Page 1006 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"I'm surprised they taught any history more recent than the Mongol invasion," said Peter.
"The Japanese were finally stopped when the Americans dropped the first nuclear weapons on two Japanese cities."
"The equivalent, in those days, of the Little Doctor. The irresistible, total weapon. The Japanese soon came to regard these nuclear weapons as a kind of badge of pride: We were the first people ever to have been attacked by nuclear weapons. It had become a kind of permanent grievance, which wasn't a bad thing, really, because that was part of their impetus to found and populate many colonies, so that they would never be a helpless island nation again. But then along comes Aimaina Hikari, and he says-- by the way, his name is self-chosen, it's the name he used to sign his first book. It means 'Ambiguous Light.'"
"How gnomic," said Wang-mu.
Peter grinned. "Oh, tell him that, he'll be so proud. Anyway, in his first book, he says, The Japanese learned the wrong lesson. Those nuclear bombs cut the strings. Japan was utterly prostrate. The proud old government was destroyed, the emperor became a figurehead, democracy came to Japan, and then wealth and great power."
"The bombs were a blessing, then?" asked Wang-mu doubtfully.
"No, no, not at all. He thinks the wealth of Japan destroyed the people's soul. They adopted the destroyer as their father. They became America's bastard child, blasted into existence by American bombs. Puppets again."
"Then what does he have to do with the Necessarians?"
"Japan was bombed, he says, precisely because they were already too European. They treated China as the Europeans treated America, selfishly and brutally. But the Japanese ancestors could not bear to see their children become such beasts. So just as the gods of Japan sent a Divine Wind to stop the Chinese fleet, so the gods sent the American bombs to stop Japan from becoming an imperialist state like the Europeans. The Japanese response should have been to bear the American occupation and then, when it was over, to become purely Japanese again, chastened and whole. The title of his book was, Not Too Late."
"And I'll bet the Necessarians use the American bombing of Japan as another example of striking with maximum force and speed."
"No Japanese would have dared to praise the American bombing until Hikari made it possible to see the bombing, not as Japan's victimization, but as the gods' attempt at redemption of the people."
"So you're saying that the Necessarians respect him enough that if he changed his mind, they would change theirs-- but he won't change his mind, because he believes the bombing of Japan was a divine gift?"