Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual trip to Yasukuni Shrine in Chiyoda ward, Tokyo occurred on October 17th. Yasukuni is infamous for enshrining the souls of 14 class A war criminals convicted at the end of hostilities in the Second World War, in addition to Japan 's 2.5 million war dead. Mr. Koizumi is only the second modern Prime Minister to visit the shrine, sparking fears of a resurgence of nationalism and memories of Japan 's historical aggression against its neighbours.
China and South Korea were particularly vocal about the visit, with the Chinese Ambassador to Japan saying, “[This is] a serious provocation because it coincides with the glorious return of China 's second manned space flight, the Shenzhou VI, to earth.” Statements like these seem to say at least as much about Chinese nationalism as it does about its Japanese counterpart and hint at the real reasons for issuing them.
While spending some time in Japan, I was struck by the peaceful, almost naïve responses of the average Japanese to threats and concerns outside of their daily life. While, and perhaps because, Japanese are among the best educated people in the world and avid readers of newspapers (The Yomiuri Shimbun has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the world), thoughts of expansion a Japanese empire are perhaps the farthest thing from the hearts and minds of the average person.
Indeed, latent nationalism is isolated to fringe elements connected with the Yakuza, and the visitor on the ground will find less here than almost any other modern country, including my native Canada. (Something my wife has found unsettling – I have had to convince her that this is a benign patriotism). Perhaps it would be fair to say that there is a certain pride instilled in the ordinary person in being Japanese, but this is somewhat separate from being a citizen of a country called Japan. While this point may be difficult to conceive of in the West, the average person here is very proud to be Japanese while simultaneously mystified that anyone would see Japan , the country, as a threat.
Indeed it is with reluctance that the Japanese government has taken steps to improve its security – engaging North Korean spy ships with its coast guard, launching spy satellites – but these are directly linked to explicit threats from its totalitarian, erratic neighbour. Acts that fall outside of this rubric tend to be either in regards to its other Asian neighbours, and take the form of negotiation, such as over oil drilling rights with China in the Sea of Japan or over possession of islands north of Hokkaido with Russia. Heavy pressure from the US has seen Japan develop plans as to how to respond to an invasion of Taiwan by China, and to send a contingent of troops on peacekeeping duties in the south of Iraq. While Mr. Koizumi enjoys such sway that he has been able to sell these polices as the price for Japan 's involvement with the world, they remain unpopular with the public.
In fact, there seems to be a certain fatalism among ordinary people, perhaps brought on by 15 years of economic stagnation, that Japan is somewhat vulnerable – certainly not superior nor threatening, nor likely to become so. People worry about caring (and paying) for their elderly parents, their disappearing job security, the radically different social mores of the younger generation, and the glacial pace of reform of government and business. They cheer the successes of celebrities like the New York Yankees' Hideki Matsui, the Seattle Mariners Ichiro Suzuki, filmaker Hayao Miyazaki, actor Ken Watanabe, and yes, their charismatic Prime Minister. But in many years of living in Japan, not a single time have I ever encountered someone who suggested that Japan was correct in its actions in the war, wrong for having apologized (almost a dozen times, most recently by Mr. Koizumi himself this August), or who advocated increasing Japan's military strength. I don't know what is in the heart or mind of Japan 's current leader, but I do know that the average person would like to simply be judged on who they are, not who they were a long time ago.
Comments to date: 13. This is page 1 of 2.
Philip UK
Posted at 11:38am on Saturday, February 10th, 2007
BBC documentary voice-over John Hurt
http://www.britmovie.co.uk/actors/h/009.html
"driven to it by those that would benefit from war". yes the US benefited as always.
Philip http://philipdavidson.blogspot.com/
Posted at 6:47pm on Monday, December 11th, 2006
Channel 4
They showed some Japanese, gangsters? who simply looked like scruffy
slightly dirty street people who had some fingers missing the little
finger.
They talked about building up their Japanese, military so they can deal
with Korea, and China.
Some of these Japanese, toy gangsters with missing little fingers
talked about war heroes, and said that they have links with the
Japanese, government and they have finance Japanese political parties.
And you can imagine in front of television cameras blah blah blah and
how the Japanese Prime Minister honoured their war dead because the war
was justified blah blah blah you understand blah blah blah.
To be honest we wouldn't call these people gangsters, they are simply
not the same as us they talk too much and pose too much. They are what
we call toy gangsters..
They look like they needed a good wash is that what Japanese, gangsters
are like scruffy little people?
Although the policeman was very nice do you think Japanese, policeman
take it up the arse?
----------------------------------------------------------------
This is the actual story unfortunately no pictures:
JAPAN: RED SUN RISING
Unreported World travels to Japan to reveal the rise of an increasingly
influential extreme right-wing nationalist movement; a movement which -
faced with a rising China and belligerent North Korea - is trying to
persuade the government to rewrite Japan’s pacifist constitution and
become a nuclear power.
Friday 8 December 2006 7.35pm
Reporter Evan Williams and director Edward Watts meet hardcore
nationalist groups, allegedly funded and controlled by an alliance of
mafia bosses and nationalist politicians, who have been accused of
using intimidation, arson and physical violence to enforce their vision
of a patriotic Japan.
They’re calling for Japan to become a military as well as economic
superpower; with an army freed from the constraints imposed by the
Allies after World War Two and armed with nuclear weapons. And they
want atrocities committed by the army written out of the history taught
in the country’s schools.
In other countries they might be dismissed as a lunatic fringe. But
their ideas are becoming increasingly influential. Japan’s new Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe has declared his intention to adopt some of their
ideas as policy, including discussing the idea of nuclear weapons and
rewriting the constitution, which threatens to further destabilise the
entire region.
The nationalists are stepping up their campaigns - and the use of
violence. The team travel with right wingers on their campaigns in the
huge sound trucks they use to harangue opponents and travel out to a
secret martial arts centre deep in the Japanese countryside where right
wingers train with samurai swords. They tell Williams about their
willingness to use force to keep Japan on the “correct” path.
The team meet those who have been on the receiving end of this
treatment: a newspaper editor whose writers have been attacked, a
senior politician whose mother’s house was burnt down by a nationalist
in August and a young woman whose politician father was murdered by a
knife-wielding right winger.
The victims claim that the right wing’s apparent freedom to organise
and carry out attacks is terrifying people into silence – and severely
threatening freedom of speech in Japan. Some also claim that right wing
groups are just the foot soldiers of nationalist politicians who use
them to promote their agenda and scare opponents into silence. Many of
the right wing groups are bankrolled and supported by the Yakuza, the
Japanese mafia. Unreported World interviews a senior boss who claims
that the allegations are true - politicians often pull the strings of
right wingers on the streets.
Ordinary Japanese tell Williams that in their view there is no doubt
that a ruthless new nationalist line is being pursued by the government
and senior politicians. The team meet Japanese teachers rising in
protest against new laws ordering students to salute Japan’s wartime
flag and sing the wartime national anthem. They meet one of the
teachers who have been sacked for teaching students the true history of
Japan’s wartime past.
They also talk to a leader of the North Korean community in Japan which
has been the target of violent attacks by right wing groups. They claim
that the government has barely lifted a finger to protect them.
On the last step of their journey the team gain access to manoeuvres by
the Japanese self-defence forces. No-one can tell where this new
nationalism will take Japan - and what the implications will be for the
world.
http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/U/unreportedworld/japan.html
cont'd / fini Location unknown
Posted at 8:02pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
Granted the article is pretty shallow overall, but I think the author's point is simply that for the average person day to day, be they Japanese or Gaijin, ideas of nationalism are unlikely to surface, or matter much. There's so much on the manouvering among nations, governments and politicians that the view from the street on some of these issues are often overlooked. It's my experience too that most Japanese don't care that much, think about it, or have much of an opinion on it ("it" being Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni shrine). As for headlines, etc., there's nothing worse there than in many other countries (turn on Fox for a while).
cont'd Location unknown
Posted at 8:01pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
As for Japanese ignorance of the world - this oft-repeated claim is also pretty naiive and uninformed. There are many objective measures that turn some of these things on their ear: Japanese outscore Americans, Canadians and many European countries in tests of knowledge of geography and history, for one relevant example. I think the criticism that people see only what they want to see is equally apt for some of the criticisms posted here. (This isn't a blanket apology for certain stereotypes that the Japanese themselves perpetuate: the claim that they work longer than any other nation is widely-believed, but not true: Americans work more on average for example.)
I see your point, but... Location unknown
Posted at 8:01pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
The point of the article was that the visits to Yasukuni shrine are not in and of themselves a sign of a broader Japanese nationalism, especially among ordinary Japanese. I think the point was that regardless of what Koizumi or Ishihara do, say or think, the *average person* doesn't feel particularly nationalist. Xenophobia stemming from ignorance might be a cousin to advocating the superiority of one's nation, but they are not equal concepts. I think the comparison to Canada shows that there can be benign patriotism (nationalism?) without ignorance, just as there are lots of places that can be characterized as ignorant of the outside world without being nationalist.
Anonymous Location unknown
Posted at 8:01pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
I s`pose it`s a case of people only seeing what they want to see. I`ve lived here for 3 years and I think the Japanese are right wing and nationalistic generally. You see it in the mainstream newspapers (I can read kanji so I understand the original comments) which focus way too much on how much a threat anybody non-Japanese is. There are various ways in which this is expressed from more overt comments that Japan can`t live with `dangerous China` and preoccupation with `foreign crime` in Japan to the easy acceptance of so many Japanese people I`v e met including students of mine that discrimination against non Japanese is fine. Oh and I can`t think of another so called industrialised democracy where a fascist like Shintaro Ishihara is Governor of the capital and uses his position to promulgate Jp right wing nationalism, give aid and comfort to the fascist groups whose forerunners imposed the horrors of Japanese nationalism in Asia, and insult Asian minorities.
Michael Location unknown
Posted at 8:01pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
I was struck by the naive comments made by the `writer`. The xenophobia and racism that lurk below the smiling surface of the Japanese (racism takes more insidious forms than in the west) become more apparent as the insecurity of the population grows. Japan is in an economic mire, largely cause by ultra-nationalism which severely curtails immigration, and is already causing horrendous demographics. Not to mention coming pension and health fund meltdowns. This refusal to address the falling birthrate cannot be separated from their obsession with `We Japanese` as opposed to`Gaijin`. The Japanese are also remarkably ill-informed about not only their own country`s politics but the world at large as many read relatively few books except for comic books. This apathy, xenophobia and rapidly ageing population makes for a potentially dangerous right wing social environment in the near future.
robert Location unknown
Posted at 8:00pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
Very intellectually tedious article that tells more about auhor's ignorance than insights into Japan. I wish that Japanese nationalism remains a myth, as the author says.
. Location unknown
Posted at 8:00pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
Hi deadhippo. Japanese are not the best educated in the world because they read the paper. They are among the best educated in the world on average and they also have have the highest newspaper readership in the world. Whether these are correlative or causative, I will leave for you to think about. The broader point I think is that the Japanese as a group are far from ignorant or unsophistocated on average. If this is true, then ignorance is not the source per se for actions that might seem indicative of support for past colonial policies or the oft-reported resurgence in Japanese nationalism. What then is the source, or, is this really what the media purport it to be? The view here is the micro one, the view from the street of the ordinary person, and far removed from the realpolitick engaged in between nations. Simply put, the average person on the street has few nationalist tendencies, no sympathy for those war criminals, and little hatred for their neighbours.
deadhippo Location unknown
Posted at 8:00pm on Friday, December 1st, 2006
I think its hilarious that you think that Japanese people are amont the best educated in the world, that they all read the paper. What a joke! Nearly every person I have come into contact with gets a newspaper delivered to their house but hardly any of them read them. In fact many people have told me that the newspaper is too difficult. Most of them receive the paper because they were too afraid to say no to the delivery man. Some of them get the paper for the many coupons and special offers that arrive in the Thursday and Frriday edition. Ask most twenty-somethings about politics, history geography, national or international and they won't have a clue.
