Everything about Mokusatsu totally explained
Mokusatsu (黙殺) is a
Japanese word formed from two Chinese characters: "silence" (moku, 黙) and "kill" (satsu, 殺) and means the act of keeping a contemptuous silence. Some argue that the word was misinterpreted by the
United States when the government of
Japan used it as a response to American demands for unconditional surrender in
World War II, which may have influenced President
Harry S. Truman's decision to use the
atomic bomb against
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Though rarely used these days, the word was employed in the morning edition of the
Asahi Shinbun on
July 28,
1945 to designate the attitude assumed by the government to the
Potsdam Declaration. Later that day in a press conference, it was used by the Premier
Suzuki Kantaro to dismiss the Potsdam Declarations as a mere rehash of earlier rejected Allied proposals, and therefore, being of no value, would be killed off by silent contempt (
mokusatsu). Suzuki's choice of the term was dictated perhaps more by the need to appease the military, which was hostile to the idea of 'unconditional surrender', than to signal anything to the Allies.
The expression can also mean to just let a topic or subject die by refusing to follow up on it. The reasons for the "mokusatsu" response could as easily be contempt as embarrassment, discomfort, or even simply not knowing what else to do in response.
The October 2006 index to the NSA Technical Journal (cf. http://www.thememoryhole.org/nsa/bibs.htm ) mentions an article on mokusatsu.
Further Information
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