Lessons from the Japanese after the Bombs

by Anas Aljumaily

On August 6th 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb “little boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima that instantly killed an estimated 66,000 people. 65 years ago today on August 9th 1945, the United States dropped another atomic bomb “fat man” over the Japanese city of Nagasaki that also instantly killed an estimated 60,000 people. 65 years have passed, a generation has gone and a new one was born in its place, and it seems as though we as a race have yet to learn about the damage we can do to ourselves.

I would like to take the opportunity of the sad anniversary of these atrocities not to discuss peace or nuclear disarmament as many of my friends and colleagues are doing. Instead I will take this opportunity to discuss the lessons that we as Arabs have to learn from the Japanese, who despite their having witnessed the human catastrophe the world seems to have forgiven the US for, drove their nation from destruction, capitulation and social, economic and political devastation into one of the world’s wealthiest nations on earth.

There are three short stories I would like to bring forward that will aid me in portraying to you the mentality that drove Japan from destruction, time and time again throughout the course of history, to prosperity and societal development. In these stories, I find morals that can help us, as Arabs, realign our attention so that we learn from the choices of our late fellow human beings.

The first story is one that was relayed time and time again by Japan’s proud and charismatic former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizimu. The story takes place in the Edo period (1603-1868) during the Meiji Restoration war between the Tokugawa Shogun and the Emperor. Nagaoka city, due to the effects of the war, had faced a year of devastating harvests and the population of the city was facing imminent starvation. So as a gesture of good will, one of Nagaoka’s neighboring cities sent Nagaoka 100 sacks of rice which the farmers and the samurai of the city began splitting up between themselves. They continued the fight until one minister, Minister Kobayashi, of Nagaoka stood up to his hungry subjects and told his people:

“If we all share the rice and eat it, it will last not more than a few days. If, however, we sell the rice and use the finds to build a school for our children, this 100 sacks of rice will become 10,000 and then to 50,000 sacks of rice.

Who better to describe this feeling to me than the member of a ravaged family from Hiroshima who lost everything including many of its members? The second story, which involves me personally, is of a conversation that took place around this time last year with the son of an atom bomb “survivor”. It was early morning on August 6th 1945 when Mr. Hiroshi, after saying goodbye to a few friends, boarded a train at Tokyo station heading back home. During the same morning hours, a Boeing B-29, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets was thousands of feet in the air heading to Mr. Hiroshi’s home carrying a 3 meter tube loaded with the most devastating material available at the time. At 8:15 that morning, with Mr. Hiroshi more than 3/4th the way back home the train suddenly came to a screeching stop and the attendants came on the intercoms and announced to the train’s disoriented passengers:

“Something bad has happened in Hiroshima…”

Everything that Mr. Hiroshi worked for, lived for, and was willing to die for disappeared within a matter of seconds. He was told that people he knew and the community he belonged to in Hiroshima no longer existed. His friends, family, co-workers, neighbors were all gone, all at once. Those who did survive, as Mr. Hiroshi would later experience, were to suffer for a few months before joining their late brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and friends. What happened that day was no small feat and, if you can imagine it, what the Japanese did later that week was even more powerful. Mr. Hiroshi, along with the remaining friends and family had contributed, as proud Japanese, to a decision that represents the essence of what it means to be Japanese. In response to the horrendous events, Japanese people from the northern tip of the archipelago to its southern tip entered the mind set of re-builders. In order to rebuild, the Japanese understood, they would need to forgo their right to revenge. Although US troops occupied Japan after Japan’s capitulation, the Japanese were too busy rebuilding their homes to even think of bothering the people who destroyed them. This attitude embodies a concept that eludes the rest of the world, including my home, Iraq: to forgive, to forget, and look to the future.

The method in which the Japanese chose to “look to the future” brings me to my final story, which is of a photo, one that I sadly could not locate a digital copy of, that greets visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It was taken by a photographer photo-chronicling post-bomb Hiroshima. The black-and-white photo, dated just days after the bomb, shows a teacher standing on the rubble of decimated buildings using a fractured as a blackboard to teach students sitting on rocks. The ground shaking message, intended or not, being made by the people of Hiroshima is clear as day: education is the way we will rise once again. Education, not revenge, electricity, food or anything else was Japan’s top priority.

Revenge is an important part of our lives. When we are dealt with unjustly, we deserve to fight back and and reclaim justice for ourselves. Equally important however is the concept of forgiveness in return for greater reward later in life or after death. Revenge is not a way of life and those who do adopt this lifestyle usually fuel a wider circle of violence that ends up hurting everyone in a society. To forgive, forget and look to the future is the way in which the Japanese were able to rise from the rubble in Tokyo and the nuclear poison in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and develop the second largest economy in the world. The Japanese reaped the rewards of their forgiving, forgetting and forward looking attitude in the form a rich, safe, stable, highly developed nation. In Islam, when we are wronged, we have a choice and that is to pursue revenge, rightfully, and forgo a later reward or forgive and forget and save our pains in a plan that will accumulate massive reserves either in this world or in the hereafter.

Finally, I would like to point out that the Japanese did not choose education as the building block of their new society out of luck or chance, they, having adopted a similar a mentality to that of Minister Kobayashi of Nagaoka, chose education for its proven track record of building strong, value oriented, smart human beings who then become the building blocks of a prosperous society. Education in science, math, values, morals, language, geography, etc. from a devastated generation to their children led to the creation of one of the most intellectually, economically and technologically developed nations on earth: Japan.

The sun never sets in the land of the rising sun.

I leave it up to you to extract more morals and lessons from my account of these three stories all of which have had great influence on my approach to issues in the Middle East. I look forward to reading and responding to your comments.

Anas Aljumaily