Obama and the absence of apology in Hiroshima (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, East Asia Forum)

‘As President of the United States of America, I express my profound apologies for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombings’. These, of course, are the words that we are not going to hear Barack Obama speak in Hiroshima on 27 May, when he becomes the first sitting US president to visit the city since the atomic bombings in August 1945. It is sad that we will not hear at least a version of these words. A simple but sincere apology might bring some peace of mind to the survivors and their families, and could have a profound effect on Japanese society

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/05/24/obama-and-the-absence-of-apology-in-hiroshima/

Japan still coming to terms with 3.11 (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, ANU, East Asia Forum)

It is the stillness that is most overwhelming. The rubble has been cleared away. The grass has grown back. But along much of the coastal strip devastated by the tsunami that struck Japan on 11 March 2011, a silence remains.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/03/02/japan-still-coming-to-terms-with-3-11/

The ever-shifting sands of Japanese apologies (Tessa Morris-Suzuki, East Asia Forum)

On 16 February, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida signed a ‘Strategy for Co-operation in the Pacific’, in which both countries emphasised their shared values of ‘democracy, human rights and the rule of law’.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/02/22/the-ever-shifting-sands-of-japanese-apologies/