Peace Philosophy Centre, based in Vancouver, Canada (est. 2007), provides a space for dialogue and facilitates learning for creating a peaceful and sustainable world. ピース・フィロソフィー・センター(カナダ・バンクーバー 2007年設立)は平和で持続可能な世界を創るための対話と学びの場を提供します。피스필로소피센터(캐나다·밴쿠버 2007년 설립)는 평화롭고 지속 가능한 세계를 만들기 위한 대화와 배움의 장소를 제공합니다. 欢迎来到和平哲学中心!我们来自加拿大温哥华,我们致力于促进对话及建立可持续发展的和平世界。欢迎您留下宝贵的评论。Follow Twitter: @PeacePhilosophy / "Like" Facebook: Peace Philosophy Centre メールEmail: peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com
To view articles in English only, click HERE. 日本語投稿のみを表示するにはここをクリック。点击此处观看中文稿件。한국어 투고★Follow Twitter ツイッターは@PeacePhilosophy and Facebook★投稿内に断り書きがない限り、当サイトの記事の転載は許可が必要です。peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com にメールをください。Re-posting from this blog requires permission unless otherwise specified. Please email peacephilosophycentre@gmail.com to contact us.
Here is the text, in English, with Chinese translation (simplified and traditional) by Arc Zhen Han, of my speech at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Vigil, held in Chinatown, Vancouver, BC, Canada, on December 7, 2024. With the video compiled and subtitled by E. Kage. See more information here.
Nanjing Massacre Memorial Vigil Address
December 7, 2024
Satoko Oka Norimatsu
Hello my name is Satoko Oka Norimatsu. I am a writer and organizer for historical justice and decolonization of East Asia and the Pacific. I am originally from Tokyo, Japan, and since 1997, I have lived here, in the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Thank you so much for coming to our memorial, on this cold winter day.
Growing up in Japan, I never learned about the history of the Japanese Empire’s wars and colonization. When I was 17, I got an opportunity to study at an international school in Victoria, and then, for the first time, I learned about the Japanese Empire’s war crimes and atrocities, from fellow Asian students from Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. This was the beginning of my journey. As a citizen of Japanese ancestry, my responsibility is to help bring awareness to this history, to fight the history denialism, and to help bring justice to the victims, families, and members of the victimized communities.
Today, December 7, marks the 83rd anniversary of the 1941 Japanese surprise attacks against the British and the United States’ colonies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Japan waged these attacks to continue the empire’s aggressive war and occupation in China that had been continuing since their invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932.
The Empire of Japan’s aggression against China goes back further, the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the military intervention with the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5, the military invasions to Shandongs in 1927-28. In 1927, my father was born in Hankow, now part of Wuhan, Hubei Province. My grandfather was the president of a newspaper company in the Japanese colony in Hankow. When my father was 2 months old, his family went back to Japan, and my grandfather died immediately after that. I deeply regret that my grandfather took part in the Japanese occupation of China.
Japan intensified its aggression against China after the Lugou Bridge Battle on July 7, 1937, waged a full-scale battle in Shanghai in August that lasted for 3 months, afflicting thousands of civilians, then marched on to Nanjing in early December. This is when the Japanese Army committed the Nanjing Massacre: the mass slaughters of tens of thousands of Chinese POWs, unarmed soldiers, and random, brutal killings of tens of thousands of civilians, and savage raping and killing of tens of thousands of women and girls. If you have read Iris Chang’s Rape of Nanking, or any other literature on the Nanjing Massacre, no one would argue that it was one of the worst, most horrendous atrocities in human history. These Japanese military leaders and soldiers, heavily indoctrinated with the emperor-centred fanatic racist ideology that made them believe that Japanese were a superior race to their Asian neighbours, were capable of conducting the most ferocious, inhuman acts against fellow human beings.
Nanjing Massacre was not the only massacre in the war. There were countless massacres, bombings, forced labour, rape and sexual slavery, chemical and biological warfare, “kill-all, burn-all, and loot-all” conducts throughout the war until Japan finally surrendered in August of 1945. Next year, 2025, marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the WWII, which meant liberation of all the Asia-Pacific countries and regions under the Japanese occupation. Today, the Japanese government, its political leaders, media, education, and the society in general are largely in denial or in ignorance about the unspeakable suffering that the Japanese wars brought to the people of the Asia-Pacific and POWs of Allied nations. It is a shame.
There are, however, people in many parts of Japan who take this history to heart, and hold commemorative and educational events around the time of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day --- as far as I am aware, in Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kobe, Hiroshima, Kochi, Nagasaki, and Okinawa. While the Japanese government ignores it, hundreds of Japanese citizens visit Nanjing, to attend the National Memorial Ceremony held there on December 13. I was there in 2007, the 70th anniversary, and 2017, the 80th anniversary. The scarf I am wearing today is from the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, with the Chinese velvet cress, the symbol flower for the remembrance for Nanjing.
Here, I join my colleagues in Japan and beyond, renewing our pledge for “Never Again,” never again to allow our country to be an aggressive military power and wage wars, the promise of the Article 9, the war-renunciation clause of the Japanese post-war Constitution.
On this 87th anniversary, I would like to express my deepest condolences for the victims and families of the Nanjing Massacre, and for the victims and families of the countless atrocities by the Empire of Japan. Never again. Thank you.
Satoko Oka Norimatsu is Co-Chair of Article 9 Canada, Director of Peace Philosophy Centre, Co-author of Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018).
简体字 Simplified Chinese version:
你好,我的名字是乘松聡子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)。我是一名致力于东亚和太平洋地区历史正义与去殖民化的作家和活动家。我来自日本东京,自1997年以来,我一直生活在加拿大温哥华——穆斯克姆族、斯阔米什族和特斯雷沃图族印第安人的传统领地。非常感谢大家在这个寒冷的冬日来到我们的纪念活动。
乘松聪子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)是加拿大第九条会(Article 9 Canada)共同主席、和平哲学中心(Peace Philosophy Centre)主任,并合著了《抵抗之岛:冲绳对抗日本与美国》(Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States,罗曼与利特菲尔德出版社,2018年)。
繁體字 Traditional Chinese version:
你好,我的名字是乘松聡子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)。我是一名致力於東亞和太平洋地區歷史正義與去殖民化的作家和活動家。我來自日本東京,自1997年以來,我一直生活在加拿大溫哥華——穆斯克姆族、斯阔米什族和特斯雷沃圖族印第安人的傳統領地。非常感謝大家在這個寒冷的冬日來到我們的紀念活動。
乘松聰子(Satoko Oka Norimatsu)是加拿大第九條會(Article 9 Canada)共同主席、和平哲學中心(Peace Philosophy Centre)主任,並合著了《抵抗之島:沖繩對抗日本與美國》(Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States,羅曼與利特菲爾德出版社,2018年)。
This post is in Japanese. Please use a translation program to read it. 这篇文章是日文的。请使用翻译软件阅读。這篇文章是日文的。請使用翻譯軟體閱讀。
司会をつとめた Nikkei Vancouver for Justice のベックさん(右) とメガンさん(左)
12月7日午後5時から、バンクーバーチャイナタウンにて、南京大虐殺追悼集会を行いました(Nikkei Vancouver for Justice, カナダ9条の会、ピース・フィロソフィーセンター共催)。この時期のバンクーバーは雨ばかりですが、なぜかこの集会の間のために雨が止まったかのような幸運に恵まれ、屋外で無事に追悼集会を行うことができました。
予想以上の、50人かそれ以上の人が来てくれました。若者中心に運営したイベントであったことは歴史記憶を継承する上で意義深かったと思います。Nikkei Vancouver for Justice のベックさん、メガンさん、またチャイナタウンで活動するチャイニーズ系の若者たちがたくさん手伝ってくれ、よいコラボレーションとなったと思います。日系人や日系移民も10人ほど来てくれました。
きたる12月7日(土)午後5-7時、チャイナタウンの中華門前(50 East Pender St., Vancouver, BC) で、南京大虐殺87年の追悼集会を行います。カナダ9条の会、ピース・フィロソフィー・センター、Nikkei Vancouver for Justice など、日本にゆかりのあるグループや個人と、チャイナタウンにゆかりのある有志の仲間と共に企画しました。スピーチ、追悼の時間などを予定しております。ぜひご参加ください。屋外ですので暖かい服装で来てください。雨天決行。お問い合わせは南京大虐殺追悼集会実行委員会まで nanjingvigil@gmail.com