Dr.Hinohara Shigeaki is the most popular physician in Japan at present. He is 99 years old, but his diaries are said to be filled up with appointments for the next at least several years. He has an innumerable number of works to his credit which have significant social meaning apart from purely clinical. For example he was among the first to introduce the idea of hospice here. He also incorporated music as a means of therapy. He is the Chairman of the renowned St.Luke's Hospital, Tokyo. Even in the car he is always writing or dictating. But when out of the car he walks without a stick, and runs up the stairs by two steps at a time.
Hinohara is also a great lover of peace, and says that the Article 9 of our Constitution should not be revised or deleted. Recently he wrote in his weekly newspaper column that when he visited Okinawa earlier this year he revealed a plan of his own designed to solve the question of the US military bases there.
He says that the Okinawans should put up with the present state of the bases for ten years, and the US should return them at the end of the period. Freezing. As simple as that. And he adds that when he put the idea to the 1,000-strong audience they all applauded and said 'yes'.
I have been thinking about it for a few weeks. With all my respect and good wishes to him, however, I am not able to bring myself to accept it. Why?
First, we can abolish the Security Treaty after one year once we notify the US. This is the right prescribed in Article 10 of the Treaty. Are we going to abandon it, together with the possibility that we will mobilize ourselves in that direction?
Second, at the moment we are simply watching the bases as the US use them as they please, with all the accompanying noises, dangers, and so on. Are we to ask the Okinawans to wait for ten years more, on and above the several decades already past?
Third, its not simply freezing, as new developments are bound to occur. The bases are not simply there. They are for transmitting the troops and equipment where ever they are needed. They will not therefore give them up automatically. The idea Hinohara has put to us is not designed to put enough pressure on the US to leave. It is not likely to put any pressure at all.
What puzzles me, after all is said, is why the audience has all agreed, though most of them must be locals. May I suggest, without any cynicism, that it is Hinohara magic?
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