AFTER VIOLENCE: 3R, RECONSTRUCTION, RECONCILIATION ...

Let us try to summarize. Who/what was/is guilty of Nanking?
Nobody would deny a classical actor guilt, possibly more for those
higher up than those lower down, and among the former more for the
Imperial center than the person who was executed. We can accept
both the N rnberg Tribunal position, that those lower down cannot
get off their guilt claiming that they only followed orders,/47/
and the Tokyo Tribunal position that those higher up cannot get
off their guilt claiming ignorance of what the lower ranks were
doing. We could also accept limited rationality under influence of
such intoxicants as alcohol, sex and war frenzy.
But these are fine distinctions within an actor-oriented
perspective. Given 100% guilt one possible distribution would be
50% to the culture, 40% to the structure and 10% to actors; with
those 10% distributed 10% to the rank and file, 40% to the
officers and 50% to the imperial military/political center; to
indicate a point of view. The legal position is very onesided
epistemologically and one could add: anti-military, with some
nuances as to where the point of guilt gravity is located. The
two tribunals strip the military of some exculpatory arguments,
restores them as responsible human beings. But all others and
everything else escapes with impunity, scot free, leaving the next
generation with nothing to do except reading some history. The
searchlight will not be on the victors and their justice, nor on
the countless helpers of the military, nor on posterity.
True, to sentence a people to change their structure and
culture could also endanger human rights. But to challenge, and
change, structural and cultural violence is a task for us all; up-
hill, never-ending, indispensable. In that we are all co-
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