#65: On the Day War Ended (PART 2)

【Doing What's Right】
From the new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the vast majority of the central figures of ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are members of Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi). Japan Conference’s interpretation of history is hard-right radical, promoting the view of Japanese aggression in World War II as “Not a war of aggression and invasion. Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from European and American colonial powers.” 
 
What’s more, the LDP consistently looks the other way when it comes to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Despite Japan’s tragic standing as the only nation to have suffered atomic bomb attacks, and brushing aside the lifetime devotion to a nuclear-free world by Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Abe and the LDP insist that nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent.
 
Yet, this idea of maintaining nuclear weapons as a deterrent is exactly the threat of force that’s banned under the pacifist Constitution. And to inflame the situation further, the former Minister of Defense Taro Kono takes a seat on a fighter jet in all smiles for a photo op, when there’s no doubt that these jets are weapons with war potential that are unequivocally banned under the pacifist Constitution.
 
As such, the LDP consistently circumvents the language and the spirit of the pacifist Constitution by bending its interpretation, and worse yet, insists on amending the Constitution to fit the needs of the ruler if it stands in his way. The terrible truth is that it’s undeniably the Japanese people who are handing the power to such political party, election after election.
 
Founded in 1955, the LDP has ruled most of post-war Japan with an exception of 5 years in aggregate. The fact that the citizens have time and again elected a party with unchanged basic principle – to amend the pacifist Constitution – for over 60 years. It shows that the people, in essence, are Taking the time and making a systematically deliberate choice to advance war capacity. This, alone, signals that the Japanese people’s appreciation for the pacifist Constitution is beginning to fade.
 
What these evidences strongly suggest is that for majority of the Japanese people, in all truthfulness, their heart is far from aspiring sincerely to an international peace, and even farther away from repenting the past aggressions by Militarist Japan. As can be seen from the aforementioned LDP politicians’ pervasive view of Japanese aggression in World War II as “Not a war of aggression and invasion,” the ruling LDP’s true intentions can’t be any clearer.
 
And it goes the same for the people who continue to award majority votes to the LDP. “There’s no good alternate candidate, so I’m passively supporting through a mere process of elimination,” one may say. Or, one may not even vote at all. Yet, the end result is the same – that of support – regardless of elimination or passivity.
 
As if to highlight this current state of the majority sentiment, now and then, I receive Letters from the so-called Online hard-right individuals via the internet. I call them my pen pals. Below are some of the examples of their Letters.
 
“It’s stupid to defend the Constitution while the country perishes. Don’t need that stuff. Just gut it.”
“If we don’t arm ourselves with nuclear weapons, then we’ll never be an aggressor – but without such deterrent, there’s a risk that we could suffer a nuclear attack. On the other hand, if we arm ourselves with nuclear weapons, then we’ll have a deterrent, thereby reducing our risk of suffering a nuclear attack. It’s our dream that nuclear weapons are eliminated, but since we live in a real world, we can’t.”
 
In response, I occasionally share with my pen pals excerpts of writings that I feel are quite relevant. Below is one such example taken from a middle school textbook, Story about the New Constitution, published by the Ministry of Education soon after the end of World War II.
 
In our new Constitution, we made two decisions so our country will never again fight another war. One of them is that we will not have anything that can be used to fight a war, like soldiers, battleships, and jets. From here on out, for Japan, there is no army, navy, or air force. This is called Renunciation of War. “Renunciation” means “to throw it away”. But everyone, there is entirely no need to feel helpless. Japan has done what is right before any other country. In this world, there is nothing stronger than doing the right thing.
 
Let us remember the deep sorrows and the strong determination of the people who endured the unspeakable agony of war. Let us continue to embrace hope for doing what’s right and pass it on to our children.
 
On the day war ended, we sincerely yearn for that.

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