Not only Americans are dangerously in thrall to divinity.

I was reminded of this in a poignant Memorial Day article May 28 in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, the only metro daily in this stretch of sparsely populated prairie heartland in South Dakota.

The article was about an obscure 1943 World War II battle on Attu island, a desolate, frigid outpost in the remote Aleutian chain southwest of Alaska. During the war’s Pacific conflict, Japanese forces had occupied Attu and Kiska, a nearby island, to distract American focus from an important battle unfolding at Midway in the Hawaiian Islands chain (today Midway remains the only island in the Hawaiian archipelago not part of the Hawaii state).

As Pacific battles go, Attu was but a cipher, a sideshow for America, but a tragedy for the 2,500 Japanese soldiers who were sent there as a diversion. All but 28 of the Japanese perished, many by suicide, hugging a grenade in a final act of ritual defiance — and, more relevant to this blog, in an ultimate act of worshipful self-negation to the Japanese emperor, whom his countrymen believed divine.

More than 500 Americans died retaking Attu.

Tomimatsu Takahashi, a Japanese survivor of the battle, told a television reporter that he felt “not lucky” to survive and return to his family and friends in Japan.

“I felt so relieved to be home,” he said. “But I never thought I was lucky to be alive. I thought I survived because I was not lucky. I felt I was not supposed to come back because those who went to war were not supposed to come back, and that’s what we were taught.”

Throughout the war, thousands of Japanese committed suicide rather than dishonor their divine emperor in cowardly, survivable defeat. These martyrs to myth included the famed kamikaze pilots who flew their bomb-laden planes into enemy ships in the Pacific War to the tragic, last-stand figures on Attu. Their faith, as all unverified faith, was unquestioning.

In the end, these self-destructions were the wages of ignorance and delusion, covering the legacies of their victims not with infinite glory but great, unnecessary grief and sadness for those left behind. Still, there is a terrible honor in such courage.

When Japanese Emperor Hirohito finally saw the writing on the wall after the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, he broadcast a radio message — the first time his subjects had ever heard his voice — recommending the unthinkable, surrender.

The emperor retained exalted status in Japanese life even after the final surrender documents were signed in Tokyo harbor, and his descendant remains respected today. But it’s clear that when the heretofore divine Hirohito spoke on the radio, affirming his impotence and mortality in the face of American military might, his divinity dissipated.

I can only imagine the depth of visceral grief suffered by the Japanese after their godly emperor revealed his humanity — and powerlessness — on the radio. In an instant, the Japanese were transformed from divinely empowered conquerers to delusional losers.

Whether it is of the militarist or spiritual kind, divinity is always a clear and present danger to humanity. Even when you win.

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