Quote:
Originally Posted by Sangetsu
If you want to talk about racial heirarchy and superiority, those were the driving forces behind the Germans and Japanese. Germans were the "master race", and the Japanese had a "divine" Emperor, and "manifest destiny" and all that. The Japanese saw themselves as superior to all other peoples. They didn't even consider the people of Southeast Asia as human beings, but mere chattel, fit only to be used as the lowest of slaves.
It was America and the Allies which fought against those notions.
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You're right. The Japanese believed that they had a divine mission to civilise Asia. That's true. And they did think themselves as unique. But it wasn't quite a notion of superiority over the West. Certainly over other Asians they thought that though.
Also.... America and the Allies did not fight against those notions. This belief that the Allies fought for Altruistic ideals is just that... a belief. The United States was still a racially segregated nation at the time. When the war was over many of the European powers sought to retake or reassert control over many of the colonies it lost in Asia. ( Britain in Malaysia, France in Vietnam, Holland in Indonesia etc... and they failed in all those cases.)