Malaysians Recall Stories Of Japanese Atrocities Following Propaganda Comments From Japanese YouTuber
Japanese YouTuber Yoko Ishii came under fire after accusing TIME magazine for spreading “Chinese propaganda” on their front page edition featuring Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
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If there’s one thing we’ve all learned from our history books, it’s that the Japanese occupation was one of the worst things to befall the British colony of Malaya now known as Malaysia.
Malaysia or Malaya was gradually occupied by the Japanese between 8 December 1941, with the Japanese remaining in occupation, and up to the point they surrendered to the Allies in 1945.
Since then, survivors of this cruel regime have passed down horrifying tales of what the Japanese soldiers had done to their families and them from generation to generation.
Recently, Japanese YouTuber Yoko Ishii came under fire from what seemed like the whole of South East Asia when she accused the TIME magazine for spreading “Chinese propaganda” on their front page edition featuring Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
In a series of tweets she wrote:
“TRUE MILITARY POWER”!? HUH!?!? This cover is CHINESE PROPAGANDA! THIS IS WRONG!PM Kishida hasn’t said such a thing, nor is he going to. Even if Japan doubles its defense budget, China’s more than triples that. Japan is finally preparing for China’s threat though not enough.
Japanese YouTuber Yoko Ishii
Adding on, she also said:
Westerners probably have no idea, but Japan’s war guilt imprint is coming from China’s propaganda against Japan which says Japan was a military power that tortured other Asians and that’s why the country should never have military forces, nukes etc. Time says we’re going BACK.
Japanese YouTuber Yoko Ishii
These sets of tweets riled up South East Asians who had a lot to say coming from countries that were under the Japanese occupation back in the day.
Twitter user @tattyhassan said:
My arwah tok used tell me stories about how when the Japanese masuk their kampung, they’d hid the women & girls in a hole that they dug, together with the beras etc bcs they’d come to rape the ladies and burn all food supplies.
@tattyhassan via Twitter
Another Twitter user @maimaimai95 called out Yoko saying:
SIT DOWN. Your country invaded my country (Malaysia) and my ancestors from China had to flee Mainland China because you lot went on with the Manchurian War.The Japanese Army killed our men, raped our women, lynched our elders, and tortured our children. That’s propaganda?!
@maimaimai95 via Twitter
Adding on, she recalled a story told by her late great grandfather who had to run away from Mainland China because the Japanese were killing his family.
She noted that him being a Chinese immigrant in Malaya during the Japanese Occupation was also dangerous because the Japanese Army back then would slaughter many Chinese people.
Malayan women were made into “COMFORT LADIES” which were literally teenagers being taken away from their families to be PROSTITUTES for the Japanese soldiers. PLEASE ASK HOW MANY MALAYSIANS HAVE JAPANESE ANCESTRY THANKS TO THIS ATROCIOUS PRACTICE?!
@maimaimai95 via Twitter
At the same time, Twitter user @faizalhamssin recalled a story his grandmother once told him.
He tweeted:
My late grandma kept an old Quran at home, with some pages torn. Years ago I asked her, “where did the pages go?”. She explained, a Japanese soldier came to the house & used them as toilet paper. Japanese imperialism was vile. We shouldn’t whitewash history.
@faizalhamssin via Twitter
Twitter user @sanryvji shared:
Japanese soldiers used to rob Malaysians of their infant children, throw them into the air, and see how many they could impale with their bayonets. for sport. and that wasn’t the worst thing my grandfather witnessed from them. We were never allowed to ride bikes around him because he witnessed a child beheaded as he rode by a Japanese soldier, who sliced his head off. the boy couldn’t have known. his body kept cycling a few metres before his body finally collapsed.
@sanryvji via Twitter
On the other hand, Twitter user @Natcromancer said:
There are a million stories about the brutality of Japanese occupation from Korea to Malaysia. We don’t need any other country’s “propaganda”. We just listen to the horrors that our grandparents and great-grandparents had to live through.
@Natcromancer via Twitter
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