Visit of Remorse to Nanjing
Proposed by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Draft, January 27, 2006
Project Summary
This is a plan for a visit to Nanjing (Nanking), China, by a group of Japanese people accompanied by witnesses from other nations. Its purpose is to conduct on-site learning about the 1937 atrocities caused by the Japanese military forces, listen to the voices of victims and their families, ask for forgiveness, participate in dialogues, and initiate fund raising for compensation.
Immediate Objective
On our first visit we hope to set up a model for Nanjing visits of remorse by Japanese people. We want Japanese participants to be fully open to their feelings in connection with the events of 1937. We hop to let go of denial and sense of separation from victims and perpetrators. We seek to be in dialogue with Chinese people and representatives of the Nanjing City Government and hope to set up a precedent for future cooperation.
Long-term Objective
We want an increasing number of Japanese people to visit Nanjing and donate funds for compensation. We want the Japanese government to set up a large-scale compensation fund in the near future. We want this movement to spread from Nanjing to other parts of East Asia where an enormous amount of suffering was caused by the Japanese invasion and violence. We want war and military violence never to be repeated in East Asia.
Background
The scale of the Nanjing massacre was unprecedented in history and the methods of violence inflicted on civilians and soldiers were brutal beyond description. Although a small number of Japanese military officers were tried and executed, there have not been full-scale apologies by Japanese society, adequate school education, or policies of reparation by the Japanese government on this matter. The denial of and disengagement by the Japanese people have damaged the psyche of both Chinese and Japanese people, inhibiting them from building a fully collaborative relationship. Although long overdue, it is crucial for Japanese people to face the issue and take action with sincerity, openness, and thoughtfulness. Our effort also addresses the broader question of how current societies should relate to the crimes of previous generations: to what extent and in what ways should they take responsibility?
Principles of Reconciliatio
The Nanjing massacre was a crime willfully committed by the military forces of a nation. The responsibility lies with all members of the nation that sent troops of invasion. Later generations inherit benefits and privileges from predecessors. Thus, they are morally implicated in the wrongdoing of the nation in the past. Those who were too young to participate in the actual crime or those who were born after the war must still bear responsibility.
Increasingly, all people on the earth are responsible for large-scale violence, no matter where it occurs. But members of the particular society that perpetrated such crimes have a special role to play. They must make an effort to understand all aspects of the crime and to transmit the knowledge to future generations so that such mistakes will not be repeated. They should not tolerate any kind of censorship or violent reaction against revealing the truth. They should listen to the voices of suffering of the victims, their families, and the oppressed society. They should fully express their responses and ask for forgiveness. This can lead to emotional breakthroughs in members of both societies and forgiveness that will enable them to move toward reconciliation.
Yet, emotional breakthroughs and forgiveness are not enough. It is vitally important to establish policies to help improve the lives of victims and their families, including the payment of adequate reparations. Further activities may be developed to carry the process of reconciliation forward.
Program
We will visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, sites of massacre, associations of victims, the city hall, as well as religious institutions. We will listen to briefings, express our feelings, have dialogues with Chinese people and among ourselves. Participants will write journals, create art, and share some of their works with others. We will have a dramatic on-site enactment, role-playing to have a glimpse of the devastating experiences of the victims as well as the feelings of perpetrators. We will also conduct inter-faith prayers of condolence for the victims and their families.
Participants
We plan to bring more than one hundred Japanese participants. Witnesses from China and other nations are welcome to accompany us. Witnesses may attend all events but their mode of participation will be different from that of the Japanese participants. (When Chinese-Japanese dialogues publicly takes place, people of other nationalities will be asked to bear witness.)
Reading Materials
The participants are required to do some reading before visiting Nanjing. The reading materials include The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang.
Time for the first group visit
December 8-14, 2001. Arrival and orientation on the first day and departure on the last day. Five days of activities.
Time for a preliminary visit
I am planning to visit Nanjing October 14-21, 2000, to set up concrete plans for the first group visit.
Languages
Chinese, Japanese, and English. All the public statements during the group visit will be translated.
Organizers
The “Visit of Remorse to Nanjing” will be jointly organized by the East Asian Awareness Project and the Ten Millennium Future Project. They are projects of Inochi, a U.S. non-profit organization based in Berkeley, California. Kazuaki Tanahashi and Haru Murakawa are the co-directors. We will collaborate with other Chinese and Japanese organizations in China, Japan, and the United States for organizing the visit.
Publicity
We will initially use the poster “Utterly Ashamed...” as a way to explain the intention of the visit and spread awareness on this issue. We will publish preliminary articles in magazines. We will invite reporters, photographers, and videographers from China, Japan, and the United States to document and report our visit.
Fund Transfer
We will ask groups in China, Japan, and the United States to receive people’s donations for the Nanjing Compensation Fund. We hope the City of Nanjing will receive the funds transmitted from these organizations and distribute it to victims and their families.
About the Project Directors
Kazuaki Tanahashi is a painter, calligrapher, writer, and peace and environmental worker, who was born in Japan in 1933 and has been active in the United States since 1977. He has had solo exhibitions of brushwork internationally. His publications include Brush Mind, Penetrating Laughter: Hakuin’s Zen and Art, and Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen. He is Coordinator of Ten Millennium Future Project, based in Berkeley, California, and a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.
Haru Murakawa, Ph.D. was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1963, and is currently an independent scholar in Somatic, the study of body and mind in East and West. In 1996 he organized a workshop called Asian World Work with Arny and Amy Mindell, in which eighty two people—from China, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and U.S.A.—got together in front of the pictures of Nanking Massacre and explored their unspoken legacies of World War II in East Asia. Since then, he has continued to work on this issue making presentations in conferences and organizing workshops—sometimes with Armand Volkas, a Jewish drama therapist and son of Auschwitz survivors. Haru also has collaborated with Global Alliance of Preserving the History of Sino-Japanese War, and organized a workshop with Iris Chang for her book The Rape of Nanking. He is coordinator of East Asian Awareness Project, based in Berkeley, California.
Contact for Information
Kazuaki Tanahashi, 1520 Blake Street, Berkeley, CA 94703 USA
Phone: 1/510/649-8844. Fax: 1/510/486-8188. E-mail: tanahashi@aol.com
Haru Murakawa, 726 Masonic Avenue, Albany, CA 94706 USA
Phone/Fax: 1/510/559-8836. E-mail: info@east-westdialogue.org
(poster draft)
UTTERLY ASHAMED
in deep remorse
identifying myself with the suffering of the millions
caused by atrocities during the Japanese invasion,
I ask every Chinese person for forgiveness
and urge the citizens and government of Japan
to join me in assembling funds for compensation.
Donation for the Nanjing (Nanking) Atrocities Compensation Fund may be sent
to:
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Poster draft by Kazuaki Tanahashi