The Wages of Guilt Ian Buruma

...Buruma in his openness, decency, inclusiveness, and intelligence represents many of us who inhabit a new "world" culture, dependent on technologies over which we have little control, we speak various languages, and read in order to expand our awareness, we pass in and out of each other's countries, and aim for at least some mutual understanding We believe that if we amass enough evidence, we can get at some truth that will make life better for everyone...

...His is a roving and inclusive mind, turning to the landscape, following leads, pausing to listen carefully to the people he encounters...

...Moral integrity...

...A laudable impulse, I admit, but also a trick that I can recognize, since I am smart enough to grasp that a 28 reader's only way to the "objects" in a book-museum is through the author's own words...

...But through Auschwitz and Hiroshima we have come to know that the old-fashioned "gentlemen's agreement" war, one which closes borders and mandates secrecy, has no place in a world whose technologies can slaughter millions with mindless efficiency...

...We are more or less religious, more or less aware of culture at work And we live in a world in which war is endemic, if not always eruptive Buruma's book did free me to contemplate the meaning of this low-grade ongoing war which smolders as racism, as hatred of difference, which seems to be with us "for good " As long as we watch one another carefully and account for ourselves, I believe we stand a chance of continuing with decency...

...War National identity...

...I agree with Buruma...

...BOOKS A tale of two peoples Several years ago, Ian Buruma, a Dutch-born journalist and essayist living in England, with well-established ties to Japan, decided to learn more about Japanese memones of World War II, and the relation of these to a resurgence in Japanese nationalism It appeared that many Japanese, embracing Hiroshima as a symbol, saw themselves most centrally as victims of Allied aggression, not as guilty perpetrators of a brutal war themselves They still placed a high value on self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation, discipline, racial purity, and other attributes that the Japanese had in common with the Germans dunng the war...

...Or maybe Buruma assumes that almost any intelligent reader should think as he does, should, automatically and without much reflection, adopt his own brand of rationalism based on a belief in constitutional patriotism, a mistrust of "simple religious impulse," an ability for peoples of different backgrounds to reach similar conclusions, and a conviction that political arrangements can alter "mentality " Naturally, many of us would want to share at least some of this clear thinking (Believe me, I read closely to glean these few markers of Buruma's belief system...

...The basic topics around which the book is structured—the perception of the Gulf War, the question of atrocities, the role of the Allies in shaping peacetime consciousness, the outcome of war trials, the use of memorials and museums—and Buruma's intention to cover each country responsibly, keep the reader busy But still there is the sense of being on a somewhat giddy tour with an extremely knowledgeable guide who would love to sit down and discuss, really discuss, what he's just shown you, but gee whiz, look at the clock1 It's time to load the bus and be off The resulting sense of rushed inconclusion is ultimately unnecessary and disturbing For me, this hurnedness focuses a rather disarming attention on Buruma himself, on his intentions and will...

...yet the cultural mechanism not only to justify suicide, but also to celebrate it, has been firmly m place for centuries in Japan I think that to underestimate the power of culture, to allow a political overlay to obscure ancient ways of knowing and descnbing the world is not simply discourteous...

...We must learn to avoid them if we intend to survive Which is one reason that Buruma's book, though inadequate in some ways, is seriously important, it bears witness to that intention D 30...

...there are no "dangerous peoples," but there are "dangerous situations...

...When Buruma went to Germany, he discovered that many Germans felt deeply uncomfortable about their national past, embarrassed by those attributes the Japanese continue to embrace and from which they benefit economically For Germans, Auschwitz had become the symbol of the war, and the collective memory, with some variations between East and West Germany, tended to be driven by guilt Despite the apparent differences in self-image between these former allies, it seemed to Buruma that many Japanese and Germans share a common conviction that they, as national powers, cannot and should not be trusted They cannot trust even themselves Memory...

...Guilt Self-trust These are some of the massive, ungainly, fundamentally important issues that inform Ian Buruma's latest book...

...I am there because of him But once there, Buruma seems unwilling to commit himself to an expansive and illuminating discussion of the place to which he has led me Maybe I should be smarter, and not require his reflections to help me shape my thoughts...

...Clearly, he inhabits his text fully not only has he structured it, but he keeps reminding the reader of his physical presence He goes drinking in Japan, suffers from the heat in China, is moved by the Warsaw ghetto, and watches laughing Japanese school children pass by memorial shrines This willful reminder of self, far from being annoying, is deeply welcome I had the sense of being taken by the hand into conversations and realms of memory where I could not otherwise venture...

...it is dangerous In the same way, Buruma seems to underestimate the urgent, compelling power of religious belief...

...And I believe that someone like Buruma can help me, although I suspect that he and I differ in some fundamental ways I think that I believe in the power of culture in a way that he does not When, for instance, he visits the "Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots," near Shire on the southern tip of Kiths, Buruma is, as many Westerners would be, shocked and angered (my word, not his) He is dismayed by the "phony ideals" and "cloying sentimentality" that sent young men to self-immolation And he comments with some surprise that, even today, the keepers of this peace museum seem to miss the point that these young men were exploited, that they participated in "an utter waste of life " Perhaps many of us would react in like manner, but when we do, we miss the point, because one cannot excise Kamikaze death from a culture in which suicide has a deep, rich history bound to honor and right action Military propaganda may have heightened the fervor of participation...

...It also includes analyses of films and novels, soap operas and textbooks...

...To view this power only from a secular point of view tends to reduce religion or spiritual expression to a partisan impulse, mandated either by the temporal leaders of an external "church," or by the implanted "conscience...

...The heart of his book lies in its multivocahty, the pages brim with the excitement of Buruma's acute cunosity, and his impulse to gather evidence for his inquiry Dunng a first encounter with the book, this enthusiasm and nchness, while not totally satisfying, are perfectly compelling...

...The problem with this simple political explanation is that it allows people who do not expenence religious zeal to remain ignorant of the might that such zeal can wield People who converse with God or with Higher Beings are capable of acts of incalculable goodness as well as those that promote horror To pretend that we live in a world in which the deep elaborations of culture and the calling of spirit do not determine the life course of millions is to begin to forget our capacity for compassion...

...Or maybe he wants me to sharpen my own thinking the way I would in an ideal museum In one uncommonly opinionated and welcome paragraph, Buruma permits himself to hold forth on such a museum, one m which obj'ects are arranged according to ideas so that many stories may be evoked, one in which "conflict, debate, interpretation, reinterpretation—in short, a discourse without end" may arise Maybe Buruma wants simply to set me free within the pages of his book so that I can draw my own conclusions, the way I would in such a museum...

...The Wages of Guilt It is a book marked by exceptionally rich material, including interviews with politicians, protestors, petty bureaucrats, aging veterans, artists...

...Maybe, maybe, maybe The problem is: I shouldn't be spending my time trying to comprehend Ian Buruma, I should be spending my time trying to comprehend war...

...Buruma visits museums and war memorials, sites of former destruction, and of THE WAGES OF GUILT Memories of War m Germany and Japan Ian Buruma Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24, 308 pp Elizabeth Beverly postwar architectural disarray...