My first job after graduate school was for a Japanese company, back in the days when Japan was perceived as an economic threat to the United States. To give you an idea of the tenor of the times, this was when Michael Crichton wrote Rising Sun,
essentially an anti-Japanese screed proclaiming the threat presented by the economic powerhouse in the Pacific. Given the malaise that has blanketed the economy of Japan for more than a decade now, perhaps he overstated the situation.
In the course of my work, I had to travel to Japan several times to transfer the results of our research to the people who continued the development into actual technology. My first trip, taken in 1993, included a visit to Tokyo where I was able to visit many of the museums where fortunately for me they had the descriptive plaques written in English along with the Japanese Kanji. One of the museums included a wing on the history of World War II. I do not recall seeing any discussion of the attack on Pearl Harbor beyond a brief mention that it was the first battle between the forces of Japan and the United States, placed in a context of the strangling of Japan by an oil embargo imposed by the United States. There was a large exhibit on the damage wrought by the two atomic bombs that the United States had used against Japan.
It was an interesting lesson in perspective and rewriting, or rather the initial writing, of history, because apparently it is not always written by the victors.
History isn’t always what we think we know, either.
The events of 65 years ago at Pearl Harbor are not disputed.
The “why” underlying the events however, that seems to depend upon your perspective. Rarely if ever will a culture say that it perpetrated an evil act. Rarely will a mirror be held up that shows the flaws along with the good.
It is said that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. More is needed than knowing the simple narrative of events, and more is needed than a single explanation as to the “why” as well.
This applies to current events just as much as to the past, yet far too little time is devoted to the “why” beyond the initial, emotion-fueled response.
This is the lesson I draw from December 7, 1941.
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