japan did not lose the war. Imperial Japan, when Japanese were said to noble, selfless and brave, is longed for as a better time. Yasukuni is a place of defiance, and this is what separates it most from places of memory like Arlington National Cemetery.
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