creeping socialist communism

[mattd]

[Tom Uren on a trip to japan by the head of the returned soldiers league.]

I'm talking about the militarists, the crimes they committed and the 
atrocities they committed -- should be taught in the education system to 
the young people.

TONY JONES: He said today specifically this was an opportunity to send a 
direct message to the Japanese that they should be educating their young 
people about those atrocities committed by their own military during World 
War II.

Is this the right way to do it, though?

TOM UREN: Yes, he should be given support and credit.

I don't know about going to the controversial war memorial that he went to 
because, after all, there's a lot of controversy even in Japan itself 
whether or not they should go to those shrines.

That's probably one of the question marks.

TONY JONES: Let's focus on that just for a moment.

This was a war memorial commemorating the Japanese dead.

Is it wrong to honor the fallen enemy?

TOM UREN: Yeah, well, I mean the thing is that the enemy -- even though we 
didn't recognize the cruelty of them -- but it really came from the 
leadership down.

I think that's, I hope, a thing of the past.

I mean, the crimes they committed were in fact within Australia.

People ask me, you know, to talk about what the Japanese did and I said, 
"It's indescribable".

TONY JONES: Let's take this question of attitudes, though, because one of 
the things that Major General Phillips is done is, in a sense, he's turned 
the argument on its head.

He said today, "This is a great opportunity to have our veterans think 
through this issue".

Is that what it is?

Is it time for vete7ans to rethink their attitudes toward the Japanese?

TOM UREN: Well, I think that as far as I'm concerned, there's a difference 
between the Japanese people and the Japanese militarists.

It's the militarists that I don't think are the ones that are still really 
stopping the history of Japan to be unfolded to their younger people.

That's my differences there.

TONY JONES: Let me ask you this, though, do you understand your fellow 
veterans, your comrades who were prisoners of war?

Do you understand why many of them will never forgive, will continue to 
hate, and that they transfer that hatred through generations to all Japanese?

TOM UREN: No, they've got that feeling and they find it very hard to forgive.

On the other hand, there are many of us that, in fact, have forgiven.

I mean, Weary Dunlop was just one example.

TONY JONES: How do you come to do that after the things that happened?

TOM UREN: Well, I served with Weary for 1.5 years, and if you asked what I 
thought of the Japanese in the first 2.5 years when I was a prisoner of war 
with them, I would have exterminated them from the planet.

But the last year of the war I spent in Japan, particularly the first nine 
months at a place called Saganosaki.

I worked with old Japanese, with a kindness.

We were doing shiftwork and after we'd finish, we'd go into a communal bath 
and work together.

And when we couldn't speak their language and they couldn't speak ours, the 
old body language came over.

I found myself, the only Red Cross parcel I got, I found myself sharing it 
with some of my workmates who were Japanese because they were starving the 
same way we were.

TONY JONES: We're going to have to leave it there.

Thanks very much for sharing that with us.

TOM UREN: I just want to say one thing.

There's no progress in hate.

Really, I believe in progress.

TONY JONES: Thanks for joining us tonight.

TOM UREN: Thank you.

"weary" Dunlop.Sir Edward Weary Dunlop was a surgeon in the Australian Army 
during World War Two.


Former prisoner of War, Bill Griffiths is among the many who owe their 
lives to Weary.

The Japanese planned to kill him.

What use is a disabled man, it was argued.

Weary stepped in front of the bayonets and refused to move until Bill's 
life was spared.

A habit of keeping track of the war via a hidden wireless also landed Weary 
in the firing line.

"I got handcuffed around a tree, my tummy exposed to four bayonets and a 
countdown. Things were pretty grim." Weary ended up being tortured instead 
... but the experience only made him more defiant.

The aussie's egalitarianism arguably led to better survival rates than the 
class obsessed brits who died like flies.
It led Uren ,who later joined the labor party and became a minister ,to say 
that,"In the camps we were all socialists"
Weary who was always on the conservative side of politics (the liberal 
party in au) actually went further when he said,"In the camps we were all 
communists!"