Facts alone do not make history. We choose and debate what to erase and what to record; and these decisions about the past have profound implications for our future. Tuesday marks the 79th anniversary of the start of the Nanjing massacre. Japanese troops slaughtered a vast number of civilians and prisoners of war, and raped tens of thousands of girls and women in the Chinese city. The atrocity has become perhaps more contentious and politicised as time has passed. The Japanese government has expressed its deep remorse and heartfelt apology for wartime actions – though the current prime minister has not quite repeated that apology – and acknowledged that many non-combatants were killed. But it questions the death toll, and Japanese rightwingers deny war crimes happened at all. History is no comfort to the dead, of course. History may not even prevent itself from being repeated. In Aleppo, never again has happened again: chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and now reports – via the UN human rights office – of pro-government forces killing civilians, including children, on the spot. Yet history matters, and not only for the faint prospect that the guilty may one day face justice for their actions. The truth is never enough, but the truth must be acknowledged.
