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National Identity
In addition to side-stepping the problem of historical accountability and thereby avoiding the difficult problem of blaming one's ancestors for crimes against humanity, ignoring this crucial part of Japanese history (late Meiji to early Shôwa period) must have served other important objectives as well.
There are not many nations in the world whose national sovereignty is so dominated by that of another nation. This important feature of the Japan-US relationship must be taken into serious account when considering image that Japanese and others have of Japan. By denouncing the use of military force beyond its national borders and permitting the continued presence of US troops on its territory Japan has sought to portray itself as nation dedicated to peace. To this end Japanese have also sought to convince themselves that they are fundamentally different and are -- unlike many other nations of the world -- by their very nature prone to peace. What is truly amazing is the way in which this enormous feat of self-deception has gradually manifested itself in the way contemporary Japanese think and behave. Peace and social harmony are indeed, at least on the surface of things, very real features of Japanese society.
Certainly, no one alive today was living when the Tokugawa shôgun still ruled over Japan. So, the differences between what was and what has been recreated for the purpose of self-deception, can never truly be known.
Japanese archaeologists point to the neolithic Jômon period, when Japanese ancestors lived relatively sedentary lives hunting small game, gathering vegetables, and catching fish. Nihonjin-ron theorerists contrast these activities with those of their European and North American counterparts who roamed the European and North American continents in search of big game in organized hunts. These same theorerists also point to the Yayoi period, when contact with the Asian mainland was first reestablished after thousands of years geographical isolation. They contrast the wet-paddy rice farming of ancient Japan that resulted from this contact with the adventurous exploits of Nordic seafarers and emphasize the pillage and conquest of these latter along the shores of what are today the North and Baltic Seas. Two cultures at opposite ends of the world, each unknown to the other, each seeking a means of livelihood. Such an innocent, but highly strategic comparison.
Of course, the comparison does not end with Nordic seafarers. These same normative historians show how the yamato-seiken developed a rudimentary state with a sophisticated burial system while Gothic hoards of Central and Eastern Europeans overran the Roman empire. Whereas centuries of bitter power struggle among rival Japanese leaders and the continuously shifting centers of political power that followed Japan's humble, agricultural, socio-religious beginnings are portrayed as intense, in-house, family squabbles of complex political intrigue, the cross-border religious crusades of Medieval Europe, Spanish quests for gold, and continental wars of post-revolutionary France are portrayed as egregious acts of international aggression.
We are then reminded how Japan's sophisticated cultural identity, stable system of government, and prosperous economy developed over hundreds of years of relative isolation under the Tokugawa shôgun was suddenly disrupted when the aforementioned trade and military expeditions finally reached Japan in the middle of the 19th century.
In order to resist the pending exploitation of colonial powers whose overwhelming technology was an important threat to Japan's very existence, a more centralized system of government was required. We are then told how the baku-fu taisei was dismantled, shintô declared Japan's national religion, the Japanese emperor restored to power, and Japanese emissaries sent abroad to learn how to build a modern industrial state.21 It is here where most Japanese sigh, take a deep breath, and jump ahead to World War II -- the prelude to the current economic stand-off between the world's two largest economic superpowers in which Japan is the cultural protagonist defending ancient custom, racial purity, and Asian values and the United States the disruptive, trigger happy antagonist of permanence, stability and peaceful transition.
For those Japanese who are well versed in the pre-war era, many show little regret toward their Asian neighbors. Rather they state how hard they struggled to protect their Asian brethren from the dangers of Western colonial aggression, and wonder why their East Asian neighbors are not more grateful to them for having set them on the road to industrialization. In the end it was on their behalf that Japan invaded their lands, took control of their governments, and compelled their impoverished peasants to modernize. It is these same Japanese who make regular visits to the infamous Yasukuni Jinja, where deceased war leaders of Japan's fallen empire are enshrined.
For other Japanese who have closed one or both eyes to Japan's imperial legacy, General MacArthur's arrival marked the second phase of Japan's industrial revolution. With its economy in shambles, its European allies destroyed, its Asian neighbors in disarray, and US troops standing at its threshold Japan was once again a peaceful, industrious, rural island nation boasting a strong cultural heritage, desirous to move ahead.
Although the strong hand of the postwar Japanese government may have reflected the fierce discipline of Japan's ancient shogunate, in reality it was much more akin to the imperial war machine of the Taishô and Shôwa eras. Nevertheless, Japan's imperial aggression did not correspond well to Japan's new image of a peaceful island nation of industrious rice cultivators, and what did it matter that well over 90% of those in power before the war were still in power? By all appearances the real power now lie in Washington. Appearances deceive.
In reality the power that the United States wielded over Japan was much less than it appeared, because the US lacked the wherewithal to penetrate deeply into the mark of Japanese society on the one hand, and was preoccupied with the Soviet Union and Communist China on the Korean peninsula and later on the Southeast Asian subcontinent on the other. Besides, the Edo period was Japan's historical golden age during which Japanese literature, music, and art had reached a high point. Moreover, Japanese language and culture were the two most effective weapons that Japanese had to minimize US intervention in Japan's domestic affairs. And so it must have been that Japan's contemporary romance with the Edo period began and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was resurrected as a Japanese hero. Of course the imagery associated with ancient Japan did not stop with that of an island nation suspicious of outside influence.
In order for democracy to work much more than a constitution and elected parliament are required. A nation's citizenry must feel that they have control of their government not in the grandiose, event filled historical sense of say the French or American Revolutions, rather in the more mundane matters of daily life in which government plays a crucial and active role. For reasons explained elsewhere in this book this was generally not the case.
Japanese rarely insist upon their rights and when they do, it is often in a most obnoxious manner with little deference shown toward one's neighbors. This is because brute power speaks louder than the courts to which most Japanese have only poor access. As a result most contentious manners are resolved through compromise in the presence of a third party with authority over both contending parties. When such a party does not exist, then the matter is simply avoided, or extralegal means are sought. In this sense the authoritarian imagery of the Edo baku-fu plays well into the hands of those in power and legitimizes their authority. After all, when everyone thinks that things have always been done in a certain way, then it must work, and there is no reason to fix something that is not broken. Of course, that anyone would stop and consider that such a system of government might be the very same that gave rise to Japan's imperial rise to power is out of the question. First of all, few Japanese think about Japan's fallen empire, and secondly there is no need to worry about the rise of another, so long as US troops continue to occupy Japanese soil. Nevertheless, the Edo baku-fu, although very centralised, surely did not command the power that the current government bureaucrats in Nagatachô command today. In the days of Tokugawa shôgun there was no Monbushô (Ministry of Education) and centralized system of national education to ensure that everyone thought and behaved alike -- there was only subservience to one's daimyô.
Of course, how one perceives reality and how it truly is are often not the same, and the modern world is not sitting still either in Japan or elsewhere. Consider still another example of historical capacitance in the Japanese kaisha.
In the postwar era nation wide labor unions were prohibited and a system of lifetime employment introduced. By ensuring workers "cradle to grave" employment and a secure company pension, the need for secondary labor markets and nationwide labor unions were eliminated. Workers organized within the individual firm for which they worked, and represented their grievances to management through a company union, whose leadership participated in management decisions. Of course, insuring workers permanent employment while denying them the opportunity to find new employment with another firm was not a choice left up to the individual worker. Nevertheless, if it could be shown that working for the same company for one's entire life was part of the same romantic view that denied individual citizens access to their courts, kept foreigners from gaining a foothold in Japanese society, insured regimentation in Japan's public school system, provided the United States government with a permanent military visa, and made a mockery of the Japanese constitution, then so much the better. After all, were not workers, who spent their entire working lives with the same people under a system of seniority with secure pensions just like village peasants who tilled ancient rice paddies -- a tightly integrated work-unit of tenacious fidelity. Indeed, with no sense of historical process almost anything for which one could find historical precedent could be legitimized. Well almost....
21 The bakufu taisei (幕府体制) is the name that Japanese historians have given to the political and economic relationship between Japan's ruling shôgun (将軍) and regional daimyô (大名). This system of governance ushered in the Tokugawa bakufu (徳川幕府) -- a period of rule that began under Tokugawa Hidetada (徳川秀忠) in 1607 and lasted until the beginning of the Meiji Restoration (meiji ishin or 明治維新) in 1868. The Tokugawa bakufu marked a major shift in effective power from the imperial seat of Kyôto in western Japan to the ancient city of Edo (江戸) in eastern Japan. When the Tokugawa bakufu ended the imperial seat was moved to Edo and the city renamed Tôkyô (東京). Tôkyô has remained Japan's imperial seat ever since.
The notion of bakufu (rule by shôgun) was hardly a new concept, but the bakufu taisei was both unique and ubiquitous, as well as enduring. Literally speaking, the term bakufu (幕府) means to rule from behind a drawn curtain (baku or 幕). Bakufu is the name given by Japanese historians to the system of governance introduced by Minamoto Yoritomo (源頼朝) in 1192. During this period the effective power center of Japanese government also shifted from the imperial seat in Kyôto (京都). The new power center was located in Kamakura (鎌倉) in 1192. The Kamakura bakufu (鎌倉幕府) lasted until 1333.
Source: 石井進、笠原一男、児玉幸多、笹山晴生。１９９４年。詳説日本史。第４章：武家社会の成立。１鎌倉幕府の成立、頁９０−９５、及び第６章：幕府体制の成 立。２幕府体制の成立、頁１６３−１８０。東京：山川出版者。Ishii Susume, et al. 1994. A detailed history of Japan. Chapter 4 - A society of warriors. Section 1 - The Kamakura Bakufu, pp. 90-95, and Chapter 6 - Bakufu governance. Section 2 - Implementation, pp. 163-180. Tôkyô: Yamakawa Publishers, pp. 69-74. (text)
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