Professor: Yasukuni Is Military Shrine

Written by Seo Seung, Ritsumeikan University professor-

Yasukuni is not a religious facility, but a military one, though it is dubbed a “shrine.” It was built by the Meiji government to worship those who “died in loyalty to the Emperor” as military gods. It is controlled by the Department of the Army and of the Navy, run with the military budget, and headed by an army general as the chief priest.

Yasukuni incited blind loyalty to the Japanese emperor and encouraged people to go to war by offering material reward of pension to those who were buried here.

Currently, some 2.46 million people are registered in Yasukuni’s book of souls, the name list of the war dead enshrined there. 14 A grade war criminals and 1,000 B and C grade ones, who did not die in war, are enshrined together here.

The most questionable fact is that around 22,000 Koreans and 28,000 Taiwanese are also enshrined there.

Yasukuni Shrine still calls World War II the “Great East Asian War” and argues that it was not a war of aggression, but a self-defensive war for Japan’s right to survive and war to liberate the people of Asia.

The names registered on the book of souls were handed over by the Japanese government. Considering these names are linked to the provision of rewards, the Japanese government is lying when it argues Yasukuni is “merely a religious facility.” Yasukuni exists still as part of the framework for maintaining the identity of the imperial militarist state.

Kwang-Am Cheon iam@donga.com