Japanese Vice Prime Minister Taro Aso retracts the ‘Nazi tactics’ statement
Just a few days after his controversial speech where he suggested that Japan could learn a thing or two from Nazi Germany when it comes constitutional reform, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso retracted his remarks saying it has led to a “misunderstanding”.
Japanese deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso in 2009 WEF. photo Hatto World Economic Forum via wikipedia
In a speech Monday, Aso said concerning constitutional reform in Japan, “First, mass media started to make noises about Japan’s proposed reforms, and then China and South Korea followed suit. The German Weimar Constitution changed, without being noticed, to the Nazi German constitution. Why don’t we learn from their tactics?”
This statement drew the ire of The Simon Wiesenthal Center Tuesday.
“What ‘techniques’ from the Nazis’ governance are worth learning—how to stealthily cripple democracy?” asked Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Human Rights NGO, adding, “Has Vice Prime Minister Aso forgotten that Nazi Germany’s ascendancy to power quickly brought the world to the abyss and engulfed humanity in the untold horrors of World War II?
“The only lessons on governance that the world should draw from the Nazi Third Reich is how those in positions of power should not behave,” Rabbi Cooper concluded.
In addition, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young blasted Aso on Tuesday. “Such remarks definitely hurt many people,” the Yonhap news agency quoted Cho as saying. “It is clear what such comments on the (Nazi) regime mean to people of the time and to those who suffered from Japan’s imperialistic invasion.”
On Thursday, Aso retracted the remarks saying, “It’s very regrettable that my remark on the Nazi administration caused misunderstanding,” Aso told reporters. He also said it was inappropriate to cite the Nazis’ techniques.
The Liberal Democratic Party, to which Aso belongs, is seeking to revise the Constitution, including war-renouncing Article 9, so Japan can use the right of collective self-defense as stipulated by the U.N. Charter.
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