Summary: The Injustice Of Nanking

Living in a complex and intricate world comes with consequence, as does choosing to whether to view the events in a simplistic manner that abstracts the true nature of history, or a daunting truth that nothing is really simple as you were made to believe in grade school. Everything can be considered political in some regard, even one’s memory, and more importantly, the collective memory of entire nations. Whether one prescribes to the philosophy that there are simple truths of moral black and whites or that there are grey boundaries that blur the lines between moral and unjust, they must come to terms with the consequences of their viewpoint. Though many prefer to simplify and clean up the history of their own country in order to keep their own consciences clear of pessimistic opinions of their heritage, it is necessary to recognize and accept the unjust and amoral acts …show more content…
Where major events are concerned, especially concerning questionably excessive violence by the country in which one lives, some prefer to glaze over the details and minimize the bits that make their country look bad while inflating the parts that make them feel a sense of national pride. One such country is Japan, where the Rape of Nanking is an event that has been wiped clean of gruesome details that would embarrass the population and cast shame of their self-image. Michael Bess, a teacher for an undergraduate class on the topic of World War II, found that many Japanese exchange students were “wide-eyed and amazed” when they heard of the atrocities that their country had committed in Nanking (Bess, 312). Their textbooks had only noted that Japan had occupied Nanking, not that they had both raped and massacred the population of the city over the course of several weeks. In the information era,