OSAKA -- The public should take a page out of the Europeans' book and do more to push political leaders to reconcile Japan's relations with East Asia over historical issues, an expert on European historical reconciliation said at a seminar here earlier this week.
At the seminar, which focused on historical reconciliation efforts in Europe and East Asia, Lily Gardner Feldman noted that citizens in Europe played, and continue to play, an influential role in helping Germany reconcile with its neighbors and with Israel.
Feldman, a senior fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies, said civil society in postwar Europe greatly aided governments confronting contentious historical issues.