Fate of long-dominant LDP in question after crucial election

Aug. 28, 2009

Fate of long-dominant LDP in question after crucial election


Takeo Miki, who served as Japan’s prime minister from 1974 to 1976, was a nonmainstream conservative politician. Miki was one of the few Liberal Democrats who successfully tried to distance themselves from money politics. As a result, he was called “Mr. Clean.” The Liberal Democratic Party has ruled Japan’s politics almost uninterruptedly since 1955 when it came into being through a merger of conservative forces. But the party is on the brink of losing power now.
The party and its minor coalition partner have had a two-thirds majority in the all-important House of Representatives, the Lower House. The Lower House election, set for the coming Sunday, is expected to change Japan’s political landscape as voters are dissatisfied with the LDP’s failure to break with money-oriented politics and sever cozy relations with bureaucrats and interest groups. Political pundits predict that around two-thirds of seats will this time go to the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
Miki lived in an area in Shibuya, uptown Tokyo. His former residence, the Japanese-style house which is about half a century old, is opened to the public irregularly because his kin still live there. The district used to be a calm residential area, but the house is surrounded with big condos at present. It is next door to the fashionable Daikanyama area which attracts young people all the seasons. “It was just an ordinary house, wasn’t it?” my wife said. The house was not actually an ordinary house, slightly bigger than those of ordinary people, but it looked humble compared to the residences of other former prime ministers, some of them called “palaces.” Miki started his political career before the last war and underwent many hardships. But he came back every time.
Following is a waka poem composed by Michizane Sugawara, a noted scholar and a top court official from the ninth to early 10th centuries, when he was transported under guard to a place of exile:

There are many paths here and there on this hill,
but no one tells me “This way please. This road leads you back to the capital.”
(A personal translation)

Michizane, then deputy prime minister of the Emperor's government, lost a power struggle to be exiled. He could never come back and he died in exile.
One of Miki’s tough times came in 1942 when he managed to win a seat in parliament in an election monopolized by a body affiliated with the then Hideki Tojo government. Miki’s influence grew gradually in the postwar period, but his power base in the LDP was fragile until he came to power. He was handpicked to be prime minister by a caretaker of the LDP in a political vacuum after Kakuei Tanaka resigned in disgrace. His job was to salvage and clean up the LDP. It is far from certain if any salvager will emerge for the party after its expected defeat in the forthcoming election. But if a matured democracy with two equally influential parties is to be established in Japan, the LDP should be asked to train itself as a healthy opposition party from now on.

Deep division continues on how to mourn Japan’s war dead

August 20, 2009

Deep division continues on how to mourn Japan’s war dead


Japanese have two utterly different war-related facilities to visit on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of the last war. They are Yasukuni Shrine, the 140-year-old Shinto shrine, and the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, both located in Tokyo’s Kudan area, just north of the Emperor’s Palace. The shrine was run by the government until 1945 when Japan surrendered to the Allied Nations. Yasukuni attracts not only World War II veterans and bereaved families but also those belonging to nationalist and right-wing groups on the war anniversary every year. Nationalists were handing out fliers and soliciting signatures for their campaigns at various places around the shrine last week. The shrine was also surrounded by dozens of large vehicles with loudspeakers mobilized by right-wing groups, and hundreds of police officers were on the alert in the area. Many media people, Japanese and foreign, were also on hand to see what should happen among people at the shrine.
The shrine, dedicated to Japan's war dead since the Meiji Era, has been the pivot of decades-long debates on how Japan should mourn those who lost their lives in the last war. The situation has become more complex since Yasukuni enshrined in the late 1970s the 14 wartime leaders, including former Premier Hideki Tojo, who were tried as class-A war criminals in the Far East Military Tribunal. Japan’s Asian neighbors, such as China, have criticized Japanese political leaders’ official visits to Yasukuni as attempts to justify Japan’s wartime acts.
One foreign journalist, accompanied by an interpreter, was having a chat with a nationalist group member, who angrily asked him, “Do you know that Taiwanese guys made a fuss at this shrine the other day, at the place where the souls of Japanese soldiers rest?”
A group of former Navy pilots was posing for pictures beside the main building of the shrine after paying homage to their dead comrades. In their 80s, they were wearing a blue shirt with an anchor-and-cherry blossom emblem for their former squadron. They were trained at the Yokaren Imperial Navy school toward the end of the war. “The war came to an end when we were waiting for an order at the Atsugi airfield (southwest of Tokyo). We had already been unable to fly,” one member told the author.
The Chidorigafuchi Cemetery, a nonreligious facility built in 1959, attracted people hoping to mourn the war dead in a calm atmosphere. The facility is dedicated to about 2.4 million unknown Japanese soldiers and civilians who lost their lives outside of Japan in the war.

When I go on the sea, I see soaked bodies floating.
When I go on the hills, I see grass-covered bodies lying.
I am ready to die before the Emperor. I will never look back.
(A personal translation)

This is a part of a long poem composed by Otomo Yakamochi, an eighth century poet who contributed to compiling Japan’s oldest waka poem anthology Manyoshu. The passage became a song with a solemn, beautiful melody written by a Tokyo Music School professor. The song was played at every occasion when Japanese soldiers were sent to the front in the Pacific war.
At Chidorigafuchi, an old man was looking at a monument along a path leading to the cemetery. “Many Japanese soldiers died on foreign soil, at battlefields far from Japan. They did not die because of fighting. They died because of the lack of supplies. Japan really went on a reckless war,” he whispered.
Political party leaders have taken to the streets for campaigns toward the Aug. 30 election of the House of Representatives. The main opposition Democratic Party of Japan stands a good chance of dislocating the Liberal Democratic Party as the ruling party. The DPJ has made clear that it will propose building a new nonreligious national facility dedicated to the victims of World War II, abiding by the constitutional division of government and religion. The use of public money by a local government for offerings to Yasukuni Shrine was ruled unconstitutional by Japan's top court in 1997. Yasukuni is also faced with requests from Buddhist and Christian bereaved families and bereaved families of "Japanese soldiers" from Korea and Taiwan as former Japanese colonies that the names of their kins be removed from the shrine. Meanwhile, there are moves in the right-wing camp to rewrite Japan’s war-related history from a nationalist point of view. Calls are also growing for Japan to review its defense-oriented military capability amid an increasing nuclear threat from North Korea.
It is far from certain if and when Japan will be able to overcome the longstanding deep rift over the remnants of the last war.

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan

August 10, 2009

Bon summer festival season starts in Japan


The “bon” festival kid dancing contest started after sunset at a breezy small square in a shopping mall in a city near Tokyo, attracting about 50 summer kimono-clad children. The prize was to be awarded to the cutest dancers by a three-man judge. But it showered before the judges announce the result. The shower came so quickly that the kids, their parents and many viewers got wet before running under the eaves. But children looked happy and satisfied with the dance.
A series of bon festival events began across Japan early this month. The long “tsuyu” rainy season is over, and hot summer has come. The bon festival, a Buddhist festival, is dedicated to the dead, but Japanese have fun with related events, dispelling the heat of summer.
Japanese have developed items that can create coolness not only physically but also visually and auditorily to overcome the hot summer. They include “uchiwa” and “sensu” portable fans and “furin” small hanging wind bells. Set fireworks decorate the night sky in riverside and lakeside summer festivals.
The twitters of little cuckoos, a migratory bird that comes to Japan early summer, heralded the arrival of summer for people in the Heian Period 10 to 11 centuries ago.

A little cuckoo is singing just out there, reluctant to pass my house.
Because it is dark? or because he has got lost?
(A personal translation)

This is a waka poem composed by Ki Tomonori, a noted poet in the Heian Period, and included in the Kokinwakashu waka poem anthology compiled in the 10th century. People in the period looked forward to hearing the season’s first twitters of little cuckoos. People sometimes stayed awake throughout the night to hear their voices.
Japanese in the ancient times felt the nature just beside them. They knew how to live with the nature and how to be environmentally friendly. Japanese people are coming to realize today that they have to be more environmentally friendly, sometime at the expense of becoming inconvenient. In a recent government survey, 53 pct of the polled said Japan should switch to a recycling-oriented society even if its standard of living declines. More than 60 pct replied they use refillable products to reduce waste and refrain from free plastic shopping bags at stores.
“Uchimizu,” the water spraying custom, has been promoted as an effective means of cooling places around houses. A device called “suikinkutsu,” created by an Edo Period gardener, is drawing renewed attention. As the term literally means “water harp,” the device is designed to enjoy the echoing sound of water trickling down at the bottom of the basin buried underground.
Japan is a resources-poor country. The so-called three Rs campaign is going on to encourage the people to “reduce, reuse and recycle.”
More people may go out to enjoy evening breezes, rather than cooling in air conditioning at home. Summer bon festivals not only help people to stand the heat of summer but also give them “peripheral” effects including making friends and knowing more about the community. Bon festival events are hoped to be maintained for the coming generation because they have to be on good terms with the environment.