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
(1920–2005) 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”)
