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.