#tw unit 731

[idkthisismyusernameiguess]

I hope the Japanese nationalists who deny the Nanjing Massacre that claimed the lives of more than 300,000 civilians burn in hell with their war criminal ancestors. I hope the Americans who pardoned unit 731 war criminals burn in hell, too. And you know what, take “Israel”, who is committing an ongoing genocide in Palestine, with them while we’re at it.

[itsbansheebitch]

How are there not riots in the streets?

Looking back on 2023:

We know our education system is bunk and that NASA was started with help from a literal 1940s Nazi. We know this country was built on genocide, bigotry, and the backs of immigrants & slaves.

We know we're colonizers, we know our first President's teeth were made of a combination of his slaves' teeth and wood. We know the last President ran his campaign off sexual assault jokes.

We know the first time the Confederate flag was ever in the US Capital was on January 6th, 2021. We know approximately 50% of white medical trainees think black people have higher pain tolerance (especially black women).

We know black people are more likely to get bitten by police dogs and are more likely to get death sentences instead of life in prison like their white counterparts committing the same crime. We know you can predict if you'll be a victims of police brutality based on where past lynchings have happened & the amount of money a you make in a year.

We know that America helped cover up Unit 731 and gave the "scientists" immunity. We know that America has been at war for more time than not and we know school shootings are so "old news" that the news doesn't even cover most of them anymore.

We know the United States has an unusually high homeless population and that 40% to 60% of homeless people in the United States have jobs. We know the United States isn't opposed to human experimentation and we know that slavery is illegal unless you're in prison.

We know prisoners are used to fight fires for free, we know some prisons have cotton farms for the prisoners to work on for free. We know 1 in 5 people on death row are innocent and that police are known to fake/plant evidence and to assault witnesses & suspects that don't give them what they want to hear.

We know judges are more likely to give death sentences than life in prison when they're hangry (I'm NOT joking) and police were originally militias paid for by rich people to get their runaway slaves black. We know we are one of the most, if not the most, dangerous "developed" countries in the world.

Why do we perform non consensual surgeries on (intersex) babies right out of the womb without the parents' permission, but we make consensual surgeries (gender affirming care) illegal? Why is gender affirming care (plastic surgery, masculine voice classes) only legal and normal for cis people?

Why do we let people who are one foot in the grave sign our death certificates? Why do we let people who clearly have dementia run one of the globe's superpowers? Why are we letting the oldest bigots in the country decide our future?

So why are there not riots in the streets? When did we become so complacent to our own demise? Why do we deny the ship is sinking when we are up to our knees in water? What is wrong with us? Are we pathetic or broken or wrong in a way that is incomprehensible to us? Why are we pretending everything is normal?

Why are there not riots in the streets?

[dumblemonchickenwing]

my stuff, oc, trigger warning

[lacewise]

You’d think a documentary about a real life “The Truman Show” with elements of explicitly profiting off of human trafficking and torture (to the point where my mind immediately maps this onto Unit 731) with the victim seeing literally no benefit and the orchestrators stealing massive amounts of unpaid labor (publishing his writings during confinement and keeping the money) and taking literally all associated royalties would go viral but instead there’s surprisingly little fanfare. (I’ve seen maybe half a dozen curated or interviews conversations but no wider discussion.)

The Contestant is about a man who was dehumanized and treated somewhere between a tamagotchi and clipart. (He is kept in a suspended state of unreality deliberately for over a year.) The people behind these actions, which would otherwise be considered serious crimes, have experienced no consequences. And with content like Mr. Beast’s self-confinement still being created and receiving tens of millions of views, it’s pretty clear reality television and its relatives are held to no real ethics or laws, to this day. (Although, the bare minimum of paying people is at least met in Mr. Beast.) So there weren’t societal consequences either. The only lasting impact this seems to have had is creating the eggplant emoji and meaning.

This raises so many questions about social experiments, informed consent (which is vital to any real social experiment) torture disguised as entertainment, the blurring of fiction and reality, the hidden power dynamics in entertainment, parasocial relationships that dehumanize the person at the center, the degradation of working conditions with the undermining or disappearance of unions, dehumanization for the sake of storytelling, and the financial exploitation of all of this. Are people not talking about this because you guys don’t want to know the answer?

Or because you feel reality television show stars and content creators had it coming? Or maybe that entertainment being awful is a foregone conclusion, so there’s nothing to gain via examination?

Why are we letting programs like this happen continuously as if they’re real social experiments and not just torture since they’re so often missing that vital piece of informed consent? Why aren’t we pushing back on showrunners, producers, and hosts imagining themselves as scientists when they see basic scientific ethics as an obstacle? Why aren’t we questioning the fiction we’re sold as the audience, whether we choose to watch or not? Dismissing it all as the same unwatchable trash is only legitimizing the labor exploitation. It’s acting as if the exploitation is an unchangeable premise.

This is a really good article on the documentary and the initial story (tw for in-depth discussions of food, torture, and abuse):

[pricklymuffinzzzzz]

Tw, racism, transphobia, genocide etc etc Just asking trace to interact and give opinions

As a radqueer I always attempt to make room for all identities. I never try to automatically judge people and when I do I always try to get a better understanding of long and dismantle my automatic reaction.

But as an Okinawan person with severe generational trauma it can get difficult to support trace identities. Not because of the actual fact that people are transitioning race.

It’s more so the fact of dismantling race as a concept. It’s hard for someone with my background to not value ethnicity as a concept. I understand it’s harmful.

But as an Okinawan it’s hard not to hold onto it. Okinawan culture has been completely erased. My people have been slaughtered. Used as human experiments, enslaved, tortured, etc etc.

Look up unit 731 and you’ll get a better understanding of what Okinawan people have been through. But it’s just a lot of torture. The Japanese government has done everything they can to erase Okinawans and Okinawan culture.

Even the fact that Okinawa is not an independent nation is because of the American and Japanese military completely controlling the whole island. It’s just difficult when your whole culture has been erased.

My family doesn’t even know their culture or their own language. I’m accepting of trace identities but the idea of demolishing race scares me. If race is demolished I fear that my culture and ethnicity will be fully erased.

My identity as Okinawan is something I hold very close. Most people don’t see Okinawans as a full other ethnicity either. They see Japanese and Okinawans as the same which is odd because historically Chinese culture has more impacted Okinawa.

I’m just scared my culture will be erased if race is erased. If race is gone so is the separation between Japanese and Okinawans. And again I’m for trace identities.

But whenever trace conversations are happening I don’t see a lot of commentary from people that come from a backgrounds like mine. There are few Okinawans left. Many of us don’t know our history at all. Japan does an amazing job keeping it from us.

I mean surprisingly I am actually a descendant of the Okinawan royalty. I grew up being told stories of how my grandparents helped rebuild Okinawa after World War Two.

How my culture is fleeting. How I need to hold onto it and keep it alive for future generations. I understand many people have fully lost their history to slavery and colonization. But my culture still has a chance of being retained.

I just think this has to be considered in conversations about erasing race. This kinda became a colonization vent but yk lmfao. Just dont forget Okinawans and try to educate yourself on the history of Okinawa lmao

In an ideal world racism wouldn’t exist. But that’s not this world. And I don’t think we can forget racism without forgetting the atrocities that come with it. I don’t think we should forget the genocides that have happened and are still happening.

Just don’t forget us

[x-senon]

unit 731 -- japanese unit during WW2 which has become notorious for its anti-human experiments on people

TW: violence, blood, death, corpses CW: japanese fascism

[writingwithcolor]

Japanese-Run Lab for Human Subjects

@zneonproblem​ said:

This is hyper specific but I'm writing about a bunch of teens living in a lab(xmen style, not horror) and the island is stationed between America and Japan so they cohabit (most of the customs are japan but it's mostly English speaking with Japanese names) but the problem is.. Is it bad if there's a laboratory operated by japan that experiments and examines on unwilling subjects with dubious morality (subjects taken in youth, paid off the parents) because I'm thinkin about unit 731 (google at ur own risk m8)

This Sounds Like a Bad Idea

An aside: the one aspect of X-Men I am never impressed with is the sensationalized oppression narratives of super-powered “othered” characters. Oppression and discrimination rarely happen in real life because the “othered” are powerful, but rather because they are convenient scapegoats. 

I agree this plot makes me automatically think of Unit 731. For the unaware, Unit 731 was the Japanese Imperial Army equivalent of Auschwitz’s Mengele, except it was a whole unit rather than one man. The Japanese government still doesn’t acknowledge the full extent of Japanese war crimes committed during World War II, and part of this is because the American government let Japan off easy during the IMTFE.  America safeguarded a future ally as well as ensured their own purchase of the data generated by Unit 731 and equivalent divisions. 

As such, awareness of Unit 731 is low both in Japan and the West. I don’t think the success of this plot is high if the goal is to avoid sensationalizing a truly horrific point in Japan’s abuse of its neighbors. I’m similarly not enthused by the forced assimilation narrative you have going on here with the lab being run by the Japanese while having non-Japanese speaking inmates who are required to have Japanese names and abide by Japanese customs. Please research Japan’s invasions of Manchuria and Korea to understand why this is inappropriate. 

I ask you to think how you would feel if you had family affected by the Nazis during World War II and someone was suggesting writing a similar story based on laboratories reminiscent of those in German concentration camps. Does the story still sit well with you? If not, you have your answer.

I have invited our Chinese mods to comment, as I think their voices deserve priority here.

- Marika.

Input from Mod Emme and Mod Sci

Speaking as a Chinese Asian, this is definitely not a topic I’d be happy with someone… turning into/taking inspiration from for a setting in their fictional story. Marika brings up plenty of valid points and it just depresses me how eugenics from the hands of Japanese people are thought of as that more tolerable than others; Thousands of families were torn apart because of this. The fact that people actually can conceptualize a story based off of this in the first place really doesn’t sit well with me-- surely in your research you’d see that this genocide and ethnic cleansing violated so many human rights?

There’s a line between wanting to raise awareness to a censored event and romanticizing it. 

~ Mod Emme

As another Chinese mod, please do not be inspired by Unit 731. The medical experimentation there was absolutely horrific especially regarding the ethnic cleansing. None of the researchers involved were punished for this because the United States and the Soviet Union wanted the data they collected even though Unit 731 violated human rights. Please don’t romanticize these atrocities with your story.

-Sci

[danganronpa-atn]

Toko: Hmm, there's gotta be some way that I can brainwash someone like Makoto to like me. Toko, as Genocide Jack: gasp I know! pulls out phone and begins typing in Google 'how to brainwash peop-' Cuts to Toko being let out of jail Byakuya: What did you do NOW? Toko: I followed the advice online. Cut to Byakuya and Toko getting in Byakuya's car Toko: Apparently, it's illegal to alter the minds of other people using forbidden pathogens manufactured in Unit 731 back in 1939.

[callofthemacabre]

(Source)

[scripttorture]

Would scientists doing experiments on a metahuman (like one of the X-Men) for "research purposes" be considered torture? Would it be different than other torture and if so how?

So I tend todistinguish between unethical experimentation and torture because I think it’shelpful both for writing andresearching real life events.

 Unethicalexperimentation is often just as damaging and traumatising as torture. But theway it’s carried out is significantly different.

 Whetherit’s legally torture or not dependsmore on who is doing it then what isbeing done. A licensed doctor acting as part of his job in a governmenthospital would (legally speaking) be torturing. But the same person actingoutside of his job wouldn’t be. By law a privateindividual is an abuser not a torturer.

 In terms of the effectson a victim that distinction doesn’t matter though. And the evidence we have atthe moment suggests that (with about three exceptions) the long term psychologicaleffects of torture are the same regardless of the method used. Youcan find a summary of those psychological effects here.

 The exceptions are sexual abuse, solitaryconfinement and sensory deprivation. All of which are extremely damaging and include the general symptoms of torturewhile also having symptoms that are particular to sexual, solitary confinementand sensory deprivation.

 There isn’t really adifference on the effect of injuries victims might receive either: whether aburn is inflicted to cause pain or as part of an ‘experiment’ does not affecthow that burn heals.

 So in terms of the lawand long term effects on victims there isn’t really a difference betweenunethical experimentation and torture.

 The difference is in how the abuse is carried out and to alesser extent in the abusers.

 Let me be clear thatwhat follows is my way ofdistinguishing the two and is based on what I think is helpful. Academics domake the distinction but I’m unsure exactly what criteria they use.

 Unethicalexperimentation is rare compared totorture and the main way I distinguish it is whether the scientific method isfollowed.

 Torture whatever its trappings, is not scientific.There are no control groups, no attempt at serious consistent note taking andthere are a lot of variables in the environment, abusers, victims and the abuseitself. The focus is primarily on abuse.

 In unethicalexperimentation there is a serious attempt to create a consistent environmentand reduce variables (ie the chosen victims would be kept in similar conditions,fed a similar diet etc). There is consistent record keeping which goes beyondthe immediate effects of a given abusive act (for example a record of thevictim’s health, weight etc beforethe experiment started and frequent measurements recording how that changes)and identical abuse is carried out on multiple people. There is also a controlgroup. Fundamentally the pain and suffering of the victims is coincidental inthis set up. The ‘experiments’ are designed to obtain results and the sufferingthey cause is not the primary focus.

 Essentially forsomething to be an unethical experiment it must be genuinely scientific.

 Historic examples whichillustrate the difference would be the Japanese Unit 731 compared to Nazi’ssuch as Mengele.

 My understanding isthat Mengele didn’t repeat his ‘experiments’, kept poor records, had no controlgroup and made no real attempt to reduce any variables. He was torturingchildren and dressing it up in ‘science-like’ trappings.

 Unit 731 kept records,repeated their experiments multiple times, had control groups and obtained consistentresults. Some of their experiments were published in peer reviewed journals andtheir records form part of the basis of treats for hypothermia today. Killingthousands of Chinese prisoners in extremely painful ways was coincidental tothem.

 Unethicalexperimentation is more difficult than torture. It requires a consistent setup, a consistent supply of ‘subjects’ and meticulous record keeping. It meansnot just having somewhere these metahumans can be imprisoned but ways ofcontrolling their environment and measuring the effects it has on them in thelong term. It might require a specialised building such as a hospital.

 It might be helpful tothink in terms of how ethical humanexperiments are conducted. In a drug trial when a new drug is given to healthy volunteersthe starting dose is incredibly small and someof the volunteers will be given a placebo (ie a pill that does not contain thedrug). The volunteers will be monitored for a month or longer before the doseis increased gradually.

 A simple trial can takeyears (I think it’s somewhere in the realm of 10 years from discovery to endstage trials). This is to see any effects and side effects the drug might have.It’s a long involved process and the length of time and effort is not entirely down to ethicalconsiderations. It’s down to how long thorough experimentation takes.

 I’d advise thinkingabout whether that kind of rigor fits the story you’re planning.

 It’s also worthremembering that an individual victim won’tnecessarily know how rigorously scientific the place they’re held in is.They won’t necessarily be aware of note taking or the treatment of othervictims. The point of view you use in your story effects how the situation comes across.

 If you’d like more informationon unethical experimentation The ImmortalLife of Henrietta Lacks covers a lot of the major incidences in Americapost-World War 2. It’s a very good and accessible book which talks aboutscientific and medical ethics in a way that’s easy to understand.

 I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

[itsbansheebitch]

Most people don't even know what Unit 731 is.

During WW2, Japan was running MANY experiments on humans. There were zero (0) survivors. Most victims died horrifically and we're lucky to even have records of this happening. The scientists burned the units to the ground, but victims left messages behind.

The US covered Unit 731 up. They wanted to get ahold of the research the scientists had. There was no research. It was JUST torture. There were over 3,600 researchers/scientists.

The perpetrators got off scot free. There are even monuments of some of them in Japan. Japan refuses to admit it happened. They called the prisoners "logs" and "monkeys" to hide the nature of the experiments. If a researcher or a guard got infected, they'd be cut open. No one was safe.

I don't say this lightly: It's probably one of the worst war crimes in history. The average life span of prisoners was two (2) months.

I don't like asking for this, but please either talk to someone about this or repost this. Make your own post, read a book, watch a video. Hell, there are at least two (2) movies I know of that are about/include this atrocity. EVERYONE needs to know.

There is no happy ending. This story was almost lost to history. It was less than a century ago. The "happy ending" is the future. The happy ending is everyone knowing this. Being able to recite what happened when hearing "Unit 731," not "what's unit 731?"

[potteresque-ire]

I humbly present a meta series on the Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) Incident, based on what has transpired up to 2021/08/22. I hope it provides the answers to the Asks I’ve got.  

I must apologise for the length of the series, and the time I took to finish them. Given the gravity and complexity of its historical background, I thought the incident deserves a more detailed write-up (I learned a lot as well). For those from Zhang’s related fandoms who wish to read the backgrounds without reminders of the incident: Parts 1 to 3 are written with you in mind.

Under the cut is Part 1 of the five-part meta series:

1) The 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) & the Yasukuni Shrine 2) Post-War Sino-Japanese Relations; “Every Chinese should visit the Yasukuni Shrine” 3) The Summer of 2021: The Brewing Storms for One 4) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part A 5) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part B

(TW: Mentions of War Violence)

1) The 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) & the Yasukuni Shrine

I’d like to start this meta series with this important statement: the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army on the people of China between 1937 and the end of the Second World War (1945) were very, very real. 

Roughly, the history went like this ~

On July 7th, 1937, the Japanese troops invaded China, still governed at the time by the Kuomintang (KMT; Nationalist) government. The Nanking Massacre (December 1937 - January 1938) was perhaps the most well known incident during that period. Ubiquitous looting and burning aside, over those six weeks, the Chinese civilian death count was estimated to be as high as 300,000. Soldiers competed to kill as many as they could. Up to 80,000 women (and children) were raped … and often, also disemboweled, or had their breasts sliced off, or their pregnant stomachs cut open, or had bayonets rammed through their bodies. 

A 1937/12/13 Japanese-language news article about the “Contest to Kill 100 people using a Sword” (百人斬) between 2 Japanese Army Officers (Source)

(Here’s a link to more historical photos of the Nanking Massacre (WARNING: Graphic Violence)).

A notable consequence of this mass murder and rape—the Nanking Massacre was therefore also known as the Rape of Nanking—was that the Japanese army soon initiated a military prostitution network to reduce the rape of local women, the concern being the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among its ranks. Eventually, this network would force into sex slavery ~200,000 women from the then Japanese occupied territories, with most women from China, the Japanese colonies of Korea and the Philippines, making it the largest scale human trafficking and sexual slavery in modern history. These brothels became known as “comfort stations”, and the victims, “comfort women”. 

A Japanese soldier posing with Korean comfort women (Source: WARNING: Graphic Violence)

Meanwhile, in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, Unit 731, the covert biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, carried out experiments that rivalled in brutality to those carried out in the Holocaust; these “researchers” also carried out “field studies”, dropping germ bombs and poisons into local lands and water sources. Altogether, the Japanese army was believed to be responsible for 20 million Chinese deaths between 1937 and 1945, a period also known as the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Unit 731 conducting a frostbite experiment on a live Chinese person, 1941 (Source)

(Here’s a link to historical photos of Unit 731 (WARNING: Graphic Violence)).

I stated, emphasised the above because while the events I’ve mentioned were generally accepted by the world as historical facts, there remains a vocal and powerful sector in the Japanese society — the Japanese Far Right — that denies their truth. During World War II, mentions of the massacre (and other articles and photos that portrayed the Imperial Japanese Army in an unfavourable light) were mostly censored. For decades after, Japanese textbooks omitted mentions of the Japanese invasion of China and the war crimes its Imperial Army committed, downplayed the severity of the crimes or kept their mentions extremely brief. 

A Japanese student from the 1990s recalled her textbook devoting one sentence, and in the footnotes, about the Nanking Massacre, one sentence about the comfort women, and one sentence about atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Tokyo University professor Nobukatsu Fujioka claimed that no systemic massacre or rape occurred, that the victims were hired actors from the Chinese government and the comfort women were paid prostitutes. The New History Textbook, which Fujioka authored, was nonetheless approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education in 2001. 

As recently as 2017, Japanese history textbooks that neglected to mention the death and rape count in Nanking remained in circulation; an author claimed the massacre was “communist propaganda”, and Koreans had been the ones exploiting the Japanese during Korea’s time as a Japanese colony.

Expectedly, this kind of history denial—and more importantly, the Japanese government’s tolerance, even encouragement of it—greatly upset the countries that were victims of Japanese military aggression during the 1930s and 40s. The publication of The New History Textbook in 2001 led to widespread protests in China, North and South Korea and also, in Japan—despite the approval to publish from the Ministry of Education, many history teachers in the country were against such historical revisionism, and few (though not zero) Japanese schools actually adopted the textbook. Nonetheless, Nanking Massacre denial remains common in public discourse, and is viewed as the staple of Japanese nationalist / far right discourse.

Another prominent symbol of Japanese nationalism? The Yasukuni Shrine (靖國神社).

The Yasukuni Shrine (Source)

The Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto (神道, the Japanese indigenous religion) shrine founded all the way back in 1869, built to honour those who had fought for the Emperor Meiji. Its Honden (“main hall”) has mostly been reserved for those who have sacrificed for the country and its Emperor. Nonetheless, the war dead enshrined there isn’t limited to those who died in combat. War time nurses were included, as well as prime ministers who took part in the war effort, and students who committed suicide in shame after World War II. 

The shrine is therefore huge in terms of the number of deceased it honours — 2.4 million names are listed, including those of children and even animals.

Among these millions of names, 14 of them are Class A criminals from World War II. They were collectively enshrined as the “Martyrs of Shōwa”, with Shōwa referring to the reign of Emperor Shōwa (better known by his personal name Hirohito) that spanned the decades leading to and after World War II (1926-1989). 

What does “Class A criminals” mean? It means these 14 people had been convicted, by the 1946 International Military Tribunal for the Far East (aka, The Tokyo Trial, equivalent to the Nuremberg Trails in Germany), to have been involved in “the planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of wars of aggression”. Their enshrinement at the Yasukuni Shrine didn’t happen right after the war—when the Japanese government decreed that it should take place, the head priest at the time, Fujimaro Tsukuba, refused to comply. It was not until 1978 when Tsukuba’s successor and rejector of Tokyo Trial's verdicts, Nagayoshi Matsudaira, enshrined these war criminals.

The trial of Hideki Tōjō, the Prime Minister of Japan between 1941-44, on 1941/11/12. Tōjō was widely considered to be the most notorious among Japan’s war criminals from World War II, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Fearing the Japanese nationalists would steal his body to honour him, the U.S. Army cremated him and scattered his ashes into the Pacific Ocean. That didn’t stop the Japanese right wing from their remembrances, and Tōjō would become one of the Class A war criminals worshipped in the Yasukuni Shrine. (Source)

Today, the total number of war criminals in the Yasukuni Shrine remains at less than two thousand—a very small percent to the millions enshrined there.

With that said, I hope one can understand why visiting the Yasukuni Shrine is considered highly offensive to many who are familiar with World War II history in the Far East: it’s akin to visiting religious memorials dedicated to the Nazi’s highest command—enshrinement is, after all, more than just a burial; in Shinto religion, enshrinement frees the soul, or kami, of the deceased, transforms them into deities to be worshipped by their descendants. 

I hope one can also understand why some of the highest officials of the Japanese government have elected to visit Yasukuni Shrine in an officially private capacity (ie, they officially state that they are visiting as private citizens; separation of religion and state is explicit in the Japanese constitution, thus politicians should not perform religious acts): the Yasukuni Shrine is a memorial for not only the 14 Class A war criminals, but millions of patriots who have died for their country. 

These visits inevitably draw protests and heavy criticisms from the Chinese and Korean governments and their people, especially because visiting the Yasukuni Shrine is not exactly tradition. No Japanese emperors have visited the shrine since 1975 by Emperor Hirohito, who reportedly disagreed with the government’s decision to house the Class A criminals in the shrine and therefore, refused to visit after the decision had been made.

The prime ministers had also only made sporadic visits until Junichiro Koizumi (小泉 純一郎), who was in office 2001-2006 and was also the president of the conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party. While Koizumi avoided visiting the shrine on the anniversary of Japanese surrender (August 15th) until 2006, his yearly visits were interpreted to have a deeper—and to China, Korea, and the more liberal citizens in his native country—a troubling political meaning: the return of Japanese nationalism and Imperialism. Remember this meta started with the invasion of China, followed soon by a mention that Korea and the Philippines were also Japanese colonies? Japan—or, more accurately, the Empire of Japan, as the country was known pre-1947, did have imperialistic intentions before and during World War II. Multiple nations had been fully or partially annexed by Japan between 1931 and 1945 or, in their language, joined the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” (大東亜共栄圏). 

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1942, showing the extent of Japanese occupation or colonisation (Source).

The Yasukuni Shrine itself has also been accused of historical revisionism. Its museum, the Yushukan, still reportedly neglects to mention the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army including the Nanking Massacre, frames Japan’s invasion of multiple neighbour countries as saving these countries from Western colonial imperialism, and portrays Japan as being forced into World War II by the U.S.. The shrine has also rejected the proposal by the liberal / progressive Japanese parties to move the Class A war criminals to alternate burial sites, citing that housed kamis cannot be moved according to the Shinto religion.

Screenshot from Yushukan’s English-language visitor pamphlet, which describes Japan’s 1937 Invasion of China as “The China Incident”.

While the Yasukuni Shrine is a military shrine, it may be worth nothing that, given post-war Japan’s strict separation of state and religion, neither the Japanese government nor the Imperial family can control it in any way, such as requesting the shrine to update its museum materials. The Yasukuni Shrine is a private religious institution, and is controversial even within Japan itself.

Now that I’ve provided a bit of (hopefully accurate) historical background, I’d like to share a few thoughts I’ve had about it. 

If atrocities committed in a war can be viewed as a debt that can/should be repaid, then, the Japanese government does owe this world at least one thing: a better education of its people about its history. Japanese spectators of international sports, for example, should understand why their fellow spectators recoil at the sight of the Rising Sun flag (kyokujitsuki) they bring along with them—the Rising Sun flag that isn’t Japan’s national flag, but the flag of its military since before World War II. The Rising Sun flag has therefore been viewed by many Koreans and Chinese as a symbol of Japanese military aggression and oppression during World War II—South Korea being, perhaps, the most vocal about opposing the flag’s appearance in international venues.

Photos from a controversial Japan vs S. Korea football game in 2013. Japanese fans raised the Rising Sun flag (Right; with its characteristic 16 rays). Korean fans brought a banner that said “A nation that forgets its history has no future” (Left). (Source) 

The goal isn’t to bring shame to Japanese or their country, but to make sure the atrocities, the humanitarian crisis, will not happen again.

The conversations are, and will be very difficult. Some of you may be wondering… why can’t the Japanese government “own up” this piece of their past, denounce it like Germany has done to the Nazi regime, educates its youth in no uncertain terms that it was a mistake committed by their country? Is Japan really evil, as some of you may have read about online from Chinese fans recently? Does Japan truly have renewed imperialistic ambitions in its mind, want to … build another Co-prosperity Sphere?

Here’s one likely very simplistic explanation I can offer…you see, unlike modern Japan, Japan prior to 1947 was a mix of constitutional and absolute monarchy. Emperor Hirohito, like his 123 ancestors who had sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne, was officially the descendant of the goddess of the sun, Amaterasu. In its native language, the Japanese Emperor is Tennō (天皇), which translates to "Divine Emperor”—he was god-like. Some have therefore argued that Emperor Hirohito was at least partially accountable for the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. After all, in Imperial Japan’s constitution, the Emperor had supreme command of the military; his approval was also required for the use of toxic gas by Unit 731, for example, and for declaring war against the United States. Some, however—with the U.S. being the most famous among this group—maintained that Emperor Hirohito, who, even then, was bound by the Imperial constitution to refrain from making political decisions, was merely a figurehead, held hostage by his military and innocent.

19th century woodblock print depicting the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu, the ancestress of the Imperial Japanese family, emerging from her cave (Source).

In all cases, Emperor Hirohito was exempted from the Tokyo Trial. He continued his reign after the war, but with his power, and also, his divinity, stripped away. The Allies issued the Shinto Directive of 1945 to separate the Japanese state and the so-called State Shinto religion (which didn’t formally exist), claiming the latter to be responsible for Japan’s ultra-nationalism in the period. The Imperial family was saved, but not without a major “downgrade” in its power.

What would it mean for the Japanese government to talk openly and frankly about its war crimes then? It would mean making clear, admitting to one of the two choices: A) The Japanese Emperor was actually a powerless muppet of his military, despite being… The Emperor, the Descendant of the Sun; or B) The Japanese Emperor of most of 20th century, and the grandfather of their current Emperor (Naruhito), was a mass murderer, had blood on his hands. Lots of blood.

Unlike China, Japan has never changed its dynasty. The actual political power wielded by its imperial line has waxed and waned, but the Chrysanthemum Throne has always been the Chrysanthemum Throne. One can supposedly start with Emperor Naruhito of 2021, and trace back 125 times to Amaterasu. The Japanese emperors and their monarchy is, therefore, a far more integral, far more important part of the Japanese identity than even the most powerful Chinese emperor had been to the Chinese identity—after all, every Chinese dynasty fell; every “change of ownership” came with a different emperor’s surname, despite all Chinese emperors claimed to have been the son of the Heavens (天子). Oh, Chinese knew too that their emperors had actually started out from all walks of life, included a runaway official, even a beggar.

Whether this is the reason of not, the Japanese government has been reluctant to apologise for its war crimes, and when it does, the wording is often sparse, at times curious. Requests for reparations by its now very old, dwindling war vicim population—the comfort women, for example—was met with avoidance of acknowledging the violation of human rights in its actions. How has its victim countries responded to that then? And since our focus is ultimately on China, how has China, in particular, responded to that? The wrath online against Zhang’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine … the fury must’ve been far worse before, right? When the wounds were fresh? When far more victims were alive?

Not really.

===

The Zhang Zhehan Incident Meta Series: 

PART 1 <- YOU ARE HERE PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5

[ficsand]

i feel very siick

tw: unit 731, Hama (atla), torture (civies), war crimes, some holocaust mentions if we’re hear’ nightmare fuel, don’t read while eating.

i’m so sorry you read it

so, i spend some times in TVtropes lately, and I got to this theory that says the prison Hamma was held in was like the fire nation’s unit 731 (include some protocols and explicit details).*

i had a bad feeling, but i went looking for it.

basically think Mengele just, you know, in a cc operated for “human experiment” [or just some fun tutored] instead of “death”\”work until they are useless and then death”. 

and i don’t know why, but what really hit me was that they were called “Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army”.

just. think about it.

can’t really verbalize it.

i don’t know. I’m just sad, again. it’s not like I didn’t know what humans can do [growing up with holocaust stories does that to you]. but just.  

*for those who don’t want to enter the link, from wiki: “ Unit 731 (Japanese: 731部隊, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai),[note 1] short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment,[3]: 198  and Ishii Unit,[5] was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the armed forces of Imperial Japan. Unit 731 was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China), and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia. “

[tales-from-vesuvia]

*tw for human experimentation, gore, illness, genocide, war, possible racism and xenophobia, child death

this documentary, as any other would be for Unit 731, is harrowing – if you’re easily unsettled or triggered please don’t watch this, i’m posting to log research

[writingwithcolor]

Space based story with prison camps: problematic parallels?

Trigger warnings:

Holocaust

Unethical Medical Experimentation (in the post and resources)

ivypool2005 asked:

I'm writing a sci-fi novel set on Mars in the 25th century. There are two countries on Mars: Country A, a hereditary dictatorship, and Country B, a democracy occupied by Country A after losing a war. Country A's government is secretly being puppeted by a company that is illegally testing experimental technology on children. On orders from the company, Country A is putting civilian children from Country B in prison camps, where the company can fake their deaths and experiment on them. (1/2)

My novel takes place in one of the prison camps. I am aware that this setting carries associations with various concentration camps in history. Specifically, I'm worried about the experimentation aspect, as I know traumatic medical experimentation occurred during the Holocaust. Is there anything I should avoid? How can I acknowledge the history while still keeping some fantasy/sci-fi distance from real experiences -- or is it a bad idea to try to straddle that fence at all? Thank you! (2/2)

We are far from being the only people to have suffered traumatic medical experiments.. 

--Shira

TW: Unethical Medical Experimentation (in the post, and all of the links)

Medical experimentation in history

Perhaps without intending to, you have posed an enormous question. 

I will start by saying that we, the Jewish people, are not the only group to have unethical, immoral, vicious experiments performed on our bodies.  Horrific experimentation has been conducted on Black people, on Indigenous people, on disabled people, on poor people of various backgrounds, on women, on queer people... the legacy of human cruelty is long. Here are some very surface-level sources for you, and anyone else interested to go through. Many, many more can be found.

General Wiki Article on Unethical Human Experimentation

US Specific Article  on Unethical Human Experimentation 

The early history of modern American Gynecology is largely comprised of absolutely inhumane experimentation, mostly on enslaved women (with some notable exceptions among Irish immigrant women)

An Article on Gynecological Experimentation on Enslaved Women

I  also recommend reading Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens

The Tuskegee Experiment 

First Nations Children Denied Nutrition

Guatemala Syphilis Experiment

Unit 731

AZT Testing on Zimbabwean Women

Project MKUltra

Conversion Therapy

Medical Experiments on Prison Inmates 

Medical Interventions on Intersex Infants and Children

Again, these are only a few, of a tragic multitude of examples. 

While I don't feel comfortable saying, as a blanket statement, that stories like this should never be fictionalized, it feels important to emphasize the historicity of medical experimentation, and indeed, medical horrors. These things happened, in the real world, throughout history, and across the globe. 

The story of this kind of human experimentation is one of immense cruelty, and the complete denial of the humanity of others. Experimentation was done on unwilling subjects, with no real regard for their wellbeing, their physical pain, the trauma they would incur, the effect it would have on families, or on communities. These are stories, not of random, mythical "subjects," but of human beings. These were Black women, already suffering enslavement, who were medically tortured. These were Indigenous children, who were utterly powerless, denied nutrition, just to see what would happen. These were Black men, lied to about their own health, and sent home to infect their spouses, and denied treatment once it was available. These were Aboriginal Australians, forced to have unnecessary medical procedures, children given brutal gynecological exams, and medications that were untested.. These were inmates in US prisons, under the complete control of the state. These were prisoners of war. These were pregnant people, desperate to save their fetuses, lied to by doctors. These were also Jewish people, imprisoned, and brutalized as part of a systematic attempt to destroy us. 

The story of medical torture, of experimentation without any meaningful consent, of the removal of human dignity, and human rights, is so vast, and so long, there is no way to do it justice. It is a story about human beings, without agency, without rights, it's the story of doctors, scientists, and the inquisitive, looking right through a person, and seeing nothing but parts. This is not some vague plot point, or a curiosity to note in passing, it is a real, terrible thing that happened, and is still happening to actual human beings. I understand the draw, to want to write about the Worst of the Worst, the things that happen when people set aside kindness, and pick up cruelty, but this is not simply a device. This kind of torture cannot be used as authorial shorthand, to show who the real bad guys are. 

On writing this subject - research

If you want to write a fictional story that includes this kind of deep, abiding horror, you need to immerse yourself in it. You need to read about it, not only in secondhand accounts, and not only from people stating facts dispassionately. You need to seek out firsthand accounts, read whatever you can find, watch whatever videos you can find. You need to find works recounting these atrocities by the descendants, and community members of people who suffered. 

Then, when you have done that, you need to spend time reflecting, and actively working to recognize the humanity of the people this happened to, and continues to happen to. 

You have to recognize that getting a stamp of approval from three Jewish people on a single website would never be enough, and seek out multiple sensitivity readers who have personal, familial, or cultural experience with forced experimentation.

If that seems like a lot of work, or overkill, I beg you not to write this story. It's simply too important. 

-- Dierdra

If you study public health and sociology, it is often a given that the intersection of institutional power and marginalized populations produces extreme human rights abuses. This is not to say that such abuse should be treated as an inevitability, but rather to help us understand, as Dierdra says, how often we need to be aware of the risk of treating our fellow humans poorly. Much of modern medical history is the story of the unwilling sacrifices made by people unable to defend themselves from the powers that be. Whether we are talking about the poor residents of public hospitals in France during the 18th century whose bodies were used to advance anatomy and pathology, to vaccine testing in the 19th century, to mental asylum patients in the 20th century who endured isolation, lobotomies, colectomies and thorazine, one can easily see this pattern beyond the Holocaust. 

Even when we shift our focus away from abuse justified by “experimentation”, we have many such incidents of institutionalized state collusion in abuse that have made the news within the last 20 years with depressing regularity. Beyond the examples mentioned above, I offer border migrant detention centers and black sites for America, Xinjiang re-education sites and prisoner organ donation in China, Soviet gulags still in use in Russia, and North Korean forced labor camps (FLCs) for political prisoners as more current examples. I agree with Dierdra that these themes affect many people still alive today who have endured such abuses, and are enduring such abuses. 

More on proper research and resources

Given that you are going to be exploring a topic when the pain is still so fresh, so raw, I think you had better have something meaningful to say. Dierdra’s recommendation to immerse yourself in nonfiction primary sources is essential, but I think you will also want to brush up on many established works of dystopian fiction featuring themes relating to state institutions and the exploitation of vulnerable populations. While doing so, read about the authors and how the circumstances of their environments and time periods influenced their stories’ messages and themes. I further recommend that you do so both slowly and deliberately so you can both properly take in the information while also checking in with your own comfort. 

- Marika

[janiedean]

I just discovered unit 731 during ww2, that's... I can't even understand how people could have done that

hahahaha man I know, I know. the japanese army during WWII was... hardly............ ethical....... to put it.... very mildly...... and I still would like to know what people who think the japanese empire had ‘nothing racist going on’ would say about that (or about, uh, the chichijima incident) (tw: cannibalism) but yeah. let’s just say that no one in the axis has a clean conscience when it comes to human experimentation during WWII /o\