A lot of kids in school get bored silly with history classes, but fact remains that what happened 'way back when comes back to bite the here and now and, like it or don't, history remains important, and a current case in point is the Japanese election that happened just yesterday. An excellent analysis was broadcast on NPR just this morning via the program "On Point".
Just like as happened with Turkey's conditional entry into the EU regarding the Armenian Massacre, the point was made about both China and Korea having sensitivities about pre-World War II domination by Japan; Nanking for Japan remains as much a sore point as Armenia does for Turkey, and there were more instances for Japan than just Nanking.
Prime Minister Abe's visit to honor the World War II war dead was viewed as an honor to those who were also war criminals, and such, and the argument was made that WWII was then, and this is now, under decades of a "pacifist constitution". But allegations have already been made that members of Abe's party, being Japanese nationalists, are also history revisionists that lay a heavy coating of sugar on that particular bitter pill.
Well, it's not like the Chinese can claim victimhood at this point with their military patrols of the South China Sea, either, but this history with Japan is often cited as an excuse, too, so it's not like it can be relegated to those proverbial dustbins of history any better than the Armenian Massacre can.
Kids, you may think this is all dull ancient history that has nothing to do with you, but you can't avoid the fact that it affects the world you're eventually going to be running when us old dry boring fogies move on.
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