Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Long-Term Effects Of Japan’S Traumatic Experience In The Second World War And Its Implications For Peace In Northeast Asia, Eugen Koh, Tadashi Takeshima

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is an introductory report on the work of a Japanese study group whose primary aim is peacemaking, which it seeks by promoting a greater understanding of the long-term effects of their country’s traumatic experience of the Second World War. The group does not adopt a position of victimhood but seeks to understand the full picture of Japan’s role in the war, including its role as perpetrator. We came together with the shared assumption that the country’s inability to take responsibility for its role of the war is inextricably tied to its own traumatization. If this assumption is true, …