I have been reading Gary J Bass’ recent book (a birthday gift from Jan), Judgement at Tokyo, a study of the Tokyo war crimes trials and how they reflected the political climate in which modern Asia was made. During the phase which dealt with Japanese war crimes in China, a defense lawyer argued that the atrocities that Japanese forces committed in Nanjing were no worse than the rape and plunder of which Chinese troops had also been guilty. Sir William Webb, president of the eleven judges, “sharply added that the rape and murder of civilian women could never be legitimate reprisals, no matter what Chinese troops might have done elsewhere.
Nanjing, Bass notes, was “the most notorious case,” but “All across China, villages had been devastated by aerial bombings or artillery bombardment, set on fire, with civilians shot dead.” However, although the trial exposed appalling Japanese crimes, “a whole category of evidence would never be appraised: aerial bombardment. Japanese bombers had pounded cities and towns across China … Yet because such aerial bombardment was not then clearly forbidden by international law – and also because the Allies did not wish to invite discussions about their own bombing campaigns – this evidence would never feature in the Tokyo trial’s judgement.” [my emphasis]
In other words, one crime does not justify another, and what is considered a crime and what is weighed in judgement is not a simple act of impartial justice, but also a highly political judgement.
This set me thinking about Israel and Gaza, especially in the context of the weekly enormous demonstrations in London and the use which politicians have made of the protests for their own ends. Unsurprisingly, many Israelis are consumed with the appalling crimes of Hamas on 7 October 2023 and the pursuit of those responsible. However, one wonders what Sir William would have said about the ferocity of Israel’s assault on Gaza, the withholding as a matter of government policy of food, water and electricity from the civilians of Gaza, reports of the targeting of civilians by ground forces, allegations of inhumane treatment of detainees, increasing numbers of deaths in the West Bank (not only in Gaza), murders and harassment of Palestinians by “settlers” (surely a euphemism for violent thugs at best).
The demonstrations, especially in London, against the devastation and deaths in Gaza have been eagerly seized upon by the Conservative Party to accentuate an attack on dissent and rights to protest, initiated in recent legislation which has already infringed rights of free speech and protest.
Once case would be laughable, if it were not indicative of the casual persecution of individuals which Conservative politicians seem to think is justified in the fight against “extremism”. This case involved a young student who participated in an episode of University Challenge (for my non-British friends, this is a long-running TV quiz show). A team of four students (two male, two female, one of whom covered her hair) chose as their mascot a toy octopus. The student who covered her hair, also wore a jacket, the colours of which some considered to be “similar” to the colours of the Palestinian flag. This female student sat slightly to one side of the octopus, while a male student with curly red hair sat at the same distance on the other side. Lady Jacqueline Foster, a Conservative member of the House of Lords, wrote on X a demand that the female student be expelled and arrested [my emphasis]. Her reasoning was that the octopus was an antisemitic symbol (apparently, the tentacles of an octopus are used as a metaphor of the way that antisemites consider that Jews control the media, business etc.) As far as I can tell from the press coverage, the only reason that Lady Foster concluded that the female student was responsible was that she was sitting close to the soft toy and that her appearance suggested that she is a Muslim. However, the red-haired young man who sat equally close to the octopus was not suspected of antisemitism, and the other two members of the team were not under suspicion because they were seated further away from the toy. Lady Foster’s facile and deeply prejudiced judgement (if she can be credited with possessing that quality) is characteristic of the current government and its legislators. As it turned out, the four members of the team jointly chose the octopus, and the episode was recorded before the October acctaks.
At about the same time as Lady Foster advocated immediate retribution without any evidence, the government minister responsible for science and technology wrote to Research England, a committee that advises the government’s science funding body on matters of equality, diversity and inclusion. The minister, Michelle Donelan, demanded that two scientists recently appointed to Research England be investigated on the grounds that they had “shared some extremist views on social media”. It would seem that Ms Donelan’s rush to judgement demonstrates that judgement may be a quality which she lacks, like Lady Foster. For, not content with writing to Research England, she posted her letter on X. Had she been content to simply send her letter and wait for the results of an investigation, which would have exonerated the two scientists, no more would have been heard of the matter. However, she posted the letter on X, was threatened with legal action and the government has been obliged to pay damages to one of the scientists.
It is worth bearing in mind these two incidents, at once nasty and fatuous, when we consider the Prime Mister’s recent speech (unusual because he spoke outside 10 Downing Street) which claimed that “extremist groups are trying to tear us apart.” Lady Foster and Ms Donelan would seem to be doing their bit to “tear us apart”. They are ably assisted by the former Home Secretary Suella Braverman who has decided that demonstrations calling for the ending of the slaughter of civilians in Gaza are “hate marches” and has derided those who eat tofu or read The Guardian (as Jan and I do: read The Guardian, not eat tofu). A former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party has likewise done his bit by telling us that Islamists have taken control of the Mayor of London. The Mayor’s last name happens to be Khan, which surely labels him as an unreliable type just like the student wearing a headscarf while being in proximity to an octopus.
The government’s Prevent Programme is intended to “prevent vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism”. Citizens generally, but in particular, public officials and others such as school or university teachers, are encouraged to report those whom they judge to exhibit behaviours that might indicate that they may be drawn into terrorism. The consequences of being referred may seem fairly innocuous, such as being referred to a mentor to receive support, but individuals may also be subject to police or anti-terrorism investigation, and possibly prosecution. You might assume, therefore, that careful judgement would be made before referring someone to Prevent. However, a school in London recently held a Children in Need Day and invited children to come to school dressed as a child in need. The parents of children who came dressed in the colours of the Palestinian flag were sent letters telling them that if they persisted in expressing political opinions, they would be reported to the Prevent Programme. Three years ago an 11 year old boy was referred to Prevent by his teacher because he had advocated giving “alms to the oppressed” (the teacher interpreted alms as arms).
Meanwhile the Communities Secretary, Michael Gove, is preparing to implement a new definition of extremism: apparently, this might include socialism, communism, advocating animal rights, anti-abortion and anti-fascist opinions, Islamism, extreme right-wing views. Given recent government rhetoric, I suspect that advocates of decisive action to mitigate climate change will be included. The government would, it seems, refuse to deal with anyone who holds such views, and presumably individuals who hold such views may be “referred” to Prevent. I asked a friend in the USA who was a judge what a US judge would say about the expression of such opinions. He replied: “All of those expressions are protected speech the government cannot prohibit or punish.” The US has its own problems with free speech, mostly from politically inspired measures to prohibit “woke” ideas and suppression of people who don’t conform to gender stereotypes, but our government is going much further.
In a world that has become much more dangerous and in which rule by violence, intolerance and corruption seems ever more prevalent, it is unpardonable that our government has decided to use divisions and hatred as desperate tools to restore its fortunes – fortunes undermined by the government’s own stupid and unprincipled behaviour.
Which brings me back to the Tokyo trials and Gaza. After hearing evidence of Japanese crimes in China, the Tokyo tribunal turned its attention to Pearl Harbor. There followed the examination of evidence of atrocities in Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, Vietnam, the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia). These charges were brought by prosecutors not from the (future) independent nations) but by prosecutors from the countries’ colonial occupiers. The author highlights the irony of prosecutions brought by colonial powers which claimed that their sovereignty had been violated: sovereignty acquired through the violent conquest of the previously independent nations and the killing and exploitation of their peoples. The irony was particularly acute in Vietnam where the French forces whose human rights were violated by the Japanese were Vichy French, allied to the Nazis and the Italian fascists.
Right and wrong, justice and vengeance, then are not simple black and white givens, especially in our 21st century.
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