OMNI
“PEARL HARBOR
DAY,” COLONIAL PACIFIC WORLD WAR II ANTHOLOGY #9, December 7, 2023.
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
TEXTS
“What Happened After Pearl Harbor Is a Reminder of the
Danger of Stereotypes and Conspiracy Theories” BY CHRISTOPHER
MCKNIGHT NICHOLS AND CAMERON GIVENS. lIFE (DECEMBER 7, 2023 ).
https://time.com/6343399/pearl-harbor-conspiracies-crises/
In the
two months since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the U.S. has witnessed
an outbreak of antisemitic and anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic episodes. These incidents have been a
painful reminder of how some Americans, in the aftermath of national or
international crisis, tend to project blame onto entire identity groups,
regardless of individual actions or beliefs. Such crude stereotyping has often
relied on—and reactivated—deeper, conspiratorial thinking that certain
Americans retain divided loyalties and thus pose an inherent threat to national
security.
To
better understand the prejudice and violence of our present, it is essential
that we look to a key moment in the past, when scapegoating, conspiracy
theories, and a spurious national security logic combined to produce one of the
most shameful acts of political repression in American history.
On
Dec. 7, 1941, Imperial Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. In a
speech to Congress the next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt meticulously
advanced the perception that Japan acted “suddenly and deliberately” and “without warning” in a
“premeditated invasion.”
Yet
many Americans had long warned of such an attack because they had consumed
conspiracy theories about the danger of Japan and the disloyalty of U.S.-based
Japanese immigrants over the previous four decades. That’s why in the aftermath
of Pearl Harbor, even as the U.S. responded to the attacks with remarkable
unity of purpose in a war waged to uphold democracy worldwide, bigoted, false
ideas about Japanese and Asian Americans proliferated, helping to impel
the unjustified incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese
Americans.
Then,
as now, moments of crisis can cause longstanding, pernicious stereotypes to
flourish. They fuel decisions made in the name of national security that, in
reality, make the U.S. less safe by fostering divisions and providing
state-sanction for racism and xenophobia.
Unfounded
warnings of Japanese immigrants’ inherent disloyalty actually dated to the dawn
of the 20th century. Japanese immigrants were becoming the main body of
low-paid agricultural workers on the U.S. West Coast, prompting white labor and
anti-immigration groups to push for discriminatory legislation, especially in
California. To advance their cause, they warned of a “yellow peril,” a term
gaining currency with white supremacists around the globe that denounced what
many claimed was Asians’ growing capacity and determination to destroy western
civilization.
In
1905, Japan’s stunning victory in the Russo-Japanese War suddenly made it a
potential adversary in East Asia. Convinced that a conflict was inevitable,
American war planners on the Joint Army and Navy Board, precursor to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, began to include Japan in an increasing number of possible
scenarios.
Soon,
it became a preoccupation for many of the era’s public figures, journalists,
and novelists, as they warned of a coming civilizational clash between the U.S.
and Japan. People around the country speculated that Japan was preparing for an
eventual attack and that Japanese immigrants were working undetected as a kind
of advance force within U.S. borders.
The
first significant war scare came after a controversial 1906 decision by the San
Francisco school board to segregate pupils of Japanese descent into a separate
“Oriental school.” Anticipating a retaliatory war from Japan, many Americans
claimed in wild rumors that Japan was mobilizing its loyal immigrants within
the U.S. The White House fielded letters from around the country claiming that
Japanese agents were surveying and mapping coastal areas, or undertaking other
strategic preparations. The tensions only subsided (temporarily) when President
Theodore Roosevelt brokered a “Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan that limited
further Japanese immigration in exchange for an end to legal discrimination
against Japanese schoolchildren.
Read
More: The Forgotten Story of One of the First U.S. Soldiers Killed
Overseas After Pearl Harbor
During World War I, despite the fact that Japan was a member
of the Allied war effort, white Americans continued to fret, without evidence,
about Japanese immigrants preparing an invasion of the West Coast, particularly
before the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917. In fact, some considered the
absence of any visible wrongdoing a tell-tale sign of secretive preparations.
“Japan has a poker face and a chess mind,” declared one Chicago newspaper in
1915. “We know our Samurai friends, what they are up to, but we haven’t the slightest
idea what it may be. We know that we shall not know until the purpose has
become plain as day.”
Rumors
ran rampant, including one that a host of Japanese photographers, sketch
artists, and mapmakers were developing an intimate knowledge of strategic
points and coastal topography to provide to their home government. Many
Americans insisted that Japanese communities—regardless of some members’ U.S.
citizenship—were working systematically against the interests and safety of the
U.S.
After
WWI, the accusations only intensified as part of a renewed campaign in
California to restrict the rights of Japanese immigrants. Claims spread that
Japanese spies were active in the state, Japanese farmers were maneuvering to
gain control of its food supply, and Japanese fishermen were scouting harbor
defenses—all in preparation for a coming attack.
There
were two immediate effects to these racist conspiracy theories.
First,
white supremacist groups weaponized the widespread belief in Japanese aliens’
fundamental inability to assimilate to place severe legal restrictions on them.
A new California law circumscribed Japanese noncitizens' ability to own land.
Then in 1922, the Supreme Court disqualified them from the right to become U.S.
citizens. Finally, in 1924, Congress passed the Johnson-Reed National Origins Act, the most draconian
immigration restriction legislation in U.S. history. It banned Japanese people,
as aliens ineligible for citizenship after the 1922 court decision, from
entering the U.S.
The
conspiracy theories also helped to brand all things “Japanese” as a permanent
security liability in the eyes of both military and civilian intelligence
organizations, which increasingly surveilled people of Japanese
descent—regardless of citizenship—on the basis of race alone.
Two
decades later, the legacies of this history were unmistakable in the response
to the Pearl Harbor attacks on Dec. 7. Renewed conspiracies—alleging an
imminent second strike on the U.S. mainland and the Japanese fifth column
preparing for it—created enormous political pressure, helping push Roosevelt to
issue Executive Order 9066. FDR and the U.S. government,
affirmed by the Supreme Court, abridged and overturned basic civil rights
protections to authorize the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans. The
deep roots of the response were evident for all to see. Indeed, John L. De
Witt, the army general who oversaw Japanese Americans’ incarceration, echoed
official reports of previous decades when he stated unequivocally: “it makes no
difference whether he is an American citizen or not.”
The
lesson: crises both amplify longstanding conspiratorial thinking and give it
new life in ways that tend to harm already vulnerable groups, and such dynamics
have persisted into the 21st century.
After
9/11, for example, many Muslim Americans faced
increased government surveillance, heightened Islamophobia, and hate crimes on
the assumption that they harbored anti-American views. More recently, during
the COVID-19 pandemic Asian Americans faced
threats and violence, anti-Asian hate crimes increased, and
xenophobic conspiracy theories proliferated alleging that Chinese Americans and
agents allowed—whether accidentally or intentionally—a “foreign” biological
weapon to wreak havoc within U.S. borders and worldwide.
Believers
in these sorts of conspiracy theories related to “outsider” threats almost
always paint with incredibly broad brush strokes. They tend to disregard facts
and scapegoat individuals and groups under the premise of legitimate security
concerns and vulnerabilities, while failing to draw important distinctions of
race, ethnicity, citizenship, or religious identity.
This
history helps to explain why the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel and
the brutal response from the Israeli military have triggered such bigotry in
the U.S. History teaches us that deeply ingrained
conspiracy theories and xenophobia frequently prompt grievous (over)reactions
during time of crisis—like Japanese incarceration, which policymakers, jurists,
and citizens justified on national security grounds. Historically, such
decisions imperil national security, rather than safeguard it because they tend
to unleash violence against already marginalized groups—creating an “us” vs.
“them” mentality both within and across U.S. borders.
In a
turbulent world, it is imperative that Americans confront and learn from this
history, resist impulsive rapid reactions, and better separate legitimate
security concerns from those manufactured by longstanding bigotry and
conspiratorial thinking. Failing to do so will harm national security, as well
as threaten core American values and rights, such as equal protection and due
process for all citizens and residents.
Christopher
McKnight Nichols is professor of history and Hayes Chair in National Security
Studies at The Ohio State University. The author or editor of six books, his
most recent book is Ideology in U.S. Foreign Relations: New Histories. Cameron Givens is a Ph.D. candidate in history at The Ohio
State University. He studies the connections between wartime, conspiracy
theories, and white supremacy in the early 20th-century United States. Made by
History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by
professional historians.
MYTHS AND LIES TO Justify
AND SUSTAIN WWII
Robert Fantina. Propaganda, Lies and False Flags: How the U.S.
Justifies Its Wars. Red Hill P,
2020. PP. 84-88.
US provocation of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor; embargoes on natural
resources essential to Japan; US abrogation of the Japanese-American commercial
treaty of 1911; censorship; media as a virtual partner with the government in
promoting the war;, hiding the harsh reality of war; turning the war into games
at home to make it less fearful and more acceptable; films made to show the war
and US combatants as heroic; gov. promoting myth of glorious death for country.
Every chapter reveals more aspects of US war promotion. E.g.: “While propaganda is as old as war, it
was during the Spanish-American War that newspapers began to have a great influence.
. .as a tool to encourage U.S. war-making,” until now “so-called ‘mainstream’
media is little more than a tool in the hands of the government to foster its
imperial goals.”
Cindy Sheehan wrote the Introduction.
“It is hoped that by recognizing the ‘big lies’ that the U.S. government
tells, people will begin to believe them with less ardor and less
frequency. This will be the first step
toward changing the centuries-long U.S. policy of constant war-making.” --D
IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL BACKGROUND LEADING THE JAPAN’S
ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR ON DEC. 7, 1941.
In February 1909 the US “Great White Fleet”
of sixteen brand-new battleships returned from a fourteen-month voyage around
the world. “In response to the forceful
rise of Japanese naval power, [President Theodore] Roosevelt had sent the ships
of the Atlantic fleet around Cape Horn to show
Tokyo that the United States was indeed a Pacific power. . . .vast cheering
crowds were stunned by the sheer size of the American armada. For the countless thousands who witnessed the
passage of those warships and the millions more who read about them in daily
newspapers, this voyage marked America’s arrival as a major military power.”
(Alfred W. McCoy, To Govern the Globe, 2021,
191).
QUAKERS’ AFSC (12-4-21) DEFENDED THE INTERNED JAPANESE
Opposing the
internment of Japanese-Americans: Dec. 7
marks the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, the
U.S. government forced more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their
homes into internment camps. Prejudice against Japanese, and against all
Asiatics, was so deeply ingrained in US foreign policy and the public, that few
citizens spoke out against the blatant violation of Japanese civil
liberties. One exception were the
Quakers, whose AFSC was one of the few
organizations that publicly opposed the enormous human rights violation. –D
Contents #8 December 7, 2020
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2020/12/pearl-harbor-day-colonial-pacific-world.html
Hamilton Fish. FDR, The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War
II. 1976.
Robert C. Aldridge. December
7, 1941: The Attack On Pearl Harbor. 2010.
OMNI Pearl Harbor
Newsletters #1-8
No comments:
Post a Comment