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Japan is working hard at forgetting. Its prime minister, Shinzo Abe, suggests in code-talk that Japan was the victim of World War II — no war criminals at all, thank you — and its influential conservative press, with a wink from the government, is determined to whitewash the country's use of sex slaves during the war. This sort of thing can be catching. Maybe others will forget why they consider Japan a friend.
日本正為遺忘而忙得歡。安倍表示，日本是二戰(zhàn)的受害者，日本的主流保守媒體應(yīng)暗承政府之圣意，堅(jiān)定的洗白戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)期間的慰安婦問(wèn)題。這種遺忘可以傳染給其他人-或許其他國(guó)家可以遺忘掉日本是個(gè)值得信賴的伙伴。
Certainly the task will be harder when the film "Unbroken," directed by Angelina Jolie, hits theaters on Christmas Day. The movie, like the book by Laura Hillenbrand , is the story of Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner whose plane crashed in the Pacific during World War II and who wound up spending two and half years as a prisoner of the Japanese. He was horribly brutalized by his captors — starved, tortured physically and psychologically, worked nearly to death, and so often beaten viciously and capriciously that the sickening thud of a kendo stick on a human skull will trail you for days.
當(dāng)然，日本的企圖會(huì)變得更難一些，就在這個(gè)圣誕，安吉麗娜·茱莉執(zhí)導(dǎo)的新片-堅(jiān)不可摧-將會(huì)上映。電影根據(jù)Laura Hillenbrand的小說(shuō)拍攝。電影講述了Louis Zamperini的經(jīng)歷：飛機(jī)在二戰(zhàn)時(shí)墜毀，在日本人的戰(zhàn)俘營(yíng)關(guān)押了兩年半。他受盡了日本人的折磨-饑餓，拷打，精神折磨，極度勞累，經(jīng)常被無(wú)故毆打以至于你會(huì)感到日本人的大棒打你頭的聲音會(huì)余音繞顱三日不止。
Men died from such abuse, but not Zamperini. He lived long enough to cooperate with both the book and the movie, dying just this year (July 2) at the age of 97. He reconciled with the Japanese. That's more than what Japan has done with its past.
很多人被折磨致死，但是Zamperini得以幸存。他的經(jīng)歷后來(lái)就變成小說(shuō)的電影，這位老兵今年去世，享年97歲。
The country has much to atone for. Japan mistreated prisoners of war and even established a medical research team — the infamous Unit 731 — that conducted experiments on captured enemy soldiers, most of them Chinese. Among other atrocities, the unit performed hideous vivisections without anesthetic on living men, removing organs or limbs for some concocted medical purpose. Dr. Mengele might have turned away in horror.
日本待贖罪的多著呢。日本人非人道的殘忍的對(duì)待戰(zhàn)俘，甚至進(jìn)行藥物試驗(yàn)-如臭名昭著的731部隊(duì)，對(duì)戰(zhàn)俘，其大部分是中國(guó)人，進(jìn)行生化試驗(yàn)。731的暴行罄竹難書(shū):活體解剖，摘取器官，切割肢體。其殘忍程度甚至?xí)槈募{粹的死亡天使Dr. Mengele。
It is not my purpose here to revive anti-Japanese sentiment, which in war-time America commingled with racism to produce the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps. But certain important Japanese figures seem intent on reviving the past by revising it. With an implied nod from Abe, they have put enormous pressure on the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to retract stories exposing Japan's conscription of thousands of women to serve as sex slaves for the military during the war. Increasingly, this historic fact is being denounced as a fiction. Too many witnesses — not to mention victims — insist otherwise.
本文作者在此并無(wú)意于挑動(dòng)反日情緒，反日情緒在二戰(zhàn)時(shí)導(dǎo)致了美國(guó)的日裔美國(guó)人集中營(yíng)。但是一些日本精英看來(lái)就是要跳動(dòng)反日情緒，復(fù)活軍國(guó)主義。仗著安倍的暗中支持，他們向朝日新聞施壓，撤銷(xiāo)關(guān)于慰安婦的報(bào)道。變本加厲的是，鐵一般的歷史事實(shí)被誣蔑為虛構(gòu)。好在另一邊還有大量的受害者的證人堅(jiān)持說(shuō)出歷史真相。
This is a serious matter. First, it is unspeakably ugly to once again deny these women their humanity by saying they were volunteers — prostitutes — and not sex slaves. Second, the attempt to erase the whole sordid "comfort women" episode is part of a ferocious attempt to rewrite history. Before becoming prime minister and at least once since assuming office, Abe visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where many World War II figures, including war criminals, are memorialized. To the Chinese, the Koreans and other Asians who fought and were brutally occupied by Japan (the Rape of Nanking is a particularly gruesome chapter), the honor accorded the Yasukuni dead is horrendously offensive.
這是嚴(yán)重的問(wèn)題。首先，一而再的說(shuō)當(dāng)年的受害婦女是志愿成為慰安婦，稱她們?yōu)榧伺@是極其丑陋惡心的行為。其次，這種清除慰安婦歷史的企圖是日本人改寫(xiě)歷史重寫(xiě)歷史企圖的一部分。成為首相之前，安倍就多次參拜靖國(guó)神社。對(duì)于中國(guó)人，韓國(guó)人，以及其他受過(guò)日本侵略的國(guó)家而言，靖國(guó)神社里的惡靈得到的供奉和榮耀就是挑釁。
One of the most startling parts of Hillenbrand's book is her recounting of what happened to the POWs once Japan surrendered. Some were executed, but the liberated ones were allowed to amble out of their camps and into nearby towns and cities. The Japanese police who, just moments earlier, might have shot a POW on sight, were soon engaged in the hunt for U.S.-designated war criminals. Japan did an instant 180; Emperor Hirohito had ordered surrender and cooperation. Japan surrendered and cooperated.
Hillenbrand小說(shuō)中令人吃驚的是日本投降之后戰(zhàn)俘們的遭遇。一些戰(zhàn)俘被處死，被釋放的戰(zhàn)俘走出戰(zhàn)俘營(yíng)，來(lái)到附近的城鎮(zhèn)。而日本警察，前一刻還在槍斃戰(zhàn)俘，下一刻就在追捕美國(guó)政府指定的戰(zhàn)犯。日本完全換了張面皮，天皇宣布投降，接著日本投降了。
These sudden reversals have been a feature of Japanese culture ever since Commodore Matthew Perry forcibly opened the country to U.S. trade in 1854. The nation, both humbled and instructed, swiftly modernized and by 1905 had beaten mighty Russia in a war that Western conventional wisdom thought it would lose. Japan similarly adopted U.S.-style democracy after World War II and literally rose from the ashes (Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the often-overlooked incineration of Tokyo) to become so substantial an economic power that China supplanted it as No. 2 only recently. These were breathtaking achievements.
這種突然轉(zhuǎn)變是日本文化的一大特性，打從佩里武力打開(kāi)日本國(guó)門(mén)時(shí)就是如此。日本民族保持著謙卑，聽(tīng)著天皇訓(xùn)誡，急速的現(xiàn)代化，并于1905年打敗強(qiáng)大的俄國(guó)。二戰(zhàn)后，日本照搬了美式民主，從廢墟上崛起為經(jīng)濟(jì)強(qiáng)國(guó)（直至最近才被中國(guó)超過(guò)）。這些是巨大的成就。
Now, though, a more ominous reversal may be underway. With Japan's economy once again showing weakness — it has recently fallen into recession — the mythologizing of the past may well accelerate. This would only aggravate the insult to Japan's victims and further unsettle its neighbors, China and South Korea in particular. Japan's revisionists have their eye on the past. Others wonder what this means for the future.
現(xiàn)在，一個(gè)不祥的轉(zhuǎn)變又在形成中。因?yàn)槿毡镜慕?jīng)濟(jì)頹勢(shì)，日本的軍國(guó)主義可能會(huì)加速。但這只會(huì)加重的侮辱日本的受害者，更加使中韓等鄰國(guó)不安。日本的軍國(guó)主義者癡迷于過(guò)去，中韓等鄰國(guó)則警惕于未來(lái)。
