I THINK I’M TURNING JAPANESE…..

It was a small but potent news story this week. The Japanese were going to play war games with Australian troops on our soil.

It caused an emotional, even vitriolic, reaction. And, I guess, an understandable one. Sixty years after the end of World War Two some people still cannot forgive or forget. One e-mailer wrote to me:

“I do not recall the National Returned Services League conducting a poll whether or not its members forgive the Japs. I for one do not, nor will ever, forgive the Japanese for the atrocities committed during World War II. After a military career spanning several decades I am glad that I am no longer a part of the Australian Army whereas I would have to abide by my personal ethics in opposition to the 'politically correct' stance of our Government and military service to the nation. I especially feel for the older soldiers that remember the close family members that suffered so much at the hands of the Japs and the position that they may now find themselves in.

”My father and five of his brothers saw active service during World War II and two became prisoners of the Japanese when Singapore fell. They were sent to Changi, The Burma Railway and on a Death March. Thankfully all my family survived the suffering and tribulations of World War II. As a young lad I used to sit on the knees of my uncles and listen to their stories which were highly censured for young ears. Later in life as a Senior NCO I spent quite a bit of time with my uncles that had been captured by the Japs in an effort to draw further and detailed first-hand information from them. My Uncle Frank was an especially calm and stoic man and when I asked: "Do you still hate the Japs?" he answered, "No...... but I'll never forgive them!"

I can only imagine the anxiety of my Grandfather and Grandmother with six sons abroad and two of them in the hands of the Japs. My surviving family members and many others still have vivid memories of the tales of atrocities committed by the Japanese and if you were to ask me: "Do you forgive the Japs?" my answer would be a resounding "No!"

There is no way in Heaven or Hell that when I shed my mortal coil that I am going to face my forebears and say that I rolled over for their enemy.

I know that the Japanese Navy escorted our ships to Gallipoli but when they turned against us in later years they set their own future. If I had a pet dog and one day it bit me, would I ever trust it again!? I don't think so. To forgive or not forgive the Japanese is an individual decision and I resent the fact that the RSL League is purported to have responded on my behalf without consultation. “

Such undying, unrelenting, bitterness is generationally understandable. And I say that as a person who, luckily, never had to go to war and whose father survived the Pacific campaign. And yet I talked many times to that medical saint, Weary Dunlop, who lived though the atrocities and cruelty of Changi and he genuinely forgave his enemy – despite the images of Diggers being beheaded with swords and starved to death and forced on death marches. And Hellfire Pass and the River Kwai.

Sixty years on and we trade with former enemy Germany and visit Italy and forgive the traitors of Vichy France. But the suspicions and resentment, even hatred, for Japan is actually a two-way street.

Permit a personal indulgence. Several weeks ago my stepson, Dylan Walters, married a beautiful Japanese girl named Makiko. The ceremony was conducted in a marquee overlooking Sydney Harbour which Japanese submarines penetrated in World War Two. The ceremony started in western style with the bride looking like a porcelain doll in a white wedding dress and ended with the wedding party – including her family and the groom – changing into traditional kimonos.

The point and relevance of this story? Earlier this year Dylan went to Kobe in Japan to ask Makiko’s father permission to marry her. The father declined and did not attend the Sydney wedding. The reason? He said: “What if Australia and Japan go to war again?”

I said: “Tell him that if that happens, this time we’ll be on the same side!” And that is true. The world has changed greatly in half a century. The Soviet Union has gone with the Cold War melted. The Berlin Wall has crumbled. East Germany is no more. And a formally xenophobic China has flung back the bamboo curtain to become the most aggressive economic force of this new century.

That is why the bitterness of my e-mailer, although understandable as I have said, is wrong and the RSL and the Australian military are right. Alliances and diplomatic respect ebb and flow. Japan is no threat to Australia in 2005. We now even sit more comfortably with the Philippines and especially Indonesia. Despite Tienanmen Square and Bob Hawke’s genuine tears Prime Minister Howard invited Chinese President Hu to address our Parliament. Despite East Timor we have had Indonesian troops on military exercises with Australians.

Back in the 1960s the guru Marshall McLuhan described this planet as a “global village” He was way ahead of his time. But he was right. It now is. Blaming this generation of Japanese for the sins of their grandfathers – not even their fathers – is bigoted, blinkered and bad.

I am thrilled to welcome an innocent Japanese bride into our family.

December 19, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004