日本改寫其歷史的習慣將影響其未來?

Japan is working hard at forgetting. Its prime minister, Shinzo Abe, suggests in code-talk that Japan was the victim of World War II — no war criminals at all, thank you — and its influential conservative press, with a wink from the government, is determined to whitewash the country's use of sex slaves during the war. This sort of thing can be catching. Maybe others will forget why they consider Japan a friend.

日本正爲遺忘而忙得歡。安倍表示，日本是二戰的受害者，日本的主流保守媒體應暗承政府之聖意，堅定的洗白戰爭期間的慰安婦問題。這種遺忘可以傳染給其他人-或許其他國家可以遺忘掉日本是個值得信賴的夥伴。

Certainly the task will be harder when the film "Unbroken," directed by Angelina Jolie, hits theaters on Christmas Day. The movie, like the book by Laura Hillenbrand , is the story of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner whose plane crashed in the Pacific during World War II and who wound up spending two and half years as a prisoner of the Japanese. He was horribly brutalized by his captors — starved, tortured physically and psychologically, worked nearly to death, and so often beaten viciously and capriciously that the sickening thud of a kendo stick on a human skull will trail you for days.

當然，日本的企圖會變得更難一些，就在這個聖誕，安吉麗娜·茱莉執導的新片-堅不可摧-將會上映。電影根據Laura Hillenbrand的小說拍攝。電影講述了Louis Zamperini的經歷：飛機在二戰時墜毀，在日本人的戰俘營關押了兩年半。他受盡了日本人的折磨-飢餓，拷打，精神折磨，極度勞累，經常被無故毆打以至於你會感到日本人的大棒打你頭的聲音會餘音繞顱三日不止。

Men died from such abuse, but not Zamperini. He lived long enough to cooperate with both the book and the movie, dying just this year (July 2) at the age of 97. He reconciled with the Japanese. That's more than what Japan has done with its past.

很多人被折磨致死，但是Zamperini得以倖存。他的經歷後來就變成小說的電影，這位老兵今年去世，享年97歲。

The country has much to atone for. Japan mistreated prisoners of war and even established a medical research team — the infamous Unit 731 — that conducted experiments on captured enemy soldiers, most of them Chinese. Among other atrocities, the unit performed hideous vivisections without anesthetic on living men, removing organs or limbs for some concocted medical purpose. Dr. Mengele might have turned away in horror.

日本待贖罪的多着呢。日本人非人道的殘忍的對待戰俘，甚至進行藥物試驗-如臭名昭著的731部隊，對戰俘，其大部分是中國人，進行生化試驗。731的暴行罄竹難書:活體解剖，摘取器官，切割肢體。其殘忍程度甚至會嚇壞納粹的死亡天使Dr. Mengele。

It is not my purpose here to revive anti-Japanese sentiment, which in war-time America commingled with racism to produce the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps. But certain important Japanese figures seem intent on reviving the past by revising it. With an implied nod from Abe, they have put enormous pressure on the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to retract stories exposing Japan's conscription of thousands of women to serve as sex slaves for the military during the war. Increasingly, this historic fact is being denounced as a fiction. Too many witnesses — not to mention victims — insist otherwise.

本文作者在此並無意於挑動反日情緒，反日情緒在二戰時導致了美國的日裔美國人集中營。但是一些日本精英看來就是要跳動反日情緒，復活軍國主義。仗着安倍的暗中支持，他們向朝日新聞施壓，撤銷關於慰安婦的報道。變本加厲的是，鐵一般的歷史事實被誣衊爲虛構。好在另一邊還有大量的受害者的證人堅持說出歷史真相。

This is a serious matter. First, it is unspeakably ugly to once again deny these women their humanity by saying they were volunteers — prostitutes — and not sex slaves. Second, the attempt to erase the whole sordid "comfort women" episode is part of a ferocious attempt to rewrite history. Before becoming prime minister and at least once since assuming office, Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where many World War II figures, including war criminals, are memorialized. To the Chinese, the Koreans and other Asians who fought and were brutally occupied by Japan (the Rape of Nanking is a particularly gruesome chapter), the honor accorded the Yasukuni dead is horrendously offensive.

這是嚴重的問題。首先，一而再的說當年的受害婦女是志願成爲慰安婦，稱她們爲妓女，這是極其醜陋噁心的行爲。其次，這種清除慰安婦歷史的企圖是日本人改寫歷史重寫歷史企圖的一部分。成爲首相之前，安倍就多次參拜靖國神社。對於中國人，韓國人，以及其他受過日本侵略的國家而言，靖國神社裏的惡靈得到的供奉和榮耀就是挑釁。

One of the most startling parts of Hillenbrand's book is her recounting of what happened to the POWs once Japan surrendered. Some were executed, but the liberated ones were allowed to amble out of their camps and into nearby towns and cities. The Japanese police who, just moments earlier, might have shot a POW on sight, were soon engaged in the hunt for U.S.-designated war criminals. Japan did an instant 180; Emperor Hirohito had ordered surrender and cooperation. Japan surrendered and cooperated.

Hillenbrand小說中令人吃驚的是日本投降之後戰俘們的遭遇。一些戰俘被處死，被釋放的戰俘走出戰俘營，來到附近的城鎮。而日本警察，前一刻還在槍斃戰俘，下一刻就在追捕美國政府指定的戰犯。日本完全換了張麪皮，天皇宣佈投降，接着日本投降了。

These sudden reversals have been a feature of Japanese culture ever since Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened the country to U.S. trade in 1854. The nation, both humbled and instructed, swiftly modernized and by 1905 had beaten mighty Russia in a war that Western conventional wisdom thought it would lose. Japan similarly adopted U.S.-style democracy after World War II and literally rose from the ashes (Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the often-overlooked incineration of Tokyo) to become so substantial an economic power that China supplanted it as No. 2 only recently. These were breathtaking achievements.

這種突然轉變是日本文化的一大特性，打從佩裏武力打開日本國門時就是如此。日本民族保持着謙卑，聽着天皇訓誡，急速的現代化，並於1905年打敗強大的俄國。二戰後，日本照搬了美式民主，從廢墟上崛起爲經濟強國（直至最近才被中國超過）。這些是巨大的成就。

Now, though, a more ominous reversal may be underway. With Japan's economy once again showing weakness — it has recently fallen into recession — the mythologizing of the past may well accelerate. This would only aggravate the insult to Japan's victims and further unsettle its neighbors, China and South Korea in particular. Japan's revisionists have their eye on the past. Others wonder what this means for the future.

現在，一個不祥的轉變又在形成中。因爲日本的經濟頹勢，日本的軍國主義可能會加速。但這隻會加重的侮辱日本的受害者，更加使中韓等鄰國不安。日本的軍國主義者癡迷於過去，中韓等鄰國則警惕於未來。