Brief news item from the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun,
July 13, 2005

RESTAURANT SEEKS APOLOGIES ON WAR

BEIJING---A Western-style restaurant in the northeastern city of Jilin
has hung a sign requiring Japanese customers to apologize for Japan's
wartime crimes, a local daily reported. The City Evening News of Jilin
reported Saturday [July 9] that the restaurant had put up a sign
saying, 'Japanese are barred from entry.' If Japanese customers
arrive, staff will ask them to take a 'correct' view of wartime history
and apologize for the 1931-1945 occupation of Chinese territory. 'We
totally welcome Japanese customers who can view history correctly,'
owner Tian was quoted as saying.'"But customers who still refuse to
admit history, we don't like them.'

===================================================

I never know what to think when I read about happenings like this. On the one hand, of course we are, I think, in a better position than ever to look back at wartime history and renounce its logic completely - to reconcile the present with the past.

But how can some people turn history _entirely_ into a matter of polemics, and in the process ignore the particular circumstances and arguments (I guess that would be discourses) that made - and continue to make - certain ideas conceivable, and regrettable actions possible? This is what I can't understand.

Is a 'losers' justice', in whatever way you envision it, necessarily better or more historically responsible than a victors' justice? Sometimes I feel like saying 'no,' and I realize it is an extremely unfashionable position to take.

But really, I'm torn. Perhaps I'm being too idealistic, too aloof, in wanting a 'history for history's sake'. What's your stance?