Talk:Controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine

Rewrite
I rewrote the article on Yasukuni and it was rated a "B" (hoping to make it a GA still), but now it is time to tackle this article and its problems. I've been doing research and have lots of citations and timeline details. I will also "neutralize the discussion" as it has become very passionate, which should not be used here. This is a factual discussion of the sides of a dispute based on religious beliefs and public vs. private matters which the Japanese are very keen to separate. We here in the Americas may not see the need to understand the separation, but any religious matter is a personal and/or private one in Japan. Also families go to the shrine to visit their dead comrades and relatives, so much more care should be taken in making factual statements about this controversy. Finally, it would make sense that countries outside of Japan may be overstepping their place when commenting about internal religious matters of another country. Eg: China and Tibet, China regularly tells all other countries to mind their own business as it is an internal matter. I will begin some work right away this weekend. Please feel free to give me some feedback. Takashi Ueki 16 May 2009

So, I finally split the two articles. Right now, I'm focusing all of my efforts on cleaning, referencing, editing and organizing the controversy section in Yasukuni Shrine. No easy task. Harder still, would be trying to clean up this article. There is a LOT of information here (sourced and unsourced) that will take a lot of time to organize correctly. If anyone is up to the task, go for it. As for me, it is far too much for me to handle at the moment. I want to get the Yasukuni Shrine article up to possible GA status first, if possible. Torsodog (talk) 08:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The first section really, really needs to be revised. The fact of the matter is, the individuals buried at Yasukuni were convicted as war criminals, period. This entry is not the proper forum for discussing the controversies surrounding the trials themselves. The views of a dissenting Indian Justice, as an example, are completely irrelevant to this entry.

Bunrei and kanjō
It says in the text, "The Shinto processes of bunrei and kanjō exist specifically to remove a kami from its shrine and re-enshrine it elsewhere." This is not quite correct. It is almost true and would be if "remove" were changed to "move" since "bunrei" (lit 'dividing the spirit') leaves the kami at the originating shrine, while kanjo welcomes it to a new place/shrine. Kami are infinitely divisible without becoming any weaker, like signs. That there are Yasukuni Shrines all over Japan is achieved through this bunrei and kanjō, but the kami are not removed from the main shrine in Tokyo. The sentence gives the impression that it the process of "removing" a kami is very straightforward when it is rather very atypical (I know nothing about the Tokugawa period exceptions).--Timtak (talk) 06:15, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The below is from the kanjō article. "The process of propagation, described by the priests as akin to the lighting of a candle from another already lit, leaves the original kami intact in its original place and therefore doesn't alter any of its properties."--Timtak (talk) 06:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

So I added ", but typically leaves the kami at the originating shrine intact and unchanged" to the article citing the kanjō article reference used to backup the above (imho very uncontroversial) claim.--Timtak (talk) 06:40, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Does this line really need to be here?
"issue is somewhat different than that of visits by the German Chancellor to the Holocaust Memorial, which are explicitly made in the context of a state visit."

Isn't this comparing apples to oranges? The Chancellors are paying tribute to the victims of the Nazi regime, while the Japanese Prime Ministers (Fukuda excepted) are implicitly paying tribute to Hideki Tojo and the other so-called "martyrs of Showa". What the Prime Ministers are doing is more analogous to a hypothetical visit to the Kehlsteinhaus to pay respects to Hitler, and even that's not a 1-to-1 comparison.Pat Payne (talk) 19:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * From what I recall, Mr Koizumi was criticised in Japan for signing the guest book of the shrine as prime minister. There was no concern with him appearing as a private individual in the following years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.180.63.216 (talk) 10:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

A modification needs to be made toward the debate in Japan section
The debate in Japan section starts out by pointing out the Shintoist perspecive view of the shrine, but that view should be moved to the end of the Debate in Japan section since the Debate in Japan section should be about the perspective view of the Japanese in general. Only a minority in Japan deny the existance of war crimes.

Alright. After no response i'm changing the Japanese section. I'll also add a section mentions the Shinto perspective of the Yasukuni Shrine since the information at the start of the "debate in Japan" secton is more suitable for that.

After trying to add a Shinto perspective of the Shrine section nothing happins. Strange... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graylandertagger (talk • contribs) 22:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

"Furthermore it is believed that all negative or evil acts committed are absolved when enshrinement occurs."
This is the first I've ever heard of anything remotely like this in Shinto. Shinto doesn't even really have things like "negative" or "evil", much less anything like "absolution". There are bad guys and bad people, but there's nothing like "sin" in any branch of the religion as far as I know. Furthermore, googling the terms "shinto enshrinement absolution" only returns this wikipedia page (and several other pages with incident hits where it talks about enshrinement in one place and absolution in another).

Unless there's a *good* citation, it needs to be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.112.115.101 (talk) 05:03, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Taiwanese aborigine protest against Yasukuni
The aborigines were led by Taiwanese legislator May Chin

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/detail.asp?ID=63832&GRP=B

http://english.sina.com/taiwan_hk/1/2005/0914/45924.html

Rajmaan (talk) 07:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Does this article belong in the Anti-Japanese Sentiment Category?
Two editors, user:LoveJapanChika and user:NipponSun7, have persistently attempted to add this page to the category Anti-Japanese sentiment. When pressed for a reason, nipponsun claimed that "criticism of Japanese visiting a location in their home country" is justification for such. As the article deals with a political controversy that has very little to do with claims of racism against Japanese, this claim seems to be a non-sequitur at best. However, if there are more clear reasons as to why the category is appropriate, I would be interested in hearing them.Zmflavius (talk) 04:57, 15 November 2014 (UTC)


 * We understand your bias Zmflavius. Your admissions of political controversy are justification for our edits. You do not own this article, and you are going to be facing constant and increasing editing pressure on this subject from pro-Japanese editors who openly and honestly admit their bias. Be honest and call a spade a spade: the critical contents of this article clearly represent anti-Japanese sentiment. Or are the controversies pro-Japanese? Please elaborate. LoveJapanChika (talk) 18:41, 15 November 2014 (UTC)


 * "pro-Japanese editors who openly and honestly admit their bias." I beg your pardon? Are you perhaps aware of [WP:NPOV]]?  Let me quote it for you now:
 * "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
 * I myself am not editing from a position of bias, not least because this is exactly the wrong attitude to approach wikipedia with. You will pardon me if I find that I am unimpressed by your threat of "constant and increasing editing pressure from pro-Japanese editors."  Having said all this, the controversies I think are best summed up by the first sentence of the lead, that is to say, "Controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine are a major international issues surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine, which is a Japanese Shinto shrine."  The controversies reflect criticism of the actions of prominent Japanese politicians in visiting a controversial and politically-charged location.  The gap between criticism and actual bigoted sentiment is fairly great.Zmflavius (talk) 22:48, 15 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Your quote of NPOV is exactly our argument. The entire article is not neutral. It should be removed from Wikipedia. LoveJapanChika (talk) 05:23, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * That is nonsense and not how NPOV works. The article is writing about a very well-documented controversy which exists about Yasukuni Shrine.  That is more than sufficient grounds for being on wikipedia.  In any case, what is POV is supporting the removal or addition of material on such spurious grounds.Zmflavius (talk) 05:37, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

NPOV dispute: Does this article belong in Wikipedia?

 * "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." WP:NPOV
 * Yes?Zmflavius (talk) 05:37, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * We'll continue to discuss it at length Zm. What most people don't understand is that China and Japan are one household. When we disagree in public, as all families do, it doesn't change the fact that we are stuck with each other permanently. The past is unchangeable. But we can choose to make a kinder, gentler future together.LoveJapanChika (talk) 08:14, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * What does this have to do with the article? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a political platform.Zmflavius (talk) 09:23, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Zmflavius, you are once again making our POV-push argument for us. This article is a political polemic and should be removed or at least acknowledged to belong to the category Anti-Japanese sentiment. The simple addition of the appropriate category label would satisfy us. LoveJapanChika (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "I do not like what it has to say," which is the sum total of your objections to the article, is not a sufficient basis to suppress an article or label it as "anti-Japanese sentiment" (a category which, incidentally, is about documenting articles for which the subject falls into said category, not which you believe are such yourselves.). As I have said above, I do not think either your claims about the purported bigotry present in this article or its subject stand up to scrutiny.
 * On a somewhat related note, you seem to also have a misunderstanding as to what the purpose of the article is, especially in the context of the purpose of wikipedia. The purpose of the article is to document (very well documented) controversies surrounding Yasukuni Shrine, which more than meet wikipedia's notability guidelines.  This is a subset of wikipedia's role in documenting information.  The role of the article is not to be a political polemic, nor is it the role of wikipedia to write either polemics or counter-polemics.  If you feel that this article as it currently exists is a political polemic, and can point to areas in the article which indicate as much, I would be interested in hearing how you would improve those sections of the article or the article as a whole.  Your proposals of either deletion or watering down the content of the article as a whole, however, do not appear to be adding any value to the article so far as I can see.Zmflavius (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In any case it is now an official NPOV dispute. Have a nice day. LoveJapanChika (talk) 00:29, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

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