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2019年2月25日月曜日

哀悼:加納実紀代さん


  フェミニストで歴史家の加納実紀代さんが2月22日に亡くなられたとの悲報を受け、まだまだご活躍して欲しかったのにと本当に残念でなりません。
  加納さんは、私にとっては2002年に亡くなられた松井やよりさんと並ぶ大先輩で、お二人と個人的に交流させていただいた幸運に深く感謝している次第です。
  私は、広島平和研究所に赴任する前、2000年4月から2002年3月までの2年間という短い期間でしたが、新潟の小さなキリスト教系大学、敬和学園大学で「日本近現代史」の講座を担当しました。できの悪い先生のその後任として、日本を代表するフェミニスト歴史家の加納さんが赴任されると知り、いたく感激したことを今も昨日のように思い出します。はっきり記憶にないのですが、2001年秋頃でしたでしょうか、講座引き継ぎなどの相談で新潟まで来られ、そのとき初めてお会いしました。それを機会に、その後もいろいろメールのやりとりをさせていただきました。加納さんの著書『女たちの<銃後>』、『まだフェミニズムがなかったころ』、『女性と天皇制』などの愛読者の一人であった私は、こうして加納さんと直接コンタクトができるようになり、本当に光栄でした。 
  その数年後には、広島でフェミニストが集まる研究会があったようで、その機会を利用されて数人のフェミニスト仲間たちと私の研究室に立ち寄られ、当時のご研究の内容についていろいろ伺った覚えがあります。その後も、しばしば私の方から一方的に、ご教示をいただきたいときだけ連絡をさせていただくという勝手で、ご迷惑をおかけしました。このブログの関係で言えば、2016年4月に女性議員による元日本軍性奴バッシング考を書く折にも、いろいろとご助言をいただきました。その折からご体調がすぐれないとは聞いておりましたが、やはり幼児期の広島での被爆の影響があったのでしょうか。
  みなさんご承知のように、加納さんは5歳のときに白島で被爆。お父さんが陸軍参謀だったそうですが、遺体は全く見つからなかったそうです。そのような個人的体験から、加納さんは、戦争責任問題、とりわけ女性の戦争責任と天皇裕仁の戦争責任について徹底した研究をすすめてこられました。戦中・戦後の女性史と女性の観点から見る天皇問題では、加納さんの研究成果がなかったならば、現在のこの分野の秀れたレベルにまで日本の研究レベルが至っていなかったことは言うまでもないと思います。
  数多くのご著書を残されたので、そのお仕事の内容を一言で説明するのは困難です。そんな数多くの文章の中で、今、私が思いつく印象深い言葉をいくつか引用させていただきます。

・フェミニズムは権力とか暴力を否定する思想であって、単に男と同じ権利を要求するということではないということです。

・被害者であってかつ加害者、これがあの侵略戦争における日本の民衆の状況だ。これはたんに被害者であるよりも、もっと悲惨な状況ではなかろうか。「ヒロシマ」は、私たち日本人にとっては、たんなる被害者ではなく、被害と加害の二重性をもった民衆のより深い悲惨の象徴としてこそ掲げられるべきであった。(強調:田中)

・あの十五年戦争において、天皇と母たちは、大御心と母心の虚構をともに支え合ったという点で共犯者であった。母たちだけでなく、天皇が<母なるもの>への民衆の共同幻想の産物であってみれば、民衆全体が共犯者であったといえる。したがって、自らを剔抉する痛みに耐えることなくして、民衆に天皇の戦争責任を追及できるはずはなかった。民衆はその痛みを回避して、一億総ザンゲの共同性に逃げ込んだのだったろう。

・(戦争直後の)天皇巡幸は、……民衆に対する<許し>の旅でもあった。天皇さまに拝謁を許されたからには、彼らの戦争責任(敗戦責任)は、消滅したのである。天皇の戦争責任免罪のための巡幸は、民衆にも免罪を与えたといえる。あとは、一切の戦争責任はちょうど進行中の東京裁判法廷に立つ軍人、重臣たちにまかせればよい。天皇と民衆は、ともに被害者として手をとり合い慰め合い - この「無責任」の君臣一体!(強調:田中)

・民衆は自らを剔抉する痛みを回避した。したがって、依然として、<母なるもの>への共同幻想は生きつづける。その結実である天皇も生きつづける。

・<母なるもの>への共同幻想が生きつづけるとき、民衆に加害責任の意識が生まれることははない。あるのはただ、母の癒しの手を求める被害者意識である。
(天皇と皇后に「癒し」を求め続ける今の日本の現状を見てみれば、加納さんのこの痛烈な批判がいかにマトをえているかは明らか!<田中のコメント>)

加納さん、本当にありがとうございました。
もう一度お目にかかれなかったのが残念でなりません。
ご冥福を祈ります。
合掌






2019年2月17日日曜日

杉田水脈衆院議員提訴にあたって


  私が尊敬する友人、岡野八代さんと彼女の研究仲間が、杉田水脈を名誉毀損で京都地方裁判所に提訴しました。杉田は、2017年6月、メルボルンで在豪日本人を対象に反「慰安婦」集会を開くために、公的施設を虚偽の集会目的で借りて使おうとして失敗。私が集会開催を妨害したと主張して、ネトウヨを使って猛烈に批判しました。その年の8月5日には、私が代表を務める「8・6ヒロシマ平和への集会」に、変装して参加していたそうです。変装してのスパイ行為、ご苦労様なことです。(メルボルンでの事件については、このブログの2017年6月の記事をご参照ください。)

  日本の研究者にとって、こんな低劣・卑劣な政治家を相手に裁判闘争でエネルギーと時間を使わなければならないのは、本当に不幸なことです。裁判に使うエネルギーと時間を大学での教育と研究に使う方がどれほど社会貢献になるか、どれほど明るく建設的な社会を作ることに貢献できるか。このことを考えるだけでも、杉田の行動は犯罪的と言えます。

  フランスの言語学者・哲学者アーネスト・レナン(1823〜92年)は「歴史の忘却、あるいはその曲解はなおさら、国家の形成とって重要である。(したがって)歴史研究の進歩は、しばしば国民性にとって危険なものとみなされる」と述べました。杉田がやっていることは、まさに安倍政権が望むような「国家形成」にとって必要な「歴史の曲解」で、彼女は、国家に都合の悪い事実と、国民を賢くする学問の進歩、その両方を敵視する文化破壊活動を、彼女の親分と同じような虚偽と欺瞞に満ちた言動で、堂々と行っています。それだけではなく、戦争被害者の痛みを自分のものとして内面化しながら、歴史学、社会学、フェミニズム研究を進歩させようと真摯に研究と教育に励んでいる学者たちを罵倒する恥知らずです。こんな人間が国会議員であること自体が、日本の「国民性にとって危険」なだけではなく、人間の普遍的な「人道倫理にとって危険」だと言うべきでしょう。民主主義を守るためには、こんな政治家をのさばらせておいてはなりません。

裁判には費用もかかり、金銭的負担もたいへんだと思います。岡野さんたちの裁判闘争が勝訴することを確信して、強く支援していきたいと思います。

下記は岡野さんたちが提訴にあたって出された声明文です。

----------------------------------------
2019212

杉田水脈衆院議員提訴にあたっての声明
                                          
JSPS科研費基盤(B)「ジェンダー平等社会の実現に資する研究と運動の架橋と
ネットワーキング」JP26283013平成26-29年度研究グループ
牟田和恵(大阪大学)・岡野八代(同志社大学)
伊田久美子(大阪府立大学)・古久保さくら(大阪市立大学)


本日、私たちは衆議院議員杉田水脈氏に対し、名誉毀損等による不法行為についての損害賠償等請求を京都地方裁判所に提訴しました。
杉田議員は、私たちが行った研究に対し、無理解と偏見に基づく誹謗中傷をインターネットテレビ、ツイッター、雑誌等種々のメディアを通じて繰り返し、私たちの名誉を大きく傷つけました。その詳細は訴状および今後法廷に提出する書面で明らかにしていきますが、ここでは簡単に3点に触れます。

第一に、杉田議員は、「慰安婦」問題を扱った私たちの研究について「ねつ造」と述べ発信しました。「強制連行」に関する一部の証言に問題があったとしても、それは「慰安婦」の存在、そして日本軍慰安所の強制性を否定するものでは全くありませんし、かつて日本軍が行った戦時性暴力は多くの研究者が調査によって明らかにしています。また、1993年の河野官房長官談話ほか、「慰安婦」問題について政府が謝罪し反省を述べた文書は現在も日本政府の公式見解です。杉田議員はこの事実を無視して、「慰安婦」問題はねつ造とし、この問題について検討考察を行う研究まで貶めたのです。研究者にとって研究がねつ造とされるのは、研究者生命を危うくする、きわめて重大な名誉毀損です。
第二に、杉田議員はフェミニズムへの無理解から、私たちの研究を貶める発言を繰り返しています。私たちの研究では、ジェンダー平等の実現のためにはさまざまな社会運動や活動と架橋していくことが重要であることを、理論的にも実践知としても明らかにしてきました。それなのに杉田議員は「あんなのはフェミニズムではない」「活動であって研究ではない」などと、自らの偏った理解や無理解によって研究を貶めました。また、女性の身体や性は第二波フェミニズム以降の重要なテーマであり、国際連合の条約や日本の法律にも盛り込まれています。しかし杉田議員は、それを扱ったイベントについて「放送禁止用語を連発」などと浅薄な形容を繰り返して嘲笑し、研究に価値がないかのような印象操作を繰り返しました。これは、私たちのみならずフェミニズムやジェンダー研究全体に対する抑圧であり、とりわけ国会議員で男女平等を推進していくべき立場にある杉田氏のこのような言動は許されるものではありません。
第三に、杉田議員は、私たちが科学研究費助成期間終了後に研究成果を発表したことについて、助成期間を過ぎて科研費を使用しずさんな経費の使い方をしているかのように複数のメディアで発言しました。しかし助成期間が終わった後に科研費を支出することはあり得ませんし、実際、支出していませんから、経費のずさんな使用などと誹謗されるいわれはありません。また助成期間後に当該研究の成果を発表することは、科学研究費制度にも組み込まれた当然の学問的営為です。研究費や公費の使用に厳正さが強く求められる現在、こうした事実無根の「不正」疑惑をかぶせられることは、研究者として大きな憤りを禁じえません。
以上のような言動は、一般人においても許されるものではありませんが、国民の負託を受け憲法を遵守する責任を負っている、そして文科省はじめ行政に影響力を有している国会議員が行うとは言語道断です。
さらに杉田議員は、私たちに対して「反日」というレッテルを多用し、さらには「国益を損ねる」研究に科研費を助成することは問題であると繰り返しています。自らの偏った価値観から「国益」とは何かを決め付けること自体問題ですが、その上にそれを理由に学問研究に干渉・介入することは、学問の自由を保障する民主主義国家において許されません。私たち科研グループへの杉田議員の発言は、私たちに対するのみならず、学問の自由・学術研究の発展に対する攻撃であり、私たちへの誹謗中傷を放置することは将来にわたる学問の自由への介入の理由づけに利用されることが十分予想され、それを阻止するために今般の提訴に至りました。
学問研究への権力の介入を許さない人々、女性差別に反対する人々、「慰安婦」問題について歴史のねつ造を許さず責任ある解決を求める人々はじめ、多くの皆様に本裁判への注目と支援をよろしくお願いします。


本裁判への支援呼びかけ人2019.2.12現在)
青山薫(神戸大学)、秋林こずえ(同志社大学)、浅倉むつ子(早稲田大学)
庵逧由香(立命館大学)、伊藤和子(東京弁護士会)、伊藤公雄(京都産業大学)
上野千鶴子(認定NPO法人WAN)、江原由美子(横浜国立大学)、岡真理(京都大学)
香山リカ(立教大学)、小島妙子(仙台弁護士会)、佐藤学(学習院大学)、
清水晶子(東京大学)、住友陽文(大阪府立大学)、千田有紀(武蔵大学)、
髙谷幸(大阪大学)、田中利幸(歴史家・評論家)、角田由紀子(第二東京弁護士会)、
中野晃一(上智大学)、西谷修(立教大学)、能川元一(大学講師)、林香里(東京大学)、
平井美津子(大阪大学非常勤講師)、広渡清吾(法学者)ノーマ・フィールド(シカゴ大学)、
三浦まり(上智大学)、テッサ・モーリス=スズキ(オーストラリア国立大学)、山口二郎(法政大学)、
山口智美(モンタナ州立大学)、山下英愛(文教大学)、雪田樹理(大阪弁護士会)

■■ 寄付のお願い ■■ 
      振込先 
       ゆうちょ銀行普通預金口座 
      【店名】四四八 
      【店番】448 普通預金 
      【口座番号】5013174 
      【名義】国会議員の科研費介入とフェミニズムバッシングを許さない裁判支援の会(欄に入るところまでで結構です。途中まででも大丈夫です。)  
そのさい、呼びかけ人のみなさまからも、メッセージを一言いただければと思いますので、そちらのご協力もよろしくお願い申し上げます。



 

  

2019年2月13日水曜日

An Open Letter to Emperor Akihito


For establishing a genuine democracy in Japan
英語版 「退位する明仁天皇への公開書簡」

           At the New Year’s opening of the Imperial Palace on 2 January 1969, a Japanese war veteran named Okuzaki Kenzo (19202005) fired three pinballs from a slingshot aimed at Emperor Hirohito from 26.5 meters away. Hirohito was standing on the veranda and greeting about 15,000 visitors. All three pinballs hit the bottom of the veranda, missing Hirohito. Okuzaki took this bizarre action in order to be arrested so that he could pursue Hirohito’s war responsibility in the Japanese court system. In his trials, Okuzaki argued that Chapter 1 of Japan’s Constitution (“the emperor”) was unconstitutional. Yet all the judges of Tokyo District and High Courts, as well as the Supreme Court, ignored Okuzaki’s argument. As far as I know, Okuzaki is the only person in Japan’s modern history to legally challenge the constitutionality of the emperor system, and furthermore with compelling disputation. Yet, we do not endorse Okuzaki’s act of violence. Remembering Okuzaki’s unwavering effort to pursue the war responsibility of Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese government, as well as his courageous legal challenge to the emperor system, we are writing the following letter to Emperor Akihito.

Happy New Year Akihito-san,
            We are writing this letter to you, addressing you as a human being, rather than as Japan’s emperor. We therefore avoid using the title “emperor” as much as possible when referring to you or your late father. For the same reason, we refer to other members of your family by their names, without official royal titles.    

Intrinsic Contradictions in Chapter 1 of Japan’s Constitution
            On 8 August 2016, when you publicly expressed your desire to abdicate from the throne, you emphasized that you had been sincerely making efforts over the past twenty-eight years to fulfill the role of “the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People,” as defined by the constitution. During the press conference on 20 December 2018, three days before your eighty-fifth birthday, you again stressed your sincerity over many years of public performance as the emperor. We have no doubt about your sincerity in this regard, yet “sincerity” does not necessarily justify one’s actions.         
           As you are undoubtedly aware Article 14 of Japan’s constitution stipulates that “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.” Yet, according to Article 1 of the current Imperial Family Law, only male successors can succeed to the Imperial throne. The Imperial Family Law clearly violates Article 14 of the constitution, openly discriminating against women. Among the modern democratic nations in the world, we presume that none except Japan allows the head of the state to openly discriminate against women by law, despite the constitutional guarantee of sexual equality. Furthermore, it is bewildering to note that hardly any politicians, constitutional scholars or citizens find this discrepancy between the constitution and law contradictory. In this sense, it can be said that the sexual discrimination represented in the emperor system and widespread sexual discrimination against women in Japanese society are mirror reflections of each other.
            Article 2 of the constitution, as well as Articles 1 and 2 of Imperial House Law, stipulate that your position as emperor is dynastic and hereditary. This means that only your family and descendants exclusively enjoy reverence by the people. This elevated status of your family also violates “equality in family origin” guaranteed by Article 14 of the constitution. Furthermore, as you are deemed a descendant of “the pure Japanese and unbroken Imperial line from time immemorial,” consciously or unconsciously, certain groups of the Japanese population see your position as an ideological ground for justifying discrimination against foreigners, in particular the so-called “zainichi,” i.e. Koreans and Chinese living in Japan. The current increase of hate speech and vulgar demonstrations conducted by ultra-xenophobic organizations in Japan such as Zaitoku-kai (the Citizens Group That Will Not Forgive Special Privileges for Koreans in Japan) are, we believe, closely related to the fact that your ideological status widely and deeply impinges on national sentiment, albeit on an unconscious level.                   
            You and your family attach great importance to Shintoism. Shinto was the official religion of Japan until 1946, yet the separation of government and religion was clearly defined by Article 20 of the new constitution, promulgated that year. Despite this clear-cut severance of Shinto and the state by the constitution, the Rites of Imperial Funeral of your father conducted in 1989, the Ceremonies of the Enthronement of the Emperor held for you in 1990, and many other royal ceremonies, have been conducted as Shinto rituals, each time spending an enormous amount of taxpayers’ money.
It is clear that the conduct of these Shinto ceremonies at the expense of taxpayers’ money was undoubtedly a grave violation of the constitution. It is now planned to hold grand Ceremonies of the Enthronement for your son, Naruhito-san, in November 2019, yet again at the expense of the national fund. Incidentally, the female members of the royal family are not allowed to be present at the Kenji – one of the Ceremonies of the Enthronement of the Emperor – for inheriting the sacred sword and jewels. This is another example of discrimination against women in the royal family.              
            As you see from these examples, no matter how sincerely you carry out the role of “the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People,” as defined by Article 1 of the constitution, the problem is that your position as the emperor is the main source of various types of discrimination and unconstitutional conduct. We wonder how you respond to this criticism?
            Articles 6 and 7 stipulate that it is your duty to carry out various constitutional functions. But you have no right to refuse to conduct such official functions, nor do you have the freedom to express your personal opinions on such functions. This means that you have no freedoms and rights, which are guaranteed to all the people of Japan by Article 12 of constitution. Article 13 states that “All of the people shall be respected as individuals,” but this does not apply to you. You may contend that many Japanese citizens truly respect you. You are surely revered to some extent as the emperor, but not respected as an individual. This is because most Japanese citizens hardly know you as an individual human being. It is not just you but your wife, Michiko-san, your two sons, Naruhito-san and Fumihito-san, their partners, Masako-san and Kiko-san, and your grandchildren. They are all denied their basic human rights if they remain in the royal family. Don’t you think this state of affairs is contradictory to the constitution and therefore absurd?
            Your existence as emperor is the source of discrimination against others. Simultaneously, you and your family are victims of discrimination in a unique sense. The fact that you are denied basic human rights means that you are not regarded as a human being. It is a strange phenomenon that you, the emperor who is generally esteemed as the highest and most noble person in the nation, fundamentally share characteristics with slaves, who could not be blessed with basic human rights. Given these facts, we believe that the position of emperor can be easily exploited by certain politicians for their own political ends.                                
  
Your Father’s War Guilt
            We truly sympathize with you. You were born in a difficult position. You and your family are caught in an untenable position for the sake of the nation, until the end of your lives. Yet, at the same time, we cannot sympathize with you and your family when we think of people in the Asia-Pacific region who were oppressed, discriminated against, assaulted and killed by the Japanese military forces under the banner of Hakkō Ichiu (Universal Brotherhood under the Rule of the Emperor). We also think of millions of Koreans and Taiwanese who endured harsh colonial rule and exploitation by the Japanese Empire, as well as tens of thousands of Japanese who were mobilized into the Asia-Pacific War and forced to die for the Emperor. In other words, we cannot stop thinking of the people who became the victims of the Japanese emperor system since the beginning of the Meiji era in 1868.      
            In this regard, your father, Hirohito-san, committed grave crimes and was therefore responsible for causing tragedies to numerous people. Between September 1931 and August 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy Forces, under the Supreme-Commander, Emperor Hirohito, conducted extremely destructive battles against Chinese and the Allied forces in many parts of China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
In particular, Japanese military conduct in China was consistently a war of aggression from the very beginning. It is said that the estimated number of Chinese victims was about 20 million. For example, in his 1941 reportage entitled “Scorched Earth,” a renowned American journalist, Edgar Snow, described the Japanese atrocities as “an orgy of rape, murder, looting and general debauchery which has nowhere been equaled in modern times.”
In addition to the massive numbers of Chinese victims, the following are the estimated number of other Asian fatalities of Japanese military violence in the fifteen year war: 1.5 million in India, 2 million in Vietnam, 100 thousand in Malaya and Singapore, 1.11 million in the Philippines, 4 million in Indonesia. If we add losses of Pacific islanders, we can speculate that about 10 million people died as the result of the war that Japan conducted. We should not forget that 2.3 million Japanese soldiers and civilian employees (including about 50 thousand Koreans and Formosan Chinese) died in this war, and 60 per cent of this death toll was due to starvation and illness. The total Japanese death toll was about 3.1 million if we add the numbers of civilian victims of fire and atomic bombings conducted by U.S. forces, as well as civilians who died in Okinawa and Manchuria in the last stages of the war. (The U.S. committed war crimes—crimes against humanity—by conducting indiscriminate fire and atomic bombings of Japanese cities and towns. In this letter, however, we are not going to discuss this issue in order to avoid getting sidetracked.)                     
            After the war, your father evaded his responsibility, claiming that military leaders acted against his will. Yet, when we read the war records compiled by the Defense Studies Military History Section of the Defense Agency National Institute, we find evidence that your father was deeply involved in drafting various war policies and making strategies through his “questionings to reports to the throne” and “advice to military leaders.” It is undeniable from the record of the wartime diary written by Marquis Kido Kōichi that your father played the decisive role in making the final decision to enter the war against the Allied nations in December 1941.
            At the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal conducted after the war, under the political pressure of the U.S. occupation forces and the Japanese government, former Prime Minister Tōjō Hideki falsely testified that Emperor Hirohito “reluctantly” decided to enter the war because of the advice given by him, together with other officers of the High Command in charge of the war strategies. Yet it cannot be denied that your father signed the declaration of war even if reluctantly. In any case, it is a historic fact that he did sign as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Army and Navy. Thus it is indisputable that he was in a position of ultimate responsibility. In the end, twenty-eight former military and political leaders were prosecuted as A-class war criminals on your father’s birthday of 29 April 1946. Seven were executed on your birthday of 23 December 1948. In this way, the issue of war responsibility was deemed finalized and resolved simply by blaming only a handful of militarists and politicians who served your father.
         However, it is also fact that the war began as a result of the order that your father decreed and the war ended as a result of the order that your father issued. Consequently, as mentioned before, a few tens of millions of Asians and Pacific islanders as well as 3.1 million Japanese people lost their lives. In other words, the lives of this large number of people depended on your father’s decision more than anything else. We would like to respect the grief of each victim – not only the dead, but also the survivors of Japanese exploitation such as forced laborers, sex slaves and POWs, survivors of the fire and atomic bombings, survivors of the military violence in Okinawa and Manchuria, and the like. This is because we tend to forget the great sorrow people experienced if we deal with the issue of war victims simply from the viewpoint of abstract numbers.
            Incidentally, Akihito-san, do you know that Watanabe Kiyoshi (1925–1981) wrote an open letter addressed to your father in 1961? Watanabe-san was a sailor who was on board the battleship Musashi. Musashi, one of the largest battleships in the world, was sunk by U.S. forces in the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 24 October 1944. As a result, more than one thousand sailors lost their lives. In his letter, Watanabe-san wrote:
  
If you are an ordinary person and just think of the fact that so many people died as the result of the orders you issued, I imagine you would be extremely distressed in deep agony. I believe that is how an ordinary person naturally feels as a human being. Therefore, if one does not have such a natural feeling, I think that person is a heartless human being. I think that that person is a human being, yet simultaneously not really a human being, or some strange creature disguising himself with the name of “human being.” I cannot think of you in any other way…      
On January 1, 1946, you issued an imperial rescript … and in it you denied that you were god in human form… Despite that you had driven so many people into deaths during the war, (in this rescript) you emphasized “mutual trust and affection” between you and the people of the nation. Although I do not know how other people took those words of yours, I no longer believe such a barefaced lie. You could not deceive me any more. This New Year’s rescript of 1946 did not show even a glimpse of sense of your responsibility.
  The same can be said about the imperial rescript that you issued at the defeat of the war. In that rescript, you did not apologize at all and did not say even simple words like “I am sorry. I was responsible for the war.” You apologized neither to the people of your own nation nor to the people of China and Southeast Asia to whom you caused tremendous damage and heavy casualties. Indeed, you have not touched the issue of war responsibility in any of rescripts that you have so far issued since the end of the war.       

We are not sure if your father read this letter, Akihito-san. If he did, we wonder how he felt about it.
     
The Problem of your Journeys to Console the Spirits of those Lost in World War II  
            Over the years you and your wife, Michiko-san, traveled extensively in Japan and in the Pacific region to console the spirits of those lost in the war. We presume that was because you feel your father was accountable for miseries people suffered due to the war. As stated before, we acknowledge your sincerity. Yet, despite your sincerity, we think your war memorial visits have serious problems.
            For example, in April 2015, shortly before you visited the island of Peleliu in the South Pacific nation of Palau, you issued a statement in which the following words were included.

  This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, which brought fierce fighting to various parts of the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the loss of countless lives. Our thoughts go out to all those who went to the battlefields to defend their countries, never to return home.
  A year before the end of the war, fierce battles were conducted in this region, and on many islands Japanese soldiers died as the result of suicidal attacks. Peleliu Island that we are going to visit is one of them, and in the battle on this island some 10,000 Japanese soldiers were killed and the U.S. also lost approximately 1,700 troops. We believe that we must never forget that those beautiful islands in the Pacific Ocean have such a tragic history.

(Emphasis added. Incidentally, it is more accurate to say that the number of U.S. dead is closer to 2,200, not 1,700.)

            As you explained, large numbers of Japanese soldiers lost their lives on Pacific islands. On the island of Guadalcanal, between August 1942 and February 1943, 20,860 of the 31,400 soldiers sent there perished. About 15,000 of this total death toll were victims of starvation and tropical disease. From March 1943, 157,646 men were sent to East New Guinea. Only 10,724 survived. The mortality rate was 90 per cent; and, here too, many died due to starvation and tropical disease without engaging in battle.
In 1944, U.S. forces began a series of campaigns to capture Bougainville, Pohnapei, Truk, Guam, Saipan etc. On each island many Japanese soldiers as well as civilians were killed. On the island of Saipan, for example, more than 55,000 soldiers and civilians died: many committed suicide. The tragic and meaningless suicidal attacks like those carried out on the island of Peleliu were repeated in the battle of Iwo Jima Island between 19 February and 26 March 1945, resulting in more than 21,000 deaths (a mortality rate of 93 per cent). In Okinawa, about 100 thousand Japanese soldiers, as well as the same number of Okinawan civilians, perished between April and June 1945.
            In the statement you made in April 2015, you described the dead soldiers with the following flowery words: “those who went to the battlefields to defend their countries, never to return home.” Many Japanese soldiers died in tropical jungles because of starvation and disease. Even those who managed to narrowly survive hunger and thirst were eventually forced to conduct suicidal attacks. Do you really think that those Japanese men died “to defend their country”? In your war memorial voyages, you have never addressed a fundamental question: Who was responsible for their deaths? Frankly speaking, those who “never returned” died wastefully for nothing. As the writer, Oda Makoto (1932–2007), used to say their deaths were utter “nanshi”(deaths in agony). In other words the result of “miserable, meaningless and plain slaughter.” Furthermore, they were literally abandoned by their leaders, including your father. You and many politicians often say that Japan’s prosperity after the war was built at the sacrifice of the victims of the war. We think such a rhetoric is pure sophistry. Their “deaths in agony” were irrelevant to Japan’s post-war prosperity. Their deaths were for nothing and utterly meaningless. That is why their deaths were so pitiful.
            To “never forget such a tragic history,” to remember those many “deaths in agony” and not to repeat the same mistake, we believe it is vital to ask why we made such a tragic history. We must ask who was responsible for such a tragic history? Yet in your speeches at the annual Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead on August 15 and at other similar memorials, a reference to “the cause of and responsibility for the tragic history” has always been missing. Without referring to your father’s responsibility your memorial journeys have contributed to obscuring his guilt; and, therefore, ultimately our national responsibility. In other words, your memorial voyages are nothing but political performances to cover up Japanese responsibility.
            Moreover, the aim of your memorial voyages has always been to console the spirits of Japanese victims, not sufferers of the atrocities committed by Japanese troops. Occasionally you have referred to “war victims” of the Allied soldiers or of the Asia-Pacific nations in a very abstract expression, but your eyes have always been focused on the Japanese war dead. For example, on your memorial journey to Saipan in June 2005, you and your wife bowed deeply as you offered prayers in front of the so-called “Banzai Cliff,” where many Japanese committed suicide, plunging into the seawater. Immediately after this ceremony, you also visited the memorial of the Korean victims on the same island and paid your respects. Yet, your visit to the Korean memorial was initially not included in the schedule. According to a press report, the original schedule was quickly changed after a group of Korean residents on Saipan demanded an apology from you and your wife. Although you did not offer any apologies, your visit to the memorial soothed their fury.
            It can be concluded that your memorial journeys have contributed to strengthening Japanese “war victim” sentiment, but were never intended to create a moral imagination among the Japanese for the pain and sorrow of foreign victims of Japanese atrocities. In other words, your war memorial performance has never inspired the Japanese people to rectify our lack of collective responsibility, and to cultivate thoughts on the basic nature of war through comprehensive understanding of the inter-relationship between victims and perpetrators. Thus, the Japanese continue to reinforce a resilient sense of the ideologically biased “national value,” that we were war victims, never perpetrators. It is therefore not surprising that most Japanese do not pay attention to the foreign victims of the Japanese wartime brutalities such as “forced laborers” and “military sex slaves.” Because of this “national value,” together with deep-rooted and widespread Japanese jingoism and xenophobia, even seventy-three years after the war, Japan is still unable to establish peaceful relationships with foreign nations, in particular Korea and China.
            Indeed, we Japanese unconsciously feel obliged to hold and share this “sense of the national value.” Your authority as “the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People” has a distinctive function not only to create such a national value but also to make the people feel obligated for sustaining it without realizing that they are in fact compelled to do so. We are not sure how clearly you are aware of this unique phenomenon, but your performance as the symbol of the nation has a strong political function in practice to justify, defend and preserve the national value and policy of Japan. As the emperor’s performance hardly gives the people an impression of “political control,” this function can be a useful tool for power holders or ruthless politicians, who want to control the populace cunningly.
Chapter 1 of the constitution, which appears to negate any political functions of the emperor, in fact has considerable influence over political and social ideas. We think you should be aware of this critical function of your position as emperor.

Political Factors in Your Constitutional Functions                     
            Strictly speaking, your performance as the symbol of the nation must be limited to the seemingly depoliticized constitutional functions defined by Articles 3 to 7 of the constitution. Despite this lucid definition, various so-called “non-political activities” of the emperor, including “war memorial voyages,” which are in fact outside this definition, have been sanctioned and openly carried out since the promulgation of the current constitution in 1946. Because such ostensibly “non-political activities” were sanctioned even before you ascended the throne, you must have thought that you also should fully utilize such activities as your duty of the symbol of the nation. Among such activities conducted under “the symbolic authority” of the nation, you found that the most effective performances to gain the people’s trust were those of philanthropic (in your words) “activities to sit close to the people and to show my stance of sharing joys and sorrows with the people.” You must have learned the value of philanthropic performance from your ancestors, in particular “motherly affection” as demonstrated thorough benefactions provided by the preceding empresses.                   
            Thus, together with Michiko-san, you have enthusiastically conducted what I call “the activities of parental-like affection” – war memorial journeys, meeting with families of the war dead, meeting with victims of various kinds of natural disasters, and visiting patients suffering from rare and serious illness. All such functions are unconstitutional in the strict sense.
            You must be proud that you have strengthened and augmented the people’s trust in the emperor and the royal family through such generous activities. However, contrary to your thought, we think your “symbolic authority” has been playing the decisive role in implicitly controlling people’s ideas and will continue to do so into the future. We wonder if you know your “symbolic authority” plays an important political role in obscuring the cause of and responsibility for various current social and political problems, and thus concealing them. In other words, your “symbolic authority” makes the people unable to critically analyze current social situations and to develop perspectives for reforming the society.
In short, it makes people accept existing social conditions, and thereby conform to authority. This function is indeed a very astute and convenient tool for politicians, as the people are unaware that they are being manipulated. Furthermore, if one criticizes “the symbolic authority” of a “kindhearted and gentle” emperor, the individual is alienated by social pressure of conformity.
        Let us explain how your “symbolic authority” works to deftly conceal social and political problems, and how “social pressure of conformity” also functions, with the following concrete example. Below is a press report from Tokyo Shimbun newspaper concerning your visit to Kawauchi village of Fukushima Prefecture in October 2012.          
  
When the wind blew the water of the pressure hose that workers are using to clean off the radioactive particles on the roof, the water showered down onto the emperor and empress. But they did not really care at all. The emperor and empress kept eagerly asking questions such as “how high is the radiation dosage here?” and “Oh then it is alright, isn’t it?”
At that time, people from fifty households were living in temporary housing there. The emperor and empress talked to each of them, setting their eye levels at the same level of each person and asking them questions like “How are you? Are you alright?” Most of these people who returned to the village are old people, while young breadwinners still remain in places to which they were evacuated. One of the villagers, Mr. Endo, told the reporter “Some of us were deeply touched with their visit and shed tears. After Their Imperial Majesties’ visit, we were rejuvenated with a thought that we should do whatever we can do by ourselves.” (Extract from an article in Tokyo Shimbun, 5 December 2017.)
       
        You and your wife visited Kawauchi, a place located in one of the regions most badly affected by radiation from the No.1 Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. Your visit to Kawauchi took place during the so-called “radiation decontamination” widely conducted in Fukushima Prefecture a year and a half after the accident. There you asked the radiation specialist questions concerning the level of radiation, and responded to his explanation by saying “Oh then it is alright, isn’t it?” When you talked to the villagers, you set your eye level at the same level as theirs, as if you had descended from heaven! The villagers were so moved by your kindhearted and caring words that they couldn’t stop shedding tears. Then they thought that, because they were truly honored by the tenderness of Their Imperial Majesties, they should not complain about their hardship and they should do as much as they can by themselves to improve their life.
            In this way your presence blurred the responsibilities of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and of other nuclear power companies for causing the nuclear disaster. Similarly, the responsibility of the Japanese government, which had been vigorously promoting the nuclear power industry with propaganda like “nuclear power is absolutely clean and safe,” was fogged. Moreover, the difference between the victims of the accident – farmers, fishermen and ordinary workers – and those responsible for causing the accident – rich CEOs of TEPCO and the powerful politicians behind them – became obscured. Additionally, a strong sense of “self-responsibility” – “we should do as much as we can by ourselves” – arose in the mind of the victims, which would eventually contribute to creating what I call “the illusion of unity,” i.e., the idea that we should all work together to solve the problem without asking who was responsible.
Japanese media repeatedly published articles praising you and your wife even five years after your visit to Fukushima without examining the political impact of your visit upon the populace. Anyone who openly criticized your “compassionate and caring visits” to the suffering people would be severely condemned. We would like to know how you feel about that? Do you still believe that the emperor system supports democracy in Japan?                                   

The Fundamental Contradiction of Chapter 1 to the Preamble and Article 9 of the Constitution  
            With the above-mentioned examples, we have tried to show that Chapter 1 of the constitution and its effective utilization are fundamentally incompatible with the spirit of Japan’s “democratic constitution.” Let us now explain in more detail how and why Chapter 1 is incompatible with other parts of the constitution, in particular the Preamble and Article 9.
           In the first paragraph of the Preamble, it is said, “We, the Japanese people … resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government, do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution.”
    It is clear that Article 9 is also based on our experience of war and the recognition of our responsibility for the war Japan conducted between 1931 and 1945. In other words, the idea of pacifism – renunciation of war and demilitarization of Japan – articulated in Article 9 is closely intertwined with the basic philosophy of the constitution spelled out in the Preamble. We strongly believe therefore that we should consider the Preamble and Article 9 as one set of declarations. In this regard, we believe, the second and third paragraphs of the Preamble are particularly important.

  We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world. We desire to occupy an honored place in an international society striving for the preservation of peace, and the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth. We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.
  We believe that no nation is responsible to itself alone, but that laws of political morality are universal; and that obedience to such laws is incumbent upon all nations who would sustain their own sovereignty and justify their sovereign relationship with other nations.
 
            Japan was the nation that manipulated “tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance” under the militarism combined with the emperor system. In the Preamble we are therefore confirming our determination to not let our government conduct war again, clearly recognizing and deeply internalizing our responsibility for the indescribable war tragedies our nation created. Based on this determination, we are claiming that we would like to “occupy an honored place in an international society” by contributing to the world community establishing peaceful relationships between all peoples of the world. It also acknowledges that everyone has the right to live in peace.
            In a way, the Preamble reconfirms not only the Japanese people’s pacifist determination, but also our strong desire to be actively involved in constructing peaceful human relationships, based on the idea that everyone has the right to live in peace. In other words, it claims that peace is a matter of human rights, in particular the right to live in peace; peace is a matter of global and universal justice; and peace is a matter of international cooperation. In this sense, although it is the Preamble of a national constitution, it is quite unique that it offers a perspectives on the establishment of a universal peace.     
            Therefore, it can be said that the Preamble, together with Article 9, contains the proposition of the illegality of any war in the world, and not just of Japanese war. As we have mentioned before, we believe this is the reason we should always treat the Preamble and Article 9 as one set of pronouncements. The Preamble, together with Article 9, is a comprehensive sketch map for a peaceful world. 
            Intriguingly, even though Chapter 1 (Articles 1 to 8) lies between the Preamble and Article 9, there is no explanation whatsoever as how the position of emperor, who was the Grand Marshall of the extremely brutal Imperial Forces until August 1945, had been reformed in accordance with “universal principle of mankind,” the principles of “the sovereignty of people,” or “universal laws of political morality,” which are all emphasized in the Preamble. In other words, the constitution provides no explanation how the seemingly “democratized” emperor’s position was to relate to “the sovereignty of people” and “pacifism.”                         
            It is clear that the Preamble emphasizes “the sovereignty of people,” which are elaborated upon in Chapter 3 (Article 10 to 40), and “pacifism,” which is embodied in Chapter 2 (Article 9). It provides a basic philosophy of these two vital principles and expounds on them. Yet, the Preamble provides not a single word for the fundamental philosophical discussion on Chapter 1 “Emperor.” Don’t you think this is odd? Why does our constitution take such a strange form?     
            As mentioned earlier, all the principles emphasized in the Preamble concern universal principles of human behavior, which are beyond Japan’s national values and rules. On the contrary, until August 1945, the emperor system cruelly denied the sovereignty of the people, brutally violated many peoples’ right to live in peace, and violently destroyed international cooperation.
            After the war, the U.S. occupation forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. government decided to make your father Hirohito-san immune from the war crimes tribunal and to politically utilize him to suppress the rapidly growing Communist movements in Japan, thereby tactfully controlling the Japanese populace. For this aim, the emperor system was depoliticized and preserved, presenting your father as an innocent and peaceful person. Even though it is claimed in the Preamble We, the Japanese people … resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government,” the resolution was made without pursuing your father’s responsibility in the war. In addition, the emperor system is a uniquely Japanese system veiled with a distinctive national value, which is contradictory to “the universal principle of mankind.” Therefore, it was not possible to discuss the principle of the emperor system side by side with “the universal principle of mankind” in the Preamble.          
        We hope you can now understand why it is natural that Chapter 1 of the constitution and its actual utilization are fundamentally incompatible with the spirit of Japan’s “democratic constitution.”   

Abdication is not enough. You should become an ordinary citizen
         It is a general perception that the emperor system was “depoliticized” and “democratized” after the war; and that, as a result, it became “a constitutional and democratic monarchy.” Yet, no one in your family has ever admitted the war guilt and responsibility of Emperor Hirohito and apologized for it. The position of a “democratic emperor” is contradictory to basic human rights, freedoms and equality guaranteed by the constitution; and the emperor himself openly and constantly violates the constitution by conducting Shinto religious rites and other ostensibly “non-political” performance.
Because the long-surviving traditional emperor ideology is still widespread and deeply imbedded in Japanese society, all these “undemocratic” aspects of the emperor system do not appear “undemocratic” to the public eye. Many people accept them as natural. This is partly because of one of the functions of the emperor ideology, which is to deify you. Do you still call this state of Japan “democratic”?
        We believe that a genuine democracy cannot take root in Japanese society as long as the emperor system exists. We do not believe that Japan’s current state will improve even after you abdicate in April 2019. On the contrary, the situation will probably get worse as the highly jingoistic Abe government is expected to fully exploit a series of the grand ceremonies of the enthronement of the next emperor planned in November 2019 for their own political aims, in particular enhancing the Prime Minister’s authority. Abe will make your son, the new emperor, officially open the Tokyo Olympics next year to promote Japan’s national prestige. We also believe that Abe will make your son review the troops of the Self Defense Forces, taking every opportunity to enhance nationalism and to make the Japanese people accept a rapidly increasing military budget.   
        We understand it is difficult to abolish the emperor system for the sake of democracy under Japan’s current social conditions. However, we are sure conditions will improve if you refuse to remain a Court noble, if you refuse to become Jyōkō (Ex-emperor: the literal meaning is “a noble person above the emperor”), and if you and your wife, Michiko-san, became ordinary citizens. Only if you admit your father’s war guilt and publicly apologize to war victims and the victimized nations, and express your joy to be an ordinary citizen endowed with basic human rights can Japan become a place where people can live comfortably and peacefully.    
       Akihito-san, why don’t you stop being a slave of the nation? Why not become an ordinary human being and share normal human emotions with us? Don’t you think it is important for you to become an ordinary human being and an ordinary citizen to establish in Japan a genuine democracy?     
  
Yours sincerely,
1 January 2019. 

 Yuki Tanaka (Representative of “August 6 Hiroshima Assembly for Peace”)
Kuno Naruaki, (Committee Member of “August 6 Hiroshima Assembly for Peace”)

2019年2月9日土曜日

Sushi Train


「日々のニュースは回転寿し!」
日々のニュースは回転寿し
愚かさ、セックス、苦痛など
繰り返し、回って、回って、戻ってくる
それを目の前に腰掛けて、食べる、食べるの繰り返し
飲んで、飲んで、選ぼうか、もう一皿
殺人、狂気、お好きなものを、なんでもどうぞ
中学・高校教師のセックス失態はいかが
大気圏外から、アタマに降りかかる脅威もあるよ
それがいやなら、市街地爆撃に家庭内殺人
回転寿しには、なんでもござれ !