Pre-war nationalism in contemporary Japan...

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

I feel a little bad to send all those articles without any comments. Seen 
from here, comments are not necessary. You have extreme right buses
patrolling the streets every other day playing 'patriotic' songs of the
pre-war era with (very loud) speakers and politicians playing with the
'young' generation (people born after the war, the olders are about 55)
nationalistic games just before the elections. I suppose we are lucky the
crisis does not hit people so bad they start to feel insecure about their
future, otherwise I'm pretty sure we'd have _all_ the politicians turn to
nationaslism and support the extreme right. The 'left' seems very weak here.

JC Helary

Mori fools no one with his statements

June 12, 2000

Let me quote an acquaintance of mine who is two years Prime Minister Yoshiro
Mori's senior: ``When people of my generation hear the expression kami no
kuni (divine nation), we reflexively recall the moral education primer we
used in primary school.''

In 1941, the year Japan started the war in the Pacific, primary schools in
Japan came to be called kokumin gakko or ``national elementary schools.''

The moral education textbook that was adopted that year for second-graders
contained a chapter titled ``Nippon no Kuni'' (Japan).

``Spring has come, bright and cheerful,'' the chapter begins exuberantly. It
then goes on: ``Nippon yoi kuni, kiyoi kuni, sekai ni hitotsu no kami no
kuni.'' (Japan is a good country, a pure country, the only divine country in
the world.)

These words were put to a melody in the the music textbook for
second-graders, writes Hisashi Yamanaka in his book ``Shokokumin-wa Do
Tsukuraretaka'' (How children were turned into little patriots), published
by Chikuma Shobo.

According to Yamanaka, the teachers' manual attached to that textbook said,
``The purpose is to nurture patriotic zeal and lift up the national spirit
by making the pupils extol in song our unique kokutai (national polity) that
is matched by none in the world.''

In the moral education textbook for third-graders, Yamanaka goes on, there
is a chapter titled ``Children of Japan.'' It states, ``There are many
countries around the world, but Japan is the only country that is destined
to prosper forever under our emperor, who is divine.''

This is the context in which the expression kami no kuni (divine nation) was
always used.

In calling Japan a ``divine nation,'' Mori also touched upon the proposed
renaming of a national holiday to ``Day of Showa.'' Put in the context of
his speech, it was certainly not farfetched to assume that in Mori's mind,
``Showa'' implied Hirohito (posthumously called Emperor Showa), the
god-incarnate until Japan's defeat in World War II.

On this score, Shigeo Uetake, head of the Lower House Cabinet Committee, was
more articulate. Addressing a meeting of the Tochigi prefectural association
of Liberal Democratic Party chapters, Uetake declared, ``I want this bill
(to rename the holiday to ``Day of Showa'') passed at all costs, so that the
nation may forever remember how graciously Emperor Showa had deigned to
build Japan into this peaceful and prosperous nation today.''

The Lower House has been dissolved amid this ``divine nation'' brouhaha.
Election issues are many-the economy, welfare, education. Voters must also
ask themselves whether they want the wiretapping law and the laws related to
Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines to be brought to enactment. As
well, they are to decide whether to support the tripartite coalition of the
LDP, New Komeito and Hoshuto (New Conservative Party).

And last but not least, are they going to accept Mori's kami no kuni
comment? (Asahi Shimbun, June 3)