I AM writing regarding the front page article with picture, about the 60,000 Japanese who joined a rally in Okinawa, against the US military (Sunday Morning Post, October 22).
Why do I find this so disturbing? I also mourn for the little girl who was allegedly raped, but does no one in that vast crowd of Japanese remember why the Americans are there? It was because of the war during which the Japanese committed atrocities, including the rape of hundreds of thousands of women and girls throughout much of Asia. Where is the guilt and mourning for those women and children? Doesn't it matter? Was it okay for the Japanese to kidnap and hold as slaves for their sexual gratification more than 100,000 women and young girls for years? What is troubling is that those who are old enough to remember don't and those who are too young to remember were never taught.
You Japanese condemn the US occupation mentality, but you were the occupiers who brought terror to Asia far beyond anything known in Okinawa today.
Jesus said, 'Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? How dare you say to your brother, 'Please let me take that speck out of your eye,' when you have a log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.' (Matthew 7:3-5) How dangerous it is to live with such a void regarding your own history! Remember what Santayana said - 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' KARIN ARSAN Mid-Levels