8181 Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 The reason no one knows is because no one cares or cared. People who are Chinese/Japanese or linked to China/Japan are greatly outnumbered by those with ties to the Jewish race or the European countries. Want proof? Just look in this thread where you said you don't think Korea had it as bad or where you bring up the island dispute... Even though Korea is the geographically in between Chian and Japan and took the brunt of all the brutality... Even though Korean women were kidnapped and raped and killed as sex slaves, Korean guys killed, and the whole Korean culture was annihilated when Japan invaded. Even though the Dokdo/Liancourt Rocks islands are also being disputed by Korea/Japan, the only thing being discussed is the China/Japan island dispute Why does no one know about Korea? Because no one cares. But you can bet that if they get more popular with their Gangnam Style and Samsung phone, there will be more people paying attention to Korea and eventually, us Americans will be wondering, "How come no one knows about Korea?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No_Pressure Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 I have a bachelor's degree in history, and I'm well aware of what the Japanese did, at least as well as we're capable of discovering. After the war, we did our best to build up the Japanese and break down the Germans in a sense. The atrocities of the Nazis were well exposed with the Nuremburg trials, their government, already lacking a head due to Hitler's suicide and the chaos in Berlin, was dismantled in every sense of the word, and our focus and official positions on history with regards to Europe from the 30's to 1945 were solidified as being a particular way. In Japan, we were quite afraid of ruffling the feathers of the populace. We had not marched into Japan and brought them to their knees in the traditional manner, we had bombed them into submission. When we had the Tokyo Trials for Japanese war crimes, the Emperor and many other government officials were exonerated by MacArthur for a number of reasons, one of which was keeping a symbol of Japanese control and power in place to guide their people forward. There were also fears that destroying a cultural centerpiece would lead to widespread rejection of American terms, etc. Anyway, the Japanese atrocities were never prosecuted the way they should have been at the highest levels. I suppose it isn't as interesting or disturbing to people as the holocaust, because of the specific targeting of one segment of the European population for extermination. With that said, the holocaust's numbers are unclear, in spite of the 6 million number which is generally understood. Concentration camps inside Germany (none of which, contrary to popular beliefs were purpose-built extermination camps such as the ones in Poland) were filled with Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and many other smaller groups which sadly served to bolster holocaust death numbers from murders, starvation, typhus/other diseases, etc.. At any rate, even though it wasn't an exclusively jewish event, the holocaust is viewed entirely as such by most people, we have monuments to the suffering of the jewish people during that period in our nation's capital, but our lack of involvement in anything other than the liberation of camps which were not extermination camps (as they were all liberated by the Soviet Union) makes us around as neutral of a party to those atrocities as the ones in Asia, leaving the question- why not honor and teach about Asian war atrocities as well? Why not have monuments to the suffering of the Chinese, Koreans, and other southeast Asians during WW2 on the national mall? The numbers are uncertain, but most guesses estimate that the so-called 'Asian Holocaust' claimed between 12 and 24 million lives. Again, it's hard to really be certain and I've read a lot of different figures. At any rate, this is an enormous amount of people, more than what happened in Europe, and a tragic page in the book of human history. Perhaps we don't pay attention to it since we don't see it as specific violence against one particular group of people, or as a bid to totally wipe them off the face of the earth. I suppose those things certainly add their intrigue to the holocaust in Europe, though as puzzling as it may be to many white people, the Japanese in many cases were driven by doctrines of racial superiority over other Asians. I don't feel like any one event should be deemed more horrible, more important, and taught more than another in school. All of these travesties should be explained in full detail to students in my opinion, and the only proper general conclusion that anyone should draw is that regardless of if its 10 people, 10,000 people, or 10 million people who are killed, and regardless of the underlying motives, it is a horrific stain on humanity which we'll never be able to remove. I just wish many parts of the American education system agreed to this fair approach. High school history courses, in my opinion, take the time to focus on one event over another as being of paramount importance and horror. I don't think it's correct that students get a condensed and filtered history because the board of education thinks its more important to know that 6 million (again, rough numbers) Jews (and others who are not often acknowledged) were murdered at the hands of the Nazis, than it is to know about 12-24 million (rough numbers, blah blah) Asians were murdered at the hands of the Japanese. I think they're both of high importance to study, along with the Soviet atrocities in what would become their Bloc satellites. It's all terrible, and every bit of it can teach us something about ourselves, human nature, where we've been, and where we're going or have the potential to go- at our absolute heights and lowest depths. History is extremely important, but the fact is most people just don't ****ing care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gbear Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 No_pressure, I agree far more than I would like. I certainly meant no equivalence when talking of our internment camps and Japan's invasion of China, Korea, and other islands. I submitted it only as a possible source of an unconcious bias. The more I read, the more I am amazed we know as much as we do about the Nazi run holocaust. Is it really only because we have some great literature in our collective memory (Night, The Diary of Anne Frank or the words of Martin Niemoller beginning, "First they came for the Socialists...")? If so, this would argue the most lasting power of the U.S. may reside in Hollywood as they are the ones entering data in our culture and many others around the world. I wonder what percentage of Americans know there was a Holocaust? How many think it only involved Jews? How many know who else was killed? How many know of Japan's holocaust or what happened to the Armenians. How many know of the small pox blankets we passed to the Native Americans? How many of those who know of these things would know within a factor of 10 how many were killed or for what many of them died? We don't care because we don't know, and we don't know because we don't care to know. In America, we as a culture study success and things overcome. We have less interest than we should in studying failures. Ours is a history of overcoming obstacles in part because we never took the time to acknowledge their existence. While from a moral stance, this is a hardly defensible stance, maybe we ignore them out of a need to remain upbeat on the idea of "progress." Who wants to think in the span of thousands of years we have only advanced to the point of killings measured in millions? We want to say we've stopped them, so we pump out our chest and speak of the Nazi's...and we fail to mention others of similar or larger scale which happened at the same time or later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 No_pressure, I agree far more than I would like. I certainly meant no equivalence when talking of our internment camps and Japan's invasion of China, Korea, and other islands. I submitted it only as a possible source of an unconcious bias. And there certainly is some sort of bias, conscious or unconscious. And while we agree American internment camps camps likely aren't the source there are other possible sources which we have discussed.. Cold war, fall of china to the communists, need for a strong japan, need for intelligence sources on china, desire for a smooth occupation etc.... Hell Korean war started in 1949 brought us in direct conflict with China in which many believed was a struggle for all of asia... I will just add... As brutal as the Japanese were during WWII, The United States was every bit as brutal with regard to military on military engagements... The Marines sent to the Pacific found a very brutal horror inspiring opponent in Japan; and they got right down in the mud and slugged it out with him. Anybody who doubts this should read "Helmet my Pillow" by Robert Leckie or "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa" by E.W Sledge.... We regularly assaulted island strong holds with 20,000, 50,000 or even 120,000 and took only a handful of prisoners... We explained this by saying the Japanese soldier never surrendered... The reality was the Marines expected no quarter, and gave no quarter. I wonder what percentage of Americans know there was a Holocaust? How many think it only involved Jews? How many know who else was killed? How many know of Japan's holocaust or what happened to the Armenians. How many know of the small pox blankets we passed to the Native Americans? How many of those who know of these things would know within a factor of 10 how many were killed or for what many of them died? I think Americans know and care about the holocaust with regard to WWII and Hitler.. I think that one hit so very close to home it's hard not to has strong sympathies about it. I wonder how many know about the other 20 and 21st century genocides.. Mao Ze-Dong in China, (1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) killed up to 13 times the number of Jews killed in Europe during the holocaust. (49-78,000,000) Adolf Hitler (Germany, 1939-1945) 12,000,000 (concentration camps and civilians deliberately killed in WWII plus 3 million Russian POWs left to die, 6 million Jews) Leopold II of Belgium (Congo, 1886-1908) 8,000,000 Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39) 6,000,000 (the gulags plus the purges plus Ukraine's famine) Hideki Tojo (Japan, 1941-44) 5,000,000 (civilians in WWII) Ismail Enver (Turkey, 1915-20) 1,200,000 Armenians (1915) + 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks (1916-22) + 500,000 Assyrians (1915-20) Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79) 1,700,000 Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) 1.6 million (purges and concentration camps) Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000 Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000 Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000 Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000 Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000 Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1987) 570,000 Suharto (Communists 1965-66) 500,000 Fumimaro Konoe (Japan, 1937-39) 500,000? (Chinese civilians) Jonas Savimbi (Angola, 1975-2002) 400,000 Mullah Omar - Taliban (Afghanistan, 1986-2001) 400,000 Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000 Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1970-71) 300,000 (Bangladesh) Ante Pavelic (Croatia, 1941-45) 359,000 (30,000 Jews, 29,000 Gipsies, 300,000 Serbs) Benito Mussolini (Ethiopia, 1936; Libya, 1934-45; Yugoslavia, WWII) 300,000 Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) ? Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 220,000 Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, 1991-2000) 200,000 Suharto (Aceh, East Timor, New Guinea, 1975-98) 200,000 Ho Chi Min (Vietnam, 1953-56) 200,000 Michel Micombero (Burundi, 1972) 150,000 Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia, 1992-99) 100,000 Hassan Turabi (Sudan, 1989-1999) 100,000 Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Centrafrica, 1966-79) ? Richard Nixon (Vietnam, 1969-1974) 70,000 (Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians) Efrain Rios Montt (Guatemala, 1982-83) 70,000 Papa Doc Duvalier (Haiti, 1957-71) 60,000 Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic, 1930-61) 50,000 Hissene Habre (Chad, 1982-1990) 40,000 Chiang Kai-shek (Taiwan, 1947) 30,000 (popular uprising) Vladimir Ilich Lenin (USSR, 1917-20) 30,000 (dissidents executed) Francisco Franco (Spain) 30,000 (dissidents executed after the civil war) Fidel Castro (Cuba, 1959-1999) 30,000 Lyndon Johnson (Vietnam, 1963-1968) 30,000 Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (El Salvador, 1932) 30,000 Hafez Al-Assad (Syria, 1980-2000) 25,000 Khomeini (Iran, 1979-89) 20,000 Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe, 1982-87, Ndebele minority) 20,000 Bashir Assad (Syria, 2012) 14,000 Rafael Videla (Argentina, 1976-83) 13,000 Guy Mollet (France, 1956-1957) 10,000 (war in Algeria) Harold McMillans (Britain, 1952-56, Kenya's Mau-Mau rebellion) 10,000 Paul Koroma (Sierra Leone, 1997) 6,000 Osama Bin Laden (worldwide, 1993-2001) 3,500 Augusto Pinochet (Chile, 1973) 3,000 Al Zarqawi (Iraq, 2004-06) 2,000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 I wonder how many know about the other 20 and 21st century genocides..] I know that you're just quoting somebody else's list. But I need to point out that defending a people who are being attacked, in a war, in which civilians die, isn't "genocide". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Posted January 14, 2013 Share Posted January 14, 2013 I know that you're just quoting somebody else's list. But I need to point out that defending a people who are being attacked, in a war, in which civilians die, isn't "genocide". Absolutely correct as always Larry... genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular ethnic group or nation. It's a spoken or unspoken policy which results in the deliberate killing of folks... Like Nixon's declaration of free fire zones in Vietnam or implementing unlimited bombing of civilians in Cambodia, "crack the hell out of them" !.... Unlimited Money, Unlimited Fuel http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/Box%2029,%20File%202,%20Kissinger%20%96%20President%20Dec%209,%201970%208,45%20pm%20%200.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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