Japan is poised to
amend its constitution for the first time since the Second World War.
It's a mixed bag of proposals, some of which are really nasty.
As Bloomberg reports, the LDP has pointed out that “several of the current constitutional provisions are based on the Western European theory of natural human rights; such provisions therefore [need] to be changed.” What has the LDP got against the “Western European theory of natural human rights”? you might ask. Well, dozens of LDP legislators and ministers — including Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe — are members of a radical nationalist organization called Nippon Kaigi, which believes (according to one of its members, Hakubun Shimomura, who until recently was Japan’s education minister) that Japan should abandon a “masochistic view of history” wherein it accepts that it committed crimes during the Second World War. In fact, in Nippon Kaigi’s view, Japan was the wronged party in the war....
Kaigi believes that “Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia” during WW2, that the “Tokyo War Crimes tribunals were illegitimate,” and that the rape of Nanking was either “exaggerated or fabricated.” It denies the forced prostitution of Chinese and Korean “comfort women” by the Imperial Japanese Army, believes Japan should have an army again — something outlawed by Japan’s current constitution — and believes that it should return to worshipping [sic] the emperor.
In general I think they're right that a 'masochistic' view of history is unhealthy for a nation. I've always had the sense, completely without evidence, that such masochism has something to do with the falling rates of fertility in Japan and Europe. I don't mean to suggest that it's the only cause, only that it has an effect on fertility. The theory runs something like this: just as you can't really be fully healthy if you hate your parents, you can't really be fully healthy if you hate the country that gave birth to you and sustained you into adulthood. Those who are less healthy will feel less interest in reproduction, out of an unspoken sense that they shouldn't pass on sickness and pain. By contrasts, countries with a robust patriotism -- as people who enjoy a strong and loving family bond -- will feel that they are flourishing, and that sensibly relates to a desire to have more children.
There's a neoplatonic root to the theory. Plotinus, explaining why the One produces the rest of the world, says something similar: "all things when they come to perfection produce." Since the One is perfect, it is eternally productive. Now, you may doubt the metaphysical claims of neoplatonism, but I think the insight is perhaps even more applicable to human beings (Plotinus was, after all, a human being). The sense of having reached a kind of perfection leads naturally to that place in which you are open to creating new life, just as a bird strives in the right time of the year to make nests and sing songs of attraction. The more one is afflicted with dense feelings of guilt and shame, the less likely it is that one ever comes to feel that sense that everything is right.
My theory could be quite wrong, of course: it's purely philosophical, and without any solid evidence to support it. However, believing it as I do, I can't help but think that it must be healthy for Japan to reject what it considers 'masochism,' and embrace a prouder view of its nation and traditions.
There is also no reason that Japan should not have an army, being neighbors with China and North Korea. For a long time the alliance with the United States was a plausible defense, but the years of Barack Obama have proven to the whole world that America is no longer reliable. Even once we have a new President, our standing has been greatly weakened by the consequences of Obama's foreign policy. A stronger defense makes good sense.
So those are the good parts of Japan's new self-assertiveness. The nasty parts... are all the rest of it, really. Worshiping the emperor? Abandoning the doctrine of natural human rights? Taking the easy road of revisionist history? These are not good signs.
