Nanjing Massacre claims another
life By Victor Fic
BEIJING - "The chronicle of
humankind's cruelty is a long and sorry tale. But if it
is true that even in such horror tales there are
degrees
of ruthlessness, then few
atrocities can compare in intensity and scale to the
rape of Nanjing during World War II."
So wrote
Chinese-American author Iris Chang in the introduction
to her 1997 bookThe Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten
Holocaust of World War II (Basic Books, 1997).
A New York Times best-seller that was translated into 13
languages, the book sank like a stone into the pond of
official historical apathy in the West and official
denial and evasion in Japan. Still, there were
exceptions.
Much to the shock and horror of
her millions of fans and supporters worldwide,
the 36-year-old Chang committed suicide by firing a
single bullet into her head on November 9. A
commuter discovered her body alone in her car on a rural
road near Sunnyvale, which is close to San Jose,
California.
It is a sadly opportune time
to review her brief, yet remarkable life as a
successful Chinese-American woman, and her career as
a journalist-historian who made her most prominent
mark within the international redress movement that
implores Japan to atone for its imperial-era war crimes.
Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey,
in 1968 and grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
Both her parents taught at the University of Illinois.
She said she first heard about the 1937 Nanjing
Massacre while growing up within her family, for her
grandparents had escaped from the beleaguered city where
massacres took place from the city's fall to the
Japanese in December 1937 into March 1938. As many as
300,000 civilians were murdered; an estimated
20,000-80,000 women were raped, most of them later
murdered. Chang eventually earned an undergraduate
journalism degree from the University of Illinois and
put in a reporting stint with the Chicago Tribune and
The Associated Press. Then she enrolled in the master's
program at Johns Hopkins University in 1990.
Her
first book, called Thread of the Silkworm, (Basic
Books, 1995) told the story of a Chinese rocket
scientist, Dr Tsien Hsue-shen. A former professor of
aeronautical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and the California Institute of
Technology, Tsien helped found the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The United States
government deported Tsien in the 1950s, fearing that he
was spying for Beijing; he ended up making missiles for
China, such as the Silkworm missile.
When the
Cox report by US representative Christopher Cox, a
California Republican, alleging Chinese high-technology espionage in the
United States was issued in January 1999 (and declassified in
May 1999), it cited Chang's book as asserting that
Tsien was, in fact, a spy. Chang lashed out at the
report, clarifying that her book could not firmly conclude
that he was one, adding that the issue would
remain unresolved until Beijing and Washington offered
more information. Showing her sense of impartiality and
fair play, she added that if the US government wanted
to make its case that someone was a communist and a spy,
it had to offer proof.
It was Chang's
book on Nanjing that catapulted her to
prominence. Chronicling the massacre itself, she wrote, "As victims
toppled to the ground, moaning and screaming, the
streets, alleys, and ditches of the fallen capital
[of Nationalist China] ran rivers of blood." As
for the many rapes committed, Chang quoted a Japanese
veteran as saying, "Perhaps when we were raping her, we
looked at her as a woman, but when we killed her, we
just thought of her as something like a pig."
Apparently, many troops thought that raping virgins
would ensure them greater power in battle. She noted,
"Soldiers were even known to wear amulets made from the
pubic hair of such victims, believing that they
possessed magical powers against injury."
The book won immense acclaim among journalistic reviewers
in the United States and elsewhere and it galvanized
the movement for redress. Chang was widely hailed
for bringing to America's and the world's attention an
issue about which even well-educated people knew little.
American conservative pundit George Will famously opined
that thanks to Chang's efforts, a "second rape of
Nanking", meaning the denial of the truth, had been
averted.
However, the book was not
universally applauded. Japanese nationalists of various
stripes denounced Chang as a de facto or real agent of the Chinese
government, determined to spread anti-Japanese
propaganda. Some Japanese commentators insisted that
Chang's book contained errors, such as photographs of
the alleged massacres that they could "prove" came from
other sources.
Other
interlocutors went further and asserted that the Nanjing Massacre
never happened at all, meaning that Chang was perpetuating
a fable. In 1998, Chang told this author that "not
a single week goes by when I don't suffer harassment
from some vicious right-wing Japanese group," insisting that
she lied. As the book never appeared in Japanese because of a falling-out
between Chang and her publisher, most average Japanese
do not know of her efforts. But many do know of the
atrocities committed in Nanjing.
In addition, some professional Japan experts in the US
dunned Chang and the redress movement, alleging that their
efforts to make Tokyo officially apologize for the war
and pay compensation to its victims was an example
of ethnic solidarity and special-interest politics. Chang's
defenders retorted that the issue of justice denied was
all too clear, and they pointed to the growing number of
non-Chinese supporters, such as those in Korea, the
Philippines, elsewhere in Southeast Asia and globally.
Her most recent book, The Chinese in
America, chronicled the colorful, dramatic history
of how and why the Chinese came to the United States and
their ability to overcome prejudice and cultural
barriers in order to win respect and achieve success.
As for Chang's unexpected suicide - she was
renowned for her drive and passion - friends said they
were bewildered. Chang herself admitted that she felt
rage as she researched the Nanjing Massacre, even
suffering nightmares. It appears that Chang - determined
to be the voice of the forgotten - had started to gather
material for a book on US soldiers tortured by the
Japanese in the Philippines during the war when she
suffered a nervous breakdown in Kentucky five months ago
and entered a hospital.
Her friends have
explained that she tended to take her sometimes gruesome
research to heart, but they cannot be sure if this
tendency factored in her demise. They also told this
author that her family - she left behind her husband and
a one-year-old son - is protecting its privacy, and
hers.
What can be known is that Chang left
behind a lustrous legacy of truth. According to retired
San Francisco Superior Court judge Lillian Sing, "She
was a real woman warrior trying to fight injustice"
through her writing, her lectures on campuses and at
bookstores and her media appearances.
In
1998, the Organization of Chinese American Women named
Chang National Woman of the Year. None other than
luminary historian Stephen Ambrose deemed Chang one of
America's most promising young historians. San Francisco
Chronicle book editor Oscar Villalon added that Chang herself
had become "one of the most visible Chinese-American
authors" in her homeland.
In the many tributes
being paid to her, the common theme is that Chang was
above all a truth teller. Those who want to honor her
memory can best do so by following her example of
courage, vision and honesty.
Victor
Fic is a freelance writer and broadcaster currently
in Beijing. (Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
of ruthlessness, then few
atrocities can compare in intensity and scale to the
rape of Nanjing during World War II." 
