Whither Japan-III-Secrecy Act

     On the night of 6 December 2013, almost the midnight, the coalition majority in the Upper House of Japan's Parliament passed the Secrecy Act, winding up the debate forcefully.  It had already been passed by the Lower House, and thus became an Act, amid the widening opposition among the people.   They were gradually becoming aware that this was a repressive law.  The government, with absolute majorities in both houses, did not want to wait for that awakening.

     The law proposes to set aside a large area of information in the hands of the government, defence and diplomacy to begin with, in the realm of secrecy and to punish those who are responsible for giving this secrecy out up to ten years of imprisonment.  The people are not supposed to know even what is in that realm of secrecy.  So it is a Black Act.  Moreover, those who are in a position to handle the secret information, and not only they but even their family and close friends, are going to be minutely researched upon by the police and the various information agencies.

     Some say that without such a law ready at hand, your allies will hesitate to share their secrecy with you.  True, there has been pressure by the US upon us to have such a legislation(this kind of information may be classified as secret from now on!).  But do we have to have that kind of high-level secret information at the expense of the popular rights?  Is the existing criminal law not enough?  The US is of course a democratic country.  But she has been pressing us to delete the Article 9 from our constitution, to accept the collective right for self-defence as something exercisable, maintain their military bases at Okinawa, and so on. It is dangerous to follow everything that they say.  And look at how our own government dislikes to, and is not used to, share information with the people who are supposed to be sovereign according to our constitution. They, for example, has not admitted that there exist some secret treaties with the US which the US admitted a long time ago.  It is this government that wants more power, and an undefined one. Ooe Kenzaburo, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, said that this Secrecy Law changes the nature of the Japanese state without changing the constitution.  Any opinion poll would show that more than half the voters will support Mr.Ooe.    

      

Whither Japan-II, Abe's Yasukuni Visit

     Yesterday, on 26 December 2013, Prime Minister Abe visited Yasukuni Shirine.  It is not an ordinary Shinto Shrine.  The Shinto, an indigenous religion of this country was always combined with Buddhism and received a theoretical backing from it.  Yasukuni, on the other hand, was established and supported by the State to enshrine those who had died in the wars, mostly external wars once the period of the civil wars was over during the early Meiji era.  My generation, who were in the primary school during the Second World War, was told to dedicate our lives to the Emperor and the country and to be enshrined there.  'See you at Yasukuni', even the small boys used to say, let alone the men.

     So when Abe told us that he went there to pray for no more war, we are at a loss.  If you glorify the death in the last war, you will be glorifying the war itself.  This is not an Unknown Soldier's Tomb, and Abe is intentionally mixing them up.  That is why the two US Secretaries who were here in October on a official visit did not come to this Shrine but to a different tomb nearby which is much more like an Unknown Soldier's Tomb.  Incidentally there is a map inscribed in the stone there showing roughly how many Japanese soldiers lost their lives in different theatres in the war.  Many lost their lives far away in different parts of the Pacific of starvation and illness. What for?  Abe would say that that is why he went to Yasukuni to thank them, and to pray to their souls.  But if you justify and glorify the past war, you will be getting ready to justify the future war as well.

     I had to say that because that is what the Shrine is engaging in. justifying and glorifying the past wars of this country.  It has enshrined 14 defendants, all convicted at the Tokyo Tribunal, including all the seven executed, in 1987.  The late Emperor wisely stopped visiting it afterwards, and the present one not once.  Most of these had a role to play in China, and elsewhere in Asia also.  Nowadays the Shrine is a huge institution propagating the justice of the war, and the injustice of the Tokyo Tribunal.  Thus they are challenging the legitimacy of the post-war world.

     Yesterday the US Embassy in Tokyo did not hide their disappointment.  That was a correct attitude.  They should know whom, what kind of people, they were calling their allies.  They should also know their Cold War policy had a great hand in the growth of those allies.  Thus they are in a dilemma.  And so is Abe.    

Whither Japan - I

     On 17 December, Prime Minister Abe's Cabinet approved the National Security Strategy and two related documents on defence planning.  Together they will determine the country's diplomatic and security stance for the coming decade.  They do leave, however, a lot to be desired.
     First and foremost they are not clear how to build better relations with China and DPRK.  Are they going to be Japan's enemies, or otherwise, and if the latter, how to build meaningful communication with them.  The documents describe them mainly as threats to our security. Foreign correspondents in Japan seem to be surprised that Abe does not want to have, and is not actually having, dialogue with China.  It is not at all our dishonour to extend our hands to China, and even to DPRK.
     To put it in a different way, we are saying that since China, or DPRK, has taken such and such a military measure, we have to do something to counter their move.  Where is the diplomacy, then? The documents say that diplomacy has also its role to play.  But have we let it play it?  The other day Abe wanted the US Vice President to play a mediator between Japan and China, and Japan and South Korea.  Despite the Vice President's effort the story collapsed. Apparently he had more serious business to attend to.  Abe should have done it himself.
     The US influence on Japan's defence thinking is as strong as ever in the documents.  They make a clear reference to the US nuclear deterrence.  What a dishonour for a country with tens of thousands of nuclear bomb victims to depend on the US nuclear deterrence!  At the same time the documents are full of animosity toward China and DPRK, especially the former.  The regional emphasis of defence as a whole will move to the southwestern Japan, with the formation of an amphibious unit modeled on the US Marine Corp, more destroyers, more fighter and reconnaissance planes to be based at Naha airbase, Okinawa, etc., which are all military in nature.
     One more thing is that the documents call for loosening the existing restraint on arms export.  After the Second World War nobody in any remote corner of the world has been killed by weapons exported from Japan and that is a really great achievement.  The UN Secretary General at the press conference on 16 December highly evaluated the first ever treaty on the restraining the trade of conventional weapons signed in the course of the year 2013.
     The Japanese people will strive to find a more peaceful way to cope with the tension in East Asia.  At the same time we strongly wish China to give up their claim to Senkaku Islands, as it is a baseless claim spurred by the interest in natural resources in the area, and wish DPRK to give up their nuclear program, as it goes against not just one but more of the international treaties and communiques that they have signed.  If they do so, the above documents will instantly lose most of their legitimacy.  Who will have the honour of breaking the vicious circle?             

Ahmed Kathrada

     Regretfully this was the first time I have come to know his name, person, and career.  But let me say that he was outstanding among the mourners of the late Nelson Mandela.

     Kathrada was one of Mandela's real comrades in struggle.  He was in prison for twenty-six years, one year shorter than Mandela, whom he called his elder brother, mentor, leader.  They stood trial together and were sentenced to life imprisonment together.  Kathrada concluded his speech, short but impassioned and moving, by 'My life is in a void.  I don't know who to turn to'.

     From his name I guessed that he must be of Indian origin, and perhaps a descendant of one of those Indian Muslim merchants who were in South Africa when Gandhi was.  I have also found that his ancestors were from Surat, on the western coast of India.

     Last year I had the pleasure of visiting Surat to interview Mr.Narayan Desai about Gandhi whose father was Gandhi's principal secretary until his premature death in 1942.  If I can interview Desai, Kathrada's fellow Gujarati and even senior to him by several years, although not a Muslim but a Hindu, I may be allowed to entertain a dream of interviewing Kathrada also!

     I am sure Kathrada will start working, even in a void, for solving those problems he did not name there.  I wish him good health.      

Mandela Has Passed Away

     Mr. Nelson Mandela died in the evening of 5 December, local time, at the age of 95.  The thought of him being no more makes me very sad.  I cannot think of any other such person living at present.  When I heard the news in the morning of 6 December, I happened to be reading writings of Gandhi. Then the voice of the Prime Minister of Britain began to come in, saying that 'Tonight one of the brightest lights of our world has gone out'.  When Gandhi was assassinated 65 years ago, India's Prime Minister Nehru broadcast to the nation, 'the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere'.

     The whole life of Mandela is worth knowing.  What interests me most, a humble student of Gandhi, is how Mandela, who had been of the view when he was imprisoned that non-violence was useless against apartheid in South Africa, was transformed into a firm believer in Truth and Reconciliation when he was out after 27 years in 1990.  Indeed, it must be beyond our imagination how much the Commission by that name chaired by Desmond Tutu helped achieve to bring about inter-racial good-will and to make South Africa united, when the country could well have been thrown even into a civil war.  At the time of the first election in 1994, people of different races were seen standing in the same lines to the voting stations, and giving food and drinks to one another.  I felt then that we were witnessing history being made.

     But in order to transform himself like this, he must have taken an enormous effort, maybe together with some of his co-prisoners.  This experience was shared by Gandhi also, but in Mandela's case the period in jail was much longer, and 18 years of them he had to live in a small island named Robben.  When he came out of prison, I was just beginning to think how difficult it would be for an aging person to be isolated from the world outside, particularly in a cell, without a hope to be released.  But witnesses say that while breaking stones, he made friends of white jailors and even read Shakespeare, etc.  Some one said on the BBC that 'he created himself' in the prison.

     I had an opportunity to spend one day in Johannesburg in 1983 on my way to observe a newly-independent Zimbabwe just north of it.  That one day was, of course, far from enough to understand the apardheid regime, but still it was much better than nothing.  I saw "white only" carriages of a train which would stop by the "white only" stairs leading up to the white station, and the other carriages of the same train leading up to the non-white station, and these two stations were far away from each other overground.

     The mention of Zimbabwe reminds us that the power does get corrupt.  It was a real stroke of political genius that Mandela chose to serve as President for only one term of five years.  He did not try to build a dynasty. This must be a lesson to all the people in power, including his successors in South Africa.  May peace be with him.

                      

Questions on Mahatma Gandhi

A well-known figure in India, who was known to Mahatma Gandhi, is collecting questions on Gandhi at present.  He is going to arrange them, and as a part of his social work to give them his answer.  The following are my questions sent to him at his request.

Questions on Gandhi

H.Yamaguchi

                  

His sense of mission in life

Gandhi said, quite often, that he was trying to educate and train the Indians according to his ideas.  He already said at the time of the Kheda struggle in 1918 that his mission was ‘to train and prepare the country’.  Did he already have this sense of mission when he returned to India in 1915?  Was it the purpose of his return?  Was it his idea that he was the only person capable of doing so?  Otherwise what motivated him to return to India, largely unknown to him then, for good?

Gandhi, Jinnah and the Muslim League

Gandhi once said after the tension between the Congress and the League intensified that Jinnah ‘has hated me’ since he criticized Jinnah for not using the Gujarati language.  Was it so?  Can we say that the Congress-League tension was further deepened by the personal animosity between Gandhi and Jinnah?

On Gandhi-Jinnah talks of 1944, it is very questionable to me if Gandhi was right to back up the “Rajaji Formula”.  It was a plan for the partition of India.  Therefore it is difficult to say that Gandhi was against the partition.  Moreover the Gandhi-Jinnah talks, at which Gandhi based his idea on the “Formula”, made it known to Jinnah that the Congress was not dead against the partition.  It is debatable whether the League’s Pakistan Resolution was serious in intention or rather a bargaining counter, but even if it was a bargaining counter, the “Formula”, when backed by Gandhi, made it more than that.  Some first-rate intellectuals like Srinivasa Sastri expressed their apprehension, but of no use.

Communalism and the Constructive Programme

The All-India Spinners Association (AISA) took care of thousands of spinners and khadi weavers, and many of them were said to be Muslims.  Was it not enough to prevent the Muslim masses from going over to the League?

But later Gandhi had a long talk with Jajuji and told him that from then on khadi should be mainly for home consumption rather than for sale.  The sale of khadi then must have gone down and the income of the spinners/weavers also.  Why this change?

Gandhi’s brightest and darkest moments

Would it be possible to indicate the particular period(s) in Gandhi’s life when he was most high-spirited?  To me, one such period was the few years leading to the Salt March, including his return to politics, Sardar Patel’s Bardoli, Eleven Points sent to Lord Irwin, planning the March and picking up the fellow-travellers.  He even talked, ‘in confidence’, of his readiness to be the first President of the future Indian republic, saying ‘I should make a fair effort to shoulder it’ (Young India, 21 November 1929).  The several months leading to the Quit-India Resolution may have been another such period, but this time he was arrested much too soon.

On the other hand, it would appear that his lowest moment was when he said on the eve of Independence that ‘Sabarmati is far off, Noakhali is near’.  His greatness was, however, that he was not discouraged by the darkness around him.

Harijans

One of the subjects which Ambedkar put forward against Gandhi was that the Harijans were excluded from the management of the Harijan Sevak Sangh.  Gandhi had his own reasons for doing so.  He thought it was first and foremost the caste Hindus’ work.  He also said the Harijans were ‘so completely helpless’ and could not plan themselves.  Still, did it not unnecessarily antagonize Ambedkar?

Communists

Gandhi asked some Communists to come to Sevagram to ‘study me’.  He even offered to show his papers to them.  This was a very Gandhi-like behavior.  In your knowledge were there any Communists who did so, and published their observation?

The Partition

Was it correct for Gandhi to advise Ghaffar Khan to abstain from the crucial voting in deciding the fate of the NWFP in 1947?  He said that the choice should have been between Pakistan and Pakhutunistan.  That may have been ideal, but he must have known that it existed only in his mind and was not a realistic possibility.

What motivated the assassination of Gandhi

At the end of 1947, he wrote of the opening of the Pandharpur Temple in Maharashtra, and the visit by a large number of Harijans.  He also talked about the unhappiness on the part of many Brahman priests, who even went on fast.  Usually the assassins of Gandhi were said to be motivated by their hatred of Gandhi because of his allegedly pro-Muslim attitude.  Did his allegedly pro-Harijan attitude also motivate them?

   

Congratulations to the Geneva Agreement, Congratulations to Iran

     It was a good news coming from Geneva on Sunday.  It proved that Europe as a whole could play a great role in bringing peace, especially when it was united under the EU Foreign Minister.  It proved that the US should hereafter restrain herself in international negotiations as her role, even under Obama, had very much her own and the Israeli interests in mind.  And it proved that Iran, under the current President and the Foreign Minister, had persevered a lot for the sake of reaching an agreement with the West.

     Indeed, the Iranians, if not Iran as a state, persevered for exactly 60 years, as Prime Minister Musaddiq was pulled down by an Anglo-American sponsored coup in 1953.  They were left with no other means to express themselves but Islamism.  Then the war forced by Iraq.  And on both sides of the country, in Afghanistan and Iraq, there were huge US forces, in a position to attack Iran if necessary in their eyes, almost an unprecedented phenomenon in modern history.  But they stuck to peace somehow, and succeeded.

     I am not saying that Iran as a state had a clean record all the time.  She should not crossed the Iraqi border.  It is a matter of regret that she, and the world, missed an opportunity of coming to an agreement much earlier which was torpedoed by the former President.  And she should refrain from aiding some elements in the Middle East today from the wider perspective of peace in the region.

    Still, I was startled by the sharply pro-Israeli stance of not only the US President and his Secretary of State, but of the Western media.  One day, when the conference was in recess in the middle of November, one of such media was talking to a White House official.  The media person said things like, is it possible to come to an agreement with a new President who has been in office for just two months, or the sanctions are telling on the Iranians so is it not better to negotiate after the sanctions continue for some more time?  The inflation rate in Iran is 40% and it is really telling on the life of the people in humanitarian proportions.  There is not even a word on the hawks in Israel who may have been on the look-out for a military attack on Iran in case of a failure.  Even otherwise they called it 'a bad deal, a dangerous deal'.

     Even those who are not friendly-disposed toward Iran should take notice of the fact that the idea of peace has fast filtered into the people of Iran by the process of reaching an agreement this time.  They may also do well to note that, though Iran as a state may not be called democratic as yet, the peace of the region should rely on the civil society there who has been responsible for electing the new President.          

Miyazaki Hayao's "Kaze-Tachinu"

     Miyazaki Hayao, the world famous animation film director, has suddenly announced his early, or from our point of view premature, retirement.  But before doing so, he left one more to us and the world which, though centred around the life of a designer of a fighter plane, contains a strong appeal for peace.

     The designer, the hero of the story, is Horikoshi Jiro(1903-82).  He is a legendary figure who after years of painstaking effort succeeded in designing a fighter plane for the then Japanese navy, known as "Zero".  It excelled all the other main fighter planes in the world at the time, round about 1940.  In order to retain the maneuverability and speed while carrying a still inferior engine made in Japan, he and his team tried everything to curtail even one extra gram from the plane's weight.  In the movie Horikoshi was saying, 'Shall we then dismount the machine guns?'. Of course it was a joke, and they finally met all the requirements the navy had put to them, and even more.
   
     But Horikoshi is not described as a war-like man here.  He is not even a military man.  He is wholeheartedly interested in making a beautiful plane, a dream put into his head in his childhood by an Italian plane maniac in a real dream.

     One thing I would particularly appreciate is that there are no scenes of battle in the movie, let alone no scenes of 'Zero' fighters winning a victory over the enemies.  Most of the 2 hour 10 minute movie is devoted to how Horikoshi and his team worked, and some related and beautiful episodes such as his love and marriage.  Toward the end, when the team succeeded in producing a required prototype, the test pilot came to him and thanked him for giving them such a wonderful plane. The age for the 'Zero' plane had come, and the war-time Japan produced as many as 10,000 of them.  However, the war had been over by the next scene, where Horikoshi says, 'Not a single plane has come back'. 

Syria's Chemical Weapons

     This writer has long been under the impression that the chemical weapons in the hands of the Syrian government have been supplied from outside...from Russia, over the years.  Now the President of that country has told the world, at least to this writer's great surprise, that Syria herself has been manufacturing them, for a long time.  But has the declaration answered all the questions?

     Such as ; how is it that Syria got all the know-how to manufacture them; and to store them: what use, if any, has Syria put those dreadful weapons to: and above all what was Russia's role in arming Syria with them: suppose Syria could have manufactured 'the poor man's nuclear weapons' herself, what about the delivery systems:in other words are Syria's weapons fit only to be carried on the back of the soldiers? and suppose Russia helped Syria to have the necessary delivery systems, what was her purpose? it seems the Council Resolution included the destruction of the weapons and not the delivery systems:no such things existing in Syria?

     On the eve of an impending-so it seemed at one time-US attack on Syria, Russia seemed to score a diplomatic victory by producing the chemical weapons on the negotiating table.  But it was because they had known it, and by doing so they thought they could defend the government in Syria, or the person of the President.  A Cold War tactics.

     While there is nothing so far in the policies of the three Western powers encouraging to the cause of peace in the region, except the dramatic 'No' vote in the House of Commons, so were the Russian policies, too.  How about China's?

     The silver lining was the US-Iran dialogue held for the first time after the Iranian revolution. Its further progress would immensely enhance the cause of peace in the region.  It is hoped that Israel's blockade would be wisely bypassed.  

       

Once Again Hands Off Syria

     I am writing this on the eve of the crucial decision-taking by the IOC(International Olympic Committee) to choose one from among the three candidate cities, Istanbul, Madrid, Tokyo, as the venue of the 2020 Olympic Games.  I will come back to it at the end.
     The whole world is now discussing the possible military action against Syria.  The US is in the forefront of the move.  The Secretary of State John Kelly said in the public hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the world should 'stand up and act', waking up from 'armchair isolationism'.  These words are very conveniently said if seen from Japan where the US military bases are always active.
     One remarkable point is that neither Obama nor Kelly, or the resolution by the above Committee of 4 September, has referred to the UN, its Security Council, or even the UN Investigation Team which seems to be busy analyzing what they have collected in Syria.  Is this not unilateralism, or 'isolationism'?  The Permanent Members are split into two camps on this issue. Therefore the Security Council is immobile.  The US goes to the UN only when it suits her?
     At this hour of the UN crisis, although we can think of some precedents, it is the Secretary-General, Mr.Ban Ki-moon who has been warning against taking military measures without an explicit yes of the Council.  Unless in self-defense or by an SC resolution a military action would be deemed as an aggression, and is not conducive to 'the political resolution of the conflict', he says.  The authority of the UN is kept upright by him at the moment, as 'the political resolution of the conflict' is what the UN is for.  I do appreciate his action.  Obama says that the US needs no such sanctions by the UN, but these are misled words.  It may well be his graveyard in the eyes of the international community, even the Americans at large.
     There are a couple of questions I would like to ask on the chemical weapons. (1) Is not a part of the reason of the US preparedness this time the defense of Israel, as usual? (2) Was the US responsible for the chemical warfare Iraq unleashed against the Iranian army toward the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War?
     I am skipping them over for now, and come to the IOC voting.  I have no idea at all how the 100 or so of its members will vote tomorrow morning.  What I strongly feel is that if Japan is keen on one or both of the following, Tokyo might get more votes than otherwise.  (1) On the disposal of the contaminated water at the Fukushima nuclear plant.  (2) On 'the political(as against the military) resolution of the conflict' in Syria.    
           

No More War, Hands Off Syria

     The French President said that those responsible for the gas carnage should be punished. Those who have seen its photo will mostly agree.  But it is a different thing if they are willing to go to war for its sake.  Thus, the House of Commons has just vetoed the Prime Minister's motion to go into action.  The US Defense Secretary said several alternative scenarios are before the President to choose from,  but the President himself is said to be undecided, hopefully having become wiser than his predecessor.
     Unlike the case of Iraq, there do exist the weapons of mass destruction this time, and the UN team is busy investigating right now.  But suppose the WMD is found, would it automatically allow the strong powers to resort to the punishing activities?  True, Lebanon, Turkey, or possibly some others are also victims.  But has Syria attacked any one of them?  With all the sympathies to the victims, would the punishing actions be authorized by international law?  Has the Security Council the power to do so even if all the permanent members support it?
     It must be thought out what would happen if the punishment is given?  Many more would suffer.  And there will be no end, to the suffering and to the punishing action itself.  It will be another endless process to ruin one more country to the ashes.
     As for the US President, it is going to be really his war, from which it would be even more difficult to get out than Iraq or Afghanistan.  The US has armed, and is still arming, many of the countries in the region.  It is high time he made effort, together with the British PM, who lost because he went against the popular mood, to work on a Road Map for disarmament. That would be much more fitting for a Nobel Peace Prize Winner.             

How Japan is Divided as of 15 August 2013

     It is true that the Japanese opinion is divided, sometimes sharply.  On and around 15 August, the day Japan surrendered, a number of discussion meetings are held in the media on Japan's present and the future.  People want to know what kind of a country is this, and what is its purpose?  In this connection, a young man said at one such meeting on the TV this year that, while the views held by the conservatives are clear, those held by the liberals-leftists are usually vague.  They have not presented their alternative ideas.  I disagree.  Let me put forward a liberal-leftist view on some of the important issues dividing the nation today.

     We often quarrel among ourselves, even now, on the nature of the war, or the series of wars, Japan fought in the 19th and 20th Centuries.  Was it one of aggression, or of self-defense and liberation?  Why we conquered Colonies is a part of this debate.  There is one Yasukuni-Shrine in the midst of Tokyo where millions of the dead in the war are enshrined.  It openly says that the war was one of self-defense from the Western oppression on Japan and of the liberation of Asian peoples from the West.

     Conservative-minded people do visit the Shrine to offer prayers.  They include many public men, sometimes Ministers, even the Prime Minister.  They say it is the natural expression of their patriotism.  One of the three Ministers who did so on this 15 August said that it is purely our internal affairs and none of the foreign countries' business to interfere.  So he knows that the neighbouring countries are worried about our 'patriotism'.  But where did those soldiers die? Between the 13th-Century Mongolian invasions and the US bombing during the war, there was no foreign invasion of Japan at all.  All the war was fought on the foreign lands, to conquer them. Offering prayers at the Shrine implies that those who died dedicated their lives to defend the nation, which is a very wrong idea of history.  The Shrine also buried ,secretly, those who were executed as the result of the Tokyo Tribunal.  Japan accepted the judgement of the Tribunal by the Peace Treaty.  Thus those public men are also paying respect to those judged guilty for various crimes, in violation of the Peace Treaty.  They are guilty before our neighbours.  They are also guilty before the nation for throwing them into the fire of the war.  The US should know at least by now whom they are allied with.

     It is said that Japan has a right of self-defense, both individual and collective.  Do we really, even if the Constitution does not mention them, and the legal justification is usually based on the Article 51 of the UN Charter, as the Japan-US Security Treaty does?  Does it make a legal and political sense if the present Government want to make the right of collective self-defense exercisable, which has so far been presumed to be unexercisable?  And is it not dangerous in the sense that we would automatically get dragged into a US-sponsored war, like the invasion of Iraq?  These are all issues of crucial importance in determining the course of the country, but we are yet to have a serious debate on them.  In the above-mentioned televised discussion, some one said that even if we look around us, we do not find anyone except the US to be allied to. But why?  Is it not dangerous to be an ally of the US?  Where are the hypothetical enemies?  Why do we have to have a military alliance? Are we not suffering from the US bases in Japan?

     Japan's SDF(Self Defense Forces)were forced upon us practically by an order of the Occupation forces when the US forces stationed in Japan were moved to Korea as the war erupted there.  It was in clear violation of the Constitution denying to have any war potential. But many from the former Imperial Army and Navy were happy to join this newly created Reserve Police, under which name it started again.  Those conservatives who are crying for a made-in-Japan Constitution today has kept quiet on this. Similarly we are yet to debate among ourselves whether we should have a military alliance, and if so whether with the US.  The Security Treaty was also imposed upon us in the sense that it had been kept secret from the nation and only the Chief Delegate out of the seven-member delegation signed it.

     It would also be wrong to make too much of an issue of terrorism.  True, thousands were killed on 9/11.  But who brought up the Al-Qaida into a Frankenstein?  Or Saddam Hussein? The world should know when suicide bombing started, against whom, and why?  Also the world should know that there could have been, and still are, ways to politically disarm terrorism.  Otherwise we would always have to find enemies, and talk of the deterrence, which is bound to be nuclear deterrence, as Japan's own defense documents have clearly mentioned.  As long as we are caught by this thinking, the world could not hope to see early nuclear disarmament.

     It would be a much changed Japan if we could have a serious debate on these points.  The Asian neighbours would begin to look at us differently.  What is important for us, but has been lacking so far, is to be with the many ordinary members of the UN.  They really constitute the 'international community', while we have meant only, or mainly, the US, or the US and China, under that name, although these two are very important.  Here enters the Constitutional issue. The conservatives would above all like to struck the Article 9, which has been the objective of the LDP since its inception in 1955.  The people have been able to push back the move.  What is to be noted here is that this particular Article is a sort of a promise made by the people of Japan, the like of which has never been made by any LDP Prime Minister, that by denying the possession of any war potential, the Japanese people will never fight other peoples again, especially Asian peoples.                    

Excerpts from the two "Peace Declarations"

     I have already referred to the two "Peace Declarations", read by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on their Bomb Anniversaries, 6 August and 9 August, respectively.  I would like to give here a little more extended excerpts of both.

     Mayor of Hiroshima.
     Some 'hibakusha'(radiation-affected people)have felt that 'they have enjoyed not a single day of their lives on this earth'.  To some ladies their mothers-in-law had been kind, but when the latter came to know that they are hibakusha, they were immediately divorced.  The fear of radioactivity sometimes draws out the human ugliness and cruelties, and have given immense suffering to many hibakusha at the important epochs of their lives such as marriage, job placement, or pregnancy.  Indeed the nuclear weapons are "an absolute evil".
     We will endeavour, in cooperation with the 5,700 mayors who are members of the conference of peaceful cities, the UN, and the like-minded NGOs, to abolish the nuclear weapons by 2020. We will also try to realize the non-nuclearization of North Korea, and to found a Nuclear-Free Zone in Northeast Asia.
     Right now our Government is going ahead with concluding a nuclear treaty with the Government of India.  It may help build a close economic relation between the two countries.  It may, however, create a block in the way of the abolition of nuclear weapons.
     The hibakusha are getting older(78 years on the average).  We request the Government to intensify the support to them, and also to extend the geographical concept of the 'black rain' area(radioactivity-containing black rain showered on a wide area immediately after the bomb-dropping).

     Mayor of Nagasaki
     When a draft statement on the non-human character of the nuclear weapons was proposed at the NPT-related committee, held at Geneva in April last, our Government refused to sign it, by saying that we could not agree to the words 'under any circumstances'.  Thus we showed that we may agree to the use of the nuclear weapons under some circumstances.  Our stand should be that no one in the world shall experience the suffering from the nuclear bomb again, and the above stand goes against it.
     Similarly, the ongoing nuclear negotiations with India, who has become a nuclear power without signing the NPT, would justify the move by North Korea and others to withdraw from the NPT to become a nuclear power, and obstruct the move toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
     The Japanese Government should get back to the position befitting to the only country that suffered from the nuclear weapons, and take the initiative in an effort to create an Northeast Asian Nuclear-Free Zone.
     President Obama and President Putin are requested to quicken the pace of decreasing the number of their nuclear warheads.
     To the people of the younger generation!  Have you heard the voice of the hibakusha?  They are crying, 'No more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki, no more war, no more hibakusha'.  You are the last generation capable of hearing the voice of the hibakusha directly.  Listen to it, and think, and discuss, if the nuclear weapons can be allowed to exist in this world, and in the future.    

Nagasaki Day 2013, and the New MDS Diseases

     Three days after the Hiroshima Day, this is the Nagasaki Day, 9 August.  Millions have offered prayers at two minutes past eleven in the morning, when the bomb exploded.  The list of those persons who have gone to the other world in the past one year contains 3,404 names, bringing the total of the dead because of this bomb to 162,083.  The slogan of "let it be the last nuclear explosion" has been echoed by many.
     As in Hiroshima, the Mayor of Nagasaki has read out his Declaration for Peace.  And again as in the former, it has requested the Government to take some concrete and urgent steps at the UN and elsewhere to join forces with other peace-loving people and organizations.  He has made specific reference to the desirability of the Nuclear-free Northeast Asia.  On those points, the two Mayors are much more advanced than the Prime Minister, Mr.Abe Shinzo.  He spoke next, but his speech was not to the point, lukewarm, non-responsive.

     Let me summarize here a very valuable radio-activity related medical research which was broadcast by Japan's NHK for 75 minutes in the evening of 6 August, the Hiroshima Day.
     The small damages of the chromosome by the radioactivity remained latent, so to speak, and suddenly leukemia develops from them about a decade after the injuries.  Many hibakusha (explosion-affected people)passed away in this manner.  The rate of leukemia was about 20 times more than the ordinary people.  The nearer the patient to the point of explosion, the higher was the rate.  The incidence declined after about 20 years of the explosion.
     I would think that thus far the knowledge was more or less wide-spread.  What seems to be new is the following, which belongs to a new area of research.  Briefly the above is not the end of the story.  And sadly it is not the end of the hibakusha's suffering, either.
     It has been found out that, after about 40 years more, and this is after 68 years after the two Bombs, some of the hibakusha developed MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndromes).  This is a disease in which the white cells get affected by cancer.  This is known as the Second Leukemia, but the research tells us that its arrival was totally unexpected.  It has occurred to them after 2,000. The hibakusha patient says that there is no end, or it is as if there is a nuclear bomb in the body.       The first peak of leukemia was over many years ago.  This is the second peak, but for this there is no cure.
     This is the kind of story that we still have to hear.  Will it impress on us the futility of the nuclear weapons, and the theory of nuclear deterrence, which tries to justify the expansion of the nuclear arsenal?  If so, the Nuclear-free Northeast Asia will come very much in sight. Hiroshima and Nagasaki will occupy a pivotal point in this development.  Is it not the tale of two bombed cities?  
   

Hiroshima Day 2013 and a US Copter Crash in Okinawa

     Today, 6 August, is the Hiroshima Day.  It is observed by millions all over the country.  At the ceremony in Hiroshima this morning, the Mayor told a large gathering, said to be 50,000, that we will make effort to bring the nuclear weapons to zero by 2020.  His message will be supported by thousands who, almost in every corner of the world, are acting in that direction.
     In the past one year, out of the surviving hibakusha(radioactivity-affected people), 5,859 persons have been confirmed to be dead, bringing the total number of the dead to 286,816.  This is because of the single bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  The latest figure for Nagasaki will be made clear on the Nagasaki Day, 9 August.
     Just on the eve of this day, a US helicopter crashed and burned up on the Okinawa Island yesterday evening.  It is a Kadena-based four-seater, which is much smaller than the dreadful Osprey transport planes/half helicopters now being deployed in Okinawa.  It crashed into a US base itself.  Otherwise it could have triggered a tremendous damage on the civilian life in Okinawa.
     About the Osprey, this writer has written on its multiple capability before.  It is the US plan to station 24 of them at the bases in Okinawa.  They want to use those bases for the training, so that the planes are ready to go anywhere, for any distance, at any time.  12 of them are there already, two arrived newly on 3 August, and the other ten were supposed to be joining the others in a day or two, but that has been put off because of the crash yesterday.  Throughout the process, there was no conferring, no discussion, with the Japanese side.  They were all by means of a one-sided notice from them to us.  Who said that we were equal partners?  An American strategist has called Japan a "protectorate" in his book, but is not this a much worse situation?

Experts' View of the Military Takeover in Egypt

     Earlier in this month, when the military put President Morsi in custody in Egypt, this writer, though an outsider, wrote in these columns that it was wrong for the army to do so.  On 25 July, two Middle East specialists of Japan have published their views on the takeover in a Japanese newspaper.  What follows is the summary of these views.
     One of them is of the view that the collapse of the Morsi government is the result of the people's nation-wide movement.  As many as 23 million have signed the demand for Morsi's resignation.  The Western media call it a "military coup", but it would be more appropriate to say that the national movement on a gigantic scale has caused the collapse.
     The anti-Morsi movement gathered momentum as the poverty and unemployment among the people was left unrelieved, a Constitution of an undemocratic character was imposed upon the people, and there was a repression of the women's and workers' movement.  It was a regime which tends to strangle the freedom of press and association in the name of a religion.
     The other one has expressed a rather different view.  Here, the military takeover was characterized as a "coup in haste", though it was welcomed by many people.  Some ways and means of resolving the crisis peacefully, on the basis of the 23 million signatures, might well have been found out.
     The army got aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood immediately after the revolution two and a half years ago.  But as the Brotherhood tried to put their men in the army, police and bureaucracy, and the general public became dissatisfied with the President and began to demand democratization,  the army then became their allies this time.  But 30% of the people are still supporting the Brotherhood, which is capable of securing the largest number of seats in the next general elections.  The greater difficulty is how to place the army under the civilian control.
     The difference between the two may be subtle, but is very much worth exploring.  Meanwhile this writer would abide by what he humbly wrote on 4 July.         

Korean Ceasefire, Sixty Years On

     Exactly sixty years ago, today, 27 July 1953, the Korean War Ceasefire was signed by the UN, in this case alias the US, DPRK(North Korea) and China, putting an end to the three-year bloody war covering the whole of the Korean Peninsula.  The ROK(South Korea) refused to sign, which means that technically there is still war, not even truce, between the two Koreas.  The ROK may be well advised to sign it even at this late hour, and think about the future on that basis.  It may be difficult, however, to do so given that the DPRK is celebrating at this moment the occasion as the day of their great victory.
     The BBC has in the past day or two broadcast an interview of several Chinese men and women who participated in the fighting in 1950-53.  Some of them gave their age when they went to Korea as sixteen.  One of them said that in just one aerial bombing by the US as many as 800 of his fellow soldiers were blown off.  If China had not sent their army the DPRK might not have been in existence since then. One also wonders if the enormous casualties China suffered had not had an effect on her population composition.
     As for the US, the great majority of their casualties occurred after they crossed the 38th Parallel in their "roll back" policy, which put them in contact with the Chinese Army in a couple of months' time.  China had repeatedly warned the US through India, and, as the US continued to move northward, ultimately began to engage them on full scale toward the end of November 1950.
     This is not to say, and I am not prepared to say, that China acted only in a self-defensive manner.  Bruce Cumings, an American scholar on Korea, writes, 'we still know too little to determine the respective North Korean, Soviet, and Chinese roles in initiating the June fighting'(Korea's Place in the Sun, 1997, p.263), although the biographer of Zhou Enlai writes that 'He(Zhou) had not expected it(the Korean War)' (Han Suyin, Eldest Son, 1994, p.223).  But, as Cumings says on the same page, there is no doubt that 'Kim Il Sung bears the grave responsibility for raising the civil conflict in Korea to the level of general war.
     What has been the impact of the Korean War on Japan?  Upon the North Korean invasion, starting on 25 June 1950, the US decided to intervene.  Was there any possibility of making it a "Police Action", not only in name but in substance also?  As is debated on the US response to the 9/11?  Or, more, was it not possible to leave it to the Koreans alone, treating it as an ordinary civil war?  Let us not discuss these and related problems here.  But let me assume that the US was determined to hold the ROK in her camp, in view of the Soviet and the then emerging Chinese powers, in other words in the Cold War situation.
     And Japan also.  She was still under the US occupation.  The moment the four divisions stationed in Japan were moved to Korea, the US ordered, in the form of a letter of advice from MacArthur to the Prime Minister, the founding of a Reserve Police Force of 75,000.  This was against the letter and the spirit of Article 9 of the Constitution, promulgated only three years before.  But we were not in a position to debate it.  It greatly encouraged the right wing in the country.  The Reserve Police was soon developed into the Self-Defense Force which is an Armed Force all but in name.
     Would it be a waste of time to think if the SDF would still be there if there had not been the Korean War?  And what about the Japan-US Security Treaty?  No, I do not think so, as this hypothetical question would help clarify what Japan's position has been, and still is, in East Asia. I believe that it would have been much more difficult to rearm Japan, and keep it as a de facto US protectorate in this way, if there had been no Korean War.  Therefore Kim Il Sung's responsibility is all the more greater.  But we will have to look at the process of the division of the Korean Peninsula, and to ask what Japan's responsibility for the division has been.  As far as we are concerned, this is one way of how we should spend this 60th anniversary.  
       

Japan's Upper House Elections, 21 July 2013

     On 21 July, last Sunday, a typical summer day in this country, hot, sunny and humid, elections to the Upper House(House of Councillors) were held, and 53% of the electors went to cast their vote(including those who had voted prior to this day).  The House consists of 242 members, and half of it, 121, are elected every three years.  48 of them are elected on the basis of party-wise proportional votes, and the rest, 73, come from Prefectural constituencies.  Each of the 47 Prefectures has got its quota according to its population, ranging from Tokyo's five, Osaka's and Kanagawa's four each to as many as 31 single-member Prefectures.
     Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and his LDP(Liberal Democratic Party), who had been in office on the basis of the majority in the Lower House, tried to convince the voters saying that it would stabilize politics if they could also get the majority in the Upper House.  In so doing, they stressed that during the six months of their government the share prices went up by 50%, and the export increased by the devaluation of the Yen.  They were not as keen to discuss the controversial issues like the reopening of the nuclear power plants, Constitutional amendments, joining the TPP, or ways and means of improving relations with our neighbours, which were likely to generate anxiety among the voters.  Even on the issue of the economic recovery, they tended to avoid discussing the impending hike in the consumption tax, or the stagnant employment and wage-level situation.  They have tried to assure the voters that the profit which the big enterprises seem to be amassing at present is going to trickle down to the not-so-well-to-do in due course("Abenomics").
     What were the results?  It ended up in the LDP's complete victory.  They got 65, and if we add the number of members whose term will come three years later, their total strength comes up to 115.  If the Komei Party, their coalition partner, is also taken into account, their combined strength is 135 out of the total of 242, holding the absolute majority.
     The elections have shown that there are effectively six parties in all to be reckoned with in Japan's politics, including the above two government parties.  Out of the four in the opposition, the Democratic Party, which was the government party until six month back and had held the majority in the Upper House till now, has met a devastating defeat, getting only 17 and totalling 59 in all.  No one is in a position to say anything definite on the Restoration Party and Your Party, who have so much depended on just one personality each.
     That leaves the Communist Party of Japan.  It is a very interesting entity.  It is, as I described on the occasion of their great advance in the recent Tokyo Assembly Elections on 23 June, four weeks ago, the only functioning party of that name in all the capitalist countries.  This time also, they have increased their seats from three to eight, making it eleven altogether.  Still a very small number.  But when they say that the LDP-CPJ is the main axis of political confrontation in today's Japan, nobody can deny that it contains much truth.
     The Asahi  newspaper carried an interesting opinion poll on 24 July, conducted immediately after the elections.  It shows that almost as many look at the LDP policy with greater anxiety than expectation as those who do so with greater expectation than anxiety.  Only 17% think that the LDP won for its own sake, and 66% say it is because the opposition parties were not attractive. On the  whole the respondents felt that the Abenomics would not bring higher wages and more employment.  They were against the reopening of the nuclear plants, the hike in the consumption tax, and negative on amending the Constitution.
     Would it not be more proper, then, to call the LDP government a minority government?      
        

Early on 4 July in Egypt

     As the pictures from Cairo as of the early morning, 4 July, local time, are coming in, I have to hurriedly sum up my ideas about what is happening there just now.
     The military issued an ultimatum to the President, and on meeting his refusal, put him in custody, and took over the political power.  This was an extra-constitutional behaviour on the part of the military, and as such clearly constitutes a coup, no matter what the Army would choose to call it.
     In that sense, I fully agree with the supporters of the President who are saying "Where is the democracy, where are our votes?".  The act certainly nullify the fruits of the "Arab Spring".
     Therefore the only way out is for the military to release the President, as quickly as possible, and go back to the barracks.
     Needless to say, there is a grave question here.  What then would happen to the demands of the opponents, who have gathered at the now world-famous Tahirir Square these days?  Should they have kept quiet before the elected President?  Suppose, in their eyes, the elected President has gone beyond what so many people could have endured, by way of his steep tendency to go the way of Islamic governance, and his allegedly authoritarian way, taking into confidence only the leadership of his Muslim Brotherhood?
     Judging from the way there was jubilation in Cairo, crackers and so on, it is obvious that they will find it impossible to accept the unconditional return of the President.  So they will nine out of ten reopen the protest movement.
     It is my view that let them do so.  In so doing let them disobey the law, the President, the whole administration.  Today the country is so divided, the situation has become so worsened by the behaviour of the President, that there will be no other possibility in sight, unless and until the President and the Brotherhood alter their way to listen to different views.  But no violence, let me repeat, no violence at all, should be used between the two sections into which the nation has divided.  The only other way would be a dreadful and unending Civil War.  Remember the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the accompanying enormous cruelties and bloodshed.
     But the military take-over is definitely wrong for the future of democracy in this country.  Today's events have once again proved the danger of keeping a large army when there is apparently no outside threat.  Immediately on the revival of the economic situation, Egypt should think of ways and means of reducing the size and the budget of her military.  Even unilaterally.  At the same time the US should stop providing such a large amount of military aid to Egypt.  And to Israel, too.  The US is very slow in understanding that she is no longer a world leader.          

Tokyo Assembly Elections, 23 June 2013

     On the last Sunday, 23 June, elections were held for the 127 seats of the Tokyo Assembly, with a term of four years.  It is not a Legislative Assembly, as Japan is not a federal system and the Parliament is the only legislative organ in the country.  Still, the Prefectural Assemblies, of which there are 47 in all, are an important stage for the political drama, as they are empowered to decide on the annual budget of the Prefectural governments, and so on.  Of course, we have known certain cases where the Assemblies were simply the rubber stamp.
     This time, the elections attracted great attention, not only as they were held in the capital, but as they were the first significant political battle after Abe Shinzo's LDP government came into office.  Also, we are expecting the elections to the Upper House of the Parliament in July, and the Tokyo election results were generally seen to be the forerunner of the shape of things to come.
     The voting ratio was only 44%.  This was not exceptionally low, but was by no means praiseworthy.  Is it an expression of the general indifference of the public?  I do not think so.  In my view, sections of the voters could not decide where to vote.  True, Abe's economic policies("Abenomics") were still popular.  But it also seems to hang on the speculation in the market, as is seen in the rather sharp ups and downs of the share prices.  Apart from the share prices, there was not much that the government could have boasted of as the fruits of their policies.  There was another party, the Restoration Party, which would have cashed in more votes if the Party Chairman had not uttered, more than once, those racially and gender-biased remarks which were reported outside Japan also.  So quite a few were at a loss on the voting day.
     The LDP got 59, their ally, Komei Party, 23, getting hold of a clear majority.  But, to almost everybody's astonishment, the Communists came to the third, with 17, more than doubling the former 8.  Why?  In almost everybody's view, they were the most straightforward and unbending in opposing Abe's policies, by making it clear that they were opposed to the proposed reopening of the nuclear plants, rewriting of the constitution, hike in the consumption tax, joining the TPP, and so on.  So whenever the voters wanted to have a say on these lines and had a look at the policies of different parties, they came, in many cases for the first time, to the Communists, probably the only functioning party of that name in the developed countries.    
           

A Fortnight's Travel in France

     For about two weeks, from the end of May to the beginning of June, we travelled in France as tourists.  The days were getting longer, the weather increasingly picked up, and we greatly enjoyed our journey.  Here are some of our impressions and experiences.

     1.  Trains  We travelled by trains, i.e. by their TGVs and Intercities.  They were mostly on time.  They were clean, no doubt.  But were they comfortable to the tourists?  From the artistic point of view they were not as beautiful as we had thought.  Moreover, there were no restaurant cars/buffet cars as we had expected to find.  Of course selling of drinks, sandwiches and so on by wagons moving up and down the trains was much better than nothing, but are they pleasant to see in the several hours' monotonous journeys?
     To our surprise, even in the TGVs, more often than not there was no announcement in English.  It was only in French.  We thought it was deliberate.  When an inspector came around to check our tickets, I told him that they had been examined by his colleague earlier in the day on the same journey, and he said, in perfect English, 'I don't speak English.'  So it was some new language that was similar to English.  To pretend not to understand English and to answer in French was what we had heard.  But seeing is believing.  Our thought went over to the inhabitants of the former French colonies who had absolutely no means but to learn French, at their cost, in order to be a living cog in that colony.
     One more thing is the large number of passengers everywhere waiting for the platform their trains were coming to to be announced only shortly before their arrival and departure.  I wonder how they manage it in our country, Japan, or in other countries.  Is it not a huge loss of time and energy?I do not think it is like this.

     2.  Food  Most of the food, not only what we took out but what we ate at the respectable-looking restaurants, let me be frank, were not good.  They were surprisingly not good.  The material was simple, but it was all right once you put sufficient attention and labour on the preparation.  They were conspicuous by absence.  What they called 'salads' were just green leaves.  Those dishes served at the central parts of Paris, for example, won't pass as such in most of our humble restaurants.  They are tasteless, and hard to eat.  Sweets, of course, are an exception.

     3.  Museums  Naturally we spent more time at the museums than anywhere else.  I would not talk about the Louvre here.  Though it was on a much grander scale than the British Museum, partly due to the grandness of the building, the Orsay was more systematic and easier to see.  The ships arranged at the Maritime Museum could have been brought into a more intimate relation with the French history.  I was astonished at the collection at the Guimet Museum.  I wonder if they could have been chronologically arranged neatly, with more comments/explanations.
    Outside Paris, we were impressed by the History Museum at Strasbourg.  The Maritime Museum at Marseille is a total disappointment.  For a city like this its rearrangement is a must.  We regret to miss a visit to the Island of If.  At Toulouse we came across a tiny Occitania Museum and enjoy it.

     A final word.  Like so many other European countries France is suffering high unemployment.  I have seen, however, that, in spite of this, labour-saving measures have been rather widely adopted at hotels, at the Metro, in the trains, and so on.  Would not the creation of jobs be far more urgent?

                              

Japan's Position in East Asia

     Abe Shinzo, Prime Minister of Japan, said in the Parliament on 23 April that the term "aggression" had not been defined yet, and whether the external conduct of modern Japan was aggression or not he would refer to the historians.  This is more or less the same line as has been taken by most of the LDP Prime Ministers for the past decades.
     But it is wrong to say that the aggression has not been defined.  The UN General Assembly passed a Resolution on the definition of aggression on 14 December 1974(Resolution 3314) where it is defined, in short, as the use of force by one country against another's sovereignty, territory or independence.  Those who might say that the Resolution is too recent and would not apply to Japan's earlier conduct, may be referred to the Treaty of Paris, 1928, or the Treaty on the definition of aggression, 1933.
     Still, Abe and some others may not be convinced.  They are determined that Japan's conduct was in self-defense.  They do not hesitate to visit the Yasukuni Shrine.  This is not an ordinary Shinto shrine.  It is a huge institution where more than two and a half million who have supposedly dedicated their lives to the nation are being mourned.  It is an office for such propaganda.
     This must have been embarrassing to the countries like the US.  All the more so as 14 defendants of the Tokyo Tribunal, including all the seven who were executed, are among them.  Japan accepted the results of the Tribunal by the Peace Treaty.  What the government is doing by way of extending its hand to the Shrine is thus a clear breach of the Peace Treaty.  The US has, so far as I know, not said anything on this point, though they have voiced their criticism on some other points.  They cannot afford to antagonize the LDP, for the sake of maintaining their bases, even at the expense of truth, and justice.
     Interestingly, the same here in Japan.  The more Abe tries to clear Japan's name over the past wars, the more he will have to defend the role of the Yasukuni, and the more he is likely to injure the feeling of others.  Thus he will be in a contradiction.  We will see how it will develop.  I hope it will become fatal for him.  It is bound to be.  At the same time I hope that the confusion in Japan's politics will not disturb too much the new South Korean President Park's plan for the peaceful cooperation in the Northeast Asia.  
           

A New Pakistan?

     Five years ago, when the Zardari-Gilani civilian administration came into being in Pakistan, Prof. Ashutosh Varshney wrote that 'Democracy in Pakistan will continue to disempower these two groups （religious political parties and the military).  The critical issue is whether democracy will last. (IIC Quarterly, Winter 2008-Spring 2009)
     That administration completed its full five years since then.  It was really for the first time in this country, something of a miracle indeed.  It is another matter if it had done a good job to the satisfaction of the voters.  The answer to that lies in their devastating defeat, and the return of Mr.Nawaz Sharif to power.
     This is the third time he will be saddled with a heavy task.   On both of the previous occasions he was squeezed out by the military, and by a coup at that on the second occasion.  Naturally, therefore, his relations with the military is bound to crop up sooner rather than later.  This will in its turn inevitably bring in the question of India-Pakistan relations.
     Ashutosh Varshney was also writing that Sharif expressed the hope, just as Jinnah had done before, that India and Pakistan would live like the US and Canada.  Coming from the man who ordered Pakistan's nuclear test as against India's, in 1998, and who was at least nominally responsible for the war of Kargil in 1999, it is not easy to believe it.  But if he really believes so it is well within his reach.
     Writing in the same journal, and in more or less the same tone,  B.G.Verghese says that 'A significant and growingly assertive democratic tendency is discernible(in Pakistan) and anxious to build liberal democratic institutions and live as good neighbours with India'.  He thus talks of a possibility of 'two estranged brothers' coming together.
     These words are reminiscent of Gandhi.  There is still an unfinished debate on whether Gandhi was really against the Partition or not.  But at least the so-called "C.Rajagopalachari's Formula", agreed to by Gandhi was a proposal for a peaceful partition of India.  Its fourth clause said 'In the event of separation, mutual agreements shall be entered into for safeguarding defence, and commerce and communications and for other essential purposes'.
     One would think that the clause would have made the India-Pakistan relations much closer to the actual US-Canada relations.  But it was rejected by Jinnah, mercilessly, probably not because of this clause but a previous one on 'a plebiscite of all the inhabitants'.
     The present Indo-Pakistani relations leave much to be desired, which means that there are also possibilities for improvement.  Mr.Sharif is said to have made a long telephonic conversation to Mr.Manmohan Singh.  There are theories that the present tension is man-made in that both the military are in need of it.  The responsible politicians on both sides should prove that it is a lie.  For that they should tackle the crux of the matter, Jammu and Kashmir.            
           

"Sadeeq Bale",a Fantastic Taiwanese Movie

     Last week I went to see a Taiwanese Movie "Sadeeq Bale"(2011) at a cinema in Tokyo. These days Cinema viewers in Japan are on the decline. Moreover this one is, to us, on a gloomy topic, a rebellion against the occupying Japanese.  It is also a long one, almost five hours including an intermission. I have not, therefore, expected to see a large crowd. But that is exactly what I saw. It was a comparatively small cinema, but its 145 seats were full and some viewers were standing on the wall.
     I kept wondering why, but I got no answer. An easy one would be that some of them are from Taiwan itself, and it is difficult to tell a Taiwanese from a Japanese. But this is not very convincing, since it was not prohibited in Taiwan.
     The story concentrated on what happened at a place called Musha(in Japanese) in the interior, and therefore, mountainous part of the Island on 27 October 1930. It was a massacre of the Japanese who gathered there for the children's athletic meeting.
     But who rose in a rebellion? The Island had been under the Japanese for a third of a century at that time. The Japanese gradually infiltrated the mountainous regions inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, not the Han Chinese. The Japanese tried to give them letters and language, school and postal systems, industries such as cutting timbers, in short tried to civilize  and assimilate them, ignoring their own culture and way of life.
     Prejudice, discrimination, and outrageous arrogance on the part of the Japanese were the order of the day. The indigenous peoples were a very proud stock. The Sadeeq was one of the tribes. They valued the defending of their hunting ground in the hills. The tattoo on the man's face is a sign of bravery. A man hopes to be a true man(Bale), and it is a woman's duty to make a man like that. They have also in mind the idea of 'crossing the bridge of rainbow' to go near their ancestors. These are their values and the colonial rule comes in conflict with them and try to crush them. They, the 'barbarians', have been in the end cornered, and ultimately rose against the oppressors.
     The second half of the movie is the story of attacks and counter-attacks. The rebels, or rather the legitimate residents of the land, fought bravely, just like the Vietnamese during their anti-American war, making use of the jungles, streams, etc. The Japanese mobilized guns. They used poison gas. Only the tanks and warships were not to be deployed.  Most of the people committed suicide, but the supreme leader of the tribe, saying that 'I do not afford to be captured', was not to be located by his pursuers.
     One difference between this story and the Vietnamese fighting is that while the latter was led by the modernized elements and the modernized thinking of the society, the former was not.  For one thing the former took place at a much more isolated region, and one generation earlier. But these characteristics will pose some more questions to the social scientists.

Polls on the Constitution

     Third May is the Constitution Day in Japan, as the present Constitution was promulgated on this day in 1947.  It has been customary for the media to publish on or around this day the result of the polls they have conducted on the Constitution.  Since in the present Japan it is becoming a very hot issue, as I have discussed in the past week, the media this year seem to allot more time and space to the Constitution.  I would like to pick up some features from the polls published by the Asahi newspaper on 2 May.
     The most important question they have asked, after showing the text of the Article 9, is whether the respondent is in favour, or not, of changing it.  39% is in favour, 52% is not.
     The gap between the two groups may not appear as large, but look at the answers to the following several questions.  One is, How strongly does the respondent feel that Japan should not go to war again, and 72% feel strongly and another 18% feel somewhat strongly.  So 90% are against their country going to war again, in effect under any circumstances, and only 6% do not feel so.  Relatedly, 77% think that Japan should maintain the three principles of her nuclear weapons policy of Not possessing, not manufacturing, not letting others to bring them, which is remarkable under the North Korean intimidation.  Besides, 71% are against the expansion of the export of weapons from Japan, which is also remarkable given that the country is still in an economically bad shape.
     It is by now fairly known that the ruling LDP is proposing to transform the present Self Defence Forces into a regular Defence Forces.  62% is against, and only 31%, just half, support it, which is also remarkable taking into consideration the high(still high) supporting rate for PM Abe and his government.  It is also becoming known that the US is outright pressing Japan to make her right of collective self defence exercisable, meaning that Japan should be able to send fighting forces on the side of the US. However, only 33% think that it should be exercisable, and 56% do not think so. As to the crux of the matter, so to speak, which is the question of whether the LDP's proposal of amending Article 96, so that it becomes easier for the Parliament to put a draft amendment for the referendum, only 38% is in favour, with 54% against.             

To Celebrate Japan's Regaining of Independence?

     On the day before yesterday, 28 April, Mr.Abe Shinzo's government convened a meeting to celebrate Japan's regaining her independence 63 years ago.  It was the first of its kind.  There was a counter-meeting in Tokyo, and a huge gathering of people in Okinawa opposing it.
     It is true that Japan became independent again on this day in 1952, in the sense that the Peace Treaty, concluded at San Francisco in previous September, took effect on this day.   But there was hardly any atmosphere of celebration.  I was a student on this day, and the students may be called the most sensitive section of a society.  As I recall, this lack of celebrating mood came from two reasons.
     First, many countries in Asia, most familiar to us, including China, had been excluded from the peace process.  The Korean Peninsula was in the midst of a bloody and endless war.  The Soviet and the East European countries also did not join it, and this gave us the strong feeling that the Peace Treaty itself would intensify the Cold War.  It took us a long time afterwards to reestablish  relations with these nations.  Even now we do not have a Peace Treaty with Russia, and at this time of writing Mr.Abe is in Moscow conferring with their government on how to speed up the process.
     Secondly, and related to the above, the foreign troops were continuing to be stationed in the country.  The Allied Potsdam Declaration, in terms of which the occupation of Japan had been conducted, said that after the country was democratized the occupation forces would withdraw from Japan.  But now in terms of the US-Japan Security Pact, signed on the same day as the Peace Treaty but the contents of which were not fully known to our people, the occupation forces would stay on, under a different name but with little change in substance.  Even today there is little change.
     Nowhere was this feeling as strong as in Okinawa, which had been cut off from Japan proper by the Peace Treaty and was not returned until 1972.  Therefore it was declared at the gathering that this was their Day of Subordination and Humiliation, and they demanded the government should cancel the meeting it had convened.
     The mechanism by which Okinawa was separated was the planned transfer of Okinawa to an American-administered Trust Territory.  Fortunately it was given up.  But how?  Japan joined the UN in 1956.  The UN Charter says that a member country cannot be a trust territory.  Does it apply to a part of such a country?  I think it does.  Why, on what basis, then, was Okinawa under the occupation from 1956 to 1972?
     One more thing about the government meeting.  To the surprise of many, the Emperor and the Empress were present.  I think it is unconstitutional, as it does not fit in with any of what is stated in the Constitution as the Emperor's functions.  There presence, apparently sponsored by the government, is therefore politically motivated.  We are reminded that the LDP's draft Constitution wants to give a greater, perhaps much greater, political role to the Emperor.  When the meeting was over, those present, about 390 in all, mostly the conservative elements on the political spectrum, said "Hurrah" to the Emperor and the Empress.  Is this going to be the shape of things to come?  No, it is not, although opinion would be deeply split if a poll is taken.  It is the same with almost any thing, Constitution, security issues, relations with the US/Asian neighbours, even "Abenomics".      

Japan's Position on Nuclear Weapons

     We will come back to the US-Japan military alliance and see how it really damages Japan's relations with her neighbours.
     Three days ago, on 24 April, the Japanese government refused to sign a South African-sponsored resolution before a meeting of a committee, held at Geneva, in connection with rethinking of the NPT(Non-Proliferation Treaty).  The resolution said that it would be in the best interest of the humanity not to use nuclear weapons 'under any circumstances', and it was to these words that Japan opposed.  It startled and angered many countries who signed it.  It also startled and angered many people in Japan.  Countries like the US, Russia and China also failed to sign.  Japan therefore put herself together with them, particularly with the US.
     Japan's Cabinet Secretary(a politician and not a bureaucrat) said in explanation of the decision that it was taken considering the difficult security environment in Asia.  He is suggesting here the possibility of the US using such weapons against some Asian country/countries.  He is also implying that in case hostilities begin Japan would automatically support such action.  Therefore the government is not conforming to that resolution.
     Let me tell the readers here a very strange thing.  Mr.Abe Shinzo's ruling LDP(Liberal Democratic Party)has published their draft Constitution.  The Article 9 of the present Constitution, with its provision of non-possession of war potential, has been made almost unrecognizable, as they want to introduce a provision for a National Defence Forces.  What is strange is that nowhere in the draft is stated who has the right to declare war.  Does it mean that the said Forces are supposed to fight on the side of the US Forces as their auxiliary?  That is the only plausible explanation.
     With this in mind they want to revise first Article 96, which says that an amendment, before it is placed before a referendum, should be approved by a two third majority in both Houses of the Parliament.  Their draft says that a simple majority is enough, justifying it by saying that it would bring the Constitution nearer to the people.  What a hypocritical way of saying it!  Their real target is Article 9, and in order to reach there Article 96 is, in their view, blocking the way.  More haste, less speed?             

Suzuki Yasuzo in Japan's Constitution-Making, 1945-6

     In the previous blog I have discussed the heightened tension in East Asia mainly from the point of the existing military alliances.  This, however, is not the whole picture.  It is also urgent to discuss the tension mounting between Japan on one hand and China and South Korea on the other, which are almost on the collision course at the moment.
     There are many phases to this, but the issue of Japan's Constitution is no less important than others.  There is a strong opinion among the conservative elements in Japan's politics that the present Constitution was imposed by the US Occupation soon after the end of the war, and we should have our own independent Constitution.  Sounds beautifully, but their main point is to make it legal to have National Defence Forces, and make it possible also for them to fight shoulder to shoulder with the US military.  It would make Japan more dependent on, and subservient to, the US politically and militarily, rather than otherwise.
     But here let me introduce Mr.Suzuki Yasuzo, on the basis of his own memoir, published in 1977, and see if the present Constitution is really a translation of an American draft and not more, as is claimed by the above-mentioned elements.  What he writes will show that it is not true.
     In a few months after the war, a small group of highly intelligent people, liberal-minded and in some cases a little left-of-the-centre, took shape with a view to make their own draft for a new Constitution.  Suzuki Yasuzo, then in his early 40s and a Constitutional expert, acted as its de facto secretary.  Finally seven persons signed it on 26 December, 1945.  It was a framework of a Parliamentary democracy with the Emperor only as the figurehead.  They gave the draft to the Prime Minister's secretary, newspaper people, and the GHQ.  The newspapers published the full text two days afterwards.  It was the first of its kind.
     The GHQ immediately translated the draft(there were two translated versions), gave it a scrutiny, and thought that it was democratic and acceptable.  There is no doubt that they took it as an important source of input, although I will not go into the details.  The study group was of the hope that the draft would be placed before a kind of a Constituent Assembly to be elected by the whole nation as well as others, and discussed there.  But the standard of political consciousness of the people had not come up to that and their hope was not materialized.
     The above would show that the American draft, handed to the Japanese Government in February 1946, had incorporated some of the indigenous ideas.  It is definitely beneath the dignity of those who call the present Constitution imposed by the Americans.
         

Heightened Tension in East Asia

     On 22 April, four days ago, the US and South Korean forces, who are currently engaged in joint military exercises, made open part of what they are doing in the exercises.  They were landing at Pohang, in the East coast of South Korea, on the assumption that the port facilities of Pohang was damaged.  Pohang is probably the most important industrial centre in the ROK where the main steel plants of the POSCO are located.  But why such exercises at Pohang?  Because its landscape is similar to some portion of the Northern coast?
     The DPRK is demanding the immediate stoppage of the exercises, saying that it amounts to an act of war.  What they are saying itself is understandable.  But not the uncivilized way in which they are putting it!  It goes against all the perception of the Korean people as a sensible and sensitive people.  Everybody is now looking at their intimidation as a paper tiger.
     This writer, however, is also against such exercises for the reason that it has unnecessarily heightened the military tension in East Asia, and has unnecessarily provoked the DPRK.  They are militarily isolated.  Only on the south of the Parallel does the old Cold-War pattern of alliance exist.  Under such circumstances there is not much space for diplomacy, and diplomacy does not always work under the military pressure.
     What is more worrying to this writer is that some of the US units, Marines, taking part in the exercises have gone there from their bases in Okinawa, Japan.  This means that although there is no Japan-South Korean alliance, there is virtually a triangular one with the US as the pivotal power.  This means that in the event of hostilities, however unlikely, Japan may be dragged into it on the side of the US and against the DPRK against our will.  There is no reason whatsoever that we should fight them, or their possible allies, and we should never do so.
     Also on 22 April, the DPRK summoned a high-level talk and decided that the nuclear preparation should be put an emphasis on.  Apparently they cannot take care of the whole of the military field because of the resource shortage.  But they do want to be recognized as a nuclear power.  In their view that would put them on an equal footing with the US.    
     This writer is of the view that such a demand should be rejected out of hand.  But that can be effectively done only when the other nuclear powers make a serious effort to reduce their nuclear arsenal, including the means of delivery.  At the same time the DPRK should understand that, once it becomes such a power, it would get entangled in a fatal contradiction that the more they have, the more they have to spend, even more disregarding the life of their people, and irrevocably damaging their reputation in the eyes of the whole world.    
    

A Gigantic Book of Indian History Translated Here

     This writer has once discussed an article by the author of this book, Ramachandra Guha, a very active Indian historian based in South India, on the idea of India.  Recently, India After Gandhi, The History of the World's Largest Democracy, his 2007 book from Picador, over 800 pages, has come out in a complete Japanese translation in two volumes of 500 pages each.  It goes to the credit of Mr.Sato Hiroshi to have made it a very readable and accurate work.
     As is suggested by the title, this is the history of the sixty years of the independent India.  Naturally it is Jawaharlal Nehru who dominates the scene, at least in the first half.  It is toward the end of the first volume of the translation that he passes away.  But his legacies are seen even afterwards.  Look at these, for example.  'The grievously mistaken dismissal of the communist government in Kerala aside, Nehru took seriously the idea of an opposition'(p.518).  'In Nehru's time the Congress was a decentralized and largely democratic organization'(ibid).  Guha also pays a high tribute to Nehru's policies of establishing the IITs and retaining English as significant in bringing about today's position of India as an emerging economy, in contrast to some critics who are unsympathetic to Nehru's legacies.
     Needless to say, Gandhi did not make a final exit from the scene by the assassination.  His relevance is discussed at many junctions.  What is rather refreshing is the attention the author  pays to the third man in the Triumvirate, Vallabhbhai Patel.
     Guha does not try to give his conclusion to every issue.  He rather lets materials tell their own story.  The book is therefore full of exerpts from reports, letters, or episodes and jokes, which make it an entertainment of a high level.  The author expresses his particular indebtedness to the papers of P.N.Haksar, a long-time principal secretary to Indira Gandhi(p.434).  I have, however, heard about Haksar's secret China visit from his close friend, but it is not there in the book.
     The book will serve, more widely than deeply, as an omnipotent guide to any student of Indian/South Asian history.  Let me pick up several issues here which have caught my interest, and see how the author has tackled them.
     (1)On the Border war with China.  Could it have been averted?  I would think yes.  But China should have informed India a few years earlier of her stand on the border issue, the opposition parties of India should have been less compelling on the Prime Minister for a solution, and the Dalai Lama should not have been granted political asylum in India.
     (2)On the Kashmir issue.  A God-given opportunity presented itself in 1965 when Pakistan-instigated revolt in the Muslim-majority Kashmir came to nothing, Pakistan's military invasion failed, and the idea was brought home to the people as well as Sheikh Abdullah, their natural leader who was in an Indian jail at the moment, that it would be futile for them to aim at independence or inclusion in Pakistan.  All that was needed at that point was a fair election on the Indian side, but this was conspicuous by lacking, and it became a missed chance.  But the subsequent history shows that possibilities for a fair solution are still there in the Valley.
     (3)A three-fold struggle in the countryside.  The book discusses the upsurge of the middle castes/dominant castes/OBCs in different parts of the country, and the upcoming movement of the hitherto downtrodden groups.  They, together with the upper castes, make it a three-fold struggle.  To put it in another way 'most Indians were defined by the endogamous group into which they were born'(p.606).  Against this, people like Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, a distinguished woman worker who was also close to Gandhi, said that people consider them only in terms of their own social groups and not as Indians, and every social group wants to be recognized as 'backward'.  It doesn't seem that Guha has taken up the issue as a whole.
     (4)The position of satyagraha.  When winding up the Constituent Assembly debates Dr.Ambedkar said, among others, that now that India had got her Constitution, 'We must abandon the method of cd, nc and satyagraha'(p.121).  It would be interesting to look into what Gandhi himself said on the then hypothetical situation like this.  It is also worth examining under this light the various non-constitutional movements in the independent India from the movement which toppled the government in Kerala to JP movement to the recent Anna Hazare movement in 2011.
     (5)The idea of India.  This is the topic discussed earlier in connection with Guha's article.  In this book also these words appear several times.  It is worth noting that Chapter 6 on the Constitution-making is entitled 'Ideas of India'.  It is interesting that as Guha says a large number of people, Indian or otherwise, have on various occasions prophesied that such ideas would end up in failure, and they have invariably proved wrong.
     Guha does not define these words, but it is apparent that pluralism(p.752), for example, is a part of such an idea.  But is India really pluralist?  Has not Hindu fundamentalism made Hinduism simple and monolithic?  Or have not Gandhian, and then official, policies towards Harijans tried to assimilate them, rather than treat them as a part of the Indian pluralist culture?
     In concluding, I would like to say one small thing on the Constitution-making, not in India but in Japan, as is described in this book.  The author says that in sharp contrast to India 'this(Japan's) document had been almost wholly written by a group of foreigners(Americans occupying the country)'(p.122).  First, this is not the whole story.  Second, this might encourage some politicians in Japan, and there is no dearth of them, who are keen on removing the anti-war Article 9 from the Constitution under the beautiful name of having our own Constitution.