As for what I think about Japan and its history, I like to draw a comparison with r*** victims. When you hear that someone is a victim of r***, do you think of her/him as a victim all the time? Is being the victim of r*** only the element that characterizes her/himself? No. She/he is a human being before she/he is a victim. She/he is a person with multiple dimensions. It is narrow view to think of her/him as a single entity because of a terrible incident that has happened to her/him.
The same thing goes to Japan. Japan is a nation before it was the aggressor of war (which notion should be carefully examined as there were multiple causes that triggered WWII.) USA is a country before it is a world police, or 'Murica.
We clearly do not say Fuck Nazis whenever we see Volkswagen, yes?
Nicely said as well. Love intelligent discourse, it can be a rare commodity here.
I think that, firstly, you are talking about a form a prejudice, that is, preconceptions that people form based on the information "at hand" (whether factual or fictional in basis). These are normal blindspots that all people suffer from but we can only make judgements based on our present knowledge, and we will, regardless of the wisdom of it. It is part of the human defect. The challenge is to always seek to overcome our inherent defects by expanding our knowledge and points of view.
As far as Japan not being the aggresor in WWII? I am pretty sure they drew first blood when the Japanese army invaded Manchuria in 1931 and with the invasion of China in 1937. There were other factors at work, politically and economically but these do not change those facts. Nor, do I feel, that it was the conquests themselves that painted Japan in such a bad light and left such a bitter aftertaste. Japan was a "bit" on the brutal side as conquerors. Given the size of Japan and the aspirations they had some of this can be understood as a necessity but a lot of acts were closer to the defintion of gratuitous. But like I have said, war is an ugly thing and the past is just that, the past.
A thing or two about America being the "World Police". An argument can be made that is an after affect of their role in WWII. There are a lot of people in America, myself included, that believe it is time to withdraw much of our armed forces abroad and close many of our bases around the world. When a somewhat controversial politician made a similar argument to reducing Americas' role "abroad" he drew criticism from not just fellow polticians but from European news agencies who claimed that he wished to "abandon his allies". The World cannot have it both ways, you cannot ask a country to stay and criticise it for doing so in the same breath (but they do anyway).
An interesting fact, Germany is a very large trading partner now with Israel. Yet some people, in my country and heard by my ears, still harbor bad feelings towards German companies such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagon for their role in WWII.
