German Chancellor Angela Merkel has arguably elevated herself to the level of a truly great world leader.
The first East German-born head of a unified Germany has done a lot throughout her career.
On the European front, she has led the delicate work of coordinating the many conflicting interests of her country, Europe’s biggest creditor, and debtor countries such as Greece in order to save the euro, the key foundation of the European Union.
On the global stage, she has shown courage and finesse to call a spade a spade, almost an impossible task for any leader nowadays.
During her recent visit to Japan, she told her host Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to stop whitewashing his country’s wartime misdeeds and face history as it took place.
Abe was pictured with his left hand covering his face in an apparent attempt to dismiss the awkward moment during their joint conference.
Merkel spoke clearly that Japan should resolve the issue of comfort women, who were forced to serve at Japan’s Imperial Army brothels.
Her direct way of speaking to the Japanese conscience looks stark in comparison with the tepid way U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the same issue during his tour of Japan and Korea last year.
Obama, who still looks way short of what a Nobel Peace Prize winner should aspire to be, skipped any reference to comfort women while visiting Japan. Only when he came to Korea, the next stop, he said that sex slavery was a “shocking” violation of human rights. But this was one day too late.
Even when on topic, he didn’t call on Japan to repent and take action accordingly.
But the German Chancellor was different in telling Japan to make the first moves to reconcile with its neighbors and sincerely seek their forgiveness, which she said is the only path to reconciliation.
Merkel’s advice and the way she delivered her message carried a moral weight that neither Obama nor any other leaders could provide, simply because of her country’s wartime history.
During World War II, Hitler’s Germany belonged to the same Axis as Hirohito’s Japan and Mussolini’s Italy.
All three were defeated after surrendering to the Allied forces.
Both Nazi Germany and Gen. Tojo’s Imperial Japan committed inhumane acts that were beyond words. But they have chosen different paths since the war.
Germany has taken responsibility for the victims of the Holocaust in a collective effort not to repeat its shameful history.
Merkel, for one, bowed her head before the Holocaust victims’ memorial at a former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau near Munich in August 2013. It was not an isolated event. A caveat is, of course, that Israelis and other victims should be given a final say in deciding whether Germany has done enough.
The photo of her with an old survivor in a wheelchair at Dachau epitomized the moral authority Germany has which is rarely conferred on a former perpetrator.
That moral authority differentiates Germany from Japan and Merkel from Abe.
In contrast, Abe has ignored the feelings of Korea and Japan, its two neighbors that suffered greatly in human and material losses, and paid homage at the Yasukuni Shrine where the remains of wartime criminals such as Gen. Hideki Tojo are interred.
Also, he is trying to re-militarize Japan by expanding its self-defense forces. Abe has already damaged the Pacifist Constitution, which the United States has condoned to check China’s expansionism.
In this way, Abe acts strikes fear into the hearts of the Korean people. History may not repeat itself but what if it rhymes?
After 20 years of being in the economic doldrums, people in Japan appear tempted to rise up to the nationalist call form Abe, who has a historical stake in wartime Japan.
Abe’s grandfather, Nobosuke Kishi, was a Class A war criminal, but after being released served as prime minister on two occasions after the war; this speaks volumes about what went wrong with Japan. Kishi was a member of Tojo’s wartime cabinet.
The U.S. occupation forces who administered post-war Japan did bring western standards there but failed to teach a true moral lesson that would make Japan reflect on its deeds from the perspective of the victims who suffered.
It may be too late to tell Abe and Japan that it should engage in true self-reflection and change simply because they have not learned how to do so.
But Abe and Japan should remember that Merkel and Germany have separated itself from the horrible chapter of the Third Reich, while they are stuck in the past, becoming the sole heir of the blood stain on mankind left by Hitler.
The former victims are ready to testify to this interesting lineage of shame.