{"id":98555,"date":"2020-02-02T13:47:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T20:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98555"},"modified":"2020-02-02T13:47:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-02T20:47:22","slug":"japans-role-in-sri-lanka-gaining-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/02\/japans-role-in-sri-lanka-gaining-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s role in Sri Lanka gaining independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Senaka Weeraratna<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(Note: <\/strong>Mr. Senaka Weeraratna,\nAttorney \u2013 at \u2013 law, delivered the keynote address at a Symposium held on the premises of the Japanese Parliament\n(Conference Room No. 101 of the Diet) on 14th November, 2018 on the topic titled \u2018\nJapan\u2019s attack on Pearl Harbour ignited the liberation of Asia from Western\nDomination \u2013 Time for Asia to express gratitude to Japan\u2019. The Symposium was\norganized by the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Weeraratna was\nthe first Sri Lankan and first Asian to thank Japan on the premises of Japan\u2019s\nParliament for making huge blood sacrifices of Japanese soldiers and thereby\npaving the way for the liberation of Europe’s Asian colonies including British\noccupied Ceylon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crux of his\nargument was as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The time has come\nto challenge the hype that Sri Lanka won independence from Britain in 1948\nexclusively by our own local efforts through an exchange of correspondence and\npolitical negotiations without any supportive foreign factor. This British\ncentric – friendly narrative is increasingly unsustainable in the light of new\nevidence\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is\nbased on Mr. Weeraratna\u2019s aforesaid paper)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sri\nLanka gained Independence in February 1948, almost effortlessly (without blood\nletting) when compared to what other countries had to face. There was no\nmass-based independence struggle, civil disobedience movement or armed\nrebellion in Sri Lanka unlike that in India, Burma, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South\nAfrica, Indonesia and Vietnam. Sri Lanka failed to produce a single iconic\nglobal figure in the pre-independence period that the rest of the colonized\nworld could emulate or look up to as an inspirational figure for their\nliberation struggles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asia\nhas produced great freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi,\nNetaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,\nJawaharlal Nehru, Vinayak\nDamodar Savarkar (India), Mao Tse\nTung, Chou en Lai (China), Ho Chi Minh, General V\u00f5 Nguy\u00ean Gi\u00e1p<\/a>,  Ph\u1ea1m V\u0103n \u0110\u1ed3ng<\/a>  (Vietnam), Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta<\/a> (Indonesia),\nAung San, U Nu (Burma), Jose Rizal (Philippines),\namong others. Africa had great anti- colonial leaders such as Patrice Lumumba (Congo),\nJomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) and Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s role<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\nwas never a European colony before its defeat in 1945 to produce freedom\nfighters. Nevertheless, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour (Dec. 1941) and\nother western colonial possessions in Asia, had a great impact on the\npsychology and morale of the people of Asia then mostly under western colonial\ndomination, and its battle success in the early phase of the War helped Asia\u2019s\nfreedom fighters to step up their campaign for liberation from foreign\noccupation and achieve independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early part of the 20th century, Japan was the\nonly country in the world that stood out openly for the liberation of Asia from\nwestern colonialism and had the capacity and resources to take on the\nchallenge. \u2018Asia for Asians\u2019 became a battle cry of the Japanese. No other\nAsian country including China and India, took up such a Pan\u2013Asian slogan or was\nplaced in such militarily strong position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s war policy intended a total break from\nWestern dependence, including a rejection of bankrupt Western cultural\ntraditions, which had been slavishly adopted since the Meiji restoration, and a\nreturn to an Asian consciousness (as opposed to Western) and Eastern civilizational\nvalues as a source for national greatness. Critical to the nation\u2019s survival in\nthe midst of unbridled Westernization was political and cultural regeneration\nand a pan-Asian solidarity under Japanese leadership which was articulated as a\nnew Order for Asia in resistance to Western imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matsuoka Yosuke, then Japanese Foreign Minister,\nproclaimed the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere\u201d in August 1940. The\nidea of decolonization of Asia from European domination under Japanese\nleadership resonated with Asians widely because, in the words of former U.S.\nPresident Herbert Hoover in 1942, universally, the white man is hated by the\nChinese, Malayan, Indian and Japanese alike,\u201d due to his heartless and spiteful\nconduct as a colonial master over a few hundred years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s military success in the Battle of Tsushima in\n1905 prompted a young Oxford lecturer, Alfred Zimmern, to put aside his lesson\non Greek history to announce to his class the most historical event which has\nhappened, or is likely to happen, in our lifetime has happened; the victory of\na non-white people over a white people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s spectacular military victories at the\nbeginning of the 20th century and their impact on Asian intellectuals are well\ndocumented in Pankaj Mishra\u2019s book titled, From the Ruins of Empire: The\nRevolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This work is a survey of Asian intellectuals in the\nlate 19th and early 20th centuries and their role in pan-Asian, pan-Islamic,\nand anti-colonial movements. The book begins with an electrifying moment in\nAsia\u2019s struggle for liberation from Western domination: the astounding Japanese\nnaval victory over Russia at the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, which stunned\nAsians and Africans living at the time under the yoke of colonialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jawarharlal Nehru, Mohandas Gandhi, Sun Yat-Sen, Mao\nZedong, the young Kemal Ataturk and nationalists in Egypt, Vietnam and many\nother countries welcomed Japan\u2019s decisive triumph in the Russo-Japanese War\nwith euphoric zeal. And they all drew the same lesson from Japan\u2019s victory,\u201d\nPankaj Mishra writes. White men, conquerors of the world, were no longer\ninvincible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, noted that the\nreverberations of that victory have gone like a thunderclap through the\nwhispering galleries of the East.\u201d The world wars that followed further shrunk\nEurope of much of what remained of its moral and political authority in Asian\neyes. In the long view, however,\u201d Mishra concludes, it is the battle of\nTsushima that seems to have struck the opening chords of the recessional of the\nWest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s defeat of Russia in 1905 was uplifting news\nfor Asians. For the first time since the middle ages, a non-European country\nhad vanquished a European power in a major war. And Japan\u2019s victory gave way to\na hundred- and-one fantasies \u2013 of national freedom, racial dignity, or simple\nvengefulness \u2013 in the minds of those who had bitterly endured European\noccupation of their lands. Mahatma Gandhi then made an astute far reaching\nforecast. He remarked that so far and wide have the roots of Japanese victory\nspread that we cannot now visualise all the fruit it will put forth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s proposal for equality of races at League of Nations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nJapan had championed the cause of peoples under European colonial rule at the\nTreaty of Paris (1918\u201319) and the formation of the League of Nations. Japan\nproposed an amendment to the League\u2019s covenant that would ensure equal and\njust treatment in every respect, making no distinction, either in law or in\nfact, on account of their race or nationality.\u201d To their great shame, the\nwestern colonial powers rejected the notion of equality between human beings,\nfearing that it would become a challenge to white supremacy and the Colonial\nOrder which suppressed non\u2013white people. However, Japan by this proposal for\nrecognition of equality of all, gained the esteem of Asians and Africans as the\nlogical leader of all coloured peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nIn respect to the Second World war, Jawaharlal Nehru observed;
\nit became ever clearer that the western democracies were fighting not for a\nchange but for a perpetuation of the old order, \u201d and both the Allied and Axis\npowers shared a common war interest, the preservation of white supremacy and\nthe colonial status quo. Both sides, he noted, embraced legacies of empire and\nracial discrimination,\u201d and in affirmation after the war, the old imperialisms\nstill functioned\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nJapan\u2019s stunning military victories in\n1941 \u2013 1942<\/strong>
\nThirty-six years after its victory in the Battle of Tsushima, Japan struck the\ngreatest decisive blow ever by any non \u2013 white country or non \u2013 white people to\nEuropean power in Asia with the attack on Pearl Harbour. In about 90 days,\nbeginning on December 8, 1941, Japan overran the possessions of Britain, the US\nand the Netherlands in east and south-east Asia, taking the Philippines,\nSingapore, Malaya, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies, much of Siam and French\nIndochina, and Burma with bewildering swiftness to stand poised at the borders\nof India by early 1942. All over Asia, subject people cheered the Japanese\nadvance into countries forcibly held and occupied by western colonial powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nDays before Singapore fell to the Japanese in early 1942, the Dutch Prime\nMinister-in-Exile, Pieter Gerbrandy, had conveyed his fears and anxieties to\nChurchill and other Allied leaders in the following words Japanese injuries\nand insults to the White population \u2026 would irreparably damage white prestige\nunless severely punished within a short time\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia\u2019s former\nPrime Minister, has said most Asians felt inferior to the European colonisers\nand rarely did we even consider independence a viable option.\u201d The colonies, he\nexplained, were structured to serve the European demand for raw materials and\nnatural resources,\u201d and were thus dependencies. But Japan\u2019s expulsion of the\nBritish changed our view of the world,\u201d showing that an Asian race, the\nJapanese\u201d could defeat whites and with that reality dawned a new awakening\namongst us that if we wanted to, we could be like the Japanese. We did have the\nability to govern our own country and compete with the Europeans on an equal\nfooting.\u201d So despite the suffering under Japanese wartime occupation and the\ntremendous disappointment\u201d over the return of the British after the war,\nMohamad wrote, the shackles of mental servitude\u201d had been broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nSimilarly, Singapore\u2019s Lee Kuan Yew testified that Japan\u2019s defeat of the\nBritish completely changed our world\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nExpressions of praise and gratitude to\nJapan
\n<\/strong>The Japanese with their stunning military victories over a common foe had\nmade Asian people proud and stand erect with their heads held high.
\nBritain was colonizing, enslaving Asian people before WW2. They ruled the Indian\npeople for 180 years. It was Japan that got rid of the British from most of\nAsia and later all those countries gained independence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nJapan lost WW2 but as the consequence of Japan\u2019s entry to war all S E Asian\ncountries and India achieved their long hoped for independence from the Western\ncolonial powers within 15 years after the end of the War.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nBritish historian Arnold Toynbee said:
\nJapan put an end to West\u2019s colonialism in Asia once and for all.\u201d
\nToynbee added In World War II, Japanese people left a great history. Not for\ntheir own country but for countries that achieved benefit from the War. Those\ncountries were ones that were included in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity\nSphere, a short-lived ideal that Japan held out. The biggest achievement\nJapanese people left in history is that they succeeded in displaying the fact\nthat Westerners who dominated the world were not Undefeatable Gods.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nFormer Thai Prime Minister Kukrit Pramoj Expressed his Admiration for Japan
\nThe former Prime Minister of Thailand, Kukrit Pramoj, who was Chief Editor of\nthe newspaper \u2018Siam Rath\u2019 at the time and who took office as Prime Minister in\n1973, stated:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was thanks to Japan that all\nnations of Asia gained independence. For Mother Japan, it was a difficult birth\nwhich resulted in much suffering, yet her children are growing up quickly to be\nhealthy and strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nWho was it that enabled the citizens of the nations of Southeast Asia to gain\nequal status alongside the United States and Britain today? It is because Japan,\nwho acted like a mother to us all, carried out acts of benevolence towards us\nand performed feats of self-sacrifice. December 8th (1941) is the day when\nMother Japan \u2013 who taught us this important lesson \u2013 laid her life on the line\nfor us, after making a momentous decision and risking her own well-being for\nour sake.
\nFurthermore, August 15th (1945) is the day when our beloved and revered mother\nwas frail and ailing. Neither of these two days should ever be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttp:\/\/www.japanese-greatest.com\/mentality-culture\/animation\/kukrit-pramoj.html\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Long accustomed to servility in colonial countries,\nwestern powers grossly underestimated the post-war nationalism that the\nJapanese had both wittingly and unwittingly unleashed. They had also severely\nmiscalculated their own staying power among foreign subject people innately\nhostile to them. Despite futile counter-insurgency operations and full-scale\nwars, especially in Indochina, the spread of decolonisation was swift and\nextraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burma, which hardly had a full blown nationalist\nmovement before 1935, became free in 1948. The Dutch in Indonesia resisted with\na rear guard defense and US and British assistance but Indonesian nationalists\nled by Sukarno finally overpowered them and pushed them out in 1953. Postwar\nchaos forced Malaya, Singapore and Vietnam into long periods of insurgencies\nand wars, but an ultimate European retreat was never in doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No colonial country withdraws voluntarily from its colonies\nunless there are insurmountable \u2018 push \u2018 factors or except under compelling\ncircumstances. The best illustration of this proposition is the shameful return\nof the Dutch and the French to regain their colonies in Asia after the end of\nthe second world war. Japanese occupation during World War II had ended Dutch\nrule, and the Japanese encouraged the previously suppressed Indonesian\nindependence movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their opposition to the tyranny of Nazi rule of\nFrance and Netherlands (1940 -1944), and delight in being liberated by the\nAllies, these two colonial powers were not prepared to share the freedom they\ngained in Europe with the subject people in Asia ( and Africa). They were not\nwelcomed when they returned. Indonesians under Sukarno with the help of\nJapanese volunteers that remained in Indonesia after the defeat of Japan,\ndefeated the Dutch in a series of military battles to finally gain independence\nin 1949. Likewise the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh performed admirably to wrest\ncontrol from the French by defeating them at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and finally\nresulting in their withdrawal from all colonies of French Indo \u2013 China under\nthe Geneva Accords of 1954.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s unsung role in\nIndia\u2019s independence struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

British governance in India \u2014 three centuries of\nexorbitant taxation, unfair trade practices, rampant free-marketeering and\ndeliberate starvation had led to the deaths of millions of Indians in\npreventable famines. It was a holocaust worse than the much publicized Jewish\nHolocaust in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan played a critical (largely unsung) role in\nIndia\u2019s struggle for independence by supporting Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and\nassisting him to form the Indian National Army (INA). It is argued with\nvehemence by informed observers that without Bose\u2019s INA, India might never have\nachieved independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because, although the INA failed militarily\nin the Battles at Kohima and Imphal along the India\u2013Burma border in 1944 as\npart of the Japanese attempted entry to India, its troops (INA) got another\nopportunity to challenge the British Colonial Government in a Delhi courtroom\nin 1945. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three INA Officers were put on trial for treason at\nRed Fort. This move backfired on the British. The accused a Muslim, Sikh and\nHindu justified their roles as liberators of a colonized nation and won the\nsympathy of the Indian public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This led to support for the defendants spreading\nthroughout the nation \u2014 including among Indians serving in the British Indian Army.\nThese newly radicalized troops staged strikes and mutinies across the\nsubcontinent in 1946 against the British occupation. With its once-solid\nmilitary foundation shaken to the core \u2014 and facing widespread, huge\ndemonstrations and possible mutinies by the three forces, Army, Navy and Air\nForce, on a scale bigger than the Indian Mutiny in 1857 \u2014 the British\nauthorities decided that it was time to pack up and leave. On August 15, 1947,\nthey granted India its independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An unwise partition of the Indian subcontinent, which\nplaced two new nation-states in endless conflict, marked Britain\u2019s humiliating\ndeparture from India in 1947.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe,\u201d Jean-Paul Sartre claimed in his preface to\nFranz Fanon\u2019s Wretched of the Earth, seemed to be springing leaks everywhere.\u201d\nIn the past we made history,\u201d Sartre asserted, and now it is being made of\nus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Book \u2013 \u2018 Bose: An Indian Samurai\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nIn a new Book \u2018 Bose: An Indian Samurai\u2019 by military historian General GD\nBakshi, claims that the former British Prime Minister Clement Atlee had said\nthat the role played by Netaji\u2019s Indian National Army was paramount in India\nbeing granted Independence, while the non-violent movement led by Gandhi was\ndismissed as having had minimal effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the book,\nBakshi cites a conversation between the then British PM Attlee and then\nGovernor of West Bengal Justice PB Chakraborty in 1956 when Attlee \u2013 the leader\nof Labour Party and the British premier who had signed the decision to grant\nIndependence to India in 1947 \u2013 had come to India and stayed in Kolkata as\nChakraborty\u2019s guest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chakraborty,\nwho was then the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court and was serving as\nthe acting Governor of West Bengal, is quoted as saying : When I was acting\ngovernor, Lord Attlee, who had given us Independence by withdrawing British\nrule from India, spent two days in the governor\u2019s palace at Calcutta during his\ntour of India. At that time I had a prolonged discussion with him regarding the\nreal factors that had led the British to quit India.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My direct\nquestion to Attlee was that since Gandhi\u2019s Quit India Movement had tapered off\nquite some time ago and in 1947 no such new compelling situation had arisen\nthat would necessitate a hasty British departure, why did they had to leave?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his reply\nAttlee cited several reasons, the main among them being the erosion of loyalty\nto the British crown among the Indian Army and Navy personnel as a result of\nthe military activities of Netaji,\u201d Chakraborty said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toward the\nend of our discussion I asked Attlee what was the extent of Gandhi\u2019s influence\nupon the British decision to leave India. Hearing this question, Attlee\u2019s lips\nbecame twisted in a sarcastic smile as he slowly chewed out the word,\n\u2018m-i-n-i-m-a-l\u2019,\u201d Chakraborty added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nSri Lanka \u2013 a beneficiary of Japan\u2019s war to end European\ncolonialism in Asia<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka\u2019s Anagarika Dharmapala stood out as a global Buddhist missionary the\nfirst of its kind in the modern era. But Dharmapala never led a proactive\nswaraj (independence) movement anywhere near the scale of Gandhi or Subash\nChandra Bose. Letter writing, essay writing and speech making which was the\nhallmark of our local national leaders never really disturbed or effectively\nweakened the resolve of the foreign occupier. Only armed resistance did.\nAfter the last two great Sinhala rebellions in 1818 and 1848, which were\nbrutally crushed and which would constitute war crimes today under Nuremberg\nlaws, the political will for any more such armed uprising against the foreign\noccupier for Lanka\u2019s freedom simply disappeared.  Nevertheless freedom\ncame to Sri Lanka one hundred years after the last shot was fired in the Matale\nrebellion in 1848, on a platter because of the blood sacrifices made by\nsoldiers of other Asian countries led by Japan during and after the second\nworld war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jawaharlal\nNehru, the Indian Prime Minister (1947 \u2013 1964) when asked in the 1930s to name\na likely date that India would win independence from Britain, replied by saying\nit would probably be in the late 1970s i.e. long after their time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Major \u2013\nGeneral Mohan Singh, a pioneer of the Indian National Army (INA) in Malaya, has\nsaid The British had not given even an empty promise even in 1939 to grant us\ncomplete freedom after the war\u201d ( The Reader\u2019s Digest Illustrated History of\nWorld War II).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that\nIndia gained freedom in 1947 much earlier than the date that Nehru thought was\npossible, followed by Burma and Ceylon in 1948, was largely due to impact of\nboth external and internal factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S.W.R.D.\nBandaranaike, former Prime Minister of Ceylon (1956- 1959), never sought credit\nfor a \u2018freedom fight\u2019 that never took place in Ceylon. He himself said that one\nmorning he got up from bed to read in the daily newspapers that Ceylon had been\ngranted independence by the British (without a true liberation struggle). There\nwere no \u2018freedom \u2019 related trials in Court, no long term incarceration of\nprisoners for \u2018fighting\u2019 the British, not a single Judgment from a British\ngoverned Court in Ceylon on \u2018the independence movement\u2019. Our \u2018fight\u2019 was basically\nconfined to letter writing while always striving to remain in the good books of\nthe colonizer. Our national leaders (some with knighthoods gained from the\nBritish) gleefully attired in three piece western clothes,  sought Dominon status not total independence\nlike Burma did at the time of its independence on January 04, 1948. We\npreferred to retain links with the \u2018mother country\u2019 on the footing of a British\ncolony and our people as British subjects, rather than seek total freedom.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore\nit is time to rewrite the grand narrative of how Sri Lanka achieved\nindependence taking into account the external factors and Japan\u2019s war against\nthe Western colonial countries which ultimately sealed the fate of European\ncolonialism in Asia. The retreat of the West from its colonies in the East may well be\nsaid to be the singular most important event of the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have a moral obligation to\nright a great wrong done to Japan. In other words, to call on Asian countries\nto shun looking at Japan as an aggressor with criminal intent to plunder and\nloot other Asian countries a line pushed by massive western propaganda but to\nlook at Japan as the real spark that ignited the fight all over Asia for\nindependence from western domination. The time has come for fellow Asians who\nhave benefited from Japan\u2019s massive war effort and the blood sacrifices of\nJapanese soldiers to concede due acknowledgement to Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nTo single out Japan for war crimes selectively while avoiding any mention of\nthe crimes committed by western countries in third-world countries including\ncalling for reparations which both Germany and Japan have paid, is anything but\na travesty of justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nWhat is surprising and morally repugnant today is the unrepentant nostalgia for\nwestern hegemony that has not only gripped many prominent Anglo-American\nleaders and opinion-makers but also several servile Asian politicians, NGOs and\ncolumnists writing as cheer leaders of neo\u2013colonialism, who strive to see Asia\nthrough the narrow angle of protecting western colonial interests, leaving\nunexamined the historical memory and the collective experiences of Asian\npeoples during the dark period of western colonial rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nColonialism and foreign occupation constitute crimes against humanity. They\nrepresent some of the most serious violations of national sovereignty of states\nand breach of international law, and in almost all colonial territories in\nAsia, Africa, North and South America horrendous crimes against humanity have\nbeen committed by the occupying colonial powers. The perpetrators have yet to\nbe held accountable and brought to book under international law for these\ngenocidal crimes. The Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes type Trials have yet to be\nstaged to bring western colonial crimes to book. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan rejected the Western Theory of Manifest Destiny<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan was not\nprepared to accept the freezing of the World Order based on colonialism and\nmaking it the Status Quo that could not be challenged or changed except at the\nrisk of being branded as committing crimes against peace. Japan led the world\nin rejecting the western theory of Manifest Destiny which held that the United\nStates was destined\u2014by God\u2014to expand its dominion and spread democracy and\ncapitalism across the entire North American continent and there after the Asia\n\u2013 Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japanese\nleaders have unfortunately paid the supreme penalty for their defiance of the\nWest. They were brought before Tribunals which in the words of their own\nAmerican judges were nothing but \u2018 high grade lynch mobs\u2019. In a sense these\nTribunals were nothing but \u2018 Kangaroo Courts\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A survey of\nCourts set up by colonial authorities all over the world in European colonies\nto try freedom fighters, whether they be black, brown, yellow or even white,\nshows a remarkable consistency in the manipulation of justice to serve\npolitical ends of colonial rulers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor\u2019s\nJustice was what was served to those who had fought for freedom of their people\nand were unfortunate to be defeated and then be brought before courts accused\nof committing crimes against peace, humanity and war crimes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nInternational Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo\nTrials) was a larger and more sophisticated manifestation of Kangaroo Court\ntype trials held in European colonies during the last 500 years.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority\nof Judges in the Tokyo Trials were European though the theater of war was\nexclusively Asian. In excluding Asians from the panel of Judges bar three\nout of the eleven judges the authorities displayed a crass colonial attitude of\ncontempt and insensitivity to Asian claims for equality and like\ntreatment. It was imperfect Justice in its most virulent form. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one Judge\nhad the spine and moral backbone to challenge the legitimacy of the Trial. He\nwas the legal luminary Justice Radhabinod Pal (India). In his 1, 235 page\nlandmark dissent he condemned the trial as unjust and unreasonable,\ncontributing nothing to lasting peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sri Lanka\nthe rebels who fought in freedom struggles in 1818 and 1848 were executed and\nthe entire communities in rebel controlled territories were subject to vicious\nreprisals e.g. Uva- Wellassa (1818) and Matale (1848) that were not very\ndifferent to what happened to the innocent civilians in Lidice in Nazi\noccupied Czechoslovakia in 1942. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara made the following observation\nin 1995 Many Westerners act as if Human Rights are their moral ace in the\nhole, until their abysmal record in Asia is cited, and their position collapses\nlike a pack of cards. Pointing out their hypocrisy does not deter the\nAmericans, however. They blunder on badgering Asian Governments \u2026. \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceylon opposed\nisolation of Japan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defeat of Japan in 1945 was only aPyrrhic victory for\nthe British, the French and the Dutch. Within a decade they lost their Asian\nEmpire. Nevertheless, many Western nations demanded payment for reparations for\ndamages caused during the war.  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

J.R. Jayewardene\n(then Ceylon\u2019s Finance Minister) was outspoken at the San Francisco Peace\nTreaty Conference in 1951 in opposing the isolation of Japan. He called for\nJapan’s re- integration into the international community, without imposing\nharsh punishment by way of reparations. The two other men who were closely\nassociated with J.R. Jayewardene’s historic speech, were the then Prime\nMinister D.S. Senanayake (who gave instructions to J.R. Jayewardene to toe the\nline as preached by the Buddha –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hatred does\nnot cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”) and Sir\nSusantha Fonseka , then Ceylon\u2019s first Ambassador to Japan (who was an ardent\nsupporter of the Japanese cause, and even the influence behind the government\u2019s\ndecision not to ask for war compensation)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De-colonise Asian minds and show gratitude to Japan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nThe challenge before fellow Asians is to de-colonise our minds and look at\nJapan\u2019s conduct before and during the Second World War afresh. Though Japan\neventually lost the war its military effort was not in vain. It substantially\nweakened and demoralised the western countries then in occupation of large\ntracts of Asia, such as Britain, France, Netherlands, Portugal and the US, that\nthey were forced to quit Asia in next to no time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nIt is political correctness and revelations of Japan\u2019s conduct in war-related\natrocities during the Second World War that prevent Japan from being given due\ncredit for its unique contribution towards hastening the liberation of Asia\nfrom western colonial rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nTragically today the legacy of Japan\u2019s heroic contributions and sacrifices as\nthe first Asian country that stood up and fought to drive out European\ncolonialism from Asia in the 20th century, is seldom acknowledged, rarely\ncelebrated, and hardly mentioned as a form of thanksgiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nIt is never too late to show Asia\u2019s gratitude to Japan and re-write the\nhistorical narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka Weeraratna<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Senaka Weeraratna (Note: Mr. Senaka Weeraratna, Attorney \u2013 at \u2013 law, delivered the keynote address at a Symposium held on the premises of the Japanese Parliament (Conference Room No. 101 of the Diet) on 14th November, 2018 on the topic titled \u2018 Japan\u2019s attack on Pearl Harbour ignited the liberation of Asia from Western […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senaka-weeraratna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}