Yasukuni: The Most Controversial Religious Center in Japan
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
Why is Yasukuni the most controversial religious center in Japan?
Yasukuni Shrine is the most controversial shrine in Japan and it stands as a symbol for Japan’s Empire building during the 20th century. After the Empire of Japan was defeated in 1945 it no longer had the ability to maintain a successful propaganda campaign to support this institution.
If Japan had not lost the war, Yasukuni would be one of Japan’s most celebrated and hallowed sites. It represents the hopes and endeavors of the Modern Japanese nation state that was built during the Meiji restoration. During the Modernization of Japan, the New Nation-State Government could not be separated from the Shinto religion. Yasukuni is the perfect symbol for that religious Nation-State government that expanded to colonize most of east Asia.
The Shrine was originally established as a way to honor those from the Chosai
Domain who fought to overthrow the Shogunate and established in Kyoto. It was brought to Edo upon the establishment of the new Meiji government and expanded its scope to include all those who fought and died
during the restoration of the Imperial House. It was then expanded to include and enshrine all those who would fight for Japan in its foreign wars. It was a symbol of Japan’s Imperial campaigns across Asia. It also provided subsidies for the families of those who were sent abroad to die in China, Korea, The Philippines, across Asia and the Pacific. It was sold to the Japanese people as the only thing that they should be concerned about because they were Japanese and it was their natural duty to do so. The location where the shrine is today served as a commercial and entertainment arena as well as a religious state altar to glorify the Imperial state of Japan.
Post-1868, Buddhism was heavily suppressed in favor of State Shinto, with many temples destroyed and stripped of lands. During the expansionist era, the government required Buddhist sects to support the expansionist wars, turning them into tools of state ideology.
The shrine and doctrine that it represents did not take hold in the generation that were adults when it first moved to Edo. The New constitutional government of Japan in 1890 created the Imperial Re-script on Education, that set out a nationwide education reform and included as part of the curriculum, strong militaristic values, indoctrinating the youths of Japan. So when the young men were sent abroad to fight the States expansionist wars, they had already grown up with the narrative that would place the value of their own lives as insignificant when compared to the will of the state.
Like all people around the world, not everyone “drank the cool aid” of Yasukuni. There were many people throughout Japan who did not support the expansive nature of the new government. Throughout the life of Yasukuni in Tokyo, the popularity waned and waxed. Though it was a religious institution, it also served as a central ground for other state sanctioned affairs. It was used as an entertainment ground for festivals, horse racing and expositions.
People would come from all over Japan to visit because for many people when their children died overseas the bodies would not be returned to Japan and they would be “enshrined / entombed” in Yasukuni during annual memorials.
Today the shrine remains controversial because for many it represents atrocities committed by the Japanese military across Asia. It is also seen by many to condone the actions taken by the state to incorporate populations outside of Japan into Japanese society (Japanese language and cultural programs for children, application of Japanese law and immunity for Japanese military and citizenry). In more recent times, a renewed wave of controversies arose when the Comfort Women survivors came forth to share their experiences of the state sanctioned and operated brothels that they were enslaved by.
For populations in Japan, the Shrine is equally controversial. It did not just deal with the dead from World War II, but all the dead since the Meiji restoration.
The Yasukuni shrine was at the controversies surrounding the mass conscription efforts that took place, sending off young Japanese people to fight and die in China, Manchuria, the Philippines, Taiwan, Russia and other parts of the Pacific. The population of Japan is split between feeling of disgust and betrayal towards the action of the state, and those who believe that it simply represents the nation of Japan and all those who fought to defend it and its people.
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