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Consortium of European neo-Fascists Visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo

Com­ment: An inter­na­tion­al fas­cist organization–primarily Euro­pean in character–has vis­it­ed the con­tro­ver­sial Yasuku­ni Shrine in Tokyo. Com­mem­o­rat­ing Japan­ese war dead and count­ing war crim­i­nals among those com­mem­o­rat­ed there, the shrine is con­tro­ver­sial, and Japan­ese lead­ers vis­its to it have stirred hos­til­i­ty in coun­tries vic­tim­ized by the Japan­ese in World War II.

Vis­it­ed by Jean-Marie Le Pen and the BNP (British fas­cists), the impact of Yasuku­ni remains intact–the BNP/Le Pen vis­it was intend­ed to be provoca­tive and to “send a sig­nal.”

Do not fail to note that the AEC­N’s host, Mit­suhi­ro Kimu­ra, was a devo­tee of the famous, late writer and ultra­na­tion­al­ist leader Yukio Mishi­ma, who sought to restore Japan’s Impe­r­i­al pow­er and glo­ry. His Issuikai group is led by Kimu­ra, who was also close to Uday Hus­sein, son of the for­mer Iraqi dic­ta­tor.

The ICPO–the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Patri­ot­ic Organizations–is almost coter­mi­nous with the AECN. More about the ICPO soon.

About the AECN and its Tokyo vis­it:

“A Meet­ing of Minds: BNP Joins Far-Right Fun­ket to Japan by David Williams; Search­light; August/2010.

Excerpt: A British Nation­al Par­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive will join oth­er assort­ed Euro­pean fas­cists, aligned with the Asso­ci­a­tion of Euro­pean Nation­al­ist Move­ments (AENM), on a trip to Tokyo to meet mem­bers of the Nip­pon Issuikai, an extreme right group that denies the var­i­ous atroc­i­ties and war crimes per­pe­trat­ed by the Japan­ese mil­i­tary dur­ing the Sec­ond World War.

The meet­ing between 11 and 18 August will focus on “The Future of Nation­al­ist Move­ments”. The French Nation­al Front (FN) says the con­fer­ence will also exam­ine the lessons that Japan can learn from the expe­ri­ence and achieve­ments of Euro­pean nation­al­ist move­ments, some of which have made inroads in recent polls, and ways to main­tain ties world­wide.

The 20 AENM del­e­gates are drawn from the FN, Job­bik (Hun­gary), Tri­colour Flame (Italy), Flem­ish Inter­est (Bel­gium), Nation­al Renew­al Par­ty (Por­tu­gal), Free­dom (Ukraine) and the BNP.

The BNP’s del­e­gate will be Adam Walk­er, the party’s recent­ly appoint­ed staff man­ag­er and pres­i­dent of its fake trade union Sol­i­dar­i­ty. Walk­er resigned from his job as a school teacher after it emerged that he had described immi­grants as “sav­age ani­mals” and “filth”. He has worked as a teacher in Japan and runs a mar­tial arts acad­e­my.

Two oth­er del­e­gates also speak flu­ent Japan­ese and have ties with the coun­try. Bruno Goll­nisch, leader of the FN del­e­ga­tion, has been a pro­fes­sor of Japan­ese lan­guage and civil­i­sa­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lyon since 1981. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the FN leader, has long admired Japan’s restric­tive immi­gra­tion prac­tices and received a vis­it from Mit­suhi­ro Kimu­ra, the Nip­pon Issuikai leader in March 2003.

Bela Kovacs of Job­bik learned the lan­guage in his youth when his fam­i­ly served as diplo­mats in Japan for Hungary’s for­mer Com­mu­nist gov­ern­ment.

While in Japan the AENM del­e­ga­tion intends to vis­it the con­tro­ver­sial Yasuku­ni shrine – the name means “peace­ful coun­try” – found­ed in 1869 by the Emper­or Mei­ji and ded­i­cat­ed to over 2,466,000 Japan­ese men, women and chil­dren who have giv­en their lives for their coun­try since 1853.

To many, how­ev­er, the shrine rep­re­sents Japan’s con­tin­ued fail­ure to atone for its appalling record of war crimes com­mit­ted dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, because among those hon­oured by the shrine are 1,068 con­vict­ed war crim­i­nals. This list of “ven­er­a­ble divini­ties” includes 14 con­vict­ed “class A” war crim­i­nals, includ­ing the wartime Prime Min­is­ter Gen­er­al Hide­ki Tojo, who col­lec­tive­ly were respon­si­ble for the deaths of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Allied ser­vice­men and mil­lions of South­east Asians, the major­i­ty civil­ians. . . . The Nip­pon Issuikai, also known as the Wednes­day Soci­ety, is one of the prin­ci­pal Japan­ese nation­al­ist or “new right” groups. Its leader since 2000 is Mit­suhi­ro Kimu­ra, a grad­u­ate of Japan’s pres­ti­gious Keio Uni­ver­si­ty. The group regards the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment as an Amer­i­can pup­pet regime, wants the return of the emper­or to Kyoto, the old Impe­r­i­al cap­i­tal, and stead­fast­ly denies the count­less atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted by the Empire of Japan dur­ing the Sec­ond World War.

The organ­i­sa­tion was found­ed in 1972 by fol­low­ers of the famed nov­el­ist Yukio Mishi­ma, an extreme right-winger who com­mit­ted rit­u­al sui­cide (sep­puku) in 1970 fol­low­ing his failed attempt to per­suade mem­bers of the Japan Self-Defence Forces to fol­low him in stag­ing a mil­i­tary coup against the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment. Issuikai is a very small group; one report stat­ed that it had as few as 30 mem­bers. It remains influ­en­tial in the Japan­ese media, how­ev­er, with Kimu­ra appear­ing fre­quent­ly on tele­vi­sion and writ­ing opin­ion pieces in news­pa­pers such as the respect­ed dai­ly Asahi Shim­bun.

Kimu­ra was once on friend­ly terms with Uday Hus­sein, the psy­cho­path­ic son of Iraq’s mur­der­ous dic­ta­tor Sad­dam Hus­sein, who was killed in Iraq 2003 by a US Spe­cial Forces Task Force. Kimu­ra vis­it­ed Iraq six times before the Amer­i­can-led inva­sion and received a wrist­watch as a per­son­al present from the Iraqi dic­ta­tor. Kimu­ra sup­port­ed the Iraqi regime on the grounds that Sad­dam Hus­sein was cul­ti­vat­ing a pan-Arab nation­al­ism that would pro­tect Arab cul­ture from West­ern influ­ence, while “cor­rect­ly” demand­ing that “Israel leave Pales­tine”.

Kimu­ra also calls for the re-exam­i­na­tion of the Secu­ri­ty Treaty between Japan and the USA and demands the “total with­draw­al” of US troops from Japan. It is par­tial­ly Kimura’s hos­til­i­ty to US “hege­mo­ny” that has led him, since 2003, to reach out to oth­er “nation­al­ist” move­ments across the globe.

Discussion

One comment for “Consortium of European neo-Fascists Visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo”

  1. Well, that’s one way to stim­u­late the econ­o­my, although it’s prob­a­bly not the most pro­duc­tive use Japan­ese tech­no­log­i­cal know-how:

    Japan, Britain in talks on joint arms devel­op­ment

    TOKYO | Wed Apr 4, 2012 3:09pm EDT

    (Reuters) — Japan and Britain hope to reach a deal to begin joint devel­op­ment of arms fol­low­ing Toky­o’s eas­ing of its ban on exports of mil­i­tary equip­ment late last year, Britain’s Min­istry of Defence said on Wednes­day.

    It would mark the first time that Japan has worked with a coun­try oth­er than the Unit­ed States on mil­i­tary equip­ment after mak­ing an excep­tion for the U.S. mis­sile defence pro­gram.

    ...

    The news­pa­per quot­ed an uniden­ti­fied senior defence min­istry offi­cial as say­ing that it could take the two coun­tries about a year to decide on spe­cif­ic items for joint devel­op­ment as even with the relax­ation of rules, Japan still impos­es restric­tions on sales to third par­ties.

    The two coun­tries may grad­u­al­ly start joint devel­op­ment with small mil­i­tary equip­ment, rather than big machines like fight­ers, it said, quot­ing an uniden­ti­fied senior for­eign min­istry offi­cial.

    Japan in Decem­ber decid­ed to relax its self-imposed decades-old ban to allow it to take part in the joint devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of arms with oth­er coun­tries and to sup­ply mil­i­tary equip­ment for human­i­tar­i­an mis­sions, open­ing new mar­kets to its defence con­trac­tors.

    Oth­er coun­tries such as Aus­tralia and France have also expressed inter­est in work­ing with Japan on mil­i­tary equip­ment but Japan has pri­or­i­tized its agree­ment with Britain after it chose Lock­heed Mar­tin Cor­p’s F‑35 fight­er jets over the Eurofight­er Typhoon, made by a con­sor­tium of Euro­pean com­pa­nies includ­ing BAE Sys­tems.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 4, 2012, 11:49 am

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