Senaka Weeraratna

Today, December 7 is the 81st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour which finally led to the liberation of the oppressed people in European colonies in Asia and Africa and other parts of the world. 

The fightback of the Japanese Imperial Army, Navy, and Air Force, and Japanese people destroyed the myth of the so-called Invincibility of the Western colonial countries and the untenable Christian concept of Manifest Destiny, which promoted the idea of White Supremacism and the collapse of all other civilizations which were not rooted in Judeo – Christian doctrines.  

The importance of the overthrow of Western colonial powers in Asia in a massive counter-attack led by Imperial Japan should not, therefore, be underestimated. 

If the intervention of Imperial Japan had not taken place beginning with the bombing of Pearl Harbour on December 07, 1941, then the end of oppression & exploitation by Western colonialism would have continued for a longer time 

decades upon decades. The entire world would have turned into one big colony of Western imperialistic powers.  

Of all the major countries that took part in the Second World War, Japan was the only country that declared the liberation of fellow Asians from Western imperialism under the banner ‘Asia for Asia’, as one of its primary goals.  No other country in the West or East declared or committed itself to the grant of freedom to Asians and Africans in European colonies, following victory in the war.

In 1939 the end of Western Colonialism was never in sight. But the entry of Japan into WW2 in December 1941 turned things around and shaped the emergence of a new world that ultimately ended Western hegemony. This is starkly clear in historical terms and it cannot be ignored. Japan is entitled to credit for this huge achievement despite losing the war-making immense blood sacrifices. 

Senaka Weeraratna