The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan

✍ Scribed by James J. Orr

• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 280
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This is the first systematic, historical inquiry into the emergence of "victim consciousness" (higaisha ishiki) as an essential component of Japanese pacifist national identity after World War II. In his meticulously crafted narrative and analysis, the author reveals how postwar Japanese elites and American occupying authorities collaborated to structure the parameters of remembrance of the war, including the notion that the emperor and his people had been betrayed and duped by militarists. He goes on to explain the Japanese reliance on victim consciousness through a discussion of the ban-the-bomb movement of the mid-1950s, which raised the prominence of Hiroshima as an archetype of war victimhood and brought about the selective focus on Japanese war victimhood; the political strategies of three self-defined war victim groups (A-bomb victims, repatriates, and dispossessed landlords) to gain state compensation and hence valorization of their war victim experiences; shifting textbook narratives that reflected contemporary attitudes and structured future generations' understanding of the war; and three classic antiwar novels and films that contributed to the shaping of a "sentimental humanism" that continues to leave a strong imprint on the collective Japanese conscience.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Victims, Victimizers, And Mythology
Chapter 2. Leaders And Victims Personal War Responsibility During The Occupation
Chapter 3. Hiroshima And Yuiitsu No Hibakukoku Atomic Victimhood In The Antinuclear Peace Movement
Chapter 4. Educating A Peace-Loving People Narratives Of War In Postwar Textbooks
Chapter 5. “Sentimental Humanism” The Victim In Novels And Film
Chapter 6. Compensating Victims The Politics Of Victimhood
Chapter 7. Beyond The Postwar
Appendix 1. The Stockholm Appeal
Appendix 2. Suginami Ward’S Petition To Ban The Hydrogen Bomb
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About The Author