LKY's account on Japanese
Ventura
George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History, Brown University;
Distinguished Visiting Professor, National University of Singapore,
1998-1999
Lee Kuan Yews's memoirs, which point out that the years of the Japanese
occupation of Singapore played a major role in his conceptions of human
nature and his political philosophy, relate several first-hand experiences
of the conqueror's brutality. As he explains, his own first "encounter with
a Japanese soldier" occurred when he tried to cross a bridge to visit his
mother's younger sister
As I approached the bridge, I saw a sentry pacing up and down it. Nearby
was a group of four or five Japanese soldiers sitting around, probably the
other members of his detail. I was sporting a broad-brimmed hat of the kind
worn by Australian soldiers, many of which had been discarded in the days
before the surrender. I had picked one up, thinking it would be useful
during the hard times ahead to protect me from the sun. . . . One soldier
barked "Kore, kore!" and beckoned to me. When I reached him, he thrust the
bayonet on his rifle through the brim of my hat, knocking it off, slapped me
roundly, and motioned me to kneel. He then shoved his right boot against my
chest and sent me sprawling on the road. As I got up, he signalled that I
was to go back the way I had come. I had got off lightly. Many others who
did not know the new rules of etiquette and did not bow to Japanese sentries
at crossroads or bridges were made to kneel for hours in the sun, holding a
heavy boulder over their heads until their arms gave way. [53-54]
Immediately after relating the incident in which he had gotten off
"lightly," Lee tells that when a rickshaw puller pleaded for more money from
a Japanese soldier, he "took the man's arm, put it over his right shoulder,
and flung him up into the air with a judo throw. The rickshaw puller fell
flat on his face. After a while, he picked himself up and staggered off
between the shafts of his rickshaw. I was shocked at the heartlessness"
(54). The next day, he explains, he received a lesson that explained in part
how Japanese soldiers could treat civilians with such barbarity. When an
officer's car drove past a sentry at the same bridge at which the young Lee
had been slapped and kicked,
The sentry was slow in coming to attention to salute. The car had gone
past, but its driver braked and reversed. An officer got out, walked up to
the sentry and gave him three hefty slaps. Taking his right arm, he put it
over his shoulder and, with the same judo throw I had seen used on the
rickshaw puller, flung the soldier in the air. The sentry fell flat on his
face, just as the rickshaw puller had done. This time I was less shocked. I
had begun to understand that brutalisation was part of the Japanese military
system, inculcated through regular beatings for minor infringements. [54]
Admitting that Japanese proved themselves fearsome fighters who in defeat
handled themselves with admirable pride, Lee nonetheless concludes that
their army (which had massacred at least fifty thousand unarmed
Singaporeans) was guilty of unparalleled savagery: "After seeing them at
close quarters, I was sure that for sheer fighting spirit, they were among
the world's finest. But they also showed a meanness and viciousness towards
their enemies equal to the Huns'. Genghis Khan and his hordes could not have
been more merciless."
All these discussions of Japanese savagery occur, of course, in the
political memoirs of a man who was to become the architect of postcolonial
Singapore. In other words, they appear not just to testify to the horrors of
the occupation and to Lee's luck and ingenuity in having survived it but
also to explain what the future prime minister learned, among other things,
about how human beings adapt to superior force and the way social structures
crumble.
References
Lee Kuan Yew. The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore:
Times, 1998.
Jammie22
succeed in the long run. The Mongols, Manchus, Germans, Japs all perished
eventually.
"It's the economy, dude." - Bill Clinton
"Ventura" <someone@somewhere> wrote in message
news:427455dd$0$22056$892e...@authen.white.readfreenews.net...
Kenneth
If the Japanese military were so tough, why did they sneak attack Pearl
Harbor, and why did they surrender?
Ventura wrote on 4/30/05 9:01 PM:
gg
"Ventura" <someone@somewhere> wrote in message
news:427455dd$0$22056$892e...@authen.white.readfreenews.net...
Nirvana
"gg" <g...@eur.org> wrote in message
news:d57c70$fe2$1...@news2.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de...
lobert lo
Vernon North
says...
> everybody was forced to work for the Japs
>
LOL!
Verno
bob young
Kenneth wrote:
> If the Japanese military were so tough, why did they sneak attack Pearl
> Harbor, and why did they surrender?
Oh grow up and read some books.