Anomalies in Collective Victimhood in Post-War Japan: ‘Hiroshima’ As a Victimisation Symbol for the Collective National Memory of War

AbstractIn the aftermath of war, people need visions that (re)unite them and overcome the psychological wounds they have incurred. The post-war Japanese needed narratives that could help them to rebuild their war-torn self-image. They subscribed to a story of Hiroshima being the first city to be demolished by an atomic bomb. Through this, Hiroshima became a national symbol, and the Japanese regarded themselves as victims of war, which effectively overrode their sense of shame and of responsibility for the war. As this process was aimed internally to serve as the backbone of post-war recovery, it did not turn the Japanese against the United States, and thus Japanese collective victimhood includes the following three anomalies: first, the absence of an enemy; second, a lack of aggressiveness; and third, the irrelevance of recovery. This article, therefore, challenges the existing theory of collective victimhood using the case of post-war Japan.Keywords: collective victimhoodHiroshimawar memoryreconciliationatomic bomb Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Daniel Bar-Tal, Lily Chernyak-Hai, Noa Schori, and Ayelet Gundar, ‘A Sense of Self-Perceived Collective Victimhood in Intractable Conflicts’, International Review of the Red Cross 91, no. 874 (2009), 229.2 Ibid., 246.3 Ibid., 230.4 Ibid.5 Kiichi Fujiwara, Sensowokiokusuru: Hiroshima horokosuto to genzai [Remembering War: Hiroshima, Holocaust and Present] (Tokyo: Koudansha, 2001), 22.6 Herbert C. Kelman, ‘The Beginnings of Peace Psychology: A Personal Account’, Peace Psychology, Fall/Winter (2009), 15–18.7 Bar-Tal et al., 229–58.8 Joseph V. Montville, ‘The Psychological Roots of Ethnic and Sectarian Terrorism’ in Joseph V. Montville, Vamik D. Volkan and Demetrios A. Julius The Psychodynamics of International Relationships, Vol. 1, ed. Joseph V. Montville, Vamik D. Volkan, and Demetrios A. Julius (Pennsylvania: Lexington Books, 1990), 168.9 Joseph V. Montville, ‘Psychoanalytic Enlightenment and the Greening of Diplomacy’, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 37, no. 2 (1989), 297–318.10 Sam Garkawe, ‘Revisiting the Scope of Victimology: How Broad a Discipline Should It Be?’ International Review of Victimology 11 (2004), 286–87.11 Ibid.12 James E. Bayley, ‘The Concept of Victimhood’ in To Be a Victim: Encounters with Crime and Justice, ed. Diane Sank and David Caplan (New York: Insight Books, 1991), 60.13 Bar-Tal et al., 239.14 Ibid., 253.15 Nyla R. Branscombe, ‘A Social Psychological Process Perspective on Collective Guilt’, in Collective Guilt: International Perspectives, ed. Nyla Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 320–34.16 John C. Turner, ‘Some Current Issues in Research on Social Identity and Self-Categorization Theories’, in Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content, ed. Naomi Ellemers, Russell Spears, and Bertjan Dosje (Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell, 1999), 6–34.17 Daniel Bar-Tal, Shared Beliefs in a Society: Social Psychological Analysis (Thousand Oaks, NJ: Sage, 2000), 5.18 Bar-Tal et al., 243–4.19 Hisamitsu Mizushima, Sensō o ikani kataritsugu ka: ‘Eizō’ to ‘Shōgen’ kara kangaeru sengoshi [How to Hand Down War: Post-War History Thinking from ‘Visual’ and ‘Testimony’] (Tokyo: NHK Books, 2020), 58.20 Ibid., 214–15.21 Fujiwara, 53.22 Ibid., 151.23 Sarah Rosenberg, ‘Victimhood’, in Beyond Intractability (2000) [accessed 1 May 2023].24 Ronald J. Fisher, ‘Needs Theory, Social Identity and an Eclectic Model of Conflict’, in Conflict: Human Needs Theory, ed. John Burton (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990), 93–4.25 Roy F. Baumeister and Stephen Hastings, ‘Distortions of Collective Memory: How Groups Flatter and Deceive Themselves’, in Collective Memory of Political Events: Social Psychological Perspectives, ed. James Pennebaker, Dario Paez, and Bernard Rimé (New York: Psychology Press, 1997), 285.26 Rosenberg.27 Michael J.A. Wohl and Nyla R. Branscombe, ‘Remembering Historical Victimization: Collective Guilt for Current Ingroup Transgressions’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94, no. 6 (2008), 1004.28 Vamik Volkan, Killing in the Name of Identity: A Study of Bloody Conflicts (Virginia: Pitchstone Publishing, 2014), 73–4.29 Rosenberg.30 Ibid.31 Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 134.32 Rosenberg.33 Bar Tal et al., 237.34 Ibid., 231.35 Ibid., 234.36 Antonius C.G.M. Robben and Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, eds., Cultures under Siege: Collective Violence and Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 19.37 Takayuki Ishii, One Thousand Paper Cranes: The Story of Sadako and the Children’s Peace Statue (New York: Dell Laurel-Leaf, 1997).38 Ervin Staub and Daniel Bar-Tal, ‘Genocide, Mass Killing, and Intractable Conflict: Roots, Evolution, Prevention, and Reconciliation’, in Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology, ed. David Sears, Leonie Huddy, and Robert Jervis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 722.39 John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.W. Norton & Co Inc., 2000), 121.40 Mark H. Davis, ‘Empathy’, in Jan E. Stets and Jonathan H. Turner Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions, ed. Jan E. Stets and Jonathan H. Turner (New York: Springer, 2006), 448.41 Takashi Hiraoka, ‘Watashinoheiwaron—Hiroshimawomegutte [Where I Stand on Peace: Around Hiroshima]’, in Hiroshimakarasekainoheiwanitsuitekangaeru [Hiroshima: Thinking about World Peace from Hiroshima], ed. Hiroshima University Archives (Tokyo: Gendaishiryoushuppan, 2006), 20–21.42 Kenji Shiga, Heiwakinenshiryokanhatoikakeru [The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is Asking] (Tokyo: Iwanamishoten, 2020), 231.43 Ibid.44 Yoshiaki Fukuma, Sengonippon, Kiokunorikigaku: ‘Keishoutoiudanzetsu’ to Bunansanoseijirikigaku [Post-war Japan, Dynamism of Memory: ‘Break-off in the Name of Succession’ and Politics of the Acceptable] (Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2020), 11–12.45 Ibid., 281.46 Ibid., 234.47 Bar-Tal et al., 252.48 Ibid.49 While it is outside the scope of this article, the Japanese soldiers who died in the war were usually recognised as ‘sacrifices’ rather than ‘victims’, and thus, they are buried in Yasukuni Shrine.50 Bar-Tal et al., 252.51 Paul Gordon Schalow, ‘Japan’s War Responsibility and the Pan-Asian Movement for Redress and Compensation: An Overview’, East Asia: An International Quarterly 18, no. 3 (2000), 11.52 Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), cited in Bar-Tal et.al., 232.53 Kizo Ogura, Rekishi ninshiki o norikoeru: Nitchu-Kan n otaiwa o habamu mono wa nani ka [Overcome Historical Recognition: What are the Obstacles of Japan-China-Korea Dialogue?] Tokyo: Koudansha, 2005), 17.54 Ibid., 18.55 Barack Obama, ‘Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Abe of Japan at Hiroshima Peace Memorial’, (Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, 2016) [accessed 1 May 2023].56 Toshiyuki Tanaka, Kenshō ‘Sengo minshu shugi’: Watashitachi wa naze sensō sekinin mondai o kaiketu dekinai no ka [Examining ‘Post-war Democracy’: Why can’t we solve the problem of war responsibility?] (Tokyo: Sanichishobou, 2019), 309.57 Ibid., 299.58 Ogura, 20.59 Ogura, 24.60 The Japanese government was accused by the hibakushas (and their supporters), of causing the disaster by initiating the war in the first place, and many lawsuits were filed against the Japanese government, rather than the US government. The following lawsuits were filed against the Japanese government: the Tokyo Genbaku Lawsuit in 1955 (ended in 1963), the Kuwahara Genbaku Lawsuit in 1969 (ended in 1979), the Ishida Genbaku Lawsuit in 1973 (ended in 1975), the Matsutani Genbaku Lawsuit in 1988 (ended in 2000), and the Kyoto Genbaku Lawsuit in 1998 (ended in 2000).61 Bar-Tal et al., 246.62 Ibid. 253.63 Daniel Bar-Tal, ‘Sociopsychological Foundations of Intractable Conflicts’, American Behavioral Scientist 50 (2007), 1441.64 Bar-Tal et al., 253.65 Before the surrender, on 10 August 1945, by arguing that the use of new bombs that killed innocent civilians indiscriminately and cruelly violated the international law was a crime against humanity, the empire of Japan filed a complaint against the US via the government of Switzerland, which was the first and only official protest made by the Japanese government: Tanaka, 148.66 Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto, Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), cited in Bar-Tal et al., 244.67 Bar-Tal et al., 243.68 Ibid., 258.69 Rosenberg.70 Ibid.71 Ibid.72 Vera L. Zolberg, ‘Contested Remembrance: The Hiroshima Exhibit Controversy’, Theory and Society 27, no. 4 (1998), 566.73 Michael J. Hogan, ’The Enola Gay Controversy: History, Memory, and the Politics of Presentation’, in Hiroshima in History & Memory, ed. Michael J. Hogan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 200–32.74 Fumiyo Kouno, Yunagi no Machi, Sakura no Kuni [Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms] (Tokyo: Futabasha, 2004), 33.75 Ibid.76 Rosenberg.Additional informationNotes on contributorsYuji UesugiYuji Uesugi is a professor of peace and conflict studies at the Faculty of International Education and Research, Waseda University, Tokyo. Before assuming his current position, he was an associate professor at the Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University. He was a member of the research project entitled ‘Creation of the Study of Reconciliation’ and this work was supported by JP17H063336. He is now a principal investigator of the Open Research Area (ORA) for the Social Science (JPJSJRP 20221401) entitled ‘Citizen Inclusion in Power-Sharing Settlements’.