At the dawn of the new millennium, many nations continue to grapple with the historic and moral implications of World War II. In Berlin, the German government broke ground for a new Holocaust Memorial, and in Stockholm 40 heads of state joined with historians, educators and Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide in an unprecedented display of international solidarity against Nazism and Holocaust denial. Clearly, there is a growing consensus that the civilization of the 21st century can only avoid repeating past errors by confronting history, not burying it. Sadly, there is a different picture as concerns Japanese war crimes of the 1930s and 1940s. Instead of measured and serious historic review, near hysteria is sweeping the ongoing debate over this issue.

Following a period of relative quiet, the subject exploded as a result of several developments, especially Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking," a book that captured the reading public's imagination and became an international best seller. But in Japan, nationalists deny that events such as the Nanjing Massacre ever took place, or minimize their horrors to make them appear inconsequential. Others seek to resurrect the reputation of the Showa Emperor and put a rosy gloss on the "liberation" of millions of Asians as a result of Japanese conquest and military occupation. A popular movie proclaims the virtues of Gen. Hideki Tojo. Even ordinary Japanese who are neither rightists nor leftists inadvertently aid the revisionist cause by seeing Japan only as the victim of a nuclear holocaust and not as an aggressor.

In the United States, a recently retired Japanese ambassador added to the controversy. Making himself a partner in the debate over Chang's book, he let slip that he had contemplated launching a lawsuit, revealing just how little he understood about the country in which he was serving -- a country where the First Amendment culture precludes lawsuits over books and ideas.