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.
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.
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