The Yasukuni Controversy “What atrocious controversy could possibly lie in a shrine?” one would think to themselves as they walk under an enormous and welcoming torii. The Yasukuni Shrine is certainly infamous, which is hard to believe when it is adorned with such lavish flowers and promises it’s visitors that it was “established to honour the courageous soldiers who laid a foundation for modern Japan, and to pray for the repair of their souls”. With such supposedly pure intentions, it only seems natural for the prime minister of Japan to pray at this shrine. Yet, after feeling an eerie gaze from the right-winged propaganda vehicles that were slowly patrolling around the shrine and seeing just a little too many Japanese flags, things started …show more content…
This is what makes the prime minister’s visit so controversial: by having him pay respect at a shrine that contains one thousand war criminals it becomes as if he is honouring the crimes that they committed. Needless to say, the crimes that these criminals committed were staggeringly erroneous, yet the Yushukan, or the museum within the Yasukuni Shrine, refuses to acknowledge any of them, which infuriates countries in the Asia-Pacific region who were directly affected by Japan’s actions in the past. “[The Yushukan] takes too many liberties with historical accuracy” recounted Mishra, who described that the museum presented The Rape of Nanjing in 1937 as “an incident in which ‘Chinese soldiers in civilian clothes’ were ‘severely prosecuted.’” Despite that, the Japanese Prime Minister Abe insists on visiting. His grandfather was arrested by the United States under suspicion of being an A-class war criminal, include how abe wanted to complete his dream of militarising japan after wwii therefore it is only natural for him to visit, as he found it to be his mission to perpetrate his grandfather’s dream of remilitarising Japan after