Aug. 6, 2019 - City of Hiroshima: "Don't Stop @ Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Okinawa has ongoing issues. No A-bombs. No U.S. bases." Via Peace Walk East Asia 東亜細亜平和行進.
Showing posts with label Article 9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Article 9. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Peace for 70 years and infinity: MESSAGE FROM JAPAN to ASIAN COUNTRIES AND THE WORLD, 2015.
Via SEALDs (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) Japan:
Published on Dec 24, 2015
《Peace for 70 years and infinity: MESSAGE FROM JAPAN to ASIAN COUNTRIES AND THE WORLD, 2015.》
Happy X'mas そして、そろそろ今年も終わりですね。SEALDsで今年を締めくくる動画をつくりました。思えば激動の一年でした。法案は可決されましたが、今年得られたものはたくさんあるはずです。戦後から70年。そして71年を迎え、戦後から100年たっても戦争しない国であることを願います。困難な時代にこそ希望があると信じて。そして一歩踏み出す勇気を。
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
終戦から70年が経ちました。戦後日本の平和と繁栄は、先の大戦の大きな犠牲と引き換えにもたらされたものです。私たちはいまこそ、この国の平和憲法の理念を支持し、それを北東アジア、そして世界の平和構築に役立てるべきだと考えます。自由、民主主義、普遍的人権。それらの価値は、けっして紙に書かれた絵空事ではありません。人びとの自由を護り、平和を築くために、過去から私たちに手渡された大切な種です。私たちがあきらめてしまわない限り、日本国憲法の理念はその力を失うことはありません。知性と理性とともに、私たちは平和と、アジア諸国家の自由と民主主義の尊重を求め続けます。
Seventy years have passed since the end of war. The peace and prospect of post-war Japan were led by profound sacrifice of the war. We support the pacifist constitution of this country and use it for peacebuilding in north-east Asia and the world. Liberty, democracy, and universal human rights; these values are not just imagination. They are the important seeds that we were given by the past for defending liberty of people and constructing sustainable peace. The ideal of Japanese Constitution never loses its power unless we give it up. With intelligence and reason, we continue to claim for peace and respect for liberty and democracy in Asian Countries.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
10,000 sing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" — Japan's Beloved Anthem of Peace
The Japanese love of "Ode to Joy," the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, began during the First World War, when German prisoners of war performed the Ninth Symphony for the first time in Japan in 1918.
The Japanese nickname for the uplifting movement — "Daiku" ("Number 9") — alludes to Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause which outlaws war as a means of conflict resolution. Beethoven's lyrics are from a poem celebrating human unity by Frederick Schiller. The 19th-century century German philosopher was preoccupied by the quest for freedom and human rights. Like many of his era (which spanned the American Revolution), he championed political ideals based not on coercion and tyrannical brute force, but instead by reason, goodwill, dialogue, and democratic process.
Worldwide, "Ode to Joy" has long been considered a peace anthem, a song of resistance to not just war, but also state repression. Chilean democracy demonstrators sang the song during PInochet's dictatorship. Chinese protesters sang it during the march on Tiananmen Square. This year, the music and lyrics are even more meaningful to the Japanese and Okinawan supporters of democracy and Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause.
...Brother love binds man to man
Ever singing march we onward
Victors in the midst of strife
Joyful music lifts us onward
In the triumph song of life...
Human rights attorney Scott Horton tells us that Beethoven was drawn to Schiller's writings because the composer longed for liberty, however omitted the "deeper, more political charge" of the final stanzas of "Ode to Joy" to veil his challenge to the repressive Hapsburg regime from which he received patronage.
...the work is radical and blatantly political in its orientation...It imagines a world whose nations live in peace with one another, embracing the dignity of their species as a fundamental principle, and democracy as the central chord of their organization. Its long appeal to Beethoven lay in just this intensely subversive, revolutionary core. To start with, as Leonard Bernstein reminded his audiences, the poem was originally an “Ode to Freedom” and the word “Joy” (Freude instead of Freiheit, added to the third pillar, Freundschaft [Friendship] came as a substitute for the more overtly political theme...Beethoven reckoned, of course, that his audience knew the whole text, just as he knew it, by heart. He was by then a crotchety old man, Beethoven, but he knew the power of a dream, and he inspired millions with it, to the chagrin of his Hapsburg sponsors.Schiller’s words are perfectly fused with Beethoven’s music. It may indeed be the most successful marriage in the whole shared space of poetry and music. It is a message of striking universality which transcends the boundaries of time and culture. It is well measured in fact to certain turningpoints in the human experience.
Some of the lines from Schiller's poem omitted from "Ode to Joy":
...Persist with courage, millions!
Stand firm for a better world!
...Deliver us from tyrants’ chains...
(-JD, originally posted Dec. 25, 2014, reposted because the themes are even more important for Japan, Okinawa, and the entire world given heightened popular activism for freedom, liberty, human rights, democracy, and peace, in the face of growing global state authoritarianism and militarized repression of nonviolent citizen movements.)
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Historian Jeff Kingston: "The Japanese people who are proud of their pacifist constitution see Abe trampling on their values."
Video by Richard Grehan of last week's protests in Tokyo
Brilliant analysis on the security-related legislation ("Abe war bills") by Temple University historian Jeff Kingston in this September 20 CNN interview:
People are outraged...People think it's unconstitutional, that he's trampling rule of law...Even though he has passed the legislation, it lacks legitimacy...Abe has delivered on all of the US wish list...
But the Japanese people don't buy Abe's argument that this is going to increase deterrence. Sure they think they live in a dangerous neighborhood, but they don't think this is the way to promote peace.
So the Japanese people who are proud of their pacifist constitution see Abe trampling on their values...Japanese people are concerned...they will be dragged into conflict by Washington..
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Japanese citizens protesting as LDP/Komeito postpone Abe war bills until 8:50 a.m.; former Supreme Court justice warns the unpopular government that it is unlikely that the "unconstitutional" legislation would survive a legal challenge.
(Photographer: Shinta Yabe)
Update: Sept. 17 - The opposition parties submitted a no-confidence motion to the committee chair Yoshitada Konoike. Then Masahide ("Moustache") Sato took over the chairman's seat, after which opposition members made very long speeches to defend the motion. However, following the script, the committee voted against the motion.
Then as Konoike returned to his chairman's seat, dozens of opposition members rushed towards Konoike, appearing as if they were trying to stop the voting on the bills. The "scuffle" made worldwide newspaper headlines.
Some analysts are asking why the opposition parties stopped blocking the entrance, and allowed the September 17 committee meeting to take place, knowing their no-confidence motion was going to, of course, be defeated.
In the meantime, over 200 lawyers in Japan have issued a statement calling the "voting" among the wild scuffling at the special committee illegal and invalid.
Many are asking why opposition party members allowed this final assembly to happen after they said they would do everything to stop the bills.
The not-so-young politicians inside the building must be exhausted.
Update 2:05 a.m. - The Upper House Special Committee on the Abe war bills has not started yet as of 2 AM in Japan. LDP/Komeito is planning to get the committee to vote for the war bills tonight.
If it begins, it will be livestreamed here: http://www.webtv.sangiin.go.jp/webtv/index.php.
The protest outside of the Parliament is being livestreamed now at Iwakami Yasumi journal:
http://iwj.co.jp/channels/main/ .
Along with the majority of the Japanese mainstream citizenry, cultural figures such as Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, former prime ministers, the majority of Japanese lawyers, including former Supreme Court justices are protesting the bill as unconstitutional.
Former Japanese Supreme Court Justice Kunio Hamada on Abe War Bills called the bills "unconstitutional and "illegitimate." Hamada warned that it is “extremely optimistic” for the Abe government to think that Supreme Court will not rule against the legislation if its constitutionality is challenged in court.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
"Never Again." Japanese & Okinawan war refusal will be streamed online, if not televised, or covered by all newspapers
Left, from top: Asahi, Mainichi, and Tokyo newspapers.
Right, from top: Yomiuri, Sankei, and Nikkei.
Via Kimberly Hughes: Notice the top three right-leaning Japanese daily newspapers, lined up in the right-hand column did not cover the sea of 120,000+ Japanese citizens at the Diet building on Sunday, August 30, protesting PM Abe's war bills that would allow him to send Japanese soldiers to fight in US regime change wars in contravention of the Japanese Peace Constitution which outlaws war as a means of international conflict resolution. In contrast, politically centrist Japanese newspapers put coverage of the historic protests on their front pages.
View from the streets: "NO WAR! NO ABE! We hope for peace! We love peace!
Don't kill anyone! Save Okinawa from Shinzo Abe."
(More at SEALDs (Student Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) English on FB)
Despite (or because of spotty coverage in Japanese newspapers and broadcast news), the historic Japanese and Okinawan multigenerational antiwar protests have dominated youth social media as Philip Brasor points out in "The revolution will be streamed online," published on Aug. 29 at The Japan Times.
More analysis via public scholar Jeff Kingston, again at JT, on Sept. 5, "Students oppose Abe’s assault on the Constitution":
SEALDs was launched on May 3, Constitution Day, highlighting the group’s concern that Abe’s security legislation is tantamount to a stealth revision that fails to follow proper constitutional procedures...Professor Akihiko Kimijima at Ritsumeikan University says that SEALDs wants Japan to be a nation based on the rule of law, and the group believes Abe is flouting the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. Apparently, there is no shortage of Japanese citizens who agree with them. In mid-June, three eminent constitutional scholars dismissed Abe’s security legislation as unconstitutional in Diet hearings, putting wind in SEALDs’ sails.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Kenzaburo Oe: "Hiroshima must be engraved in our memories: It’s a catastrophe even more dramatic than natural disasters, because it’s man-made. To repeat it, by showing the same disregard for human life in nuclear power stations, is the worst betrayal of the memory of the victims..."
"Japanese Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe on the 70th Anniversary of US Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," via Democracy Now!:
...KENZABURO OE: [translated] So, three years ago, the day after the disaster, the weeks after the disaster, I believe that all Japanese people were feeling a great regret. And the atmosphere in Japan here was almost the same as following the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of the war. And at that time, because of this atmosphere, the government at the time, which is the Democratic Party of Japan, with the agreement of the Japanese people, pledged to totally get rid of or decommission the more than 50 nuclear power plants here in Japan. However, the situation following the disaster, particularly in Fukushima, where so many people are suffering from this, has not changed at all.
And the current atmosphere or attitude of the government now in Japan has totally changed...the Liberal Democratic Party...led by Prime Minister Abe, is...completely having no regret and no looking back on ...what happened to Japan, and is instead actually actively pushing this forward. And I’m very fearful now that actually all throughout Japan and through the Japanese people, the atmosphere which is now growing and increasing is a spreading of this Prime Minister Abe’s ideology and worldview.
AMY GOODMAN: Yet he was elected as prime minister.
KENZABURO OE: [translated] Yes, he has won in two elections until now. But, however, now, because he has the majority in both of the houses of the Japanese Parliament, it means he is, in essence, able to do anything, go forward anything. And the first thing he is also trying to do now is to revise the constitution, which was created democratically by the Japanese people following the loss in World War II and Hiroshima and Nagasaki experience....
And now, under the current Prime Minister Abe administration, Japan is moving toward actively participating in United States wars. And what I am now most fearful about is the unfortunately likely possibility under Prime Minister Abe that this second pillar of Article 9 will be in danger, but not only this, that even the first pillar, that Japan may actually, within the next year or two or three or four years, actually directly participate in war...
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
300,000 Japanese: "Protect the Constitution! Protect Okinawa from Shinzo Abe! Don't Start a War!"
Great video via Michael Penn of Shingetsu News Agency (SNA): Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs) protest against the Abe War Bill, forced U.S. military base construction in Okinawa, and in favor of the Peace Constitution, rule of law, and democratic society.
Michael Hoffman's "A political turning point for Japan’s youth," published at The Japan Times on August 1, 2015, explores the mass student movement for democracy and peace for Japan and Okinawa:
Somebody needed to make the point that Abe’s primary accountability is not to U.S. lawmakers but to the people of Japan. Cynical calculations that the people of Japan wouldn’t bother were not unreasonable...
Years pass and nothing happens — then, suddenly, something does, and nothing is the same. What is the catalyst that turns passivity into activism? It’s like asking why this particular straw and not that one broke the camel’s back...
On July 1, 2014, the Abe Cabinet adopted a resolution sharply reinterpreting the Constitution as permitting what for decades had been regarded as forbidden: a global military role for the “pacifist” nation under the name “collective self-defense.”...On July 15, after a debate whose striking features were the vagueness of the government’s explanations and its hamfisted bullying of opposition lawmakers posing awkward questions, the Lower House voted, brushing aside the doubts of Constitutional scholars and of the public...
That was it. The camel sank to its knees...Sunday Mainichi magazine ventured a bold headline: “It’s begun — 300,000 people surrounding the Diet!”
That figure — 300,000 — is deeply significant. It takes us back to May 1960. The prime minister of the day, soon to be ousted, was Nobusuke Kishi, whose administration forced through the Diet a revised Japan-U.S. security pact in a manner strikingly similar to Abe’s handling of the current security legislation. Three hundred thousand is the prevailing estimate of the size of the enraged crowd that massed in front of the prime minister’s official residence, shouting for Kishi’s head. They got it. He resigned a month later.
The 1960 protests against PM Kishi's ramming through of the US-Japan Security Treaty (ANPO)
drew millions of protestors from all walks of life in multiple protests over months.
Demonstrators at the Japanese parliament building, Tokyo, June 18, 1960.
(Photo © Asahi Shimbun Photoarchives)
Monday, August 3, 2015
Will Japanese just be American mercenaries? Tim Shorrock & Christopher W. Hughes on the Abe revision of the postwar Yoshida Doctrine
Japanese Imperial Army soldiers in Tokyo, 1936
Long before the end of Pacific War, American Cold Warriors had decided Japan and Okinawa would serve as the launchpads for new wars in Asia that would begin in Korea and Vietnam. However, they were up against the Japanese and Okinawan people who wanted to rebuild their lives in peace. The vast majority of citizens, including liberal political leaders who had opposed Japan's wars in the Asia-Pacific, supported the postwar Peace Constitution, which outlawed war as a means of conflict resolution between nations.
General Douglas MacArthur attributed Article 9, the Peace Clause, to Kijuro Shidehara, who was Japan's prime minister during the drafting of the new constitution. During the 1920s, Shidehara was known for his attempts to counter the rise of militarists, promote disarmament and enact the 1928 General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy (Kellogg Briand Pact) that required member nations to renounce war as an instrument of national policy. The statesman was finally able to achieve his aim in the postwar Japanese constitution.
However, under the terms of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and Security Treaty, PM Shigeru Yoshida acquiesced to some U.S. military bases on the mainland and the division of Japan and Okinawa in exchange for the end of the U.S. Occupation. Thereafter the U.S. instituted a brutal military regime in Okinawa: soldiers seized tens of thousands of acres of private property and bulldozed entire villages, to build the military complexes throughout Okinawa; residents were afforded no property or human rights protections. The Japanese government sacrifice of Okinawa to US military aims allowed Yoshida and subsequent prime ministers, from Ichiro Hatoyama to Ishibashi Tanzan, for over a decade, for the most part, to resist US pressure to violate Article 9 and remilitarize Japan.
This changed in February 1957, when Nobusuke Kishi, wartime minister of commerce and industry under General Tojo, became prime minister, with support from the U.S. Government. Classified as a Class-A war crime (participation in a joint conspiracy to wage aggressive war) suspect, Kishi had been detained at Sugamo prison only 9 years prior to becoming the head of the Japanese state. However, on the same day in 1948 that the U.S. executed Tojo and six other convicted war criminals, the U.S. released Kishi and the other remaining Class-A suspects. All, with the CIA backing, resumed positions of power, after promising to support US military aims in Japan, Okinawa, and East Asia.
In 1960, as millions of Japanese citizens protested, Kishi repaid the U.S. government for his release: he sacrificed his political career by ramming through a new US-Japan Security Treaty (AMPO) through the Diet. The treaty allowed for continued US military bases in Japan and military occupation of Okinawa. However, Kishi was unable to achieve his wish to amend Article 9, to allow Japanese remilitarization in service of US wars abroad. His grandson, PM Shinzo Abe, modeling Kishi's method, is now trying to achieve this goal by ramming through a unilateral radical"reinterpretation" of the constitution, instead of following legal methods of constitutional revision. Almost all Japanese constitutional law scholars say this violates constitutional rule of law.
Before his November 25, 1970 ritual suicide in protest of the Japanese Peace Constitution, Yukio Mishima barricaded himself at the Ichigaya Japanese Self Defense Force camp in Ichigaya, Tokyo. Speaking to the soldiers from a balcony, Mishima cried out, "Where is the national spirit today? You will just be American mercenaries! American troops!" What would the Japanese ultranationalist author think today, as the constitution he despised is under threat of "reinterpretation," precisely for that aim?
Parliamentarians protest forced passage of the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960
Tim Shorrock's "Could Japan Become America’s New Proxy Army? Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to alter a key provision of Japan’s constitution to lift the country’s 70-year ban on foreign deployments," published at The Nation on July 27, analyzes the Abe administration's radical move to "reinterpret" the Japanese Peace Constitution within the context of postwar US-Japanese history:
Over the last month, Japan has been shaken by the largest anti-war demonstrations since the late 1960s, when millions of students, workers, and ordinary citizens turned out to try to block their govt’s collaboration with the US war in Vietnam. The issue this time is the plan by PM Shinzo Abe to alter a key provision of Japan’s peace constitution to allow Japan’s “Self Defense Forces” to take part in overseas military operations for the first time since WW II...
Abe’s victory will transform Japan—with its surprisingly large, tech-driven military-industrial complex—into America’s new proxy army...
So who is this prime minister who has won the trust of the Obama administration while earning the enmity of the growing majority of its own citizens? Here’s everything you need to know about “our guy” in Tokyo:
• ABE’S LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY WAS PUT IN POWER WITH THE HELP OF THE CIA AND BECAME ONE OF THE MOST SUBSERVIENT POLITICAL ALLIES THE US HAS EVER HAD.
...This was an easy shift for the corporate and financial conglomerates who backed Japan’s cruel war, according to Muto Ichiyo, a Japanese writer and activist who worked closely with the US anti-war movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
“The part of Japanese imperialism which was made powerless after the defeat in the war wanted, of course, to revive itself,” Muto once explained to me in Tokyo. “But they knew perfectly well that the situation had changed. They knew also that fighting against America again would be both impossible and purposeless. So they adopted a very clear-cut strategy: Japan will concentrate on the buildup of the economic base structure of imperialism, while America will practically rule Asia through its military forces.”
• ABE, WHO WAS PREVIOUSLY PM FROM 2006 TO 2007, REPRESENTS THE MOST RIGHT-WING FACTION OF THE PRO-AMERICAN LDP, AND SPEAKS FOR A VIRULENT MINORITY OF POLITICIANS AND CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS WHO IDEALIZE JAPAN’S WW II EMPIRE IN EAST ASIA AND WANT TO RESTORE ITS GREATNESS IN A MILITARY ALLIANCE WITH THE UNITED STATES...
• THE “UNFINISHED BUSINESS” OF AN EXPANDED US-JAPAN MILITARY ALLIANCE HAS BEEN PUSHED HEAVILY BY US NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS FROM BOTH THE DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES FOR DECADES...
Parliamentarians protest forced passage of Abe's War Bill.
Photo: KYODO via The Japan Times
Christopher W. Hughes' "An ‘Abe Doctrine’ as Japan’s Grand Strategy: New Dynamism or Dead-End?", published at The Asia-Pacific Journal on July 21, 2015, describes the loss of Japanese sovereignty under the radical Abe doctrine. The current administration signals the end of relative peace and prosperity that Japan enjoyed [albeit at the expense of Okinawan suffering] in the conservative postwar period:
Abe’s diplomatic agenda...might be labeled as a doctrine capable...displacing, the doctrine of PM Yoshida Shigeru that has famously charted Japan’s entire post-war international trajectory. In contrast to Abe’s more muscular international agenda, the Yoshida Doctrine’...has long emphasized for Japan the need for a pragmatic and low-profile foreign policy, a highly constrained defense posture, reliance but not over-dependence on the US-Japan security treaty, and the expedient rebuilding of economic and diplomatic ties with East Asian neighbors...
Abe has only served two and half years as PM in this stint and may enjoy several more years...to continue to pursue his radical agenda. But the probability is that the Abe Doctrine, whilst making substantive differences to Japan’s foreign and security policy, will continue to fall short of its ambitions, and perhaps ultimately run into the sand. This is because of three fundamental inherent and irreconcilable contradictions. Essentially, these result from the fixation of the Abe Doctrine on attempting to escape the post-war order and the humiliations to national pride and sovereignty imposed during that period, and the fact that this in many ways only leads to Japan becoming further entrapped in the past with resultant tensions for the implementation of current policies and relations....
Abe’s hopes for more equal ties with the US cannot by definition materalize as long as Japan continues to lock itself into dependency on the US in a range of political, economic and security affairs. Abe’s attempts to strengthen Japan’s great power profile through deepening integration into the military alliance can only really spell dependency...the reality is that the Abe Doctrine is in many ways reducing Japan’s autonomy in international affairs, and this will only be compounded as its revisionism leaves it more isolated in East Asia with a limited range of other feasible regional partners.
One of many July rallies against the Abe war bill & forced military base construction in Okinawa.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Karel Van Wolferen on regime change in Japan & Ukraine, the resurrection of the Cold War (without communism), the 'pivot,' Okinawa, the 'reinterpretation' of Article 9, & 'Full Spectrum Dominance'
Karel van Wolferen's September 2014 analysis of the US-Japan relationship within the context of US neocon geopolitical aims,"The Havoc and Fantasy of ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’." sheds light on why the Abe administration is violating of rule of law to rush its "reinterpretation" of the Japanese Peace Constitution, and using military force against Okinawan civilians to build a US miitary port and training base at Okinawa's most important natural cultural heritage site.
This rare analysis of Abe policies within global context is especially relevant now as the LDP regime pits itself against the majority of citizens in Okinawa and mainland Japan, on behalf of the interwoven US-Jp military-industrial complex, which depends on war and the threat of war to justify ever-increasing military expansion and expenditures:
This rare analysis of Abe policies within global context is especially relevant now as the LDP regime pits itself against the majority of citizens in Okinawa and mainland Japan, on behalf of the interwoven US-Jp military-industrial complex, which depends on war and the threat of war to justify ever-increasing military expansion and expenditures:
The American-triggered regime change in Ukraine at the Western end of the Eurasian continent has been widely discussed. Less noticed, if at all, has been the American-triggered change of government in Japan four years ago as part of the so-called ‘pivot’ aimed at holding back China on the Eastern end. The two ought to be considered together, since they share a purpose known as ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’.
A military ambition and agenda, this provides much activist energy among America’s neoconservatives and their fellow travelers, which include sundry financial and commercial interests. Made up of many parts, like the recently established “Africom” (U.S. Africa Command), the comparable effort to contain-isolate-denigrate the two former communist enemy giants, China and Russia, may be considered a central aim.
It does not add up to a feasible strategy for long-term American interests, but few American initiatives have done in the recent past. Since neoconservatives, ‘liberal hawks’ and neoliberals appear to have captured the State Department and White House, and their activism has already produced significant geopolitical instability, it would be no luxury to dig deeper in developments on the rather neglected Asian side of the globe.
The protracted overthrow in the course of 2010 of the first cabinet formed by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) does not at first glance resemble what happened in Kiev on January 22nd 2014 – when Victoria Nuland and Co triggered, aided, and abetted an anti–Russian coup d’état...No civil war against Japanese citizens who had supported a reformist program. It was a gentle overthrow. But an overthrow it was even so. And, importantly, while the Ukraine case served the elevation by consensus of Russia to being the new number one enemy of ‘the West’, the abrupt end to a new Japanese policy of rapprochement was the start of a fairly successful drive to create common imagery of China as a threat to its neighbors.
Back in September of 2009, Japan underwent a politically momentous change when a new ruling party came to power, thereby ending half a century of what had been in fact a ‘one-party democracy’. As the first serious opposition contender for government, the DPJ had won an overwhelming electoral victory with a strongly reformist manifesto...
One of this new government’s first moves was to initiate a new China policy. Its main architect, Ichiro Ozawa, had filled several planes with writers, artists, and politicians to visit China for the specified purpose of improving “people to people and party to party” relations. At the same time, the prime minister of this first cabinet, Yukio Hatoyama, was openly declaring his intention to join other East Asian leaders in the formation of an Asean+3 community, consisting of the existing Asean grouping plus Korea, China and Japan. It is highly unlikely that the now diplomatically ruinous and possibly dangerous Sino-Japanese conflict over the Senkaku/Diyaou islands would have come into being if his cabinet had lasted.
As could have been expected, these unexpected Japanese initiatives created collective heartburn among Washington’s ‘Japan handlers’...
Throughout the Cold War, Washington’s determination to rely on having an obedient outpost close to the shores of the two huge Communist powers did not require much pleading or pushing, because Tokyo had, as a matter of course, decided that it shared this same Communist enemy with Washington...
The regime change drama can be said to have been prefigured shortly before the August 2009 elections that brought the DPJ to power. In January of that year Hillary Clinton came to Tokyo on her first mission as Obama’s Secretary of State to sign an agreement with the outgoing LDP administration (which knew it was stumbling on its last legs), reiterating what had been agreed on in October 2005 about a highly controversial planned new base for US Marines on Okinawa – a plan hatched by Donald Rumsfeld – which had earlier been forced down the throat of the LDP. The ruling party of the one-party democracy had applied a preferred method of Japanese politics when something embarrassingly awkward comes up: do nothing, and hope everyone will forget it. Clinton made clear that no matter what kind of government the Japanese electorate would choose, there could be no deviation from earlier arrangements...
Much of the international Japan coverage at that time was done out of Washington with journalists interviewing the Japan handlers, since the body of regular American correspondents in Tokyo had dwindled to a very few who permanently resided there. Like we have just seen happen with the coverage of the Ukraine crisis in European media, Japan’s newspapers were beginning to reflect the reality as created by American editors...By these means the story about a politically new Japan led to the propaganda line that Prime Minister Hatoyama was mishandling the crucial US-Japan relationship...
...Hatoyama did not have to flee like the elected president in Kiev almost 4 years later. He eventually simply stepped down. He did so in line with a custom whereby politicians who wish to accomplish something that is generally understood to be controversial and difficult will stake their political future on the outcome. In this case Hatoyama had walked into a trap. He was given to believe that an acceptable compromise solution was being arranged for the problem of the new Marine basis in Okinawa. As he told me himself about half a year later, with that he made the biggest mistake in his political life.
This is not how the newspapers have reported on it...but let this sink in: Washington managed, without the use of violence, to manipulate the Japanese political system into discarding a reformist cabinet. The party that had intended to begin clearing up dysfunctional political habits that had evolved over half a century of one-party rule lost its balance and bearings, and never recovered...Where earlier a China policy of friendly relations was being forged was suddenly nothing...
The resulting anti–Chinese predisposition in the region perfectly suited the ‘pivot’, which has been Hillary Clinton’s program to develop greater muscle to curtail China’s influence. The American military, which maintains bases all over China’s neighboring soil, is not prepared to share power in the the Western Pacific, and Japan plays an important part in all this, even extending to current Prime Minister Abe’s reinterpretation of the famous pacifist clause in Japan’ constitution.
...Global diplomacy has gone out of the window in the meantime. Neither European countries nor Japan can, under current circumstances, engage properly with their gigantic neighbors. For a variety of reasons the powers that make a difference in the United States have demonstrated that they are comfortable with a reignited Cold War, this time without communism...
...full spectrum dominance does not constitute a feasible strategy; it is a dangerous fantasy among institutions that are not supervised by a politically effective coordinating center, hence are not on any leash...When we cheer NATO and its new initiatives for a rapid deployment force to be used potentially against the renewed enemy in Moscow, and when we cheer the supposedly great achievement of the European Union unanimously to endorse sanctions against that same new enemy, when we join the choir denouncing an imagined inherently aggressive China, we are encouraging a bunch of incompetent, politically immature zealots as they trigger chains of events whose likely dire consequences we could not possibly desire.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Japanese Scholars: "Now, 70 years after the war, Japan stands at a critical juncture. One path is that of a nation that does not wage war. The other, a nation that wages war."
Appeal by the Association of Scholars Opposed to the Security-related Bills:
Today, 70 years after the war, Japan stands at a critical juncture. One path is that of a nation that does not wage war. The other, a nation that wages war. The Abe administration has submitted an International Peace Support Bill and an omnibus Peace and Security Legislation Consolidation Bill amending 10 war-related laws for the worse to the Diet, where they are currently being deliberated. Violating Article 9 of the Constitution, these bills would provide for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to cooperate actively with U.S. and other foreign military operations overseas. We very strongly appeal for the Diet to consider them most carefully and to defeat them in keeping with the Constitution.
If adopted, the legislation would allow (1) using military force, even if Japan is not attacked, if another nation is attacked and the administration deems this situation a threat to Japan’s survival, (2) sending SDF units anywhere in the world where the U.S. or other militaries are waging war and having them provide support in close proximity to combat zones, and (3) deploying the SDF alongside U.S. and other allied forces and authorizing them to fire their weapons ostensibly in defense of their military and other supplies.
Although Prime Minister Abe contends the use of military force would be limited, the legislation opens the way for unbridled use of force by the SDF and violates the principle of exclusively self-defense. Anywhere the SDF uses military force will automatically become a combat zone. As such, the bills are in clear violation of Article 9 paragraph 1’s prohibition against the use of force in combat. For over 60 years, successive administrations have understood that the exercise of collective self-defense violates the Constitution, yet the Abe administration seeks to overturn this and pave the way for Japan’s SDF to take part in American wars of aggression. Should this legislation pass, there is a very real danger that Japan could become a party to hostilities and the SDF an army of aggression in violation of international law.
We bear a special historical burden in that universities collaborated with Japan’s war of aggression and sent numerous students off to battle. Profoundly repentant of this history, we have adopted Article 9 as our own, have engaged in research and education as the bedrock for world peace, and have worked so as to never again be visited by the horrors of war. We cannot allow a situation to arise anew in which our young people are sent off to war to kill and be killed.
In the name of scholarship and conscience, we most strongly protest this unconstitutional legislation’s having been submitted to the Diet and are appalled it is even being deliberated by the Diet. We stand in resolute opposition to this legislation.
June 15, 2015
Association of Scholars Opposed to the Security-related Bills
Aoi Miho (Gakushuin University, law）
Asakura Mutsuko (Waseda University, law）
Awaji Takehisa (Rikkyo University, civil law lawyer）
Chiba Shin (International Christian University, political thought）
Hama Noriko (Doshisha University, international economics）
Higuchi Yoichi (constitutional law, Japan Academy member）
Hirota Teruyuki (Nihon University, education）
Hirowatari Seigo (Senshu University, law, former President of Science Council of Japan）
Horio Teruhisa (University of Tokyo, education）
Ichinokawa Yasutaka (University of Tokyo, sociology）
Ikeuchi Satoru (Nagoya University, astrophysics）
Ishida Hidetaka (University of Tokyo, semiology and media）
Ito Makoto (University of Tokyo, economics）
Kaifu Norio (National Astronomical Observatory, astronomy）
Kaino Michiatsu (Waseda University, law）
Kaneko Masaru (Keio University, fiscal policy）
Katoo Takashi (Seikei University, political philosophy）
Kawamoto Takashi (International Christian University, social logic）
Kimishima Akihiko (Ritsumeikan University, constitutional law and peace studies）
Kobayashi Setsu (Keio University, constitutional law）
Komori Yoichi (University of Tokyo, modern Japanese literature)
Kubo Toru (Shinshu University, history）
Kurihara Akira (Rikkyo University, political sociology）
Mamiya Yosuke (Aoyama Gakuin University, economics）
Masukawa Toshihide (Kyoto University, physics, Nobel laureate）
Mishima Ken’ichi (Osaka University, philosophy & history of thought）
Miyamoto Hisao (University of Tokyo, philosophy）
Miyamoto Ken’ichi (Osaka City University, economics）
Mizuno Kazuo (Nihon University, economics）
Mizushima Asaho (Waseda University, constitutional law）
Nagata Kazuhiro (Kyoto Sangyo University, cellular biology）
Nakatsuka Akira (Nara Women’s University, modern Japanese history）
Nishikawa Jun (Waseda University, international economics）
Nishitani Osamu (Rikkyo University, philosophy & history of thought）
Nishizaki Fumiko (University of Tokyo, history）
Noda Masaaki (psychopathologist）
Oguma Eiji (Keio University, historical sociology）
Okano Yayo (Doshisha University, history of Western political thought）
Osawa Mari (University of Tokyo, social policy）
Saito Jun’ichi (Waseda University, political science）
Sakai Keiko (Chiba University, Iraqi politics）
Sato Manabu (Gakushuin University, education)
Shimazono Susumu (Sophia University, religion）
Sugita Atsushi (Hosei University, political science）
Takahashi Tetsuya (University of Tokyo, philosophy）
Takayama Kanako (Kyoto University, law）
Uchida Tatsuru (Kobe College, philosophy）
Ueno Chizuko (University of Tokyo, sociology）
Ueno Kenji (Kyoto University, mathematics）
Ukai Satoshi (Hitotsubashi University, French literature and thought）
Uno Shigeki (University of Tokyo, history of political thought）
Utsumi Aiko (Keisen University, Japan-Asia relations）
Uyeda Seiya (University of Tokyo, geophysics, Japan Academy member）
Wada Haruki (University of Tokyo, history）
Washitani Izumi (Chuo University, conservation ecology）
Watanabe Osamu (Hitotsubashi University, political science & constitutional law）
Yamaguchi Jiro (Hosei University, political science）
Yamamuro Shin’ichi (Kyoto University, political science）
Yokoyu Sonoko (ex-Chuo University, clinical psychologist）
Yoshida Yutaka (Hitotsubashi University, Japanese history）
Yoshioka Hitoshi (Kyushu University, history of science）
Saturday, May 2, 2015
5/3 - Available for online viewing: John Junkerman's Japan's Peace Constitution
This timely, hard-hitting documentary places the ongoing debate over the constitution in an international context: What will revision mean to Japan's neighbors, Korea and China? How has the US-Japan military alliance warped the constitution and Japan's role in the world? How is the unprecedented involvement of Japan's Self-Defense Force in the occupation of Iraq perceived in the Middle East?
Through interviews conducted with leading thinkers around the world, the film explores the origins of the Constitution in the ashes of war and the significance of its peace clauses in the conflicted times of the early 21st century. Key interviews include:
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower
Paris-based social theorist Hidaka Rokuro
Beate Sirota Gordon, drafter of the equal-rights clause of the Constitution
Political philosopher and activist Douglas Lummis
Political scientist Chalmers Johnson
Kang Man-Gil, president of Sangji University, South Korea
Shin Heisoo, co-representative, Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan
Korean historian Han Hong Koo
Chinese filmmaker and writer Ban Zhongyi
Syrian writer Michel Kilo
Lebanese journalist Josef Samaha
Linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky
Director John Junkerman is an American filmmaker, living in Tokyo. His first film, Hellfire: A Journey from Hiroshima, was coproduced with John Dower and nominated for an Academy Award. His 2002 film, Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times, also produced by Siglo, received widespread theatrical distribution in Japan, the US, and Europe.
A companion book in Japanese, including the complete interviews with John Dower, Hidaka Rokuro, Chalmers Johnson, Noam Chomsky, Beate Sirota Gordon, and Han Hong Koo has been published by Foil.
Monday, April 27, 2015
New Face of Empire v. the Anti-War Committee of 1000: No base in Henoko, Okinawa! NO WAR 4.26 Shibuya Sound Parade & 4.27 "Protect the Peace Constitution" Action
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| (Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000) |
The Anti-War Committee of 1000 (co-founded last year by Nobel Prize Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, former Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota,and other Japanese and Okinawan social and cultural leaders) brought the ubiquitous pink Okinawa Dugong balloon to Tokyo's Shibuya district on Sunday for the No base in Henoko, Okinawa! NO WAR 4.26 Shibuya sound parade. About 1000 people attended the "NO WAR in Shibuya! Solidarity in the struggle for Okinawa" rally, which overlapped with the Rainbow Pride parade.
(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)
Hundreds of thousands protested passing of the
Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US andJapan (ANPO)
that PM Nobusuke Kishi, grandfather of PM Abe, forced through
the Japanese Diet on May 20, 1960, at the sacrifice of his political career.
the Japanese Diet on May 20, 1960, at the sacrifice of his political career.
On Monday, the Anti-War Committee of 1000 held another rally at the PM's residence to protest the Abe administration's revision of US-Japan military guidelines which call for the increased integration of the US and Japanese militaries. Approximately 800 people participated in the 4.27 action.
The US has pushed for military integration with Asian countries since the first years of the Cold War. President Eisenhower articulated the key concept in the early 1950s: "If there must be a war there in Asia, let it be Asians against Asians." The Nixon Doctrine announced in Guam in 1969 consolidated the US government idea of international military integration under US domination. Historian John Dower's description of the Nixon Doctrine (in "Asia and the Nixon Doctrine: The New Face of Empire," a chapter in Open Secret: The Kissinger-Nixon Doctrine in Asia, published in 1970), also describes the motivation behind the ongoing integration:
...fundamentally a cost-conscious policy, aimed at maintaining a major U.S. role in Asia at less cost in both dollars and American lives. This combination has been given the policy a racist cast perhaps best illustrated by Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker's comment that [this] means changing 'the color of the corpses...
While the primary thrust of the Doctrine is military and budgetary, this thrust interlocks with important considerations concerning the future economic development of Asia...
(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)
Dower added that the US military and economic globalization strategy may be traced back to the Truman era:
...represents ittle more than the new face of American empire. It applies cosmetics to the scarred strategies of the past; here and there, where the old features of imperium have become particularly battered, there is even a bit of strategic plastic surgery. At this stage in history, after..decades of often tragic American policy in Asia, one looks for new questions, sensibilities, and committments which strike to the root of affairs...Upon close examination, it is fundamentally not even a new policy, but rather a pastiche of rhetoric and programs familiar since the early years of the cold war
(I)...containment remains the framework of miiltary strategy...and the U.S has reaffirmed its commitment to counterrevolution.
(II)The network of American bases and manpower commitments abroad is being rationalized and restructured, not reconsidered.
(III) Client armies are being developed to replace American combat troops in crusades largely defined by Washington and at costs to both Asia and the U.S. which are as yet incalculable...
(V) The possibility of the United States initiating nuclear wr in Asia has been immeasurably increased.
(VI) Economic policies remain structured in such a way that many Asian countries face the prospect of becoming locked into permanent dependency as the neocolonies of the US...
(Photo: Anti-War Committee of 1000)
More:
"EDITORIAL: Revised Japan-U.S. defense guidelines a dangerous departure from pacifist credo", The Asahi Shimbun, April 28, 2015:
"Japanese Catholic leaders voice concern over Abe administration in peace message", The Asahi Shimbun, April 28, 2015:The guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation have been revised for the first time in 18 years.The new guidelines, which confirm the direction of the security policies of the Japanese and the U.S. governments, call for “seamless” and “global” security cooperation between the two countries. They will accelerate the “integration” of the Self-Defense Forces with U.S. forces...Underlying the revision is the Abe administration’s policy initiative to change the government’s traditional interpretation of the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense. This radical shift in security policy was formally endorsed by the Cabinet’s resolution in July last year.Proposed security legislation in line with the Cabinet decision is the focus of the current Diet session. Although the Diet has yet to start debating the legislation, the new guidelines already reflect the Cabinet decision to make it possible for Japan to use its right to collective self-defense. They also include the SDF’s overseas minesweeping operations, an issue over which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, are at odds...
Dated Feb. 25, the statement read: “Seventy years after the war, memory of it is fading along with memories of Japanese colonial rule and aggression with its accompanying crimes against humanity. Now, there are calls to rewrite the history of that time, denying what really happened.“The present government is attempting to enact laws to protect state secrets, allow for the right of collective self-defense and change Article 9 of the Constitution to allow the use of military force overseas.”Kazuo Koda, a bishop from the archdiocese of Tokyo who was involved in drafting the document, said he and other priests were initially reluctant to argue specific policy measures. “But we became convinced that we must speak out with clarity that these are wrong,” he said.
"Oe vows to continue work of late Article 9 torchbearer Okudaira", The Asahi Shimbun, April 4, 2015:
Nobel-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe has stressed that he and others are ready and willing to carry the torch lit by the late constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira, a leading supporter of the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.Oe was one of six people who addressed a rally April 3 on the legacy of Okudaira, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo who died in January at age 85. About 900 intellectuals and activists attended the gathering in Chofu, Tokyo.The writer said Okudaira believed that Article 9, the clause that outlaws war, has played a major role in molding the character of Japanese who grew up in the postwar period.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Urgent Appeal by Nobel Prize Laureate OE Kenzaburo and 20 other leading Japanese intellectuals calling for the immediate suspension of construction of the US military base at Henoko, Okinawa.
Photo: Nobelprize.org
Urgent Appeal by Nobel Prize Laureate OE Kenzaburo and 20 other leading Japanese intellectuals calling for the immediate suspension of construction of the US military base at Henoko, Okinawa.(Translated by Charles Cabell. List of petitioners omitted.)
We are deeply concerned about issues surrounding the construction of an American military base in Henoko, Okinawa. The will of the people of Okinawa prefecture is beyond doubt. INAMINE Susumu, who opposed construction of the military base in his election manifesto, was reelected mayor of Nago City in an election held in January 2014. In the November election of the prefectural governor, ONAGA Takeshi, who also opposed construction, defeated the incumbent NAKAIMA Hirokazu by an overwhelming 100,000 votes; and in the general election held in December, anti-construction candidates won every seat. The fierce determination of the people of Okinawa prefecture to oppose construction of the American military base at Henoko has been demonstrated by “all Okinawa” in a way that transcends ideology and creed, politics and party affiliation.
The Abe government, nevertheless, is aggressively pressing ahead with land reclamation, using as justification the Public Waters Reclamation Accord signed by the previous governor Nakaima, who late in 2013 reneged on his election manifesto. The outrageous conduct of the national government is an act of violence that insults the will of the Okinawan people and destroys the foundation of democracy and regional autonomy in Japan.
The new governor has decided to establish an “Independent Committee on Procedures Involved in the Public Waters Reclamation Accord with Regard to the Construction of a Replacement Facility for the Futenma Airfield” (henceforth “Independent Committee”) to begin investigating whether there were any legal irregularities in the procedures undertaken by the previous governor NAKAIMA Hirokazu in concluding the Public Waters Reclamation Accord. In other words, there is a real possibility that the legitimacy of the reclamation accord, or the environmental assessment upon which it rests, may be stripped away. For the government of a purportedly democratic nation, the obvious course of action should be to suspend landfill operations at least during the period of investigation.
Governor Onaga announced a new decision on March 23. He ordered the Okinawa Defense Bureau to halt all operations, including boring exploration. In the event that his order is not carried out, he is considering rescinding the permit allowing coral reef shattering along the Henoko coast. If the government continues to insist on aggressively pushing ahead with construction, we fear not only a serious confrontation with the people of Okinawa prefecture and the fomenting of mistrust toward the mainland, but also the collapse of trust toward the nation of Japan inside the country and abroad.
We hereby declare our support for Governor Onaga’s position rejecting base relocation and our full support for his decisions pertaining to the order to suspend operations and to rescind the permit allowing reef shattering. We urgently call upon the government to heed the following requests:
The Japanese government should immediately suspend all operations relating to Henoko land reclamation [landfill], including boring exploration of the sea floor. The “Land Reclamation Accord” concluded by former Governor Nakaima, which the government uses as the basis for such operations, has been repudiated by the people of Okinawa prefecture.
Recently, the Japanese government has refused even to meet with Governor Onaga who represents the collective will of Okinawa. Such refusal repudiates regional autonomy guaranteed under the Japanese constitution and violates the spirit of democracy. Respect for the will of the people forms the basis of democracy. The government should accede in good faith to Governor Onaga’s request for a meeting and participate in serious talks about the issues at hand.
We call upon the Japanese government to put into practice its own slogan of “Regional Creation” by transferring to Okinawa Prefecture the actual authority to resolve issues connected to military bases and the construction of an autonomous economy.
The Minister for the Environment has a responsibility to provide appropriate commentary from a standpoint of environmental conservation with regard to the contents of the Environmental Impact Evaluation Report on reclamation operations for the construction of the American military base at Henoko. According to the Environmental Conservation Guidelines for the Island of Okinawa, Henoko and surrounding coastal regions in particular, designated as “zones for evaluating the strict preservation of the natural environment” (Rank 1), are precious bodies of water inhabited by numerous endangered species, not least of which is the Dugong. There is an extremely high risk that the artificial destruction and modification of natural formations will bring about absolute irreversible damage from which the island cannot recover. We urgently call upon the Minister for the Environment to carry out the solemn duty of preserving the beautiful Okinawan sea, a candidate for selection as a World Heritage Site.
Frustration and anger at a situation in which 74% of US military bases are forced onto Okinawa, which comprises only 0.6% of Japanese territory, underlie the determination of the people of Okinawa prefecture to oppose the construction of a new base at Henoko. We call upon Japanese citizens to squarely face this situation, which may be said to be a form of structural discrimination; and urge that all Japan should include this burden in considering issues of Japanese security.
April 1, 2015
Thursday, December 25, 2014
10,000 sing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" — Japan's Beloved Anthem of Peace
This is a video of the Osaka "Number Nine Chorus" of 10,000 singers who perform "Ode to Joy" every December. The soloists and orchestra are professionals; however the rest are singers from the community.
The Japanese love of "Ode to Joy," the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, began during the First World War, when German prisoners of war performed the Ninth Symphony for the first time in Japan in 1918.
In Europe, exactly one hundred years ago, German, French, and British soldiers engaged in a spontaneous holiday ceasefire, emerging from the trenches to exchange food, drink, and even play soccer, sharing a brief moment of humanity during the brutality of war.
The Japanese nickname for the uplifting movement — "Daiku" ("Number 9") — alludes to Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause which outlaws war as a means of conflict resolution. Beethoven's lyrics are from a poem celebrating human unity by Frederick Schiller. The 19th-century century German philosopher was preoccupied by the quest for freedom and human rights. Like many of his era (which spanned the American Revolution), he championed political ideals based not on coercion and tyrannical brute force, but instead by reason, goodwill, dialogue, and democratic process.
Worldwide, "Ode to Joy" has long been considered a peace anthem, a song of resistance to not just war, but also state repression. Chilean democracy demonstrators sang the song during PInochet's dictatorship. Chinese protesters sang it during the march on Tiananmen Square. This year, the music and lyrics are even more meaningful to the Japanese and Okinawan supporters of democracy and Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause.
...Brother love binds man to man
Ever singing march we onward
Victors in the midst of strife
Joyful music lifts us onward
In the triumph song of life...
-JD
Human rights attorney Scott Horton tells us that Beethoven was drawn to Schiller's writings because the composer longed for liberty, however omitted the "deeper, more political charge" of the final stanzas of "Ode to Joy" to veil his challenge to the repressive Hapsburg regime from which he received patronage.
...the work is radical and blatantly political in its orientation–it envisions a world without monarchs at a time when the distant colonies of North America alone offered the alternative. It imagines a world whose nations live in peace with one another, embracing the dignity of their species as a fundamental principle, and democracy as the central chord of their organization. Its long appeal to Beethoven lay in just this intensely subversive, revolutionary core. To start with, as Leonard Bernstein reminded his audiences, the poem was originally an “Ode to Freedom” and the word “Joy” (Freude instead of Freiheit, added to the third pillar, Freundschaft [Friendship] came as a substitute for the more overtly political theme...Some of the lines from Schiller's poem omitted from "Ode to Joy":
Beethoven reckoned, of course, that his audience knew the whole text, just as he knew it, by heart. He was by then a crotchety old man, Beethoven, but he knew the power of a dream, and he inspired millions with it, to the chagrin of his Hapsburg sponsors.
Schiller’s words are perfectly fused with Beethoven’s music. It may indeed be the most successful marriage in the whole shared space of poetry and music. It is a message of striking universality which transcends the boundaries of time and culture. It is well measured in fact to certain turningpoints in the human experience.
...Persist with courage, millions!
Stand firm for a better world!
...Deliver us from tyrants’ chains...
...Deliver us from tyrants’ chains...
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Journalists, legal experts, & filmmakers condemn State Secrets Law's chilling effect on freedom of expression & freedom of press; Japan's rating drops from 22nd to 59th on World Press Freedom Index
Japanese Army cavalrymen parade in front of the Kabukiza Theater, Ginza, Tokyo,1938
Justin McCurry, "Japan whistleblowers face crackdown under proposed state secrets law: Officials who leak 'special state secrets' and journalists who seek to obtain them could face prison if bill is approved this week," Guardian:
Under a special state secrets bill expected to pass on Friday, public officials and private citizens who leak "special state secrets" face prison terms of up to 10 years, while journalists who seek to obtain the classified information could get up to five years.Matthew Carney, "Critics fear Japan's democracy is 'regressing' as government introduces laws to keep state secrets," Australian Broadcasting Company:
Critics of the new law say it marks a return to the days of prewar and wartime Japanese militarism, when the state used the Peace Preservation Act to arrest and imprison political opponents.
"It is a threat to democracy," said Keiichi Kiriyama, an editorial writer for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, adding that the legislation would "have a chilling effect on public servants, who could become wary about giving the information" to journalists...
Abe, who does not have to fight an election for another three years, is expected to push ahead with his nationalist agenda, including constitutional reforms that would end the military's purely defensive role.
The secrecy bill's hasty passage through the lower house has been marked by noisy public demonstrations and opposition from journalists, lawyers, politicians, academics and scientists, as well as film directors and manga artists concerned about freedom of expression...
"There are few specifics in the law, which means it can be used to hide whatever the government wishes to keep away from public scrutiny," said Mizuho Fukushima, an opposition MP.
"In its current form, the prime minister can decide by himself what constitutes a secret."
In 2009 investigative journalist Masakatsu Ota uncovered a top secret deal between Japan and United States that allowed nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan during the Cold War..."Protest statements issued as state secrets law takes effect," via Asahi:
"A key person in government confirmed it for the first time and the reports triggered an inquiry," he said...
Under the new secrecy laws exposes like Ota's will be much harder to do...
Experts have described the laws as extreme and part of prime minister Shinzo Abe's wider agenda to revise Japan's constitution...
Law Professor Lawrence Repeta from Tokyo's Meiji University said the government had a lot of power.
"They say the right to freedom of speech should only be respected when it doesn't disturb public order," he said...
The majority are against the laws and at protests across the country over the weekend people called for them to be scrapped...
Another protester said Japan was heading back to its militarist past with these new laws.
"When Japan headed to militarism, people were arrested if they showed opposition, that's the scariest thing. Democracy has not matured yet, but it's been developing and I want to stop this move," the protester said.
Already the government is set to classify half a million documents as state secrets.
Critics have said the real danger of these laws will see the government ultimately deciding what is secret and the definitions can be vague.
Organizations representing journalists, legal experts and the entertainment industry issued statements calling for the abolishment of the state secrets protection law that they say will trample on the people’s right to know...Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan Freedom of the Press Committee Japan Investigative Journalism Awards and Special Freedom Of Press Prizes Press Release, December 10, 2014:
The Japan Congress of Journalists’ statement issued on Dec. 9 said the law would “cover the people’s eyes, ears and mouth and usurp their freedom of the press and speech.”
The statement listed a number of problems with the law: the range of documents classified as state secrets could expand without limit; the government can continually extend the period a document is classified as a state secret; and journalists and human rights activists could be punished under the law.
The Japan Civil Liberties Union, consisting of lawyers and legal scholars, issued a statement on Dec. 8 protesting the law because “it inappropriately restricts citizens’ right to know.”
...A group of individuals connected with the movie industry, including directors Yoji Yamada and Isao Takahata, also issued a statement Dec. 9 calling for the law’s annulment...
The statement also touched upon the history of the movie industry before and during World War II when the government forced the production of movies that supported Japan’s war effort.
The statement was made “from a strong feeling of creating a society that never again goes to war and to never again be complicit in the production of movies that stir up war sentiment.”
Reporters Without Borders has called it, “an unprecedented threat to freedom of information.” The organization’s World Press Freedom Index for 2014 has just dropped Japan to number 59 on its list, below countries like Serbia and Chile. This marks a precipitous fall; Japan was ranked as high as 22 in 2012. Clearly, even international observers are becoming increasingly concerned about the direction of media freedom here.-JD
The law provides for prison terms of up to ten years, not only for government insiders who leak information regarded as “secret,” but also for those, including journalists, who encourage them to do so. In other words, according to experts, even asking persistently about a “secret” could be a crime punishable with up to five years in jail.
The secrecy law, unprecedented in Japan’s postwar history, was forced through the Diet over the objections of critics who pointed out its many deficiencies. While the law was still under consideration, the FCCJ released a statement expressing our concerns...
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Targeted Village, The Vacumn Zone, One Shot, One Kill showing at peace film line-up at Keio University
Peace Cinema - Keio University, Mita Campus, Tokyo - this fall.
Oct 29 - Chie Mikami's Targeted Village -- follows the history of forced V-22 Osprey testing & training in Okinawa.
Nov. 25 - Shinkû chitai (The Vacumn Zone) - Satsuo Yamamoto's 1952 film based on Hiroshi Noma's celebrated postwar novel. Called "the strongest anti-military film ever made in Japan...an exposé of the brutality and corruption of the Japanese army shown in its most revolting form" (Anderson and Richie, The Japanese Film). The story shows the life of a soldier who is reintegrated into the Imperial army after serving a prison term for theft. Surrounded by corrupt officers and comrades, he finds the military, with its systematic dehumanization, an even lonelier "no man's land" than prison.
The film—like Twenty-Four Eyes, Keisuke Kinoshita's 1954 film based on Sakae Tsubo's 1952 novel of the same name—was one of many Japanese antiwar films made during the postwar period. (Most of Japan's antiwar films are unavailable with English subtitles. Twenty-Four Eyes—which follows the story of a school teacher and her students during the period of heightened militarization from the 1930's through the Pacific War, and its aftermath—is an exception; released by Criterion.)
Dec. 17 - One Shot, One Kill - A documentary by Yukihisa Fujimoto that explores how the military breaks down the civilian values of young people, turning them into soldiers who will follow orders and kill.
Friday, October 10, 2014
A win for the Japanese People who Conserve Article 9, for the Nobel Peace Prize, would “reorientate the prize to the core of Nobel’s original will.”
Congratulations to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for being awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.
Although not selected as the winner, the people who support the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause, Article 9, were a noted contender in this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
Via WaPo:
Background on Article 9 via Global Article 9 Campaign and Peace Boat, which received a nomination in 2009, on behalf of the Japanese people who support Article 9:“Japanese people who conserve Article 9”...Article 9 refers to a clause in the Japanese constitution, drawn up following World War II, that states that Japan will “forever renounce war” and the “threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.” The Japanese government’s “reinterpretation” of this pacifist clause earlier this year sparked a public backlash, with campaigners arguing that the clause is one of the reasons Japan has not waged war in nearly 70 years.Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of PRIO [Peace Research Institute Oslo, an independent research institute] and a respected Nobel Prize commentator, recently chose this group as his top pick. He is the first to admit he doesn’t have a solid track record in predicting the winner, but he believes this could be the year for this off-beat choice. It would, he said, be a nod to nonaggression and would “reorientate the prize to the core of Nobel’s original will.”On the other hand, the last two winners have been organizations -- in 2013, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and in 2012, the European Union -- and the committee may prefer an individual this year.
Adopted following World War II and the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Article 9 is a pledge to Japan itself and to the world, particularly to neighboring countries that suffered under Japanese invasions and colonial rule, to never repeat its mistakes. Since then, Article 9 – and the Japanese people's commitment to its pacific principles – has played an important role in keeping peace in Japan and in the region, preventing Japan from participating in war and forcing the government to maintain peace policies.JT's follow-up story reflects Japanese campaigners did not expect a win this year. Instead, they view the nomination process as an ongoing opportunity to highlight the history and merits of the Japanese Peace Constitution in Japan and abroad:
Peace Boat launched the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War in 2005, together with the Japan Lawyers' International Solidarity Association (JALISA) and sponsored by a coalition of civil society organizations in Japan. The Campaign has since received support from dozens of groups and thousands of individuals worldwide, including Nobel Laureates and key international figures. Over 33,000 people gathered at the Global Article 9 Conference it organised in Japan May, 2008...
On the significance of Article 9, Peace Boat Director and Co-Founder of the Campaign, Yoshioka Tatsuya says, “We believe Article 9 is a universal asset. Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is clear that no solution can be achieved by military options. Today, we are facing climate change, poverty, pandemics. Given the limited world resources, the vast amount of money spent on military expenditures should be shifted towards building a sustainable future.”
“To be honest, we did not necessarily think that our efforts would reach the goal in just one year,” said Yoshiaki Ishigaki, one of the leaders of a group calling itself the Organizing Committee for the Nobel Peace Prize for Article 9 of the Constitution. The group initiated contact with the Nobel Committee and honed its bid before the nomination was accepted....
He said that many Japanese are unaware of the role that Article 9, which bans Japan from using force to settle international disputes, has played in protecting them, and that future peace may be at risk under a government that wants to amend the Constitution to get around it.
The committee has collected more than 410,000 signatures over the course of its campaigning, but says it aims to collect 1 million for its renewed Nobel attempt next year.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Int. Day of Peace 2014 - Think PEACE, Act Peace, Spread PEACE - Imagine PEACE
Via Yoko Ono on the Int. Day of Peace 2014,
#SurrenderToPeace #PeaceOneDay
Surrender to PEACE:https://soundcloud.com/yokoono/sets/surrendertopeace
Think PEACE, Act PEACE, Spread PEACE - IMAGINE PEACE
love, yoko
#SurrenderToPeace #PeaceOneDay
Monday, August 11, 2014
Remembering Hanji Kawase: Anti-war Bon dance festival marks 50th anniversary in Hokkaido
Anti-war Bon dance festival marks 50th anniversary in Hokkaido.
(Photo: Masashi Rokubuichi via Asahi)
(Photo: Masashi Rokubuichi via Asahi)
“The large turnout can be attributed to) not only the milestone anniversary but also the outpouring of public anger against the Abe administration regarding the right to collective self-defense and other issues,” said Kato, a 72-year-old former junior high school teacher from Hamanaka, Hokkaido...
People from across Japan listened to music and danced at the Kawase farm in the middle of the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Yausubetsu drill site, which straddles Betsukai and two other towns.
One big topic of conversation at the festival was the decision of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his government on July 1 to reinterpret war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution to lift Japan’s self-imposed ban on exercising the right to collective self-defense.
The farm used to be run by anti-war landlord Hanji Kawase who died five years ago.
The mid-August Bon holiday season in Japan is a time when people travel to their hometowns to honor their deceased ancestors. The spirits of the dead are believed to return home during the period. Bon Odori dances are held at local festivals throughout the country.
Sachiko Watanabe, who took over the farm from Kawase about 10 years ago and has lived there ever since, said she is well aware of the symbolic nature of the anti-war Bon dance festival, given Kawase’s continuous defiance of the government.
She indicated that the festival has taken on increased significance because the current administration shifted security policy away from postwar Japan’s pacifist ideals.
Hanji Kawase painting Article 9 on his barn.
(Photo: Asako Kageyama)
More Background: "Defending the Peace Constitution in the Midst of the SDF Training Area," Tanaka Nobumasa, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Dec. 10, 2004.
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