Tawara Yoshifumi, our last visitor of the quarter, spoke yesterday about Japan’s steady preparation for military combat. He argued that contemporary Japan has developed the military hardware and the legal basis for waging war, however, due to citizen aversion, the LDP–that is the blue blooded junta ruling Japan–has been unable to fully institutionalize the military. In order to create a citizenry willing to die for the nation, Tawara argues, the state must first transform the nature of education. Indeed, rather than a system of education based on the principles of individuality and human rights, conservative groups have proposed one that would inculcate national pride and popular patriotism.
Anyone who might believe that Tawara is overstating the situation, that he is depicting Abe as too radical, need only look to some of Prime Minister Abe’s recent statements. In a September 2006 speech, for example, Abe declared, “the purpose of education is to raise citizens dedicated to their aspirations and to create a dignified nation and society.” In a January 2007 speech, Abe argued that Japan must overcome the postwar system since world transformations have rendered it obsolete. He goes on to declare 2007 to be “The First Year for Creating a Beautiful Country.” These statements, in addition to Abe’s intimate involvement in organizations devoted to refuting Japan’s involvement in the system of military sexual slavery and Nanjing Massacre, should disabuse anyone of the notion that Abe is just another conservative.
One of the issues that stands out to me is that the battle being fought in contemporary Japan has its roots in the immediate postwar years. Indeed, the left and the right are waging the war of their parents (or in Abe’s case of his grandfather). The conservatives want to overturn the progressive framework–which came about as a result of the alliance between Japanese leftists and the early progressively inclined practitioners of pax-Americana–and the leftists want to retain it. The battle, then, is about overcoming the legacies of the postwar. However, despite the surface similarities between the right and the left–in that they are both waging war through the symbolic rhetoric of the postwar–I believe that the contemporary right and left in Japan are speaking about fundamentally different issues. For the right, the postwar represents a time of national humiliation when the US imposed victor’s justice on a once proud nation. For the left, to the contrary, the postwar system is one of international human rights, not necessarily connected to the “national character” of Japan. Thus, while both sides speak about the postwar, it seems that they are talking about fundamentally different issues.
This post is getting a little out of hand, so let me get to the main point. I am fascinated by the fact that the postwar system is still so powerful. Indeed, despite the best efforts of a very powerful ruling elite, the system has by and large remained. Tawara and Nakajima have pointed to the people as the primary reason for this extraordinary longevity of an imposed system. This, no doubt, is true. But why do average Japanese care so much about a system that was born of occupation? And why does the nationalist, “bright country” rhetoric of Abe and friends not succeed in totally dismantling the postwar?
As a very preliminary answer, I would like to suggest that the postwar system is so powerful precisely because it is one based on international human rights. It is an example of–if I’m remembering my political philosophy correctly–a “Kantian conception of society” in which rational humans step outside of historical circumstances and create a wholly progressive system. Nationalists have failed because they are attacking an abstract system of human rights discourse with nationalist rhetoric. Vague formulations of a bright country simply do not have the conceptual force of abstract, progressive discourse on human rights, even if this abstract discourse is only imperfectly instantiated in contemporary Japan. Why do the Japanese need a bright future, when they have a nation that is–however imperfectly–based on progressive understandings of human rights.
It is a bit mind-boggling how much the Japanese–and the left and progressives within–want to protect a system that was imposed on them during occupation. Nakajima-san emphasized in class, however, how the majority of the population supported the content of Article 9 from the time of its initial adoption. The notions may have come from outsiders, but I think the people embraced it because it was the complete opposite of their war-torn lives of hunger and fear. I believe that the continued support of the Constitution and policies like the FLE has a lot to do with the older generation who still remember suffering under the wartime regime. To them, I think, these postwar policies may have come from outsiders, but the changes were exactly what they wanted after Japan’s defeat. The war-survivors’ appreciation of Article 9 and the FLE supports your suggestion of the power of international human rights over nationalism and abstract promises of “bright futures.” If the concepts that emerged from occupation allign with broader concepts of human rights, they are convincing and attractive despite the origins of such concepts. And for actual survivors of air raids and days without food, this probably rings true to them more than for most.
Comment by Makiko — May 19, 2007 @ 1:35 pm |
This is an endlessly compelling question. We have to keep in mind prewar movements, too–Japanese didn’t suddenly encounter a whole new set of ideas about society!–and the whole complex mix of actual experiences of suffering, as Makiko says and new ideas coming as policies and institutions and cultural forms (e.g., movies). The Occupation is central, but I think we could overemphasize the importance of “foreign imposition” in thinking about the concrete and serendipitous ways in which ideas and practices are adopted.
We need to read lots of individual accounts, look at the photographic record, etc., to begin to get a sense of the rich array of factors that went into making postwar Japan.
A huge amount of material was published on the 50th anniversary. I just happened, in fact, to pull out my _Encyclopedia of Postwar Japan 1945-1994_ (戦後史大事典from Tomomi’s old workplace, Sanseido, edited by Sasaki Atsushi, Tsurumi Shunsuke, Tominaga Kenichi, Nakamura Masanori, Masamura Kimihiro, and Murakami Yoichiro).
Comment by normajeanne — May 20, 2007 @ 8:33 pm |