Nature Conservation Society of Japan: Giant corals are doing great; plenty of evidence of dugongs at Henoko....

Dugong feeding trails in the Sea of Henoko. (Photo: Nature Conservation Society of Japan)

The Okinawa Times recently reported on a reef check conducted in Henoko Bay by the Nature Conservation Society of Japan. Mariko Abe of the Society confirms that some of the massive corals in the area are doing great.

She stresses that there is plenty of evidence of dugong grazing trails in the seagrass.

Giant corals in Henoko Sea's coral reef habitat 
(Photo: Okinawa Times)

Edenwalkers' Akiko Morita finds her purpose in a Kyoto garden: KyotoBloggers session June 18th

"I have a secret for you. Whatever you want to be, you CAN be...you [just] have to be ready right now. Not tomorrow, not later, but right now."- photographer Akiko Morita (right) 

Edenwakers' Akiko Morita shared her story at the June 18th Kyoto Bloggers event graciously hosted by Impact HUB Kyoto. In her previous life she worked as a sociologist at a British university, but decided to return to Japan after a 12 year absence after developing a pressing need to transmit knowledge of Japanese gardens throughout the world.

When she lived in the UK, she loved visiting English gardens and thought there was nothing better in the world. After a quick trip home, and an off-chance visit to a Japanese garden in Kyoto, her life completely changed.

"I was touched by the beauty of Japanese gardens, even though I really had no expectations about them. I was so moved that I decided I would return to Japan and dedicate myself to sharing their beauty with everyone."

Borrowing her friend's camera, and not really knowing how to operate it properly, she started taking her first photos of Japanese gardens in Kyoto. She explained that it was so obvious she was an amateur that professional photographers would come up to her trying to help her as she fumbled with the different camera settings. She eventually bought her own camera and ONE lens, and started reading up on photography. One book made something click in her mind. The author explained how professional photographers, when asked about photos for sale, would quickly be able to procure a list of their work, while amateurs always say "when I get better." She decided to embrace her passion and her new field, and BE a real photographer.

"I have a secret for you. Whatever you want to be, you CAN be...you [just] have to be ready right now. Not tomorrow, not later, but right now."

She also built her own website, Edenwalkers:

"I chose to use the metaphor for Eden for my site because when people encounter each other in gardens, they share smiles, start talking to each other even though they may have never met. They share love and a great and wonderful feeling- gardens are a place that makes anyone become open and free. Garden walkers are actually Eden walkers."

A year and half later, she proudly calls herself a professional photographer (Flickr photos here) and hopes to inspire people to BE who they want to BE. Next week she will be in Australia for a training workshop and then will be touring 90 spots around Japan taking photos on behalf of a client.

Lisa Allen (left) listens attentively to Akiko Morita's (center) story of personal transformation 

Morita was joined by other Kyoto-based bloggers at the event who spoke about their own blogs and projects. Global Communications Coordinator Lisa Yamashita Allen (photography log) introduced the Kyoto Impact Hub emphasising how community has kept the creative energy of the space alive.

Hugo Kempeneer of Kyoto and Nara Dream Trips (http://www.kyotodreamtrips.com/ ) spoke of his yearning to discover and detail locations very much off the beaten path.

Michael Lambe and Ted Taylor elaborated on their newest publication, Deep Kyoto: Walks, and the process of developing the compilation of meditative walks (occasionally hikes, occasionally pub crawls) around Kyoto. The e-book, perfect for carrying around on your smart phone while taking an introspective walk, is available here. Ted gave a reading from "Across Purple Fields," one of the introspective walks in the book. To read the segment yourself, check out the Deep Kyoto page, or watch a video of the reading itself!

And finally- big props to the caterer, Wakako, from Obento Waka for the delicious and healthy vegetarian dinner!

- Written by Jen Teeter

1,760,000 supporters of the Japanese Peace Constitution ask PM not to change Article 9

June 12, 2014 meeting in support of the Japanese Peace Constitution. (Photo and Story: NHK) 

The Peace Clause of the Japanese Constitution, Article 9, renounces “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes." This has been understood by the courts and all past governments of Japan to prohibit collective self-defense, or engagement in force, except for direct defense of Japan.

On June 12, Japanese Peace Constitution supporters gathered in Tokyo to proclaim their support of Article 9 and opposition to "collective self defense."  Organizers, which included Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, presented the signatures of 1,760,000 people to the prime minister and after the meeting, they marched to his official residence, and called on him not to change  the Constitution.

Just two days before, the Article 9 Association commemorated its tenth anniversary on June 10th, in Tokyo.  Since its formation, the group has generated more than 7,500 local Article 9 chapters across Japan.

The nine Japanese authors, scholars, and dignitaries who launched the Article 9 Association on June 10, 2004 included author Oe, constitutional scholar Yasuhiro Okudaira, philosopher Shunsuke Tsurumi, and writer Hisae Sawachi.  Four of these luminaries of Japan's prosperous postwar period are deceased: critic Shuichi Kato (1919-2008), peace activist and writer Makoto Oda (1932-2007) and Mutsuko Miki (1917-2012), widow of former Prime Minister Takeo Miki.

Kenzaburo Oe lecture at the June 10, 2014 anniversary gathering. 

(Photo: Takashi Togo, via Asahi, which is providing outstanding reportage on Article 9)

The inaugural members formed the association in response to former PM Koizumi's deployment of Japanese SDF troops to Iraq and Kuwait after Washington's request for Japanese "boots on the ground" during its invasion of Iraq. Since the end of the Second World War, Japan has not been responsible for death of a single person in war. The Japanese Self Defense Forces (JSDF) engaged in "non-combat" support in Iraq and Kuwait from 2004 to 2008. On April 17, 2008, Nagoya High Court made a (non-binding) ruling that Koizumi's dispatch of troops to Iraq was unconstitutional.

(Photo of Article 9 Association lecture at Ariake Coliseum, Tokyo, 2005, via APJ)

In addition, Koizumi initiated an attempted revision of Article 9, the Peace Clause of the Japanese Constitution, which prohibits Japan from possessing military power other than than what is necessary to defend the nation from attack.  The former PM wanted to change the JSDF from a solely defensive force into a regular army which would be dispatched to support foreign wars, under the auspices of "collective defense," without constraint.

However, his efforts failed, and now PM Abe has picked up this baton.  In 2013, his administration attempted to amend Article 96 (that stipulates procedures for constitutional revisions) and proceed to revise Article 9 under accepted constitutional procedure.  Article 96 requires approval of two-thirds of the Diet; the Abe administration proposed revising it to lower the required votes to a simple majority in both houses to secure the call for a constitutional referendum. This effort failed.

At present the LDP and its coalition partner, New Komeito, has enough votes in the lower house but only 55 percent of the upper house, not enough to call a referendum under Article 96 which requires approval of two-thirds of the Diet.  Even if the administration did, the consensus of analysts is that a referendum would fail.

Therefore the administration is trying to push through a "reinterpretation" of Article 9 by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, which conventionally provides oversight on bills, orders and treaties and provides legal opinions to the PM.  In the past, LDP governments, advised by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, have asserted that "collective self defense" exceeds the "no-war" limits of Article 9, therefore, Japan cannot engage in collective self defense.  Not only does the current administration's "reinterpretation" fall outside of the range of possible reasonable interpretations of Article 9, to the point of violating both the spirit and the letter of the no-war cause, such a move would set a precedent for the executive branch to bypass the deliberative participatory process of amending the constitution that requires approval by Japanese citizens in a special referendum under Article 96.

For many advocates of democratic process and rule of law, the central issue is not the (albeit critical) debate over whether Article 9 should be amended to allow "collective defense," but instead the attempt by Japan's executive branch to bypass these constitutionally mandated procedures to change the constitution unilaterally.

The two political parties in control of the government, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and New Komeito (which is affiliated with Soka Gakkai, a mass Buddhist organization),  do not represent a majority of the Japanese citizenry.  According to Shingetsu News (yesterday), 27.2 percent of the country support the LDP and 3.3 percent back New Komeito. That's a total of only 30.5 percent of the population.

An Asahi poll found that only 29 percent (around the percentage of voters that support the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Abe's political party) approve of Japan's taking up collective self defense. But even less, only 18 percent, support the administration's improvised method of constitutional change.  The poll also found that 67 percent of Japanese voters consider the move for reinterpretation as "improper."

Moreover, as with internal dissent in 2004 over sending JSDF to Iraq, the LDP in 2014 does not unanimously back PM Abe's call for constitutional reinterpretation. Former LDP Secretary-General Koga Makoto, who lost his father to the Pacific War, has publicly criticized this plan. Similarly to several Nobel Peace laureates, Koga considers Article 9 a "world heritage."

Concerned about their nation, high profile Japanese figures are increasingly speaking out on behalf of Article 9, the peace clause. On the eve of his birthday in December of last year, Emperor Akihito (tutored by an American Quaker during his youth) defended Article 9. Then, on the eve of his birthday in February of this year, Crown Prince Naruhito attributed Japan's peace and prosperity to the pacifist Constitution.

A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki are now demanding that explicit support for Article 9 to be included in this year's Peace Declaration, according to the Asahi this morning.

Those familiar with Japanese history know that this latest chapter of a cultural and political conflict between Japanese militarists and pacifists has numerous antecedents going back to the prewar and the early postwar period. Kijuro Shidehara, an advocate of pacifism in Japan before and after the war, helped prepare the Kellogg-Briand Pact (General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy) of 1928, of which Japan was a signatory (prewar and wartime militarists ignored the treaty). And, as Japan's second postwar prime minister, Shidehara conferred with the US Occupation, especially General MacArthur, as the postwar constitution was drafted.  (MacArthur attributed Article 9 to Shidehara, although some scholars dispute this.)

Since its promulgation in 1946, Article 9 has been frequently undermined, but the Japanese people have repeatedly rebuffed attempts at constitutional revision. For this, the Peace Clause has ensured that they have not been "visited with the horror of war through the action of government" for seventy years. The late scholar John M. Maki asserted that pacifism, popular sovereignty, and the guarantee of fundamental human rights are foundation of the Japanese constitutional system, and that the "people of Japan made the Constitution their own, and thus carried to completion one of the most successful and significant political transformations of the twentieth century."

At this point, Japanese civil society groups and elected officials who honor accountability to their constituents must consider and initiate countervailing actions that will challenge the executive branch's unprecedented unconstitutional overreach.

(This post is an expanded version of a tribute to the Article 9 Association posted June 10.)

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More Info:

Article 9 Association 

Global Article 9 Campaign

"LDP’s Gifu chapter blasts Abe’s rush to reinterpret Constitution," Asahi, June 16, 2014.

Komori Yoichi, "Japan’s Article 9 and Economic Justice: The Work of Shinagawa Masaji" by , (Intro by Norma Field), published this week at The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus:  

On June 10, 2014, the Article 9 Association marks its tenth anniversary, more than ever embattled and determined. As illustrated by Alexis Dudden’s recent article on this site, “The Nomination of Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution for a Nobel Peace Prize,” business people figure in the broad swath of “Japanese people who conserve Article 9” recognized as worthy of consideration for the Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Shinagawa Masaji, the subject of this memorial tribute by prominent modern literature scholar and executive secretary of the Article 9 Association Komori Yoichi, was surely the dean of progressive financial leaders of the postwar era...

"A Nobel Peace Prize nomination (with Henoko connection) for the Japanese and Okinawan people who support Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause, " TTT, April 24, 2014.

Shunsuke Hirose, "Shinzo Abe’s Biggest Enemy: the LDP: Internal party discord shows the narrative of Japan’s rightward shift under Abe is not as simple as it might appear," The Diplomat, April 14, 2014.

Mizuho Fukushima (SDP) and Taro Yamamoto (Independent): "Opposition lawmakers state their case against the administration's plan (Exercise of Collective Self Defense)," Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan YouTube Channel, March 27, 2014.

Colin P.A. Jones, "Japan’s Constitution: never amended but all too often undermined," The Japan Times, March 26, 2014.

"Kenzaburo Oe, Jakucho Setouchi, Masahide Ota found “1000-member committee to prevent Japan from entering wars" (Rally @Hibiya Park, March 20, 2014)," TTT, March 18, 2014.

"Mr. Abe’s constitutional runaround," The Japan Times, August 9, 2013.

"Makoto Koga: Election win not mandate for constitutional revision," The Asahi, July 22, 2013.

Lawrence Repeta, "Japan’s Democracy at Risk – The LDP’s Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 15, 2013.

John Junkerman, "The Global Article 9 Conference: Toward the Abolition of War," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, May 25,  2008.

Yoshikazu Sakamoto, "The Postwar and the Japanese Constitution: Beyond Constitutional Dilemmas," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, November 10, 2005.

John M. Maki, The Constitution of Japan: Pacifism, Popular Sovereignty, and Fundamental Human Rights," Law and Contemporary Problems: Vol. 43: No. 1 (1990).

Jordan Sand: "Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects" - Author's Lecture at Sophia Univ, June 9, 2014

Today at 6: 30 p.m.. cultural historian Jordan Sand will give a public talk at Sophia University (Bldg. 10, Room 301) on his new book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects.

A must-read for anyone who lives in or is interested in Tokyo, Temple University historian Jeff Kingston's review at the LA Review of Books is a great synopsis/commentary:

TOKYO IS HOT these days, and not only because it has cutting-edge design, fashion, and more Michelin stars than anywhere else on the planet...Alas, it is also about 160 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant where there were three meltdowns in March 2011. There are still 100,000 nuclear refugees who have fled the adjacent hot zones, and it appears that many will never be able to return to their ancestral homes.

In his excellent new book, Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects, Jordan Sand, a Georgetown University professor of Japanese history and culture, draws our attention away from the headline hype to reveal what Tokyo and some of its denizens are really up to and what they care about. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Sand slips us under the skin of this megalopolis and helps us understand how it has been evolving, focusing on the battles and passions that have animated neighborhoods, activists, and artists...

Controversy has clouded the euphoria that followed the winning bid for the 2020 games, as about 90 percent of Japanese don’t believe Abe’s reassurances to the International Olympic Committee that the problems at Fukushima are under control...

Tokyo’s Olympic slogan is “Discover Tomorrow,” a motto meant to convey an upbeat message about recovery from the 3/11 disasters and signaling that the story of Japan’s decline has been exaggerated, given bright prospects for its cutting-edge technologies and industries. But when Tokyo got the nod, NHK television showed images of what the snazzy Olympic athlete’s village will look like, then jumped to an interview with some displaced Fukushima residents forced to live in shabby temporary housing due to the reactor meltdowns. Unsurprisingly, they expressed envy and resentment while raising concerns about the diversion of resources and construction crews to Tokyo...

The extensive 1964 Olympic demolition and rebuilding was the third ravaging of the city during the 20th century, following the 1923 earthquake and the March 1945 firebombing that leveled vast swathes of eastern Tokyo. A fourth maelstrom hit with fin de siècle urban renewal, as the erection of shiny high-rises and tony shopping complexes transformed large areas of the formerly distinctive cityscape, making parts of Tokyo look like any city anywhere. The demolished low-rise, low-density neighborhoods of single-family homes and mom-and-pop shops might have been a bit dilapidated, but they exuded a coziness and sense of community that has been erased. Sand helps us understand what has been lost, as intimate exchanges of neighbors have given way to impersonal market exchanges...

Since so many people lost friends and family in the 1945 firebombing by the United States, it is one of the most retold stories in oral histories, with accounts of spectacular flames and the apocalyptic aftermath of a city reduced to ashes and panoramic vistas over smoldering ruins. But outside of Japan this is one of the forgotten horrors of WWII...

The battles over public spaces continue into the 21st century, especially in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster...

Although much of this narrative dwells on loss and retreat, Sand closes on a rousing note:

Yet time plows forward, burying histories and throwing up new ruins in its wake. New groups of people will gather around surviving places and things, making them tell new stories of loss and redemption, and creating new societies of friends.

Birthrate plummets as 19.7 million Japanese people live in poverty • Shiho Fukada's "Japan's Disposable Workers"

 Photojournalist Shiho Fukada's investigation of Japan's working poor:

"Japan's Poor, Homeless, Outcasted and Forgotten Workers"

(See Fukada's completed 3-part documentary at Media Storm:

"Overworked to Suicide," "Net Cafe Refugees," and "Dumping Ground."

A fourth video report, "Paid to Flirt," is up at the Pulitzer Center.  

While Japanese policymakers wring their hands over the nation's plummeting birthrate, most overlook the obvious cause: many women in Japan can no longer afford to have children...

Japan is no longer a middle-class society. (Was it ever?) Now it ranks tenth among nations in income inequality:

Japan has a saying “ichioku-sohchu-ryu” which translates to “a nation of middle-class people.” However, in the past few decades, they’ve seen the middle-class shrinking at twice the average rate of other OECD countries. Since 1980, incomes have dropped for the lower classes while they’ve risen for those in the higher classes.

And this problem is exacerbated by the lack of employment security. During Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s term (2001-2006), the number of people working regular jobs dropped by 1.9 million while numbers of those in temporary positions rose by 3.3 million. Since the middle-class started disappearing, there’s been a reported increase in depression, domestic violence and suicide – which indicates the toll the economy has taken on the people.

Moreover, while PM Abe's massive ("Godzilla-sized") quantitative easing has given a short-term boost to the Nikkei, thereby enriching stock market players, this government largesse has not benefitted the rest of the nation: Japan has the highest poverty rate among the world's developed nations.

Currently, Japanese people in and under the poverty line – those defined as having temporary, part-time and non-regular jobs — comprised 38 percent of the current population, a huge 19.7 million souls. And while Abe has promised to help revive economy, it doesn’t necessarily translate to removing poverty altogether.

According to Takashi Oshio, professor at Hitosubashi University who specializes in social security, “The Abe administration’s stance is more about fixing things, including poverty, with a trickle-down effect from overall economic growth.” He added, “There’s little political capital spent on issues like alleviating child poverty. It doesn’t garner votes.” But apart from that, the real problem lies in the fact that as Abe’s economic recovery relies on heavy consumer spending and with more people affected by poverty, lesser would be able to practice purchasing power...

As such, many economists suggest that the only way to address poverty is to fix wealth distribution in terms of benefits and taxes.

This young Japanese worker lives in an internet cafe because he cannot afford rent. 

(Photo: Shiho Fukada: "Japan's Disposable Workers" (Pulitzer Center), 

Yesterday Bloomberg reported on Japan's growing caste of socioeconomically marginalized Japanese people (especially women) who are unable to buy homes and have children because of deepening structural impoverishment:

...here the lines are drawn between those with full-time jobs and a ballooning underclass of 20 million temporary workers. The latter, according to the government, now make up almost 40 percent of the workforce and get paid 38 percent less.

“It’s Japan’s biggest problem,” said Yoshio Higuchi, a professor of economics at Tokyo’s Keio University and head of a government panel on labor market reform.

A dearth of regular jobs is the source of so many of Japan’s troubles, he said, ticking them off on his fingers: deflation, higher poverty rates, lower economic productivity, even depressed birthrates...

“Abe’s proposals basically say, ‘We’re going to enable workers to work at shitty jobs with shitty pay for as long as they want,’” said Jeff Kingston, head of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.

There are 1.1 million fewer full-timers today than when the prime minister took over in December 2012, according to Japan’s official statistics bureau. Temps and part-timers -- who often work 40 hours a week -- account for all the jobs growth in the past five years. Sixty percent of employment offers in March were for temporary positions.

The rise of these jobs -- to a record 38.2 percent of workers in February -- is why Japan is the only developed country where average pay has consistently fallen, dropping 15 percent since 1997. And in Japan, where the labor market is less fluid than in the U.S., temp work isn’t usually a stepping a stone to something better. It’s a lifelong condition.

Starting in 1939,  the Japanese government asked people to restrict themselves 

with the "Land of the Rising Sun lunchbox" to conserve food supplies.
By the end of 1943 the declining ration was causing serious malnutrition among the population, 
and  plain rice bentos were considered luxuries.
Today this symbol of wartime and postwar hardship is a typical  lunch for the working poor. 

(Photo: Squidoo.com)

Save the Dugong Campaign Center's photos of "rain-forest"-like sea grasses, clown fish, & blue coral at Oura Bay, Okinawa

Save the Dugong Campaign Center's beautiful photos of Oura Bay (also called Sea of Henoko)  reflect findings a few years ago by Tokyo marine science researchers of a "rain-forest"-like variety of 182 different species of sea grasses and marine plants, clown fish, and exquisite blue coral.

See more photos here: http://www.sdcc.jp/nobase/no-base.html. Included: great photos of the mangrove wetlands and the amazing elder tent city (grandmothers and grandfathers who survived the Battle of Okinawa as children) who became eco-activists to save the natural environment of Henoko for their grandchildren.

SDCC says all are welcome to share these photos, to help spread the word on the precious biodiversity of Oura Bay.

Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe speaks out on Okinawa problem in Tokyo

Via Ryukyu Shimpo: "Nobel laureate Oe speaks out on Okinawa problem in Tokyo":

On April 26, Nobel laureate and novelist Kenzaburo Oe and other scholars discussed the Okinawa military base issue at a symposium held at a campus of the Hosei University in Tokyo...

A symposium on the Futenma-Henoko issue was held in Tokyo on April 26. Nobel laureate and novelist Kenzaburo Oe, Gavan McCormack, an emeritus professor of the Australian National University and Masaaki Gabe, a professor at the University of the Ryukyus, made the keynote lectures. After that, the participants discussed the relocation issue of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma...

Novelist Oe visited Okinawa many times to conduct interviews with residents about mass suicides during the Battle of Okinawa for his book of essays, Okinawa Notes. “We should not allow the government to destroy democracy by exercising the right to collective self-defense. We are concerned that the people of Okinawa will suffer great damage,“ he said. “Let us protect our pacifist constitution. This is the action or struggle that we living in the mainland of Japan can take up for the sake Okinawan people.”

A Nobel Peace Prize nomination (with Henoko connection) for the Japanese & Okinawan people who support Article 9, the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause

Historian Doug Lummis describes the human costs of last century's wars:  

The 20th century was the century in which this great experiment was done. Let's set up an international system in which each state has the right of legitimate violence and the right of belligerency and monopolizes that. And, through the balance of power and so forth, each of these states will protect its citizens. That was the big experiment of the 20th century. What happened?

More people were killed through violence in the 20th century than any other hundred year period in the history of the world. And who killed these people? It wasn't the mafia, it wasn't the yakuza, it wasn't gangs, it wasn't drug wars, it was the state. The state killed over 200 million people.

While Japan was responsible for millions of these war dead, since 1945 no Japanese soldier has killed or been killed in war, thanks to the postwar Japanese Peace Constitution which states that the Japanese people are "resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government," and specifically outlaws war and state belligerency as a means to settle international conflict.

Japanese and Okinawan people, for over 60 years, have striven to keep the Peace Constitution intact, in letter, even as the spirit has been violated by state remilitarization. For these efforts, on April 9, 2014, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the “Japanese people who conserve Article 9” have been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Also on April 9, more than 3,000 Japanese citizens gathered in Tokyo to show their support for Article 9 at a rally organized by the Article 9 Association, a network founded in June 2004, to defend the war-renouncing clause of the Constitution. Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, literary spokesperson for the postwar generation whose childhoods were devastated by the Second World War, stated to attendees:

By exercising the collective self-defense, Japan will directly participate in a war...

I’m afraid that Japan’s spirit is approaching the most dangerous stage over the past 100 years...

Another founder, Yasuhiro Okudaira, constitutional law professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, proclaimed:

Article 9 has inspired us. I'm proud of it.

The Japanese and Okinawan people have long been proud of Article 9. In 1946, Presbyterian minister and prewar peace activist Toyohiko Kagawa, twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, declared Article 9 “a model for the entire world." Former Okinawa Governor Masahide Ota wrote that Article 9 gave him the "will to live" following the devastation of the Battle of Okinawa.

In John Junkerman’s 2008 documentary film, Japan’s Peace Constitution, historian Hidaka Rokuro, who was 28-years-old in 1945, described the Japanese response to Article 9:

From the moment Article 9 was announced, in newspapers and among the general public, it was greeted positively and with great sympathy. In that sense, the existence of Article 9 strongly influenced the posture of the general public, the public's response to the Japanese Constitution as a whole. At the time, Prime Minister Shidehara really talked about Article 9 with a great deal of pride…

In reality, the instant they say it, most citizens thought, "Ah, now we will never have to experience war again." There was a sense of relief that Japan had changed... Article 9 actually had significance in an international context. I don't think the Japanese people really grasped this at the time. But internationally, what it meant was Japan, as the aggressor nation, made a pledge to the world about its future conduct, especially a pledge to the people of Asia. And it was received as such by people in Asia. 

In the same film, John Dower, MIT historian and author of Embracing Defeat, a Pulitzer-Prize winning book on postwar Japan, praised ordinary citizens for the nation’s postwar policy of peace:

I had a lot of respect for the Japanese people who cherish those ideals and fought for them and tried to understand them.

What held together that idealism of the early years, what made that survive over the decades of the 50s' and 60s' was not the Japanese government so much as ordinary Japanese people, a slot of them women or men who had served in the war, who remembered the war.

People who remembered what war was really like said, "We can't do this again. We have to cherish these ideals." The government, however, was saying, "Oh, we've got to go along with America." And so you have this split in Japan.

This is the second Nobel nomination for Article 9. In 2008, after the first Global Article 9 Conference was held in Tokyo, Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire nominated the organizers Peace Boat and the Global Article Nine Association (which Peace Boat co-founded) for a Peace Prize, on behalf of Article 9. The Peace Clause has long had the support of other Nobel Peace Laureates and prominent global peace activists.

In "The Nomination of Article 9 of Japan's Constitution for a Nobel Peace Prize," East Asia scholar Alexis Dudden describes the intriguing interconnection between Henoko and the Nobel nomination:

Late last spring, Takasu Naomi, a...housewife from Kanagawa prefecture outside Tokyo, began to collect signatures on her personal web page to preserve Article 9 in an effort to garner a Nobel Peace Prize for it and publicize its meaning internationally…she submitted an entry on behalf of…the “Japanese people who conserve Article 9”)…

During the New Year’s holidays, Hamaji Michio, a businessman in Tokyo...responded enthusiastically to Takasu’s drive: “Shocked and so inspired,” as he puts it. Believing deeply in the drive’s core message, Hamaji immediately offered his political and business world connections...

He... turned…to a small group of foreigners — mainly U.S.-based academics as well as Nobel laureates and nominees — many of whom by chance were also appearing in the January newspapers having signed a petition in support of Inamine Susumu’s bid for mayor in Nago, Okinawa…

Along with foreign scholars and luminaries, many high profile Japanese figures are increasingly speaking out on behalf of Article 9, the peace clause. On the eve of his birthday last December, Emperor Akihito (tutored by an American Quaker during his youth) defended Article 9. Then, on the eve of his birthday in February of this year, Crown Prince Naruhito attributed Japan's peace and prosperity to the pacifist Constitution.

And at the grassroots, citizen action across various civil society organizations and networks is buzzing.  The Global Article 9 Campaign held a second conference in Osaka in 2013. Since 2004, the Article 9 Association has generated more than 7,500 like-minded groups across Japan so far and will will commemorate their tenth anniversary on June 10, 2014 (at 6 pm at Shibuya-kokaido in Tokyo).

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More Info: 

 Petitioning The Norwegian Nobel Committee: Dear Mr.Thorbjorn Jagland Chair of the Nobel Committee  - To spread a pacifist constitution in all the countries of the world, please award the Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese citizens have maintained the Constitution of Japan, Article 9 in particular:

The Japanese Constitution is a pacifist constitution that stipulates renunciation of war in its preamble and notably Article 9. Article 9 in particular has been playing an important role since the end of WWII in preventing the Japanese government from waging war. Article 9 has become the hope of those who aspire for peace in Japan and the world. However, the Japanese Constitution is currently under the threat of being revised.

To spread a peace constitution in all the countries of the world, we request that the Nobel Peace Prize be given to the Japanese citizens who have continued maintaining this pacifist constitution, Article 9 in particular, up until present.

Colin P. A. Jones, "Japan’s Constitution: never amended but all too often undermined," The Japan Times, March 26, 2014. 

Lawrence Repeta, "Japan’s Democracy at Risk – The LDP’s Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 15, 2013.

John Junkerman, "The Global Article 9 Conference: Toward the Abolition of War," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, May 25,  2008.

Yoshikazu Sakamoto, "The Postwar and the Japanese Constitution: Beyond Constitutional Dilemmas," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, November 10, 2005.

"Kenzaburo Oe, Jakucho Setouchi, Masahide Ota found “1000-member committee to prevent Japan from entering wars" (Rally @Hibiya Park, March 20, 2014)," (TTT, March 18, 2014)

-JD

Helena Norberg-Hodge: On Earth Day, an Economics for People & Planet

Helena Norberg-Hodge's summary of the clash of two major worldviews we now see in play throughout our planet:

Much has changed since the first Earth Day in 1970. Not only have our ecological crises come into sharper focus, it has also become obvious that we need to rescue not just the Earth, but also its people from the clutches of an economy gone mad. Worldwide, more and more people are recognizing that fundamental changes to that economy are urgently needed if our most pressing problems – ecological, social, economic, and even spiritual – are to be solved. Instead of trying to tackle a seemingly endless list of separate problems, strategic shifts in economic policy would put us on a path that is good for both people and the planet.

Over the past decades, globalization, or the continued deregulation of trade and finance, has created a world dominated by giant banks and corporations. Because governments almost everywhere have catered to their demands, we are now faced not only with global warming, extinction of species and dramatic increases in pollution, but also with financial instability, endemic unemployment, increased conflict, and epidemics of ill health and depression...

We need to move in exactly the opposite direction – away from economic globalization and towards the local. This doesn’t mean eliminating all trade or adopting an isolationist attitude – it simply means shortening the distances between consumers and producers wherever possible....

The localization movement is beginning to bridge the divides between groups that are working to make the world a better place: environmental activists, small business owners, community leaders, educators, social justice campaigners, farmers, workers’ rights advocates, religious and spiritual groups. An exciting, once-in-a-generation coalition is emerging: a coalition that offers real hope for broad-based and lasting renewal.

Read the rest here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/22-1

Green Action briefing from Kyoto: Nuclear accident evacuation planning in central Japan

Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action, a Kyoto-based nuclear-free advocacy organization, speaks about nuclear power accident emergency planning in central Japan. Plans call for the evacuation of more than a quarter million people to sites such as Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe.