Nationalisms in Japan

Nationalisms in Japan Nationalisms in Japan brings together leading specialists in the ﬁeld to critically examine diff...

Author: Naoko Shimazu

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Nationalisms in Japan

Nationalisms in Japan brings together leading specialists in the ﬁeld to critically examine different notions and manifestations of ‘nationalism’ in the political, social and cultural contexts of modern and contemporary Japan. The book encompasses a period of two hundred years, and includes discussions of the early Japanese national thinkers of the Mito School, the conscripts in the Russo-Japanese war, Japan’s ambiguous internationalists of the 1920s, the national extremists in the 1930s, the Ainu moshiri and its implications, the history textbook controversy of the 1990s and ends with a contemporary debate of the official visit made by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ to the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine. This contemporary and interdisciplinary study draws important conclusions about the evolution of nationalism as a concept in Japan. Through in-depth analysis by a leading team of scholars, the book argues persuasively that competing forms of nationalism or more accurately, nationalisms, can and do exist in Japan at any one time. Its ﬁndings call for a more nuanced and sophisticated study of nationalisms in Japan. This timely reassessment in the face of recent neo-nationalist sentiment provides valuable insight and will be essential reading for academics working on modern Japan and on comparative study of nationalism. Naoko Shimazu lectures on modern Japanese history at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 (Routledge, 1998).

Shefﬁeld Centre for Japanese Studies / Routledge Series Series Editor: Glenn D. Hook Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Shefﬁeld This series, published by Routledge in association with the Centre for Japanese Studies at the University of Shefﬁeld, both makes available original research on a wide range of subjects dealing with Japan and provides introductory overviews of key topics in Japanese Studies. The Internationalization of Japan Edited by Glenn D. Hook and Michael Weiner Race and Migration in Imperial Japan Michael Weiner Japan and the Paciﬁc Free Trade Area Pekka Korhonen Greater China and Japan Prospects for an economic partnership? Robert Taylor The Steel Industry in Japan A comparison with the UK Hasegawa Harukiyo Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan Richard Siddle Japan’s Minorities The illusion of homogeneity Edited by Michael Weiner Japanese Business Management Restructuring for low growth and globalization Edited by Hasegawa Harukiyo and Glenn D. Hook Japan and Asia Paciﬁc Integration Paciﬁc romances 1968–1996 Pekka Korhonen

Japan’s Economic Power and Security Japan and North Korea Christopher W. Hughes Japan’s Contested Constitution Documents and analysis Glenn D. Hook and Gavan McCormack Japan’s International Relations Politics, economics and security Glenn D. Hook, Julie Gilson, Christopher Hughes and Hugo Dobson Japanese Education Reform Nakasone’s legacy Christopher P. Hood The Political Economy of Japanese Globalisation Glenn D. Hook and Hasegawa Harukiyo Japan and Okinawa Structure and subjectivity Edited by Glenn D. Hook and Richard Siddle Japan and Britain in the Contemporary World Responses to common issues Edited by Hugo Dobson and Glenn D. Hook

Japan and United Nations Peacekeeping New pressures, new responses Hugo Dobson Japanese Capitalism and Modernity in a Global Era Re-fabricating lifetime employment relations Peter C. D. Matanle Nikkeiren and Japanese Capitalism John Crump Production Networks in Asia and Europe Skill formation and technology transfer in the automobile industry Edited by Rogier Busser and Yuri Sadoi

Contested Governance in Japan Sites and issues Edited by Glenn D. Hook Japan’s International Relations Politics, economics and security Second edition Glenn D. Hook, Julie Gilson, Christopher Hughes and Hugo Dobson Japan’s Changing Role in Humanitarian Crises Yukiko Nishikawa Japan’s Subnational Governments in International Affairs Purnendra Jain

Japan and the G7/8 1975–2002 Hugo Dobson

Japan and East Asian Monetary Regionalism Towards a proactive leadership role? Shigeko Hayashi

The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan Between nation-state and everyday life Takeda Hiroko

Japan’s Relations with China Facing a rising power Lam Peng-Er

Grassroots Paciﬁsm in Post-War Japan The rebirth of a nation Mari Yamamoto

Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature A critical approach Edited by Rachael Hutchinson and Mark Williams

Interﬁrm Networks in the Japanese Electronics Industry Ralph Paprzycki Globalisation and Women in the Japanese Workforce Beverley Bishop

Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa Miyume Tanji Nationalisms in Japan Edited by Naoko Shimazu

Nationalisms in Japan Edited by Naoko Shimazu

First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 selection and editorial matter Naoko Shimazu; individual contributors for their contributions

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Nationalisms in Japan Edited by Naoko Shimazu. – 1st ed. p. cm. – (Shefﬁeld Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–415–40053–8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Japan–History–1868– . 2. Nationalism–Japan. I. Shimazu, Naoko, 1964– . II. Series. DS881.9.N387 2006 320.540952–dc22 2005033389 ISBN10: 0–415–40053–8 (Print Edition) ISBN13: 978–0–415–40053–4

Contents

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction

ix xii 1

NAOKO SHIMAZU

1

Japanese national doctrines in international perspective

9

ERICA BENNER

2

Reading the diaries of Japanese conscripts: forging national consciousness during the Russo-Japanese war

41

NAOKO SHIMAZU

3

Internationalism and nationalism: anti-Western sentiments in Japanese foreign policy debates, 1918–22

66

HARUMI GOTO-SHIBATA

4

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41, in historical perspective

85

STEPHEN S. LARGE

5

The making of Ainu moshiri: Japan’s indigenous nationalism and its cultural ﬁctions

110

RICHARD SIDDLE

6

The battle for hearts and minds: patriotic education in Japan in the 1990s and beyond CAROLINE ROSE

131

viii Contents 7

The national politics of the Yasukuni Shrine

155

T E T S U Y A T A K A H A S H I ( trans. P H I L I P S E A T O N )

Conclusion Towards nationalisms in Japan

181

NAOKO SHIMAZU

Index

188

Notes on contributors

Erica Benner is Recurrent Professor of Nationalism Studies at the Central European University in Budapest, and a Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs, Tulane University. She is the author of Really Existing Nationalisms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), and many articles and chapters on political philosophy and the history of ideas, including ‘Nationality Without Nationalism’ (1997), ‘Nationalism Within Reason’ (1998), ‘The Liberal Limits of Republican Nationality’ (2000), ‘Is There a Core National Doctrine?’ (2001) and, more recently, a chapter on ‘The Nation-State’, in the Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. She is currently working on the book, Self-Legislation and Legitimacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Harumi Goto-Shibata is Associate Professor, Center for International Research and Education, Chiba University, Japan. She received her DPhil from Oxford University. Her publications include Ahen to igirisu teikoku: Kokusai kisei no takamari 1906–1943 [The International Control of Opium and the British Empire, 1906–1943] (Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppansha, 2005), Japan and Britain in Shanghai 1925–31 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995) and ‘The International Opium Conference of 1924–25 and Japan’, Modern Asian Studies 36: 4 (2002). Stephen S. Large is Reader in Modern Japanese History in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge. His numerous publications include The Rise of Labor in Japan: The Yu¯aikai, 1912–1919 (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1972), Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), Emperor Hirohito and Sho¯wa Japan: A Political Biography (London: Routledge, 1992), and

x Contributors Emperors of the Rising Sun: Three Biographies (London: Kodansha International, 1997). He also edited Sho¯wa Japan: Political, Economic and Social History, 1926–1989, 4 vols (London: Routledge, 1998). His current research is on the history of nationalist extremism in Japan, 1900–70. Caroline Rose is Senior Lecturer in Japanese Studies in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds. Her research focus is contemporary Sino-Japanese relations and she has published two monographs on the problems relating to the interpretation of history and on reconciliation in Sino-Japanese relations entitled, Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations (London: Routledge, 1998) and Sino-Japanese Relations: Facing the Past, Looking to the Future? (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). She is currently working on a project which considers the role of trans-national civil society in reconciliation between China and Japan. Philip Seaton is a Lecturer in the Institute of Language and Culture Studies, Hokkaido University. He completed his DPhil on Japanese war memories in 2004 and has recently published a paper on the British media’s representation of the textbook and Yasukuni issues in Japan Forum 17(3). His webpage is www.philipseaton.net Naoko Shimazu is Senior Lecturer in Japanese History at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London. Her first book, Japan, Race and Equality: The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 was published by Routledge in 1998. She is currently working on a monograph, Japanese Society at War: Death, Memory and the Russo-Japanese War, (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). She is also co-editing Re-Imagining Culture in the Russo-Japanese War with Rosamund Bartlett. Richard Siddle is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. His publications include Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan (London: Routledge, 1996), Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity (co-editor, London: Routledge, 2003) and numerous articles and book chapters on identity politics among the Ainu and Okinawans. Tetsuya Takahashi is Professor of Philosophy and of Culture and Representations at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo. His publications include Yasukuni Mondai [Yasukuni Problems] (Tokyo: Chikumashobo¯, 2005), Kyo¯iku to kokka [Education and the State] (Tokyo: Ko¯dansha, 2004), Sengo

Contributors xi sekinin ron [On the Post-war Responsibility] (Tokyo: Ko¯dansha, 1999 and 2005), Rekishi/Shu¯sei shugi [History/Revisionism] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 2001), and Rekishi ninshiki ronso¯ [History and Memory] (editor, Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2002).

Acknowledgements

This book, Nationalisms in Japan, represents the third and the final volume in the three-volume series published as part of the Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge Series. The three-volume project conceived in May 2001 came under the auspices of the British Association for Japanese Studies (BAJS) in order to enhance intellectual exchanges and develop new academic networks between scholars in the United Kingdom and Japan. Glenn Hook edited the first volume, Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues (Routledge, 2005), and the second was edited by Rachel Hutchinson and Mark Williams, Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature (Routledge, 2006). We are particularly grateful for the financial support given by a number of donors. First and foremost, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and Mike Barrett, its Chief Executive, were unstinting in their support for this project. Their generous ﬁnancial grant enabled the UK-based participants of this project, Nationalisms in Japan, to attend the two-day workshop held at Keio University in Tokyo on 12–13 September 2003. Gratitude is also owed to the Toshiba International Foundation and BAJS for additional financial support to bring the project to a successful completion. On behalf of the project, we would also like to extend our very special thanks to Professor Ota Akiko who generously hosted the workshop in Tokyo. Finally, I would like to thank all the contributors for their participation in the workshop in September 2003, and for their stimulating chapters. Special thanks are due also to my colleague, Caroline Rose, who kindly helped me in the editorial work. Naoko Shimazu London, 2005

Introduction Naoko Shimazu

This edited volume is based on a two-day closed workshop held at Keio¯ University in September 2003 on ‘Nationalism in Modern and Contemporary Japan’. It represents the culmination of intensive, thought-provoking discussions. All contributors beneﬁted from thinking aloud about individual case studies related to their own areas of expertise, but also about the bigger picture of the study of nationalism in Japan within the comparative context of the study of nationalism in the modern age. Added to this was the intellectual challenge of thinking across disciplinary boundaries in a diverse group. Naoko Shimazu, Harumi Goto-Shibata and Stephen Large work in the areas of the social, diplomatic and cultural history of modern Japan. Richard Siddle straddles the two disciplines of history and social anthropology, while Caroline Rose has been working on aspects of post-war Sino-Japanese relations with a focus on education. As this was primarily a gathering of Japan specialists, it was particularly important for the intellectual health of the project that we had a non-Japan specialist in Erica Benner, a specialist on nationalism, who injected a healthy dose of critical comparative insight. Moreover, the project was substantially strengthened by the participation of Tetsuya Takahashi, a philosopher of Continental European philosophy, who now plays a leading part in contemporary domestic debate on nationalism in Japan. Many of the contributors here would not consider themselves specialists on nationalism. Nevertheless, it is impossible for any of us who work on modern and contemporary Japan to ignore the social, political and cultural understanding of the Japanese nation or the Japanese state without ever having to come to terms with ‘nationalism’ in one way or another. All contributors were asked to bear in mind two general questions when writing their chapters. The ﬁrst question was, ‘What do we mean exactly when we talk about nationalism in our

2 Naoko Shimazu particular case studies?’ This was intended to prevent us all from taking for granted that we all implicitly understood what we meant by nationalism. As a qualiﬁer question to this big question, we also asked ourselves who the ‘nationalists’ were and what they were/are ﬁghting for and ﬁghting against in each context under investigation. The notion of agency is critical to engender a sophisticated treatment of our questions. Second, we asked, ‘Is there such a thing as general “Japanese nationalism”?’ Do competing forms of nationalism exist at any one time and, moreover, do they evolve over time? In other words, do we need to stop and think more critically when we generalize sweepingly about ‘Japanese nationalism’ as though we are all talking about one and the same thing? Taken together, the individual studies in this book encompass a chronological period of roughly two hundred years. The book starts with a discussion of some of the early Japanese national thinkers of the Mito School, and ends with a contemporary discussion of the ofﬁcial visits made by Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ to the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine. One of the objectives of having chapters that range over a wide chronological period was to enable us to come up with some useful comparative observations about the evolution of nationalism or nationalisms, using Japan as a case study.

Individual investigations Coming from a specialist on nationalism, Erica Benner’s chapter (Chapter 1) provides an important conceptual framework for understanding Japanese national thinking in early modern and modern Japan. She contextualizes the development in Japanese national thinking within a wider intellectual and comparative context of national thinking from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Her focus is on the relationship between the national and the international, and how national thinking can be inﬂuenced by any given set of external factors. She argues persuasively that Japanese national thinking reﬂected similar intellectual concerns in Europe throughout the period, and that even what is normally perceived as being culturally speciﬁc sources of national thinking in Japan, such as the centrality of the emperor and its mythical legitimacy, can be seen as being among the commonly pursued sources of national identity of the ethnonationalism type in Europe. Most importantly, Benner’s work de-mystiﬁes contentious notions of national identity and national thinking in modern Japan. By estab-

Introduction 3 lishing two basic premises of commonality in national thinking, which she calls ‘national doctrines’, she proceeds to elucidate ‘four distinct, partly overlapping patterns of national thinking’, namely, ‘defensive’, ‘cautious engagement’, ‘enlightened international leadership’, and, ﬁnally, ‘radicalization’. She demonstrates that pre-1945 Japanese national thinking incorporated all four patterns, some more prominently than others, and some overlapping with others. These patterns were not static but dynamic, and were not mutually exclusive. For example, Benner’s reading of Fukuzawa Yukichi reveals that he expressed thoughts that betrayed patterns of both ‘cautious engagement’ and ‘enlightened international leadership’. On the whole, Benner argues that Japanese national thinking of the late nineteenth century can be identiﬁed most closely with the pattern of ‘cautious engagement’ which allowed a country to engage with the dominant powers, albeit as a junior partner, with a view to possibly gaining membership of the great power club in future by adhering to ‘civilization’ through modernization. This pattern also recognizes that these states considered upholding the ‘particularity of national traditions’ as important in their effort to ‘seek to balance the spirit of reform with strong authoritarian elements’. Naoko Shimazu’s chapter (Chapter 2) examines the process of becoming a ‘national subject’ (kokumin) through an examination of the mobilization of conscripted soldiers during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–5. By examining the perspective of the ordinary soldiers, she argues that the process of transforming them into ‘Japanese’ soldiers was much more complex than is generally assumed. In fact, the state-centred nationalism met considerable ‘challenges’ from ordinary Japanese soldiers, who often held ambiguous and conﬂicting emotions towards the war, many at odds with the ofﬁcial discourse of patriotism. In a close reading of personal diaries, she explores how the national consciousness of ordinary soldiers developed through their long journey from their hometown to the front in Manchuria. Mobilization of the soldiers to the front played a crucial role in forging a horizontal connection between them and the Japanese people who came to see them off at every station en route. The development of this horizontal relationship between soldiers and the people made the former feel patriotic, because for the ﬁrst time, the state (kokka) was no longer an abstract concept but became concrete in the shape of the people. Hence, the people (kokumin) came to deﬁne and represent the state (kokka) for these soldiers. Her ﬁndings reﬂect Benner’s observation, concerning ‘[t]he call for identity among all the members of a nation’, that the ‘demand is now for conscious awareness . . . of

4 Naoko Shimazu sameness or we-ness across classes and regions’. Shimazu’s perspective is a revisionist one that challenges the mainstream perspective on Meiji nationalism which accepts the success of the state-centred nationalism. Harumi Goto-Shibata’s contribution (Chapter 3) reveals the ambiguous sentiments expressed by the Japanese intellectuals who ﬂuctuated between internationalism and nationalism in their opinions on Japanese foreign policy in the period 1918–22. Her conclusions are based on a study of the foremost contemporary opinion journal on foreign policy, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ (Revue Diplomatique) which was full of critical comments about the supposed failure of the Japanese diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and the perceived sense of ‘injustice’ and ‘unfairness’ pervading the new international order which had been set up with the creation of the League of Nations, and with the Washington Conferences of 1921–22. Contemporary Japanese intellectuals began employing the terms, ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’ as a counter-rhetoric to Wilsonian idealism. In fact, these terms were used as a measurement of the equity and legitimacy of the new international order. The conclusion many of them reached was that Japan was being subjected to ‘unfair’ and ‘unjust’ rules of an international system which kept on changing the rules by which the key great powers played at any particular time. Most infuriatingly for the Japanese, they did not understand the implicit rules of the game, leading to their ‘silent’ cries for help (for these opinions were expressed largely for the beneﬁt of domestic public opinion and not for international opinion) for a more equitable international order. However, the Japanese intellectuals who were critical of the perceived ‘injustice’ in the international system were coming from the position of promoting the national interests of the Japanese state. Hence, behind their rhetoric of international justice which was clothed appealingly in the garb of Wilsonian idealism, there lurked unmistakably the voices of a national agenda. GotoShibata suggests that the term, ‘internationalists’, needs a critical re-thinking. Stephen Large’s chapter (Chapter 4) argues persuasively that the ‘nationalist extremists’ of 1930s Japan managed to exert some inﬂuence over society because they were perceived by the general public and, eventually, the ruling elite, to represent a nostalgic utopianism of a by-gone ‘Japan’ which was uncontaminated by modernity. Large’s perspective represents a signiﬁcant historiographical shift from the orthodox view that ultra-nationalist groups were a ‘world apart’ from mainstream Japanese society. In the ﬁrst part of his chapter, Large

Introduction 5 looks at the key themes, or more aptly, ‘cultural symbols’, which acted as sources of identity for ‘nationalist extremists’, such as Inoue ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, Kita Ikki, Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯, who acted as Nissho¯, O the brains behind many attempted coups in the 1930s. In the second part, Large contextualizes ‘nationalist extremism within the broader context of developments in interwar Japan’. Generally, Large’s analysis shows that the categorical boundaries drawn between different types of groups are often less rigid and more ﬂuid than one is led to believe. The perception that ‘nationalist extremists’ of pre-war Japan were a ‘world apart’ had become so deeply ingrained in post-war Japanese thinking that his discovery of the many grey overlapping areas between ‘nationalist extremists’ and mainstream ‘nationalist’ society and, more surprisingly, even with their ideological enemies, namely socialists and communists, will come as a surprise to many. Large’s revisionist perspective dismantles yet another myth of the pre-war era constructed by the post-war Japanese that the Japanese were all victims of pre-war militarism. We discover that ‘nationalist extremists’ represented one ideological manifestation of the general societal anxiety of the period, or the ‘crisis of modernity’. Richard Siddle (Chapter 5) examines the development of Ainu nationalism as a case of indigenous nationalism in Japan. Many studies of nationalism ignore the existence of ‘nationalism(s) within Japan’, and instead, prefer to deal with the constructed modern myth of the Japanese as a homogenous nation-state. Another example of indigenous nationalism in Japan is the history of the Ryu¯kyu¯ans (Okinawans) who were colonized by the Meiji state in 1879. Much of the historiography on Japanese nationalism tends to ignore these earlier Japanese colonial conquests, or according to Siddle, ‘internal colonization’, and chooses instead to start with the colonization of Taiwan in 1895. For Siddle, ‘the issue is not the typological pigeonholing of a particular variety of nationalism, but how nationalist concerns over culture and belonging are utilized by speciﬁc groups of actors within particular historical conﬁgurations of material and power relations to empower and divide groups of human beings’. Hence, his method of undertaking this task is to focus on the development of the notion of Ainu moshiri, commonly known as ‘Ainu homeland’ since the politicization of Ainu identity politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He contends that there are two separate narratives of this notion. First is the dominant narrative upheld by the Ainu activists, tracing the origin of Ainu moshiri to the notion of ‘Mother Earth’, which existed

6 Naoko Shimazu undisturbed until the invasion of Wajin (the Japanese) around the time of the Sakushain War of 1669. Interestingly, Siddle notes that the notion of ‘Mother Earth’ which was used as ‘an important element of the essentialist pan-indigenous identity’ among aboriginal peoples was a concept originally imposed on the American Indians by colonial anthropology of the nineteenth century. He concludes that this ﬁrst narrative is a ‘cultural ﬁction’ which the Ainu considered to be a sine qua non of their national identity. The second narrative of Ainu moshir comes from the academic tradition. This version argues that there is no scientiﬁc evidence that supports the claims made by the ﬁrst narrative that Ainu moshir ‘represented the sovereign territory or even a ﬂedgling Ainu nation’. Moreover, the whole notion of Ainu cultural identity is dynamic, changing in line with the historical context of the time. His examination reveals that post-war Ainu nationalism is largely a product of the changing international norms in the treatment of indigenous minorities. As a result, the ‘national’ identity of the Ainu in the contemporary period is ‘a political construct explicitly linked to international law and human rights movements’. Caroline Rose’s chapter (Chapter 6) offers an analysis of what is known as the ‘third textbook offensive’ of the 1990s. Partly as a backlash against globalization, many Western countries attempted to centralize their school textbooks in the 1990s. Japan, too, moved further towards centralization in the same period. However, Japan’s case was not similar to the experience of Western countries because Japan has always had a much more centralized educational system, including the authorization of school textbooks. In post-war Japan, there were two previous ‘textbook offensives’, the ﬁrst in the 1950s after the end of the Occupation, and the second in the 1980s. Rose argues that there is a discernible cyclical pattern in the history of school textbook controversies in Japan, whereby a period of relaxation and liberalization is followed by a period of backlash characterized by increased centralization and nationalistic overtones supported by the right-wing groups. The ‘third textbook offensive’ under study here was qualitatively different from the previous two, according to Rose’s ﬁndings. Led by the right-wing intellectuals, the Tsukuru kai (Society for History Textbook Reform) argued for the elimination of what they considered a ‘masochistic’ history of modern Japan, which included descriptions of the wartime ‘comfort women’ system as well as the Rape of Nanjing. This group, supported by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the right-wing media, and other such interest groups, wanted Japanese pupils to be instilled with ‘healthy nationalism’, through an emphasis on patriotism in history and moral education.

Introduction 7 Rose’s investigation shows that it was largely due to the efforts of civil society in Japan through a wide network of academics, journalists, and non-proﬁt organizations, as well as foreign pressure, which limited the efﬁcacy of the campaign waged by the right-wing Society for History Textbook Reform in the 2001–2 screening of textbooks. The ‘third textbook offensive’ was complex because it became caught up in the general debate about educational reform which is still continuing to this day. Most controversially, the distribution nationwide of the teaching material on moral education entitled, Kokoro no no¯to (Notebook for the Heart), by the Ministry of Education in 2002 exacerbated the concern of the opposition that neo-conservatism was creeping into Japanese education, regressing towards pre-war and wartime ultra-nationalism. The current trend of a potential reversion to a pre-war style of educational system is echoed in the ﬁnal chapter by Tetsuya Takahashi, which discusses the ‘Heisei Education Rescript’, among other things. The ﬁnal chapter by Tetsuya Takahashi discusses the political significance of the act of worshipping at the Yasukuni Shrine by high-proﬁle public persons (ko¯jin), such as Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ and the Mayor of Tokyo Ishihara Shintaro¯. Takahashi explores the historical and philosophical meanings of this evidently political act behind the worship at the hugely controversial Yasukuni Shrine which is now an autonomous religious institution. As far as Takahashi is concerned, Koizumi and other political leaders are fully aware of the political implications of their act, though they intentionally ‘fudge’ the issue of ‘private’ and ‘public’ worship and feign pureness of their intention. In other words, they are doing this for a political objective. What is this political objective? Takahashi argues through an historical analysis of the commemoration of the war dead during the SinoJapanese war of 1895–6 that it was crucial for the state to recognize properly the sacriﬁces made by its soldiers for the sake of the national project, if the state were to continue sending young men out to the front to die for the country. Moreover, present-day politicians are less inhibited about talking about ideas such as establishing the ‘Heisei Education Rescript’ which is redolent of the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education – one of the pillars of pre-war emperor-centred system, and the need for Japan to have the capability to wage war. Hence, Takahashi argues, the only way of interpreting Koizumi’s action is to perceive it as a way of preemptively relaying the message to the public that the state will recognize the deaths of Japanese soldiers as ‘precious deaths’ (to¯toi shi) when the time comes for the state to call on its citizens to sacriﬁce their

8 Naoko Shimazu lives, just as the Yasukuni Shrine had done in pre-war years. That is why the rhetorical use of ‘gratitude and respect’ (kansha to sonkei) by Koizumi on his many visits to Yasukuni can only be interpreted as a carefully crafted political act. This volume of collected essays deals with a wide range of chronology, as well as a wide range of topics on nationalism in Japan. The two broad questions outlined at the outset of the Introduction meant, however, we managed to maintain overall cohesion in the discussions at the workshop, which is reﬂected in the chapters that follow. We shall now wait to see what unfolds in the individual investigations, and leave the threading of common themes to the concluding chapter.

1

Japanese national doctrines in international perspective Erica Benner

Historians agree that international factors played an important role in stimulating national thinking in Japan. Foreign pressures inspired emulation and resistance, helping to foster one of the most striking features of Japanese nation-building: its speedy pursuit of one of the most effective programmes of ‘modernization’ ever undertaken while harking back to archaic myths and traditions as the basis for a renovated national identity. By comparison with Western national doctrines, the impact of international threats, incentives, and models on Japanese nationalism is easy to trace. Differences between indigenous ideas about politics and society and those imported by Westerners were often more conspicuous than, say, those between the French invaders of German or Italian states during the Napoleonic Wars. Even moderate Japanese nationalists expressed frank anxieties about preserving Japan’s independence in international conditions that they saw, by and large, as beyond their control. Early European and American national thinking is often couched in an idealistic language of constitutional liberties, popular sovereignty, or cultural Romanticism. If taken at face value, some authors’ reasons for defending nation-building policies may appear to have little to do with international safety and status. By contrast, concerns about ‘foreign relations’ are not hard to detect behind the diverse positive ideals – cultural integrity and continuity, technological development, political reform, social progress and justice – advanced by Japanese nationalist authors. However sharply they differed in their other ideological commitments, a wide cross-section of scholars, educators, policy-makers and publicists can be identiﬁed as ‘national’ thinkers in at least one sense. All argued that a primary goal of modern politics should be to preserve Japan’s independence, in the minimal sense of avoiding control by foreigners. Beyond this minimal agreement, Japanese national thinkers diverge on crucial issues of principle and strategy, and exhibit very different

10 Erica Benner types of concern about international relations from one decade or century to another. From the early nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, liberal and democratic reformers confronted champions of strong state authority. Defenders of rational scientific and political principles challenged contemporaries who wanted to base Japan’s modern Constitution on myths of imperial divinity, ancestor worship, and divine national election. Proponents of colonial expansion confronted those who preferred to restrict Japan’s nation-building to its existing territories. Faced with these disparate positions, historians are rightly wary of generalizations about the origins or content of Japanese nationalism. The notion of independence from foreign control may at first seem a promising starting point for giving some general meaning to the umbrella phrase ‘Japanese nationalism’. But it is not always clear what is gained by calling the desire for independence national. Is there something about Japanese national ideas that took shape under Western inﬂuence during the nineteenth century that differentiates them from age-old patriotic or xenophobic arguments about why people should defend their native country from foreign encroachments? Such ideas, after all, can be found in virtually every country in ancient as well as modern times. Is there a more speciﬁc set of values that distinguishes national thinking from simple patriotism and anti-foreignism, and which forms a common ground among liberal, conservative, authoritarian, populist, and imperial concepts of nationhood? Starting with these conceptual questions, this chapter offers a framework for looking at the development of Japanese national thinking in a comparative perspective. The ﬁrst section identiﬁes a distinctive set of core national values that emerged in several European countries from about the sixteenth century onward. It suggests that in Europe and later in Japan, the evolution of national ideas from older patriotic and xenophobic attitudes was connected to concerns about international defence and standing. However, very different perceptions of international pressures can be distinguished in particular countries and across national contexts. The section outlines four broad patterns of perception and response that informed different types of national thinking from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The next four sections compare examples of each pattern from various Western countries and Japan. By focusing systematically on the international dimensions of national ideas, my aim is not to depreciate the role of domestic political or economic or socio-psychological factors, but rather to identify a wider basis for cross-national comparisons.

Japanese national doctrines 11

The international roots of national thinking At first glance, the differences among various national doctrines may appear more conspicuous than any common national values.1 Nevertheless, a closer study of arguments made in different times and places suggests a broad common ground among republican and authoritarian, ethnic and political, anti-expansionist and imperial forms of national doctrine. This ‘core doctrine’, as I see it, upholds two sets of values. The first is the value of external sovereignty or collective independence for the national body. The national idea seeks to establish clear boundaries around the national entity. It seeks to afﬁrm – symbolically, legally, and in some cases militarily – its right to control internal affairs and interactions with other polities, economic actors operating across territories, or supranational corporations. The second set of values is less obvious, but constitutes a clearer difference than the ﬁrst from older forms of patriotism or independence-seeking. It involves a new way of conceiving the relationship among members of the nation, and holds that it is desirable to foster or preserve a strong continuous identity between rulers and ruled, and among different sections of the ruled.2 The call for identity among all the members of a nation is different from the older demand for loyalty or allegiance to one’s country, people, or ruler. The demand is now for conscious awareness – more than a vague ‘sense’ – of sameness or we-ness across classes and regions. The demand for this kind of identity seems to have been rare before the sixteenth century in Europe. Previously, ordinary people were expected (now and then) to ﬁght and die for their country without having the audacity to think of themselves as sharing important forms of communal identiﬁcation with their superiors. Allegiance was mainly personal or dynastic. It was owed to a monarch or lord and his heirs and based on well-deﬁned reciprocal obligations. Patriotism, or love of country, was mainly local. Its focus might be a large region or a small locality or a city. The primacy of dynastic loyalties and intense patriotic particularism, as well as stratiﬁed models of social order, had to be called into question before ideas of national sovereignty could be thought. National identification thus has a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension: members of nations identify with each other, not just with their government or with symbolic characteristics of their ruling dynasty. Further, national identity places a high value on distinctness as well as on sameness. Distinctness is often regarded as the necessary counterpart of strong identity: people identify strongly with their own nation only in so far as they see it as distinct from others, and ascribe value to this

12 Erica Benner difference. The demand for strong identity involves seeing nationality as among one’s primary identities. Finally, the word continuous suggests that national consciousness should last beyond periods of crisis, such as war or invasion. This last criterion distinguishes developed national doctrines from the transient, socially uneven expressions of national consciousness sometimes found in medieval or even earlier documents. In the Middle Ages, people from all classes and regions of a kingdom might rally eagerly to defend crown or country against a particular threat, thereby exhibiting a negative solidarity which in some cases may have reflected some sense of a shared English or French or Spanish identity. But there is little evidence that this sense evolved into a conscious awareness of national belonging for the vast majority of people, let alone that it carried any clear political meaning beyond the time of crisis. These elements, I suggest, form a very thin common ground shared by most varieties of national doctrine. It is thin in the sense that it has no speciﬁc constitutional, cultural, or ethical content. The appropriate basis for national identity – democratic or authoritarian, traditional or modern, constitutional or cultural – is left wide open. Nothing in the core values stipulate that one form of government is inherently better than others at achieving strong continuous identity among rulers, ruled, and different sections of the ruled. Some branches of national doctrine treat democracy as the best means of fostering this kind of identity, but, for others, traditional authority or ideas of ethnic unity do this more effectively. Any of these types of national doctrine can form around the core. What diverse doctrines have in common is a shared constitutive norm: that is, a norm describing in broad terms the way that any viable community should be constituted, particularly in relation to other communities and polities. Criteria for deciding boundaries and membership are among the main constitutive values. Shared communal identity based on clear, exclusive boundaries is at the centre of this ideal, but particular strands of national thinking must specify its source and form. Proponents of widely different political programmes may all use national language and, in a given context, agree on core national goals while sharply disagreeing about the policies most likely to realize them. Why did this constitutive norm emerge when it did, and why did it gain such wide appeal? From the sixteenth century onward, many historians and philosophers expressed growing concerns about the emergence of a European order based on a tiny club of Great Powers’ whose military build-ups and competitive expansionism threatened the survival of weaker city–states and kingdoms. Faced with new patterns of competition, expansion, and defensiveness, many writers began to

Japanese national doctrines 13 call for the formation of more uniﬁed and clearly bounded polities. The same concerns stimulated the gradual articulation of norms of sovereignty, self-help, and non-intervention, which were designed to maintain international pluralism and to check the imperial ambitions of stronger powers. Yet by the late eighteenth century acute observers feared that however well ordered they might seem in some periods, relations among European states were becoming increasingly competitive and unstable. Polities were constantly anxious about expansionist neighbours, and often sought pre-emptively to expand their own territories or control of overseas trade. After the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, rulers throughout Europe began to undertake more intensive nation-building measures. In particular, mass military conscription and mass public education – based partly on state-monitored curricula – sought to forge a sense of shared cultural and political identity across classes and regions. Such wider and deeper identifications were seen as a more reliable source of support than abstract allegiance to a sovereign or his dynasty. International insecurities were not, of course, the only motive for pursuing such policies. They were also stimulated by social and economic considerations, and by a variety of domestic political agendas. In Europe and beyond, authors of nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationbuilding programmes often explained their motives without mentioning international pressures. Yet the developments just sketched were among the basic preconditions for the emergence of the modern idea of the nation. To understand the value that nation-builders place on strong, distinctive forms of identity, the international sources of national doctrine must be brought to the foreground. It then appears, inter alia, as a doctrine about how communities should constitute themselves if they wish to increase their chances of non-absorption in an international environment based on competitive, often expansionist, states. However, perceptions of international pressures were not monolithic or unchanging. The diversity among national doctrines can be explained in part, though certainly not in toto, as responses to external pressures that were perceived in different ways by different authors in different times and places. Indeed, sometimes the same author came to see the same pressures in different ways, and revised his nation-building proposals accordingly. Drawing on a wide range of arguments, four distinct, partly overlapping patterns of national thinking can be discerned between the late eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Each offers an analysis of the international conditions confronting a given country or group of countries, then recommends particular strategies of internal nationbuilding and international action in response to the conditions described.

14 Erica Benner The first pattern gives mainly defensive reasons for strengthening national boundaries and identities. It was developed by authors who wrote on behalf of countries that appeared unable to defend themselves from foreign incursions by military or diplomatic means. Seeing the international environment as hostile and beyond their direct control, they argued that vulnerable polities could only hope to defend themselves through radical cultural reform. Such defensive strategies typically seek to foster ethnocentric deﬁnitions of the nation as their chief weapon against foreign pressure. As Max Weber argued in his classic text on the subject, the belief in common descent is among the main hallmarks of ethnic conceptions of political community.3 According to Weber, the formation of such beliefs is generally triggered by conﬂict with another group, or by some other experience that creates an interest in ‘monopolistic closure’ of a group’s boundaries. On this view, ethnocentric nationalism has a largely non-rational content. The belief in common descent and the moral importance placed on ethnic identity cannot be rationally vindicated, and are often patently based on ﬁctions. However, their non-rational content is an essential component of a rational strategy of self-preservation, in so far as the threats perceived are not themselves entirely imaginary. Belief in the unique, exclusive, unchanging essence of ethnonational identity is treated as source of strength which, when effectively mobilized, can compensate for political or military weakness. The second pattern of national thinking also starts by describing the international environment as essentially threatening, since some polities claimed the right to set the terms of international transactions, placing all others at a disadvantage. But instead of trying to compensate for weakness by cultivating ethnic national identities, this strategy advocates cautious engagement with the dominant powers. Arguments of this type are made on behalf of countries which, in the judgement of a given author, had fair chances becoming major players if they undertook reforms aimed at meeting the standards of Great Power membership. Proponents accept involvement in an international order based on sovereign, competitive states as a somewhat unwelcome necessity. At the same time, they eagerly embrace foreign standards of modernization or ‘civilization’, and welcome the opportunity to improve their nation’s technological, economic, and constitutional expertise. But they remain sceptical about their nation’s capacity to use or reshape the rules of international competition to its advantage, and doubt that established Great Powers will accept their nation as an equal even if it succeeds in meeting all the publicly acknowledged criteria for equal recognition. They therefore remain preoccupied with establishing a militarily strong

Japanese national doctrines 15 state. Their national doctrines often combine a commitment to universal standards of ‘modernization’ with a defence of the dignity and particularity of national traditions, and seek to balance the spirit of reform with strong authoritarian elements. In contrast to these ﬁrst two patterns, the third perceives the dominant international norms and practices as unthreatening and subject to rational control. What less conﬁdent authors portray as a corrupt and unjust ‘state of war’ among nations appears for proponents of this view as simply the ‘state of nature’: neither just nor unjust in itself, but capable of being tamed by nations whose power is combined with superior virtue and reason.4 They advocate a benign, self-assured nationalism based on a just internal constitution on the one hand, and enlightened international leadership on the other. The universally beneﬁcial goal of enlightened leadership is to tame the violence and uncertainty found in current international relations by establishing more predictable relationships based on shared norms and trust. In the British and American versions that have come to define the pattern over the past three centuries, commerce ideally replaces warfare as the main means of spreading international norms and establishing trust. Some early proponents of this doctrine thought that geopolitical luck was the main factor enabling some nations to assume this privileged leadership role. By the late sixteenth century, conventional wisdom held that concerns about international safety and standing dominated other, loftier political ideals on the European Continent, whereas an island country such as Britain could devote its national energies to more proﬁtable pursuits.5 Two centuries later, Alexander Hamilton compared America’s ‘peculiar felicity of situation’ to that of Britain, and argued that geography would assist a federated United States to combine civic and political liberties with a high degree of security.6 Fortunate ‘situation’ was typically interpreted as a sign of Providential election or, in the more scientiﬁc terms used later, the result of natural selection. Either way, some nations were seen as the unquestionably legitimate leaders and standard-setters for others. Their moderate and liberal content has sometimes fostered the belief that enlightened leadership patterns are not really ‘nationalist’ at all, but represent ideals best expressed in the terms ‘nationality’ or ‘patriotism’ in contrast to the ethnocentric, authoritarian, or militaristic doctrines defended by patterns (1) and (2). Yet underneath their eventempered rhetoric, these doctrines retain a ﬁrm commitment to national values formed in a bedrock of international prudence: self-reliance, mistrust of other nations of comparable strength, a capacity for unparalleled martial valour when needed, and contempt for international restraints when these impede national self-defence.

16 Erica Benner The fourth pattern of national thinking develops with the radicalization of any of the ﬁrst three. Radical national doctrines can take many forms, but all involve perceptions of extreme and imminent threats to a nation’s survival or standing. Typically, they seek to intensify efforts to promote strong forms of identity among its members. But unlike ‘normal’ defensive nationalism, which aims above all to erect barriers against foreign interactions, radical nationalism lashes out against actual or potential foes by adopting policies of international activism. In this way, it tries to pre-empt challenges to its own nation’s uncertain position. In the late nineteenth century, the birth of radical nationalism was fuelled by the popular idea that nations corresponded to biological ‘races’, which in turn formed a natural hierarchy of populations more and less ﬁt to lead the others. Racialist forms of thinking came to serve as one of the main ideological strategies of international positioning and repositioning, and as a justiﬁcation for aggressive imperialism. Far from being simply a radicalized version of defensive ethnocentrism or authoritarianism, racial thinking and radical national assertion could grow just as easily out of the enlightened leadership pattern if its proponents perceived international changes as threatening their status. Radical assertions of self-reliance, a dismissive attitude to international restraints, and quasi-mystical assertions of the nation’s civilizing mission abound in writings and speeches on behalf of front-runner nations nervous about maintaining their rank, as well as from champions of lower-ranking nations seeking to seize the mantle of international leadership. These different perceptions of international pressures, and different strategic responses, can be distinguished both in and across particular countries. By looking at Japanese national ideas through the framework of four major patterns, I hope to avoid two common errors found in historical and theoretical studies of nationalism. The ﬁrst error is to look for sharp, idealized contrasts among different general types of national doctrine – such as ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’, liberal and authoritarian, anti-expansionist and imperial – while playing down their de facto interconnections. If we presume that ‘civic’ national doctrines are clearly distinct from ‘ethnic’ ones, or that liberal nationalism contrasts with imperialism or racism, we may overlook the combinations and alliances formed among these doctrines throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second error is to assume that particular nations have their own highly distinctive sets of core national values, and to exaggerate their coherence and stability over time. Sophisticated versions of this view maintain that while a variety of national doctrines may be found in any country, most nations have characteristic types of thinking that tend to dominate the other strands over long stretches of time. 7

Japanese national doctrines 17 While such arguments can highlight important variations on the national theme, they often exaggerate the differences among ideal-typical British, French, German, American, or Japanese conceptions of national identity, producing caricatures of doctrines that were in all these cases hybrid, ﬂuid, and constantly cross-breeding. By obscuring the reciprocal ideological inﬂuences between countries, as well as common core national values, country-speciﬁc typologies can make it harder to undertake the comparative analyses that are so badly needed in studies of nationalism. Moreover, these approaches may skew normative judgements of past and present nationalisms by holding up the characteristic national ideas of some countries as praiseworthy ‘models’ for the rest, while treating as suspect any expression of nationalism in others. These analytical and normative pitfalls are easier to avoid if we examine developments in Japanese national thinking up to the midtwentieth century through the prism of the four patterns just outlined. Although some patterns appear to have deeper roots in than others in country-speciﬁc traditions, variants of all of them may appear in any single country. And in any country, shifting perceptions of international pressures may lead previously dominant strands of national doctrine to give way to very different forms. Most of a country’s national thinkers might express a sense of vulnerability and call for defensive ‘closure’ in one period, then move toward cautious engagement or enlightened leadership at a later phase, as perceptions of international pressures become less fraught. The following sections trace some of these shifts in Japanese national thinking, while comparing arguments made for Japan with similar ideas developed elsewhere. Defensive nationalism and ethnic self-deﬁnition Early arguments for defensive nationalism were cast against a bleak background analysis of international practices in which participants were forced, however reluctantly, to view all foreign powers as potential enemies to the death. Many authors in the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries saw voracious expansionism and increasingly violent warfare as the hallmarks of modern international relations. The ﬂip side of this picture was an idealized account of a Golden Age when the weaker nations that now faced mortal threats had been selfsufficient, or at least relatively untroubled by others. The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau presented this nostalgic view in the mid-1760s. The times of barbarism were the golden age; not because men were united, but because they were separated . . . Men may have attacked

18 Erica Benner one another upon meeting, but they rarely met. Everywhere the state of war prevailed, yet the whole earth was at peace.8 Rousseau realized that this view reﬂected the wishful thinking of people in weaker polities who experienced the increasingly dramatic inequalities in international power as threatening. His point was that whether ﬁctional or not, the longing for defensive separation was understandable given the insecurities created by the modern ‘state of war’. In these conditions, both weak and strong polities were forced to undertake social and cultural reforms as extra insurance against foreign conquests. Rousseau supported the efforts of polities that were too weak to join the ranks of predatory Great Powers to cultivate national particularities, urging them to use education and public rituals to implant a strong sense of national identity in their entire populations. Unfortunately, the call to build up cultural barriers involved moral trade-offs. The effectiveness of a national practice in preserving distinctiveness might be more important than its intrinsic goodness or badness, for even if practices are ‘in some respects bad’, they would still have the advantage of making peoples such as ‘the Poles fond of their country and give them a natural revulsion to mingling with foreigners’.9 If the price of defensive particularism was intolerance towards outsiders, this was just one of the hard choices thrust on freedom-loving peoples in a competitive international arena. Defensive ethnocentric nationalism was the only prudent strategy for polities that were too weak to withstand the onslaughts of the powerful. In the next three decades, these views were seconded by the German writer Johann Gottfried Herder. Like his onetime teacher Immanuel Kant, Herder strongly denied that any freedom or ‘civilization’ worth the name could be ‘foisted’ on foreign peoples. He praised the Chinese (Kant added the Japanese) for having ‘politely shown out’ European intruders.10 But whereas Kant sought to protect vulnerable peoples by demanding stricter compliance to international law based on the equal freedoms of all parties, Herder pitted culture politics against the ruthless power politics of his day, denying that international law could be other than a servant of the strong. In present corrupt and unequal conditions, it was necessary to reinforce ‘the diversity of languages, ethics, inclinations, and ways of life’ as ‘a bar against the presumptuous linking together of the peoples, a dam against foreign inundations’.11 These elements can be found in the ﬁrst national writings in Japan. Like defensive national thinking in Europe, we ﬁnd here a basic concern with external defence in a world order perceived as alien, foisted on unwilling peoples, and extremely threatening. Eighteenth-century

Japanese national doctrines 19 proposals for creating a School of ‘National Learning’ reﬂected fears that Japan was would soon fall prey to the internal unrest and foreign incursions that wracked contemporary China. Scholars of the Mito School argued that the rot could be stopped only if strong measures were taken to deﬁne a robust, distinctive national identity.12 A subtle shift from pre-national ‘anti-foreignism’ towards national thinking can be seen with the elaboration of a combined strategy of international resistance and internal identity-creation. The latter involved important changes in traditional ways of thinking about political membership. An example of this shift appeared in the New Theses (Shinron) [1825] written in classical Chinese by a Japanese Confucian scholar, Aizawa Seishisai.13 Aizawa grounded his nation-building proposals in an ominous account of the evolving international scene: The Great Powers are dividing up the earth. Today we ﬁnd ourselves alone in a hostile world; we defend a solitary castle under attack by enemies who erect fortresses along our borders . . . This is the world situation facing us today. We must adjust to it and remain ﬂexible enough to deal with constantly changing conditions. At home we must set up adequate defenses; in foreign policy, we must counteract the enemy’s strategems in advance.14 Aizawa pointed to several more speciﬁc changes in the nature of recent Western incursions: their steadier ﬂow, their more systematic attempts to annex far-off lands with the help of vastly improved military technology and transportation, and above all, the terrifying mobilizing power of their ideologies (Christianity and Islam) which transformed mere hordes which previously ‘lacked integration and permanence’ into formidable bodies of warriors, ‘a far cry from the wandering nomads of centuries past’. Aizawa’s immediate fear was not that armed Russian or British ships would suddenly appear and force a change in Japan’s ‘native regime’ through military means. His main concern was to point out that political power may be projected indirectly through the cultural means conveyed through trade. Without raising a gun, Europeans used religion and books to draw people away from their ancestral traditions. Whenever they take over a country, they employ the same method. By trading with that nation, they learn about its geography and defences. If these be weak, they dispatch troops to invade the nation; if strong, they propagate Christianity to subvert it from within. Moreover, he argued that past experience in Japan and other Asian countries showed that innocent-sounding offers of trade rarely stopped

20 Erica Benner there. Some onlookers gave Europeans the beneﬁt of the doubt, arguing: ‘They are only barbarians in merchant ships and ﬁshing boats. They pose no serious problem; there is no grave danger.’ But these people ‘rely on the barbarians’ staying away, on their not attacking; they rely on something not within our power to control’.15 Aizawa was not just expressing the centuries-old paranoia of an insular, isolationist country. He was not far off the mark in noting that on the evidence of European colonialism to date, it was prudent to suspect that its agents ‘will settle for nothing less than subjugating the rulers of all nations and conscripting all peoples into their ranks. And,’ he went on, ‘they are becoming aggressive. Having overthrown the native regimes on Luzon and Java, they turned their predatory eyes on our Divine Realm.’16 Isolation was no longer a viable response to these pressures, and ‘those who seek to defend our borders . . . must realize that world conditions today are different from eras past; they must devise policies to deal with the present’. Up to a point, military solutions were still an option. Aizawa favoured pre-emptive action: Japan should go on the offensive, annex the northern islands that Russians were using as a base for their own expansionist operations, and ‘absorb the barbarian tribes on the continent; we should roll back the tide of barbarism and extend our frontiers ever forward’. Pre-emptive expansionism was justiﬁed, he claimed, by the divinity of Japan’s origins and its special mission to save other countries from Western efforts to dominate the globe.17 But since the Japanese were unready to resist Westerners with military means alone, they had to discover other methods. External pressures called for fundamental shifts in thinking not just about international relations, but also about relations between members of the would-be national community. Aizawa, therefore, placed a system of particularistic ethnocultural education at the centre of his proposals. In order to preserve ‘the spiritual solidarity that makes land and people a nation (kokutai)’, it was necessary to foster a stronger sense of identity not just among traditional elites, but also among ordinary people. The call for the spiritual improvement of the Japanese populace was neither new nor especially national; Aizawa’s predecessors had also stressed the need to cultivate indigenous myths and religious doctrines as a prophylactic against Western incursions. But an equally important aspect of Aizawa’s suggestions was his argument that the general welfare and education of the people should be improved, in order to give them a larger stake in national defence. ‘Commoners’, he feared, were an easy target for Western subversion because indigenous spiritual resources had dried up in recent centuries. The ﬁrst task of defensive nation-building was thus

Japanese national doctrines 21 to build up resistance to Western cultural temptations in the hearts of ordinary people. Aizawa called for a revival of ancient Japanese myths which postulated that all Japanese people were descendants of the same divine ancestress, the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. Few previous authors had elevated these founding myths into ‘teachings’ worthy of becoming a state religion; fear of foreign incursions now made Aizawa do so. ‘Should the barbarians win our people’s hearts and minds,’ he warned, ‘they will have captured the realm without a skirmish.’ To prevent foreigners ‘from luring our people into their fold’, Amaterasu’s Way should be elucidated ‘to achieve spiritual unity among the people’. Because Europeans were constantly at war, ‘they could not establish and maintain their states through a policy of keeping their subjects ignorant and weak [as we do]’. By training their peoples in the use of arms and allowing them to learn something of leadership, statecraft, and technological sciences, ‘they present a mighty spectacle on the high seas and devour far-off lands and peoples at will’. In these conditions it would be suicidal to ‘rely on restrictive traditional policies . . . designed to weaken the realm and make commoners ignorant’; ‘state policies’ must be adjusted ‘to meet the demands of changing times’.18 These arguments represented a dramatic shift away from earlier antiforeign defensive strategies. Aizawa insisted that traditional elites had little choice now but to accept the risks and embrace the advantages of increased popular power, albeit within carefully controlled limits. He wrote: If we govern and edify well, if we make the people’s morals pure and their customs beautiful, if we induce high and low alike to embody righteousness, if we enrich the people and strengthen our arms, all will be well. In other words, to ‘maintain the spiritual solidarity that makes land and people a nation (kokutai)’ was not just a matter of indoctrination or short-term propaganda offensive.19 Aizawa presented it as part of the ﬂexible new thinking required to meet new international pressures on a long-term basis. Only a few decades earlier, scholars had made the case for reviving native Japanese ethics against Chinese Confucianism while upholding the Taoist principle that ‘rulers do not prosper unless the people are stupid’.20 Now Aizawa declared that rulers should stop thinking of the people as mere cannon-fodder and begin to ‘make use of and regulate the strength of the people’s indomitable spirit’.21 Like comparable doctrines in Europe, this form of defensive nationalism was both ethnocentric and nascently populist. Aizawa was a conservative

22 Erica Benner who wanted to keep ﬁrm top-down controls on nation-building, but his proposals paved the way for thinking of the nation as a popular body with a life, needs, and will of its own. Cautious engagement and modernization National doctrines formed on this second pattern are cautiously optimistic about prospects of mastering the rules upheld by the dominant powers, and acquiring the power and prestige needed to join their ranks. An optimistic version can be seen in The Federalist Papers [1787]. At their most upbeat, the authors of the Federalist Papers argued that a strong, well-defended United States might one day outstrip Great Britain and other corrupt European powers in international rank as well as virtue. Americans would ‘disdain to be the instruments of European greatness!’ Instead they would teach it ‘moderation’, seek to ‘vindicate the honor of the human race’, and establish ‘one great American system superior to the control of all transatlantic force or inﬂuence and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!’ For the time being, however, The Federalist Papers’ authors were worried enough about the prospects for their ﬂedgling nation-state to insist on strong military foundations, metaphorical blood ties, and myths of ‘sacred origins’ as guarantees of survival.22 A decade later, G.W.F. Hegel outlined a less conﬁdent version of the cautious engagement pattern of nation-building for Germany. Confronting French expansionism in 1798, Hegel stressed the need for defensive military preparations and the formation of a uniﬁed German state.23 His later works outline a conception of national unity based on combining traditional institutions with modernizing reforms. But while internal modernization is the focus of Hegel’s later nation-building strategy, he continued to uphold martial values and to argue that maintaining the ‘independence and sovereignty of the state’ was the individual’s highest duty, ‘at the risk and the sacriﬁce of property and life’.24 These views originated not in authoritarian or ethnocentric attitudes, but in residual doubts about Germany’s capacity to join the Great Power game on equal terms with France, Britain, and Russia. Similarly ambivalent ideas appear in Japan throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among the four patterns discussed here, the pattern of cautious engagement is probably the most pervasive in Japanese national thinking in that period. At first, the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry’s gunboats on Japanese shores in 1853 and the forced signing of the ‘Provisional Treaty of Amity’ reinforced ethnocentric and expansionist thinking. But discussions about nation-

Japanese national doctrines 23 building soon shifted towards a more nuanced range of strategies grounded, in the words of Yoshida Sho¯in, on ‘a keen awareness of what is going on abroad and around us’.25 Ishida Ichiro¯ has characterized this as a shift from the ‘old patriotism’ of reactionary ethnic self-assertion to the new patriotism of ‘Enlightenment’ times.26 The shift involved both negative and positive assessments of international pressures. On the negative side, like the Federalists and Hegel, Japanese authors saw engagement with foreign intruders as a matter of regrettable necessity. A weak country like Japan simply had no choice but to learn the rules of the Western international game, or face complete humiliation. More positively, once the necessity of engagement had been embraced, Japan would be able to benefit from Western borrowings, especially from norms of national statehood and ‘civilization’. The most effective way to resist foreign imperium was to build modern, socially and economically progressive states capable of commanding spontaneous allegiance from their own populations while, at the same time, posing formidable obstacles to would-be invaders. The liberal thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi underscored the symbiotic relationship between these negative and positive aspects of nation-building: For those of us who live in the Orient, unless we want to prevent the coming of Western civilization with a ﬁrm resolve, it is best that we cast our lot with them. If one observes carefully what is going on in today’s world, one knows the futility of trying to prevent the onslaught of Western civilization. Why not ﬂoat with them in the same ocean of civilization, sail the same waves, and enjoy the fruits and endeavours of civilization? . . . The movement of civilization is like the spread of measles . . . We may hate the spread of this communicable disease, but is there any effective way of preventing it? . . . In a communicable disease, people receive only damages. In a civilization, damages may accompany beneﬁts, but beneﬁts always far outweigh them, and their force cannot be stopped. This being the case, there is no point in trying to prevent their spread. A wise man encourages the spread and allows our people to get used to its ways.27 To move from Aizawa’s defensive position to this more positive type of national thinking, two shifts had to occur. First, Japanese observers had to realize that Western powers’ motives were not reducible to greed. They also had power-political motives that could be played on by weaker countries like Japan. Just as important, observers realized that they could communicate Japanese fears and interests to Westerners in terms that the latter could understand through parallels with their own

24 Erica Benner histories and sense of national pride. In the mid-nineteenth century, attempts were made to explain in more universal – or at least AngloSaxon – terms what the Japanese values of national isolation (sakoku) and the expulsion of barbarians (jo¯i) meant: Joi is not peculiar to our imperial realm; all the world’s nations practice it when necessary. America was once subject to England, but the English king, greedy for profit, oppressed the American people. Washington appealed for reduced taxes, but the king refused to listen. Then Washington led the people of the Thirteen Colonies to expel the English. That was sakoku and joi.28 Second, observers developed a much deeper understanding of Western power than the technological or religion-centred accounts of earlier authors. That power was now considered to have ‘spiritual’ aspects that could be emulated by nation-makers in Japan. Whereas Aizawa still saw Western spiritual power in terms of religion, and Western religions as weapons used to manipulate unwary masses, later thinkers included education and just government in their list of the West’s spiritual advantages over the East. More people recognized that one of the most valuable forms of power in Western nation-states lay in their capacity to mobilize populations for a range of activities – economic, technical and intellectual as well as military – that were essential for national success. The welfare and education of their populations as a whole should be seen as a key condition of national power. This lesson was taken by the Meiji statesman Ito¯ Hirobumi: When our enlightened Emperor decided to accept the open-door principle . . . it became a matter of urgent necessity to develop the intellectual faculties of our people and to increase their business activities. This led to the abolition of the feudal system and made it possible for the Japanese people to live in a new political environment and to have diverse freedoms . . . These rights belong to people who live in a civilized government. If these rights are withheld . . . a people cannot develop. And if a people cannot develop, the nation’s wealth and the nation’s strength cannot develop . . . The expansion of military strength and the promotion of national prestige depend upon the power of the individual members of the country. Therefore, in order to promote the development of military strength and national prestige, it is only proper and necessary to diffuse education so that the people can understand the changes and improvements with respect to their government and their society.29

Japanese national doctrines 25 Engagement did not mean giving up competition with Western powers, then, but joining it on their terms. Backward-looking ethnic concepts of national identity retained a central place within modernizing national strategies. The 1889 Meiji Constitution opens by invoking pre-modern and non-rational sources of legitimacy: Having by virtue of the glories of our Ancestors, ascended the Throne of a lineal succession unbroken for ages eternal; desiring to promote the welfare of, and to give development to the moral and intellectual faculties of our beloved subjects, the very same that have been favoured with the benevolent care and affectionate prosperity of the state, in concert with our people and with their support, we hereby promulgate . . . 30 This combination of modern and pre-modern, rational and mythical elements has sometimes been traced to the inﬂuence of German scholars and constitutional advisers who worked in Japan during the middle Meiji period. What used to be called ‘modernization theory’ held that due to Germany’s retarded social and political development, German political thought remained encumbered with authoritarian and feudal elements. These, the theory goes, helped to give German nationalism a backward-looking ‘ethnic’ form, impeding the growth of more liberal or ‘civic’ national ideas characteristic of the English-speaking countries. By placing Japan in the same category of ‘late developing’ nations, it becomes easy to explain authoritarian and organicist features of nineteenth-century Japanese nationalism in analogous terms, especially given the direct influence of German advisers on nation-building in Meiji Japan. However, a wider comparative perspective suggests that this explanation is too easy. In fact, many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German nation-builders regarded the national ideas that are often characterized as typically backward-and-German as valuable imports from Britain. By the 1850s, particularly after the failed Revolutions of 1848–49, it was almost axiomatic in Germany that the most stable polities excepting the immigrant-constituted United States were constitutional monarchies, not republics. Further, the most successful nation-states were thought to be those that could represent their ‘body’ of subjects through images of familial ties and affectionate respect of subjects for traditional authorities. In 1790, the Anglo-Irish Whig MP Edmund Burke expressed this ideal type of a stable yet evolving constitution in a treatise that came to be widely read throughout Europe

26 Erica Benner and in Japan. ‘We wished,’ Burke declared in his protest against the carte blanche style of nation-building adopted by French revolutionaries, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. Upon that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the nature of the original plant. All the reformations we have hitherto made, have proceeded upon the principle of reference to antiquity . . . In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections, keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reﬂected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars . . . Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.31 This idealized ‘English model’ of constitution (and counter-images of the anarchic, irreligious revolutionary experiment in France) exerted a tremendous influence over nation-builders in many countries. Many German authors, notably Hegel, admired Burke’s constitutional ideal and built elements of it into what has come, misleadingly, to be described as the ‘organic’ German model. Key German advisers in Japan held up the English parliamentary system as their constitutional ideal, modiﬁed to suit the needs of newly-constituted national states – the new German Reich established in 1871, and now Meiji Japan.32 This international background makes it easier to understand why many Japanese modernizers insisted that a Constitution designed to demonstrate Japan’s successful entry into the ranks of modern nations should be founded on archaic, paternalistic myths. Ito¯ explained this in highly pragmatic terms: in a difﬁcult period of transition, the country needed a ﬁrm backbone of unifying traditions to ensure social cohesion.33 In Western countries, religion helped to bond members of different classes and regions; but in Japan ‘the power of religion is slight . . . it is only the Imperial House that can become the axis of the state. It is,’ he continued, ‘with this point in mind that we have placed so high an importance on imperial authority.’34 The genealogy of Japan’s imperial system has many and varied roots, indigenous ones being the most conspicuous. But the ideal of organic national stability based on a monarchy shrouded in the mists of history was English before it became German or Japanese, and seemed English to many Japanese policymakers.35 A full explanation of why these ideals were so strongly

Japanese national doctrines 27 defended in Meiji Japan must point to perceptions of Japan’s uncertain status in a world order it had begun cautiously to engage, as well as to older indigenous traditions or ‘semi-feudal’ German models. Enlightened international leadership and Great Power status On the enlightened leadership pattern, national values are typically portrayed as the natural partners of domestic and international liberty. Liberal nationalism is upheld as a vehicle for taming the conﬂicts caused by militaristic, socially backward, and despotic nations. Most classical proponents of this form of nationalism believed that international conflicts could be pacified through commerce. Through trade and peaceful colonization, the human and material resources of industrious nations could be used to improve conditions in far-ﬂung countries. Other peoples would esteem such nations for their industry, not their military might. One of the most balanced spokesmen for this ideal in the nineteenth century was John Stuart Mill.36 Mill distinguished between countries ‘whose population is in a sufﬁciently advanced state to be ﬁtted for representative government’ and ‘others which have not attained that state’. The former were identiﬁed as ‘colonies of European race’; the latter included Indians and other non-European peoples. If less advanced peoples were governed directly or indirectly by another country, ‘this mode of government is a legitimate as any other, if it is the one which in the existing state of civilization of the subject people, most facilitates their transition to a higher state of improvement’.37 Although Mill was critical of some aspects of British colonial policy and argued against the ‘direct subjection’ of foreign peoples, his writings reveal an unshakeable faith that Britain could not fail to perform its civilizing role in an honourable way’.38 This kind of faith is characteristic of the enlightened leadership pattern of national thinking. Although ‘Great Britain could do perfectly well without her colonies’, holding them added to the moral inﬂuence, and weight in the councils of the world, of the Power which, of all in existence, best understands liberty – and . . . has attained to more of conscience and moral principle in its dealings with foreigners, than any other great nation seems either to conceive as possible, or to recognize as desirable.39 From the 1870s on, many leaders and intellectuals aspired to an enlightened leadership role for the reconstituted Japanese nation-state. As Ito¯ declared,

28 Erica Benner The aim of our country has been from the very beginning, to attain among the nations of the world the status of a civilized nation and to become a member of the comity of European and American nations which occupy the position of civilized countries. To join this comity of nations means to become one of them, but in this connection, we must consider the rights and duties attendant upon membership. Among fellow men of civilized nations there is a thing called common justice. To become a member of this comity of nations it is necessary to respect this common justice. Generally speaking, all Oriental countries – China and Japan include – have the habit of holding foreign countries in contempt and of holding their own country in esteem. But in carrying on relations according to civilized standards of common justice, it is done according to a procedure of mutual equality without contempt for the other and esteem for oneself, or vice versa.40 Some American scholars and policy-makers urged the Japanese to adopt an expansionist policy in East Asia as a counterweight to both Chinese instability and the ambitions of ‘bad-imperial’ Russians and Britons in the region. Theodore Roosevelt advocated a Japanese version of the Monroe Doctrine in the late 1890s. After Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5, the American historian and sometime Japan resident William Grifﬁs noted ‘the ﬂaming patriotism that surprises Europeans who have imagined the Japanese to be only average Asiatics and mere imitators’, and praised Japan’s ‘unquenchable ambition to humble China, to impress the whole world, and to make their country great’. Such assertions of superiority helped to fuel the belief that Japan’s credentials as the supremely civilized Asian nation authorized it to rescue its neighbours from their own backwardness, and hence from Western domination. Grifﬁs helped popularize the view of Japan as a plucky ‘young’ nation standing up to the decadent ‘old’ imperial powers, European and Asiatic alike, during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. He hailed the Japanese conquest of Formosa as particularly just and progressive. Formosa was, he wrote: geologically and ethnically a part of Dai Nippon. Under Japanese rule, and probably within a generation, its interior will cease to be a lair of savages and its coasts a haunt of pirates, the whole island being open to the world’s commerce . . . Fronting Asia and its conquered nations, independent Japan now calls a halt to European aggression.41 But even the most Western-oriented Japanese authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries doubted whether equal recognition

Japanese national doctrines 29 could be attained from Western countries. However enlightened their reforms, the criteria for Great Power status were not ﬁxed in stone; they were subject to the changing interests and fears of those who currently occupied that status. Japan was doubly disadvantaged as a late-comer to the club of Great Power aspirants, and a non-European one at that. Even such stout supporters of Japan’s nation-building efforts as the British sociologist Herbert Spencer, Theodore Roosevelt, and European constitutional advisers warned Japanese leaders against trying to reach an ‘advanced’ stage of development in a short period of time. Sympathetic foreigners repeatedly expressed doubts about whether any non-European people could establish a stable constitutional government of its own accord. Surrounded by all these doubts, it is little wonder that many Japanese felt anxious about their prospects of acceptance into even the secondary ranks of international leadership – unless they agreed to play the role of regional front-man for a Western power. Writing in ¯ kubo Toshimichi 1873 to oppose radicals calling for war against Korea, O gave reasons why international moderates also doubted whether Japanese efforts to achieve ‘the status of a civilized nation’ would succeed: The treaties our county has concluded with the countries of Europe and America are not equal, there being many terms in them which impair the dignity of an independent nation. The restraints they impose may bring some beneﬁt, but there are, on the other hand, harmful aspects to these treaties. England and France, for example, on the pretext that our country’s internal administration is not yet in order and that it cannot protect their subjects, have built barracks and stationed troops in our land as if our country were a territory of theirs. Externally, from the standpoint of foreign relations, is this not as much a disgrace as it is internally, from the standpoint of our nation’s sovereignty? . . . The ministers in the present government . . . must evolve a way to rid the country of its bondage and to secure for our country the dignity of an independent nation.42 The writings of Fukuzawa, an independent scholar whose books sold in the millions, indicate how widespread such doubts were. In An Outline of a Theory of Civilization, Fukuzawa called for radical reforms to end Japanese backwardness. He had travelled widely in the West and was much impressed by the writings of Guizot, Tocqueville, and Mill.43 By comparison with most Western national thinking, including that of liberals like Mill, Fukuzawa’s nation-building proposals were free from any trace of romantic idealism. In contrast to Aizawa and cautious modernizers like Ito¯, Fukuzawa insisted that to forge a genuinely

30 Erica Benner popular sense of national identity the Japanese must realize that ‘ancient traditions are unsuitable’ as a guide to future development. They should proceed ‘to do away with them completely’.44 His proposals for internal reform were far-reaching and strictly meritocratic. The creation of democratic institutions and a mobile, individualistic society were indispensable for national ﬂourishing in the new world that Japan had been forced to enter. These policies conformed with the progressive rationalist ideals upheld by Mill and other champions of enlightened national leadership in Britain, America, and France. But Fukuzawa’s liberal nationalism looked outward as well as inside Japan, and its external face was far from conﬁdent. While embracing Western values, Fukuzawa did not expect a modernized Japan to be admitted as a fully independent player in a fair system of international commerce. His commitment to Western individualist and meritocratic principles made Fukuzawa all the more conscious of how unevenly these were applied in international affairs. When Perry’s warships were ﬁrst admitted into Japanese waters in 1853, he remarked, the gist of the argument given to persuade us into trade relations was that all men on this earth are brothers, sharing the same sky and the same earth beneath, that if we turn a man away and refuse to deal with him we are sinners against Heaven, and so, even if it means fighting, trade relations must be opened. How beautiful Perry’s words, and how unseemly his deeds! His speech and conduct were diametrically opposed. To put it bluntly, he was saying, ‘If you don’t do business with me, you’ll be doing business with the undertaker.’ In subsequent dealings between Japanese and foreigners, ‘though lip service is paid to equality of rights between nations, in reality the idea of equality and equal rights is unrealised’. So far, he admitted, foreigners ‘have not inﬂicted on us any notably great harm nor robbed us of our national honor’. But, he warned, those who have any concern for their country at all must carefully consider some facts of world history . . . Whose country was present-day America originally? Is it not true that the Indians who owned the land were driven away . . . and now the roles of master and guest are switched around? And closer to home in East Asia and Oceania, were there any places touched by Europeans ‘which have developed their power, attained beneﬁts, and preserved their independence? What has been the outcome

Japanese national doctrines 31 in Persia, India, Siam, Luzon, and Java?’ Fukuzawa, therefore, agreed with Aizawa that Japanese ‘might well fear the worst is to come’. To meet the danger, he declared, ‘we must not rely on others in the slightest degree’.45 For these reasons, Fukuzawa placed values of national dignity and self-defence above liberal principles or goals of modernization. Reversing Mill’s priorities, he declared that national independence should be the ‘ultimate goal’ of modern politics, and civilization the means to fullranking nationhood. For Fukuzawa, independence entailed more involvement in the wider world, not less; but not on terms imposed coercively from outside. The standard-bearers of Western civilization were right, he wrote, to hold that only states grounded in popular legitimacy and individualism could be progressive. But they were wrong to think that backward nations must be raised up by the more civilized before they could claim independence. Independence was needed to develop a form of civilization that was not merely skin-deep. Anyone who thought that solid liberal reforms could be imposed from outside failed to realize ‘how evil, how hateful, how infuriating, and how painful imbalance of power is’. It was short-sighted to think that since foreign commerce had been a catalyst for progressive social changes, more intensive commerce alone would bring further progress. For ‘if there is not a bit of independent spirit among the people in our country civilization will be of no use to us; we cannot call this Japanese civilization’. Fukuzawa was not endorsing the nativist view that distinctive Japanese cultural patterns should be preserved alongside political reform. His point was a liberal one: namely, that the autonomy and equal dignity of persons are violated if they are prevented from developing themselves according to patterns that they have freely chosen. An enlarged, enlightened citizenry must be mobilized ‘to defend its country, develop its power, and achieve full status’ in a world of competitive nation– states.46 While a strong nation-state was a necessary means to gain self-respect and the respect of other nations, Fukuzawa stressed that nation-building had been forced on the Japanese in circumstances not of their own choosing. The measures he proposed in the international arena were not always easy to reconcile with his liberal and humane ideals. Fukuzawa doubted whether an international order based on sovereign, competitive nation-states could ever be stable or equitable in the long run. He found it hard to square his reading of Western doctrines of natural law, Christianity, and universal human rights with the fact that contemporary Westerners were ‘setting up national boundaries here and there, having the people form groups within those boundaries and call

32 Erica Benner themselves nations’, setting up governments ‘whose purpose is to work for the benefits of only those groups, and worst of all, to take up weapons and murder one’s brothers within other boundaries, to take their land from them.’ But like Rousseau, Hegel, and other reluctant nationalists, Fukuzawa bowed to what he regarded as the inevitable. ‘As long as there are countries which set up national governments,’ he wrote, ‘there can be no way to eliminate their self-interests. If there is no way to eliminate their self-interests, then we too must have our self-interests in any contacts with them.’ And since ‘foreign relations have become the great afﬂiction of Japan . . . it is in this area of foreign relations that we should be willing to sacriﬁce everything, even our lives.’ War was an honourable and necessary means of ‘extending the rights of independent governments’ according to the Western norms that Japan had now to embrace.47 Yet with more than a hint of regret, Fukuzawa acknowledged – more frankly than most liberal nationalists in the West – the profound tension between those norms and other principles of justice. Some people, he noted, may say that mankind’s conditions do not allow us to make national independence our only goal; we must in addition set our sights on more lasting, more noble values. This is true . . . Just barely evading the contempt of other countries cannot be called civilized, this much is obvious. However, as things are in the world today, there is still no place in international relations for talking about lofty things, and anyone who would talk about them would be labelled a stupid and fanciful dreamer . . . The ﬁrst order of the day is to have the country of Japan and the people of Japan exist, and then and only then speak about civilization!48 Radicalization, imperialism, and race When Japanese thinking is considered alongside contemporary Western ideas about civilization and national rank, it seems clear that Japan’s chances of being admitted as a fully respected member of the Western Great Power club were poor indeed throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even as Japanese strove to master what they took to be the norms of Western civilization, the content of those norms was proving hard to pin down. As Marius Jansen points out, ‘Equality and membership in the circle of great powers were not easily gained, and when Meiji Japan thought itself ready to enter international politics’ on a basis of respect, ‘it proved to have more to learn.’49 In fact, it was not just a question of learning what was called for by established

Japanese national doctrines 33 standards of Great Power membership; those standards themselves kept shifting, making it ever harder for second- and third-ranking nations to meet them. As the century drew to a close, it was no longer enough to have a modern constitution, industrializing economy, and system of mass education. An aspiring leading nation was now expected to have overseas colonies, increasingly subject to direct forms of control. The rivalries spawned by this emerging norm aroused fresh anxieties in top-ranked countries as well as those lower down the ranks. The Anglo-American ideal of a glorious nation achieving empire without enslaving others, and civil freedom without fear of anarchy or invasion, remained the Holy Grail of liberal nation-makers in Japan and elsewhere. Grasping the Grail proved difﬁcult, even in the happily situated lands where it was ﬁrst espied. British and American national thinking was strongly inﬂuenced by Locke’s doctrine of civilization based on the productive use of land, a doctrine often invoked to justify colonial expansion. Their advocates liked to contrast such arguments to the martial forms of expansionism that prevailed in continental Europe. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, it had become almost impossible to keep the two arguments apart. Britain’s doux commerce met with massive popular resistance in India and China, forcing British governments to deploy military force and move towards direct rule over hostile populations. In the rush for empire in the 1880s and 1890s, commercial rivalries were bound up with growing competition among nation-states. Ideologically, Great Power nationalism was two-faced. It opposed the imperial ambitions of other countries in the name of nationality, but did not relinquish imperial aspirations for its own. These developments tended to push even enlightened leadership thinking in more radical directions. Already in the mid-nineteenth century, European liberals had begun to see the possession and control of overseas colonies as an essential component of national greatness. The pressures to use force to back trade and colonization did not come only from native unrest. One of their main sources was national rivalry among European states themselves. The connection between national interest and increasingly aggressive colonial policy was explained in 1841 by one of France’s most respected liberal thinkers: In the current state of things, Algeria should not be considered from the commercial, industrial, or colonial point of view: we must take an even higher perspective . . . There is in effect a great political interest that dominates all the others. Our current situation in Africa is intolerable . . . destructive for our inﬂuence in the world, and above all precarious. Our most pressing interest, and I would say

34 Erica Benner our most national interest, is to resolve it. It can be resolved only by the arrival of a European population that will protect and guarantee the territory we have conquered. We must, therefore, get them there at all costs.50 In 1847, the author of this passage, Alexis de Tocqueville, acknowledged that the expansion of armed European colonies in Algeria had aroused ‘blind hatred’ among Arab and Berber inhabitants towards France’s direct policies of ‘foreign domination’. But to imagine that this hatred could be eliminated by benevolent policies aimed at respecting different cultures was ‘dangerous and almost puerile’. The only way to endure the downside of the national interest in empire was ‘to remain strong. This should always be our ﬁrst rule.’ Harsh methods were needed to defend the ‘national interest’. If other European powers were to be kept out of Algeria, the French would have to show the full measure of their strength to local populations. This meant that many of the restraints on warfare against other Europeans must be disregarded in the colonies. ‘For myself,’ Tocqueville admitted, ‘I think that all means of desolating these tribes must be employed.’ Among the most acceptable means of desolating Arab tribes were, he suggested, the ‘interdiction of commerce’, and concerted efforts ‘to ravage the country’ by seizing men and herds and burning harvests.51 These arguments illustrate how anxieties about imperial-national standing tended to radicalize even liberal national thinking in topranking states. If fears about slipping down in the pecking order of Great Powers ran deep in the top-ranked European states, they were all the more swiftly radicalized in countries whose late entry to the race disabled them from getting a colonial foothold. In Japan, old traditions of pre-emptive expansionist thinking had retained a following throughout the early and middle Meiji period. They gained much wider audiences in the 1880s and 1890s. In political correspondence and the popular press (minkan), overseas expansion was increasingly portrayed as a matter of national survival.52 Moderates like Fukuzawa refused to rush headlong into the expansionist camp. But their acceptance – in common with growing numbers of Western liberals – of a world-view that depicted rising and falling nations under constant threat made them unlikely to oppose expansion. In his later years Fukuzawa defended a policy that he called ‘Good-bye Asia’ (Datsu-A). Japan’s international status, he argued, should be distinguished sharply from that of other Asian nations, which had fallen far behind in terms of current standards of civilization. The Japanese ‘do not have time to wait for the development of our neighbours so that we can work together toward the

Japanese national doctrines 35 development of Asia’. At a time of escalating imperialist rivalry among Western countries, it was better for Japan ‘to leave the ranks of Asian nations and cast our lot with civilized nations of the West’.53 In other words, Japan should join the colonial scramble alongside the Great Powers rather than risk becoming yet another non-white colony or dependent. As in Europe, it was a short step from this aspiring enlightenedleadership pattern of thinking to more radical arguments for expansion. A 1938 manifesto written in English for an Anglo-American audience directly linked Japanese expansion not just to national security but to wider aims of rescuing other Asian peoples from Western-inflicted corruption, cultural and spiritual as well as political. ‘Japan’s armament,’ the author explained, ‘is dedicated to the peace of East Asia and to the welfare of the world . . . Japan’s advance, inspired by humanity, should not be confused with aggression for gain at the expense of other nations.’ This account of Japan’s ‘creative expansion on the continent’ was coupled with claims about ‘the infinite capacity for tolerance and assimilation on the part of the Japanese nation’ which aimed ‘to make the world one household’.54 The argument often had an anti-European slant reminiscent of the Federalist. This rhetoric purported to defend Japanese actions that were offensive to their one-time American allies in terms used by Americans, from the late eighteenth century onward, to defend their own ostensibly benign empire: The Asiatic peoples should cast aside all the selﬁsh individualism and materialism of Europe. They should embrace a common faith of Asia and live an Asiatic life . . . Through the mastery of self and the puriﬁcation of group life, all the nations of Asia may be united in the Asiatic spirit and under Asiatic order and discipline, while retaining fully individual independence and mutual respect among themselves . . . .The search for Zipangu, the Eldorado of Marco Polo, led to the discovery of the American Continent. And it was the United States that, rising on that new continent, forced open the door of the hermit nation, Japan. Now it is Japan’s turn to arouse her neighbour country to the West from its lethargic sleep of centuries.55 In short, in its most radical era, Japanese nationalists still appealed to the norms upheld by the most powerful Western countries to vindicate their actions. The arguments just sketched were a radicalized version of the theories of civilization that British, French, and American liberals used to defend their countries’ special missions, particularly in the

36 Erica Benner decades leading up to the First World War.56 That period also witnessed the spread of racialist thinking in political, military, and academic circles in these countries, reﬂecting anxieties about their ability to maintain top international status against newcomers like Germany and Japan. In a statement characteristic of the racial ideologies used to justify Western empire-building, Joseph Chamberlain, sometime Secretary of State for the Colonies in Britain, declared: ‘I believe in this race, the greatest growing race the world has ever seen; in this Anglo-Saxon race, so proud, so tenacious, self-conﬁdent and determined . . . which neither climate nor change can degenerate.’ It would, he went on, ‘infallibly be the predominant force of future history and universal civilization’. Gilbert Murray, the British classical scholar and supporter of the League of Nations, explained in 1900: There is in the world a hierarchy of races . . . those nations which eat more, claim more, and get higher wages, will direct and rule the others, and the lower work of the world will tend in the long run to be done by the lower breeds of men. This much we of the ruling colour will no doubt accept as obvious.57 It is important to keep this comparative ideological history in mind when examining radical Japanese nationalism in the 1930s. Some aspects of this nationalism had roots in indigenous myths portraying Japan as the country elected by the Gods for world leadership. Others were fuelled by the authoritarian and defensive mind-sets enshrined in parts of the 1889 Constitution and reinforced by nationalistic education policies. Still others were encouraged by self-congratulatory militaristic and racialist thinking during the wars with China and Russia. But radical national thinking in Japan was also nourished by wider intellectual and political developments that fostered radical nationalism in most front-ranking Western countries. The radical nationalism of the ‘rising’ nations was intensiﬁed by the counter-claims of natural, especially racial, superiority in the established Great Powers, and vice versa.

Conclusion The discussion of four main patterns in Japanese national thinking suggests more general analytical and normative conclusions. Analytically, it questions approaches that identify ‘Japanese nationalism’ primarily with a particular form of national doctrine, whether ethnic or authoritarian or imperial, while viewing other strands of Japanese national thinking – liberal, populist, or anti-expansionist ones, for example – as

Japanese national doctrines 37 marginal. All these strands are found mixed together in complex, shifting ways in Japanese debates, as indeed they are in other countries in the same period. Moreover, the approach adopted here avoids drawing an overly sharp contrast between the national doctrines of established Western states, especially Britain and the United States, and the allegedly less stable nationalism found in ‘late-entry’ Powers such as Germany, Italy, or Japan. National thinking in all these countries became radicalized to some degree between the mid-nineteenth century and 1945. These arguments also have a bearing on normative judgements. They suggest that without playing down abuses committed in the name of radical Japanese nationalism, its speciﬁcally Japanese sources should not be overemphasized. By focusing on the international contexts that help to shape national values and policies, it becomes clear that judgements of responsibility for nationalist excesses must have a supranational dimension as well as a national one. An international perspective in no way affirms an apologetic view of Japan’s or any other country’s national excesses. Clearly, it would be a crude oversimpliﬁcation to claim that Japan was a ‘victim’ of an unfair international system imposed by Western powers. Most of the national thinkers mentioned in this chapter acknowledged that Japan had much to gain from joining that system, as well as much to regret or to fear. Comparatively speaking, Japan fared far better within the terms of unequal Great Power relations than any other non-European country, and certainly better than its closest neighbours. The fact that Japan failed to achieve equal status as a global power, or later felt dependent on economic ties with Western countries, hardly lessens Japanese responsibility for violence perpetrated against other peoples. My point is rather that if we consider larger patterns of nationalist conduct and self-justification, questions of historical responsibility prove to have other dimensions that historians cannot easily ignore. Responsibility for actions committed against others in the name of one nation should be fully assumed by surviving members of that nation. But the responsibility for maintaining types of international relations that encourage extreme nationalism must be more widely spread.

Notes 1 Throughout this chapter, the term ‘national doctrine’ is used to mean any systematically developed defence of national values, whether advanced by authors in a private or purely scholarly capacity or on behalf of the state or a speciﬁc political movement. This loose sense is very different from that of the Japanese term normally translated as ‘national doctrine’, kokkyo, which (at least in its nineteenth- and early twentieth-century uses) connotes an ofﬁcial state-sponsored ideology.

38 Erica Benner 2 These ideas are developed in Erica Benner, ‘Is There a Core National Doctrine?’ Nations and Nationalism 7: 2, 2001, 155–74. 3 Max Weber, ‘Ethnic Groups’, in Economy and Society, vol. 1, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, [1922] 1978, pp. 385–98. 4 See John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1690] 1991, pp. 280–1. 5 See Francis Bacon, ‘Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates’, in The Essays, John Pitcher (ed.), London: Penguin, [1597] 1985, pp. 154–5. 6 Isaac Kramnick (ed.), The Federalist Papers, [1787] 1987, London: Penguin, pp. 157–9. 7 See, for example, Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. 8 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘Essay on the Origins of Language’, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.), The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 268–9. 9 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘Considerations on the Government of Poland’, in Victor Gourevitch (ed.), The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 185. 10 Johann Gottfried Herder, ‘Letters for the Advancement of Humanity’, in Michael N. Forster (ed.), Herder: Philosophical Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1793–5] 2002, p. 382; Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace’, in Hans Reiss (ed.), Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1795] 1991, p. 232. 11 Herder, ‘Letters’, pp. 384–5. 12 See Sey Nishimura, ‘The Way of the Gods: Motoori Norinaga’s Naobi no Mitama’, Monumenta Nipponica 26: 1, 1991, 21–41. 13 Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi sees Aizawa as a ‘pre-nationalist xenophobe’ while describing authors such as Sho¯zan and Sho¯in as ‘proto-nationalists’ because they pointed to the need to form a sovereign state in a new, modern mould, whereas Aizawa defended the old bakufu system. See Wakabayashi, ‘Opium, Expulsion, Sovereignty: China’s Lessons for Bakumatsu Japan’, Monumenta Nipponica, 47: 1, 1992, 21. On my account of national values, however, Aizawa’s ideas about internal reforms mark an important shift in thinking about the social and cultural conditions for nationbuilding. For an interpretation which highlights Aizawa’s idea that the common people should be strengthened in order to build a strong Japan, see Yukihiko Motoyama,’The Political Thought of the Late Mito School’, Philosophical Studies of Japan, 11, 1975, 95–119. 14 Seishisai Aizawa, ‘The New Theses’, in Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, AntiForeignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986, p. 199. 15 Ibid., pp. 194, 169, 200–1, 150. 16 Other aspects of Aizawa’s analysis of the international situation, particularly in Western countries, may look naïve to the contemporary reader. He seriously overestimated Russian power in relation to that of other European countries, while underestimating British, French, and American expansionism. He also exaggerated the role of religion as a factor in both imperial control and potential solidarity between Western powers. 17 Aizawa, ‘The New Theses’, pp. 168, 196–7, 251, 173. To reinforce his claims about the Japanese nation’s right to imperium, Aizawa related an

Japanese national doctrines 39

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35

36

37

apocryphal tale of a Japanese interpreter who, after travelling widely, arrived ‘in a huge country three thousand miles to the east’. Convinced that this country should belong to Japan’s Divine Realm, ‘he erected a small sign saying, “Part of Japan (Nihonkoku)” . . . This land “three thousand miles to the east,” I believe, was the territory that the Western barbarians now call “America.” ’ (p. 251). Ibid., p. 163, p. 180, pp. 170–1. Ibid., p. 150. Tsunoda, Ryusaku, W. Theodore de Bary, and Donald Keene (eds), Sources of Japanese Tradition, vol. 2, New York: Columbia University Press, 1964, p. 517. Aizawa, ‘The New Theses’, p. 164. The Federalist Papers, pp. 133–4, 144. G.W.F. Hegel, ‘The German Constitution’, in Lawrence Dickey (ed.), Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1798–9] 1999. G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1821] 1967, p. 209. Tsunoda et al., Sources, p. 620. Ichiro¯ Ishida, ‘The Spirit of Meiji’, Philosophical Studies of Japan, 9, 1969, 4. Yukichi Fukuzawa, ‘Good-bye Asia (Datsu-A)’, in David Lu (ed.), Japan: A Documentary History, New York: M.E. Sharp, [1885] 1997, pp. 351–3. Nakaoka Shintaro quoted in Wakabayashi, ‘Opium, Expulsion, Sovereignty’, p. 21. Tsunoda et al., Sources, pp. 677–9. Quoted in Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 395. Edmund Burke, Reﬂections on the Revolution in France, ed. F.G. Selby, London: Macmillan, [1790] 1890, pp. 34–7. For a study of German inﬂuences on Japanese constitutional thinking which indicates the importance of British ideals for German scholars in Meiji Japan, see Joseph S.J. Pittau, Political Thought in Early Meiji Japan, 1868–1889, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1967, pp. 131–57, 170–230. Tsunoda et al., Sources, pp. 675–6. Quoted in Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 393. Carol Gluck notes that in the mid-1880s, Ito¯’s private secretary appeased conservative worries about his employer’s claim that the kokutai ‘changed with the times’ by citing the Mito School and Edmund Burke to the effect that although society might change, the essence of kokutai would endure, Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, pp. 143–5. Mill’s On Liberty was translated into Japanese in 1871. It was widely read and appeared on numerous university reading lists at the end of the century. His other works, including Representative Government, were less well known in Japan. See Mikiso Hane, ‘The Sources of English Liberal Concepts in Early Meiji Japan’, Monumenta Nipponica, 24: 3, 1969, 259–72. John Stuart Mill, ‘Considerations on Representative Government’, in On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray, Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1861] 1991, pp. 449, 453.

40 Erica Benner 38 Ibid., pp. 454–67. For most of his life, Mill worked as a civil servant in the British Colonial Ofﬁce in charge of reviewing policies in India. 39 Ibid., p. 451. 40 Tsunoda et al., Sources, p. 678. 41 William E. Grifﬁs, The Mikado’s Empire: A History of Japan from the Mythological Age to the Meiji Era, New York and Tokyo: ICG Muse, [1883–95] 2000, p. 433. 42 Tsunoda et al., Sources, pp. 660–1. 43 For a useful discussion of Western inﬂuences on Fukuzawa’s thought, see Albert M. Craig, ‘Fukuzawa Yukichi: The Philosophical Foundations of Meiji Nationalism’, in Robert E. Ward (ed.), Political Development in Modern Japan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 99–148. 44 Yukichi Fukuzawa, An Outline of a Theory of Civilization (Bunmeiron no gairyaku), trans. David A. Dilworth and G. Cameron Hurst, Tokyo: Sophia University Press, [1884] 1970, p. 172. 45 Ibid., pp. 183, 188–9. 46 Ibid., pp. 193, 186, 189. 47 Ibid., pp. 177, 190–1, 178. 48 Ibid., p. 193. 49 Marius B. Jansen, ‘Modernization and Foreign Policy in Meiji Japan’, in Robert E. Ward, Political Development in Modern Japan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 183. 50 Alexis de Tocqueville, Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. and trans. Jennifer Pitts, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, p. 92. 51 Ibid., pp. 145, 70–1. 52 Joseph S.J. Pittau, ‘Inoue Kowashi, 1843–1895 and the Formation of Modern Japan’, Monumenta Nipponica, 20: 3–4, 1965, 273. 53 Fukuzawa, ‘Good-bye Asia (Datsu-A)’, pp. 351–3. 54 Tatsuo Kawai, The Goal of Japanese Expansion, Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press, 1938, pp. 15, 63–5, 39. 55 Ibid. pp. 113–14. 56 Eugen Weber notes that by the early 1900s students in French villages took notes from classes where they were taught that ‘conquest is a necessary stage on the road to nationalism’. A nation should not conquer ‘major peoples’ but ‘bring into a larger unity groups without a clear cultural identity, to draw in, to enrich, to enlighten the uninstructed tribal minds, this is the civilizing mission we cannot renounce.’ Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976, p. 486. 57 Both quoted in Michael Banton, The Idea of Race, London: Tavistock, 1977, p. 96.

2

Reading the diaries of Japanese conscripts Forging national consciousness during the Russo-Japanese war Naoko Shimazu

In wars fought between nation-states, we assume that soldiers ﬁght fully aware of their collective national identity. The Russo-Japanese war was no exception. The contemporary slogan of ‘honourable war death’ (meiyo no senshi) extolled patriotism and selﬂess loyalty of the ‘kokumin’ (national subject) to the state. In fact, the term, ‘kokumin’, conveyed the Japanese state’s strongly modernist political agenda, to change people into ‘Japanese people’, by shifting their collective consciousness from their predominantly locally based identity to the centralised national identity of the New Japan. Arguably, the RussoJapanese war was the deﬁning event in consolidating the identity of the ordinary Japanese as kokumin.1 Yet ‘[t]he Japanese . . . were no instant patriots either, nor was the process [of converting Japanese into kokumin] as irrevocably thorough as it may sometimes seem’.2 In this chapter, we focus on the process of wartime mobilisation of soldiers in 1904–5, in order to ascertain how far this collective experience contributed to the consolidation of the identity of ordinary Japanese people as ‘kokumin’. In particular, we shall focus on the ‘journey of a lifetime’ (jinsei no tabi) that soldiers took from their hometown, across the length of Japan, to the front in Manchuria.3 What signiﬁcance did the journey have for the soldiers? How important was the physical process of travelling in reinforcing the national identity of the individual? It becomes evident that the journey to the front played a pivotal part in this. The overwhelming emotional farewell soldiers were given by the Japanese people convinced even the most sceptical among them to ﬁght for the country. Crucially, the development of the horizontal bonding between the soldiers and ordinary people across the ‘national’ space was mediated by the local elite. Also, we will examine how the process of assuming the collective national identity affected the perception of the ‘Other’, once they reached the battleﬁelds in Manchuria.

42 Naoko Shimazu We answer these questions through a close analysis of the personal diaries of seven lower-ranking soldiers. Unlike commercially published ﬁrst-hand accounts, personal diaries provide a rare insight into the minds and attitudes of individuals. War diaries tend to follow a particular pattern, almost like a travelogue, written with a beginning, a middle, and an end, not only providing a sustained narrative of the war experience, but sometimes even the sense of adventure. The seven soldiers analysed in this study were highly educated, in this respect forming part of minority of 16 per cent, and were predominantly from the middle class.4 They belonged either to the non-commissioned officer class or to the lower ranks, who together constituted 98.2 per cent of the army. Their personal testimonies reveal how the individual perceived his role in the war, and in so doing, illuminate the critical yet ambiguous relationship between the individual and the state from the perspective of the former.

The call-up In this section, we shall explore how the soldiers expressed their feelings about being called up, which marked the beginning of the long journey. Often their experience of being called up was one of the defining moments in their war experience. To what extent did they attempt to justify the situation in terms of the state (kokka)? How did the process of farewell inﬂuence the attitudes of the soldiers generally? Of all the soldiers, First-Class Private Takada Kiichi5 was the most patently patriotic in his expression of joy at having to serve in the war. He wrote a short preface to his diary which read, ‘I have gained glory as a result of being able to participate in this war, and wanted to leave the record of the true conditions of my service for old age.’ On 25 October 1904, the day he received the call-up order, Takada wrote, ‘On this, I am able to realise my long held wish of many years of having the opportunity of serving even slightly and became resolutely high spirited.’ Takada was not involved in combat ﬁghting as he was incorporated into the nutrition section of the Shizuoka Thirty-fourth Regiment. He was recognised for his service and awarded the Order of the White Paulownia Leaf, which was a source of considerable pride for him. In Takada’s case, his ‘glorious’ war experience became a necessary part of his self-identity. It is particularly noteworthy that he saw the need to transcribe his diary for possible publication after having married into his wife’s family (yo¯shi engumi). For Takada, his expression of patriotic sentiment can be seen as a reﬂection of his personal desire to be given due recognition by his wife’s family for his involvement in the ‘glorious’

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 43 national enterprise. He was proud to be a patriotic ‘national subject’ (kokumin), which gave him some social standing in his wife’s family as well as in his local community.6 On the other hand, Infantry First-Class Private Sawada Matashige7 felt highly ambivalent about the call-up. In spite of the words of farewell from his company commander, ‘[D]o your best to serve the emperor and the country, and show loyalty splendidly’, Sawada’s heart sank on the day of departure to the front on 20 March 1905. As he wrote in his diary, ‘when they went out of the gate of the barracks, nobody felt well inside their heart, feeling that they will not be back . . .’. Evidently, foremost in Sawada’s mind was the thought that must have flashed across every soldier’s mind, that he might never come back alive. Sawada wrote of his sadness in having to leave his familiar city in order to ﬁght in the far-ﬂung ﬁelds of Manchuria, but ‘tried to think that this was for the state (kokka) and felt an elated resignation (akirame yorokobu)’. Intriguingly, Sawada in the original copy had crossed out the word ‘resignation’ (akirame), which was printed in the published version. Superbly chosen, ‘elated resignation’, underlined the sense of resignation about his ultimate fate of possibly dying in battle. Moreover, it revealed the inner moral tension between his sense of duty as a ‘national subject’ and his personal desire not to go on the journey to death. Being a responsible ‘national subject’ (kokumin) necessitated the sacriﬁce of the family, which led to a conﬂict of interest between the loyalty to the state (chu¯setsu), and ﬁlial piety (ko¯). He had no ﬁnal choice in this matter but, nevertheless, felt the need to convince himself, not too successfully, of the righteousness of the purpose.8 Similarly, Infantry Sergeant Mukaida Hatsuichi9 admitted that he could not be ‘crazily elated’ by the order for the call-up. Then he slightly modiﬁed his position as he wrote of his complex feeling of being ‘happy and sad’. In Mukaida’s case, his reasons for being ‘sad’ were more concrete than the more amorphous feeling expressed by Sawada above. On receiving his call-up order, he ‘could not fall asleep as I lay thinking alone about before and after, my nerves pulsated.’ As a 28-year-old father with business interests, he was no doubt concerned about the implications which his mobilisation would have on both his family and his business. For him, the call-up was an unwelcome disruption to his already busy, full life. Interestingly, unlike Takada and Sawada, Mukaida did not once write in this period about the meaning of his call-up within the framework of the state (kokka) or the ‘national subject’ (kokumin). Once he had settled his business matters, however, he seemed not to mind it as much, and even wrote in his diary that ‘To think that I will enter the barracks tomorrow, it made me feel truly refreshed in mind and

44 Naoko Shimazu body.’ His previous experience of mobilisation in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 could have made him feel more prepared psychologically for the present war. Nevertheless, the thought that he might not come back alive must also have plagued his mind continually as he even claimed to have seen ‘a ghost’ of his dead comrade-in-arms in the middle of the night which left him in a cold sweat. The ‘ghost soldier’ (heitai no yu¯rei) was a popular wartime folklore (also during the Asia-Paciﬁc war), centring on dreams of dead soldiers, who were perceived as having some supernatural powers.10 Mukaida’s feelings ﬂuctuated from time to time, which conﬁrmed his conﬂicting emotions of being both ‘happy and sad’.11 Private Tada Kaizo¯12 felt a great sense of frustration at being called up which caused an unwelcome interruption to his promising medical career. During the medical examination of the troops, Tada came across a friend from the medical school, enlisted as a reserve transport auxiliary private. It upset him to see his able friend who was about to become a full medical doctor only two months later in April 1904, not only having to place his promising medical career in jeopardy, but also as having a particularly inappropriate placement which would wreck him physically. This led him to confide in his diary, ‘[T]hinking of this, and of me, there were only tears.’ After all, he could well understand his friend’s frustration as he, too, had to restart his medical career after the war by re-enrolling in the medical school in 1906, and sit yet again for the same examination to open medical practice, which he eventually did in his native Toyama. Moreover, he questioned the sincerity of those who professed patriotic sentiments.13

The farewell With often complex and ambivalent emotions on receiving their call-up orders, the soldiers set off to the front. The long grand farewell which all soldiers experienced on their journey from their home towns to the port of Ujina, near Hiroshima, had a signiﬁcant psychological inﬂuence on them. The territorial basis of Japanese army divisions had the effect of strengthening the connection between the regiment and the region. To this same end, local authorities encouraged the local elite to establish grassroots support groups for military affairs, variously called iro¯kai, sho¯bukai, giheikai, heijikai, zaigo¯ gunjinkai, all of which played an important role until the establishment of the Imperial Reservist Association (Teikoku zaigo¯ gunjinkai) in 1910. For instance, Heijikai or the Military Affairs Association, established at the time of the Sino– Japanese war in each ward in Tokyo, played a key role in the relief work

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 45 behind the lines.14 It started off as an elitist, socially exclusive group, sustained by donations from the well-off local elite such as landlords and owners of businesses, who simultaneously held other honorary positions in the ward. They were elected for a two-year term, from those members who had made donations of over 50 yen. Heijikai frequently had its ofﬁce in the ward ofﬁce, thereby acting as an administrative support organisation of the municipal authority. However, the expanding need for relief work during the RussoJapanese war meant that it was no longer possible to sustain enough activity with the original group of elite activists. They were compelled to expand and involve the middle classes, especially the medium to small business owners, to fund their activities, including civic celebrations such as lantern parades. During the war, they were kept busy not only collecting donations to deal with the relief effort of the poor in their ward, but also to organise funerals of the war dead, and distribute national relief expenditure from the City of Tokyo. Most importantly, it was these organisations that orchestrated the farewell programme for the soldiers. They provided the forum for the better-off kokumin to take initiatives ‘voluntarily’ in the war effort behind the lines.15 Some of these ‘volunteers’ were put under considerable moral pressure to take up patriotic causes by a core group of the dedicated. The local elite as selfappointed local agents of state-centred nationalism expanded as a social group during the war, and played a crucial intermediary role in bonding soldiers with ordinary Japanese people, as we shall see below. On a snowy winter night at 2a.m., Sawada’s regiment marched from their barracks to Shinagawa Station. He was particularly touched that some people came out of their houses in their pyjamas with sleepy eyes to bid them ‘banzai’. Tokyoites, like people elsewhere in the country, billeted soldiers like Nakazawa. Among them, Nakahama To¯ichiro¯, a medical doctor who lived in Bancho¯, billeted fourteen soldiers in his house for one month in January to February 1905. Nakahama treated all the billeted soldiers to a small farewell banquet, and gave them each a cotton vest, and a pair of woollen socks hand-knitted by his wife and servants.16 At Shinagawa Station, many relatives and friends came, and bid Nakazawa and other soldiers a farewell ‘banzai’ when the train departed at 6.20a.m. At Hiranuma Station, the Yokohama Patriotic Ladies Association, the Red Cross volunteers, and the Yokohama Martial Association were out in full force. There were ‘pitiful sights’ of people crying, unable to ﬁnd their sons. In Totsuka, there was a mother who came in the snow, wearing straw sandals and carrying a straw hat, to see her son, only to learn that her son had departed the day before. Sawada noted, ‘I cried thinking of how the mother must have felt then.’

46 Naoko Shimazu At his hometown station, his younger brother came to see him off. Sawada acted cheerfully so as not to betray his sadness, and cried out the obligatory ‘banzai’, knowing that this could well be the last farewell of his life.17 At Hamamatsu Station, Hamamatsu Patriotic Ladies Association, female pupils from primary schools and women’s high schools sang war songs. The sight of the female chorus cheered up Sawada and his comrades considerably, to the point that he temporarily forgot about his home, and talked about serving the state (kokka). At Kyoto, there were ‘a mountain of people’, and the famous ‘Kyoto beauties’ from the Patriotic Ladies Association welcomed them in formal kimono, while the elegance of the older members took him by surprise. Recording having being treated so well by the women of Kyoto, Sawada wrote that ‘with comrades-in–arms, we talked that we were all receiving such warm reception because of us going to the battleground to ﬁght for the kokka, even if it means disappearing as dews in the ﬁelds of Manchuria’. However, in Osaka, those who came to see them off tended to be ‘degrading geisha and whatnots’, which led him to note how different Kyoto and Osaka were. Implicit in Sawada’s commentary is idealised patriotism, ﬁt only for those with serenity and purity.18 According to the historian, Makihara Norio, the origin of the celebratory rallying call, ‘banzai’, literally meaning ‘ten thousand years’ could be traced back to the occasion of the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889. The then Education Minister, Mori Arinori, recognised the need for an appropriate rallying call, to bring the emperor closer to the people. As a result, ‘banzai’ was recommended by a professorial meeting chaired by Toyama Sho¯ichi at the Imperial University of Tokyo.19 On the day of the promulgation of the constitution, ﬁve thousand students of the Imperial University lined up along the imperial route, and shouted ‘banzai’, which was imitated by the crowd. As we shall continue to see in different accounts of the farewell process, ‘banzai’ played a pivotal role in uniting the people and the soldiers. Like Sawada’s experience, Tada’s empathy for the wives who ‘were crying their eyes out’ when they came to see their husbands off, had the psychological effect of bringing him closer to the people, on the level of common emotional experience of being torn away from their loved ones.20 Such heart-wrenching farewell scenes brought tears to the eyes of most soldiers, as they reminded them of their recent personal experiences of parting from their loved ones. In this sense, such public displays of emotions made soldiers feel that ‘they’ – the soldiers and the people – were united in this war together. A senior priest of the Pure Land sect, Akegarasu Haya, revealed what most well-wishers must have felt as they cheerfully waved at the soldiers:

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 47 I came across the departure of the First Division. Incessant. Behind the voices of banzai, boundless tears. From the train windows, they are waving the ﬂags, and crying out banzai. These healthy boys, how many will return alive, oh, it is pitiful.21 Akegarasu’s comment exposes the truth – or at least part of it – that the patriotism on public display was only a façade which hid the deeply felt sadness of losing so many young men to war. Many of the well-wishers were there because they felt that this was the least they could do for the young men who were about to give up their lives for them. On 20 February, Tada’s company was honoured at a grand farewell party at Shinbashi Station, with General Nogi and the Mayor of Tokyo, Ozaki Yukio. Nonplussed by the dignitaries, he was more impressed with the demonstration of popular support: On leaving the Shinbashi Station, everyone was shouting the farewell banzai, with such a force that we thought it was going to attack us. Oh, these great voices of banzai imply that the kokumin are expecting victory from us. We absolutely must win for the country as we have continuously received these congratulatory words from the people since we left the barracks.22 Tada felt a direct connection between ‘him’ as a soldier and ‘them’ as kokumin who, through their act of generosity, were putting great expectations on him and his comrades to win on their behalf. They ¯ gaki (Gifu Prefecture) received a particularly impressive farewell in O which ‘astonished’ Tada.23 Private Negoro To¯kichi’s record of family farewell is particularly worthy of note.24 His family gave him a farewell feast for which his father had shopped around for delicacies. Negoro expressed concerns about his aging parents, but tried to tell himself that ‘this is a national calamity and one should not cry with personal matters’, and made an effort to comfort his parents by telling them brave battleﬁeld stories, and swearing martial courage. In parting, his father told him, ‘Serve well, work hard,’ while his mother said, ‘Take good care of yourself.’ There was chaos at his hometown station in Nihonmatsu. Negoro only just managed to recognise his family because his father held high a lantern with the family name on it. The voice of his younger brother was drowned in the crowd. In this ﬁrst phase of farewell from his family and his hometown, Negoro was full of sadness at having to bid possibly his ﬁnal farewell to his aging parents and family.25 However, his experience of the farewell changed after leaving the hometown. Already in Sendai, the location of his divisional

48 Naoko Shimazu headquarters, Negoro was in a cheerful mood, bewildered by the permanent state of festivity and chaos, as soldiers, visitors, and townspeople went about busily with the preparations for mobilisation.26 He described in great detail how each house in the city had lights outdoors, and in every street corner, there stood a big green arch (dairyokumon). Negoro was particularly impressed with primary school pupils, junior high school students, municipal women’s associations, women’s high school students, all lining up to bid them farewell: In particular, women students, with all the innocence, in beguiling ﬂowery poses, waving handkerchiefs, those who have not played any rough sport other than chasing feathers and playing with small balls, were shouting banzai crazily . . . as though they were about to fall over, what can they be compared with?27 Negoro’s group was full of tears and was very emotional, ‘everyone secretly vowed to their heart that even if one were to experience the hardship of seven deaths seven lives, we had to defeat the enemy’.28 Evidently, the mobilisation of women in this farewell process produced the intended effect of stiffening the soldiers’ resolve to fight for the country. In this sense, the farewell concealed an agenda of gendering warfare: men were assigned to the role of ﬁghters and protectors, while the women were carers and the protected. Whether or not the local elite had consciously recognised the power of sexual tension between young men and young women as an instrument of patriotism, the soldiers’ diaries show that it was extremely effective almost without exception. Mano Suzu, one young woman who waved at soldiers, wrote in her diary after attending yet another farewell of soldiers, ‘Oh, I wonder when we shall welcome these people back.’29 Association with his hometown made Negoro melancholy. When his train passed through Nihonmatsu on the way to Ujina, his sadness resurfaced at the sight of his family, as he thought to himself, ‘[T]his may be the last time, in this life, to chat and laugh with father, to see the kindly faces of brothers.’30 Any physical association with his hometown seems to have brought him a deep sense of sadness as it represented what life was to him and reminded him what he might lose as a result of the war. Importantly, the hometown was the locus of his private sphere and came to represent it symbolically. When Negoro arrived in Tokyo, there was a tremendous welcome at the station, with ‘banzai’ screams ‘shaking heaven and earth’. After leaving Tokyo, in many places along the line, there were big and small ﬂags, men and women, young and old, and each soldier was given a ﬂag

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 49 which they waved back as the train left, leading Negoro to record, ‘[I]t was nothing but a beautiful scene.’ At Kyoto, there were welcoming stalls of Higashi Honganji and Nishi Honganji Temples of the True Pure Land Buddhist sect which played a signiﬁcant part nationally in the war effort.31 Coming into contact with people from all over Japan, both old and young, men and women, had a tremendous effect on Negoro. For instance, he was particularly touched by the sight of an old ﬁsherman praying for them. Negoro’s company was invited to a party at the Hiroshima Red Cross Society before leaving Hiroshima. When the ship ﬁnally left Ujina on 13 March, there was a band which played on and on, in order to ‘uplift spirit’.32 Private Nakazawa Ichitaro¯33 noted on the day of departure: We were sent off with banzai, leaving the familiar hometown, with little hope of being able to walk on this ground again, with thoughts of parting from aging parents and younger brothers and sisters, mixed emotions closing in, leaving as in a dream with the noise of banzai. As the train left Tokyo, there were hundreds of thousands of people along the railway tracks, all waving ﬂags and screaming banzai, which had the effect of elevating the spirit of the soldiers. Nakazawa received a particularly warm welcome from the local Red Cross members in Mishima, and from the Nagoya Martial Association. Finally, when on 13 March, they leave Ujina on board the Hakatamaru, the excitement of boarding the ship seems to have momentarily made the soldiers forget about leaving their hometowns, as they gazed with wonder at the view in all directions.34 On leaving his native Yamagata on 2 September 1904, Infantry Sergeant Iwai Shichigoro¯35 wrote about the ‘mountains’ of relatives, parents and friends who came to send off the Yamagata Thirty-second Regiment for ‘the last parting of life’. The sadness of having to bid farewell for the last time to his wife, child, parents, and sisters made him even more fully conscious of ‘having to do his best as a man’. The psychological effect of a good farewell is evident as Iwai noted that he had already started to feel homesick only two days after he left Yamagata, when in a small village on the way, he did not receive the sort of farewell he had received in his home city. Interestingly, his platoon commander warned his soldiers ‘not to wave at the crowd in response to them, also not to shout banzai. Only the leader will respond to the people. Make sure that there is no misconduct.’ As we know from the numerous examples quoted above, such a senseless bureaucratic

50 Naoko Shimazu rule was ignored by soldiers who felt a spontaneous need to respond to the cheering masses. Leaving Sendai on 7 September, Iwai wrote that ‘it was not possible to express in writing the huge farewell given by the people’, and that the band music ‘elevated their martial spirit no end’. They stopped over in Ko¯riyama in Fukushima Prefecture, where the Patriotic Ladies Association and the local martial association welcomed them. Again, in Utsunomiya, the two local associations offered them a similarly warm farewell. He mentioned that the great farewell received ¯ miya had uplifted his spirits.36 in O In the light of these observations, the contrary observation made by the British volunteer nurse, Teresa Eden Richardson, stands out: During our journey we frequently saw troops leaving the stations, and I was struck by the calmness of the women, who looked with tearful eyes after the departing trains containing those they loved best. There were no noisy lamentations, but as they left the platforms they were often weeping silently, and holding their long sleeves to their eyes; while sometimes sympathising friends led them gently away in the little homes, many of which would soon be the abode of widows and orphans. One could not fail to observe the dignity of the send-off of the troops – often no more than a few waving ﬂags, with cheers and deep bows from the assembled crowds, but never any shouting or disorderly scenes. Self-control and reserve are two of the greatest characteristics of the people, who learn from childhood to hide their grief for fear of giving pain to others.37 In all probability, the onlookers were under strict orders to behave themselves in front of foreign dignitaries, in order to project the desired image of the sober and serious Japanese in line with the ofﬁcial discourse of patriotism. The intensity of emotions felt by Nakazawa, Iwai, Sawada, Takada, Tada and Negoro were partly due to their being novice soldiers. The only exception was Mukaida who, having had a previous experience of mobilisation in 1900, did not write much about the process of farewell. However, even Mukaida was moved to tears to see his aging father seeing him off, noting in his diary that ‘the old man is weakening day by day and not the same father as he once was. Oh, there must be nobody as unﬁlial to the parents as I am in this whole wide country.’38 In the above analysis, soldiers tended to experience two different phases of farewell. The ﬁrst phase involved the personal sphere centring on the hometown and the family, resulting in heart-wrenching sadness

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 51 for the soldiers. The second phase was the farewells that they received outside of their home territory, in the rest of the long train journey to Hiroshima (or Ujina to be precise), the principal port of embarkation. Various grassroots patriotic associations across Japan had orchestrated seemingly one long endless farewell along the key cities that dotted the routes to Hiroshima. Dedicated members of these associations remained at their local railway stations day and night in order to give hospitality to soldiers passing through from other parts of Japan. According to one account, a village mobilised its people forty-four times during the war to bid farewell to their soldiers leaving for war, and ﬁfty-nine times to welcome them back after the war.39 They served them tea, sake, sweets, lunches, dinners, gave them cigarettes, gifts, sang them war songs, and waved them off with banzai, ﬂags, and handkerchiefs. Cultural symbols of nationalism were mobilised with full force and to full effect, most notably the rallying call, ‘banzai ’, the ﬂags, and war songs. They were joined by tens and thousands of local people who came to see them off. To this end, the whole country was effectively mobilised by the local elite to participate in the patriotic ‘event’. Yet, participation in these events did not necessarily imply that the ordinary people were fervent patriots. Many were simply demonstrating their heartfelt wishes for the well-being of these young men, hoping that small gestures like these might uplift their spirits, which they invariably did. More than anything else, the feeling of empathy bonded the soldiers and the people through the tragic sadness of lifelong parting. Arakawa Sho¯ji makes an incisive point regarding the effect of these farewells on soldiers.40 He argues that the fervent farewells given to soldiers throughout the country had the effect of imposing a ‘psychological pressure’ on the soldiers to fulﬁl their ‘duty’ to ﬁght hard for the country. Importantly, this perceived pressure stood independently of the true feelings held by the families of these soldiers who made up these farewell parties. I would go a step further and argue that not only did these fervent farewells put pressure on conscripts to buckle up and ﬁght for the kokka, but that they desperately needed such public displays of ‘affection’ towards them as a psychologically uplifting stimulant to boost their morale, as many felt sad, homesick, and generally morose at the thought that they might never return alive. The ever-present ‘banzai’ worked as an all-important bonding ‘cry’ which united the people and soldiers, both psychologically and geographically, all over Japan. Even soldiers like Sawada, who had initial doubts about the call-up, were overwhelmed by the sheer force of popular support. I argue that it was a critical point in converting even the most sceptical soldiers into feeling ‘patriotic’, at least momentarily during their passage through Japan.

52 Naoko Shimazu Soldiers realised that their newly gained status as ‘defenders’ had privileged them with the special treatment from the nation. They felt truly ‘grateful’ for it and, in return, began to feel ‘depended upon’ as ‘defenders’ of these very people who fervently waved at them. If we remember at the time of the call-up, many of these soldiers were concerned primarily with their personal sphere of family and work. Now, they felt part of the nation, and not only that, they felt responsible to ﬁght on behalf of these people who made up the nation. Hence, this long journey of farewell produced a fundamental transformation in the identity of the soldiers, as they started to identify with the kokumin (national subject) at large. For these soldiers, their experience of wartime mobilisation led them to perceive kokka essentially as implying kokumin. The development of the horizontal bonding of the ordinary Japanese people, both as soldiers and as well-wishers, was the ‘miracle’ that even the most fervently nationalistic bureaucrats could not have hoped to achieve through normal means. Most importantly, in this crucial transformation, not one soldier ever mentioned the emperor.

The journey Many conscripts had never ventured out of their region before they embarked on the journey to the front. For conscripts, the novel experience of travelling through Japan on mainline railway networks meant that the journey to the front included not only going abroad, but also travelling for the ﬁrst time within Japan.41 The domestic rail journey to Ujina, the port of embarkation, gave them the opportunity to sightsee albeit mostly through train windows, many cities and famous sights of Japan about which they had hitherto only heard or read. The mobilisation to the front was a sort of ‘Grand Tour’ for many conscripts, turning their diaries into travel writing. Often, it was a physically and psychologically long journey from their hometown to the front. By tracing their journey, we see how the geographical space of ‘Japan’ affected their conceptions of their own country, and, in turn, how these conceptions inﬂuenced their self-identity. Takada Kiichi’s journey started in his hometown, Oyama, in Shizuoka Prefecture, then to Shizuoka-shi where the regimental headquarters was located, then he made stops at Yaizu, Hamamatsu, Nagoya, Maibara, Osaka, Ko¯be, Himeji, Okayama, Itozaki, and then ﬁnally after ‘some forty hours, the train travelled for two hundred odd ri (some eight hundred kilometres)’ arrived in Hiroshima, a few miles away from the port of Ujina where soldiers boarded ships to sail across to the continent. Takada enjoyed the views of Lake Biwa – the largest lake in Japan, as

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 53 well as the famous views of Harima from the train window, and noted that ‘the famous Himeji Castle still looked imperious’. In Hiroshima, where his regiment stayed for six days, he was billeted at the liquor merchant, Tanaka So¯taro¯’s house. Over the next few days, he managed to pack in quite a lot of sightseeing, including the gardens of the Asano Family and Futaba Park, as well as generally enjoying the end of the year bustle of a major commercial city. In order to kill time, he saw a performance of a female theatre troupe, and even managed to cram in a trip to the cinema on the last day.42 On New Year’s day in 1905, he visited the Itsukushima Shrine in Miyajima on regimental orders, and was duly impressed with the place, noting that ‘we really felt that it was truly one of the three famous views of Japan (Nihon sankei)’.43 Itsukushima Shrine, a favourite place of worship of the famous medieval warlord, Taira no Kiyomori (1118–81), was designated as an important site of pilgrimage for soldiers by the military. First, it was meant to foster martial spirit because of its association with the famous warlord of the twelfth century. Second, it was intended to raise patriotic sentiment through the visual and spiritual identiﬁcation of soldiers with a place of great ‘Japanese beauty’ which at the same time represented a sense of tradition. As we shall see in the case of others, Itsukushima Shrine came to symbolise the ultimate beauty of Japan, with the sense of venerable spiritual awe of the ‘divine country’. Attached to the Imperial Guards Division in Tokyo, Sawada Matashige travelled on almost the same route as Takada. As his train passed Fujisawa and Chigasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture, Sawada became nostalgic for his hometown: thought of my hometown, and just when I saw the pine tree . . . I wondered in my heart whether I could ever return to my hometown, oh, that nostalgic pine tree, and to think that this water ﬂows near my home town, although I had been prepared before, I was somehow hit with the feeling of sadness.44 Sawada was more expressive than Takada about the beauty of the views that he saw from the train window. Of Lake Hamana, he wrote: the surface of Lake Hamana was as though it was ﬁlled with tatami mats, with the pines which lined up nearby, and the lights of the fishing boats were just like fireflies, the view was so good that I thought of drawing a picture of it. Clearly, the train journey through Japan had so excited Sawada that he stayed awake, trying to catch all the views. He just managed to catch a faint glimpse of Nagoya Castle in dusk. At Kusatsu Station, he bought

54 Naoko Shimazu the famous local sweets. At six in the morning, he saw the famous Mii Temple by Lake Biwa. Another memorable strip of the journey was the stretch just after Ko¯be, the famous views of Suma and Akashi along the Inland Sea. The next stop, Himeji was well known for its castle, and here, again, Sawada received a warm farewell from the Himeji Volunteer Ladies’ Association (Tokushi fujinkai), who served them tea and sang war songs, leading Sawada with the mixed feeling of ‘joy and sadness’. Unlike Takada, who spent a few days of leisure in Hiroshima, Sawada was led on board immediately in Ujina.45 As part of the Imperial Guards Division, Tada left Shinbashi Station in Tokyo on 20 February 1904. He similarly noted the incredible beautify of Lake Hamana in snow. Although Tada had heard about some of these famous views, he had not had the opportunity of seeing them until now, and lamented about not having much time to appreciate them at any length. Although it was his ﬁrst time travelling through well-known places like Maibara, Kyo¯to, Osaka, and Ko¯be, they all passed as if ‘a dream’ due to the fatigue which was setting in. Greatly impressed with the beauty of Maikohama and the proximity of Awaji Island to the coast, he arrived in Okayama where he went on a sightseeing tour of one of the three famous gardens of Japan, Ko¯rakuen, before setting off to Hiroshima via Itosaki. Although Tada was kept busy with regimental duties in Hiroshima, he did make the pilgrimage to Miyajima three days before he left, and was duly impressed by the beauty of the place. Tada showed impatience with the long wait in Hiroshima and when he ﬁnally left Ujina on 13 March, he admitted that ‘somehow I feel happy’.46 Negoro’s journey took him from his divisional headquarters in Sendai in north-east Japan, through his hometown Nihonmatsu, Ko¯riyama, ¯ miya, into Tokyo. Then, the rest of the Shirakawa, Utsunomiya, O journey to Hiroshima followed the main route along the Paciﬁc Coast, which more or less went along the old Tokaido¯ route that joined Edo with Kyoto in the Edo period. He saw Mount Fuji glowing in sunset, the calm of Lake Hamana, but missed the views of Mii Temple by Lake Biwa due to nightfall, commenting that ‘to think that there is the famous view right in front of one’s nose and yet unable to see is highly regrettable’. He was also sensitive to the beauty of the Inland Sea. Of all the sights, Negoro was most impressed with Miyajima with the Itsukushima Shrine. In particular, he wrote about the staggering beauty of the torii gate which gave the impression of ﬂoating at low tide, and of the palace-style architecture of the shrine. He employed a guide for one sen, and also made a fourteen sen donation to the shrine. He bought a set of postcards of eight views of Miyajima as a souvenir for his

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 55 younger brother. It impressed Negoro that all soldiers from the Japanese army make pilgrimages to Miyajima before departing for war and again on return, leading him to conclude that ‘as might be expected from the country of gods’.47 Iwai’s record of the journey most resembled travel writing in that the journey from hometown to a port near Osaka became truly a journey of discovery of new places. By joining the army as a professional soldier, he wanted to ‘escape’ from his socio-economic background, and see the wider world. Iwai’s new frontier started with the larger towns to the south-west of his native Yamagata. His innocent bewilderment with the new encounters on route is an important testimony to the signiﬁcance of this journey as a means of discovering ‘Japan’. His journey starts from Sendai, the seat of divisional headquarters, where he was, ‘coming from a small village like Yamagata’, duly impressed with its 100,000 inhabitants and the ﬁne castle. Further south in Utsunomiya, he was again surprised by its size, as well as the fact that houses were all built of stone or brick, unlike in the To¯hoku (Northeast) region. Tokyo astonished him even more, leading him to exclaim that ‘the people of To¯hoku had not seen anything yet’. Iwai waxed lyrical about the beauty of Mount Fuji, also continued to be very impressed with ‘beautiful buildings’ in towns, as well as by the 300 metre bridge across the Tenryu¯ River along the route. Iwai received a warm welcome in Hamamatsu, and enjoyed great views of the Paciﬁc Ocean, and was completely overwhelmed by the grand buildings in Nagoya, as well as the ‘world renown’ Nagoya Castle.48 He spent a considerable amount of time in Osaka awaiting departure. There, he busied himself with sightseeing, visiting museums, the Shitenno¯ji Temple, the Fifth Exhibition buildings (Gokai tenrankai), and every time, ‘rolling his eyes’ with bewilderment. Walking along the Do¯tonbori, a busy commercial and entertainments district of Osaka, he noted that ‘[T]here is nothing the Yamagata people could do but be surprised’ by the large number of people and the busyness of the place. In fact, the whole experience of seeing new places had been a great source of enjoyment for Iwai, so much that he wrote, ‘Oh, what fun this is, and to think that we will not be able to have such fun when we move to battle in the ﬁelds of Manchuria.’ Interestingly, Iwai went to see a topical play about the murder of the Russian Tsar played by Murota Enzo¯. However, Iwai did not take kindly to the Osaka women who tended to re-touch their make-up in between the acts, calling them ‘a superﬁcial race’. In Iwai’s journey through Japan, his constant source of reference was Yamagata. His diary is ﬁlled with the sense of amazement on encountering the urban, symbolised by architecture.

56 Naoko Shimazu Paradoxically, this also underlined how much of an outsider he remained in the context of the urbanisation that had been taking place in the more ‘central’ parts of Japan, and highlighted the great cultural divide between urban areas and the countryside in Meiji Japan.49 Finally, Nakazawa, who was attached to the Imperial Guards Division as a transport soldier, followed a similar train route as many of the others. He wrote about the stop in Mishima where he received a welcome from the local Red Cross Society members, through Hamamatsu, to Nagoya where the local martial association gave him a handkerchief and bread, then recorded the rest of the journey through to Maibara, Himeji, and eventually Hiroshima. He left Ujina on 12 March 1904, and he wrote that he and his comrades ‘hardly felt homesick because of the views to be seen in all four directions’. Compared with other soldiers, he wrote relatively little of his journey to the front.50 Evidently, the journey through Japan was an integral aspect of the consolidation of self-identity of the soldiers as consciously ‘Japanese’ soldiers. Crucially, they were travelling through culturally and psychologically ‘familiar’ territory, before facing the unknown and dangerous outside world. The journey had allowed many soldiers to see their country, and many behaved almost as tourists, identifying places that they had learned or heard about. Intriguingly, the army’s policy of using national sights of beauty as ‘sites of patriotism’ seems to have paid off, as the soldiers were, without exception, deeply affected by the intrinsic association they perceived between themselves and the ‘typically’ Japanese sites along the way. What is intriguing is that all the soldiers seemed to know what ‘sights’ to look out for. As a result, there emerges a discernible pattern in their observations, almost to the point of lacking in individuality. ‘Beauty’ was effectively used as an instrument of patriotism by the state as many soldiers claimed somewhat romantically that the beauty of Itsukushima Shrine had convinced them of the noble mission of their country and of themselves as soldiers of the nation. It was as though they were absorbed and converted by the power of the landscape, ﬁnding the symbolic meaning of being ‘Japanese’ even in nature. Arguably, the internal journey from their hometown to Hiroshima played a key role in expanding their geographical space of what constituted ‘Japan’, and in the process, effortlessly integrated these soldiers from disparate parts of the country into the common landscape of the homeland. In turn, this helped to expand their self-identity rapidly from the local to the national, in many cases by-passing the regional. Therefore, the journey was an incredibly valuable instrument of ‘conversion’ of these soldiers, not only in bonding the soldiers with ordinary people, but also in merging them

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 57 with the ‘quintessentially Japanese’ landscape, and thereby, providing them with yet another source of national identity.

The initial encounter with the ‘Other’ If the significant outcome of the domestic railway journey was to heighten the sense of being ‘Japanese’, then the sea journey across the notoriously rough Korean Strait (Genkainada) was also signiﬁcant for two reasons. First, it marked the physical boundary between Japan and the outside world. Second, and more importantly, it was a psychological boundary, as soldiers faced the crossing with some consternation as though the reputed roughness of the sea was a metaphor for what was to come after the crossing. Therefore, the rough sea journey can be interpreted as a metaphor for the break from the ‘past’ which was safe and familiar, to the ‘future’ which was dangerous and unknown. Moreover, when they ﬁnally reached their destinations in Manchuria or in Korea, many of them encountered the ‘Other’ – be they Chinese, Koreans, Manchurians, or Russians – for the first time. How did their encounter with the ‘Other’, especially the Asian ‘Other’ affect their self-identity? Takada left Ujina on 3 January 1905, and crossed the dreaded Korean Strait, which turned out to be so calm and beautiful on the day of his passage that he was compelled to write, ‘it is difficult to express in writing how comfortable the journey was’. Arriving in Dairen (Dalny) in Manchuria, he ﬁrst noticed the houses of the ‘dojin’ (natives), and was awed by the ‘utter chaos’ of the Chinese porters working in the port. For Takada, ‘chaotic’ scenes in Dairen, as well as the exotic houses of the ‘dojin’ became the ﬁrst representations of the ‘Otherness’ of Asia. At the same time, Takada also noted the large scale of urban planning by the Russians in Dairen, which slightly unnerved him.51 Sawada faced the tough crossing of the Korean Strait which, this time, lived up to its notorious reputation. Many of his comrades-in-arms were wailing that ‘they would rather die than to suffer so much’. Half-way through this dreadful sea journey, the sight of the sunken mast of the battleship Hitachi made the soldiers high spirited, as Sawada expressed ‘hatred’ towards the enemy. Notably, he had not experienced such animosity when he came across Russian prisoners of war earlier on at Ko¯be Station. The irony of Russian PoWs heading eastward to the Narashino PoW camp near Tokyo, close to his hometown, while he was having to go westward away from his hometown, was not lost on him.52 After landing in Ryu¯juton near Dairen on 27 April 1905, Sawada came across a Chinese village ‘which was truly ﬁlthy, I had heard before

58 Naoko Shimazu about the ﬁlthiness of Chinese life but I did not think it would be this bad, and it really was worse than expected, our faces cringed with the stinky smell’. He also mentioned how dirty the Chinese children were, though being a school teacher, he thought how much they would beneﬁt from education ‘like the Japanese children’. Sawada made the distinction between the Chinese and the natives (dojin), presumably meaning the Manchurians or Koreans, as he wrote about seeing ‘houses of the natives’ who wore ‘interesting costumes’. Because Sawada landed in a smaller town, he did not come across the ‘Russian presence’ in Manchuria in the way that some others did. The only exception was the building where he stayed overnight, which he commented on as being ‘rather superior’, only to discover that it belonged to the Russians.53 Tada shared his sea journey on board the Kamakuramaru with an illustrious company of foreign military attachés, foreign journalists, and an imperial prince. Tada felt terribly seasick in the crossing to Korea, where he arrived on 16 March. He was immediately impressed with the view of the Russian settlement in the treaty port, noting that ‘no wonder, Russia is quite cunning’ in securing a settlement location which had the best view out of the entire treaty port area. Instead, the Japanese settlement with some two hundred houses was in the least convenient part of the city, full of prostitutes. Interestingly, Tada was one of the few who mentioned the Koreans at some length. Apparently, many of his comrades tried to practise Korean by asking the ‘white-gowned’ Koreans to teach them the language. Moreover, Tada found strange signs which read, ‘Do not enter’ on the doorway of houses, leading him to remark that Koreans seemed to take good care of their women. However, even Tada’s enthusiasm for Korea began soon to wane as they entered Pyongyang where they came across some very ﬁlthy small towns. He became particularly disparaging of the ignorance of Koreans in not knowing why the Japanese troops were in their country. Subconsciously, Tada must have been comparing the well-organised, patriotic people of Japan, united under national calamity, with the apparent indifference and ignorance of Koreans whose territories were being trampled all over by the Japanese and Russians. In any case, this experience led Tada to make a typical ‘Escape Asia’ (Datsu-A) comment that ‘no wonder Korea was in the state it was in’.54 On landing in Manchuria, Iwai immediately identiﬁed himself very closely with being Japanese. Having been most impressed with the modern, large urban cities on his way to Hiroshima, Iwai seemed equally determined to see an unbridgeable gulf between the Japanese and the Asian ‘Other’, as he was ready to denigrate them and make condescending and culturally essentialist comments at every opportunity. Iwai

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 59 talked of the Chinese houses as being ‘smelly’ and described them as ‘pig sty-like Chinese houses’. Also, he remarks that ‘Chinese food is inedible’, and so on. Iwai was obsessed with the filth of the way of living of the ‘chinkoro’ (Chinkies), and mentioned it repeatedly in his diary. The patriotic Iwai even complained that the Chinese railway tracks were not the same as the Japanese.55 Negoro suffered a severe setback on the rough seas of the Korean Strait. Like Tada, he thought the ‘white-gowned’ Koreans exotic. At Chinnanpo (Chemulpo) in Korea, Negoro came across ‘tiny houses’ of the ‘natives’ (dojin), referring most probably to the Korean houses. Like others, Negoro was shocked by the ﬁlth in the town of Geimeyon, as the house that he stayed in was surrounded by human excretion, and urine trickled down from the house like a stream.56 Similarly, as Nakazawa and his comrades arrived at the port in Chinnanpo, he wrote that they were billeted in the house of the ‘natives’ (dojin). Once in Pyongyang, Nakazawa wrote about how shockingly dirty the back streets were.57 What is striking about the depictions of the Asian ‘Other’ is the casual use of the pejorative term, ‘dojin’ by the soldiers. What was its contemporary meaning? ‘Dojin’ was originally a Chinese compound noun which is a combination of ‘do’ (pronounced ‘doh’) meaning ‘earth’, ‘territory’, ‘land’, and ‘jin’ implying ‘person’. Before the Meiji period, ‘dojin’ was used to mean quite literally, that is, the person who belonged to a particular land or territory, and did not appear to have had the modern pejorative connotation. It was the advent of Japanese colonisation which changed its meaning from the innocuous earlier version, to one which was increasingly loaded with colonial implication. The anthropologist, Nakamura Jun, argues that the turning point was the introduction of the Ainu in the Japanese discourse, when, for the ﬁrst time, ‘dojin’ became employed in the context of ‘undeveloped people’ (mikaihatsu) or ‘barbaric’ (yaban).58 Intriguingly, the Japanese did not use ‘dojin’ to denote the newly conquered aborigines of Taiwan, instead designating them as ‘banjin’. ‘Banjin’ had a different connotation from ‘dojin’ as a primitive tribal people who needed to be tamed and ‘civilised’ by the Japanese coloniser. For Japan, the Taiwanese aborigines represented their own ‘noble savages’. By the end of the Meiji and the early Taisho (1912–25) period, it gradually became more common to use ‘dojin’ as a pejorative term, implying ‘a native who lived a primitive life’. As a result, we can safely infer that the soldiers used the term with that connotation in mind. However, what is noteworthy is that there was no consensus amongst the soldiers as to who constituted the ‘dojin’ in their encounter with Continental Asia. Almost all our soldiers were very aware of the Chinese

60 Naoko Shimazu as a distinct category of people, whereas there was a tendency to conﬂate the Koreans and Manchurians as ‘dojin’. This apparent confusion indicates two things. On the one level, the Chinese and China represented the most obviously important Asian ‘Other’ to the ordinary Japanese. Granted, there was the long historical inﬂuence of China in Japan. But more signiﬁcant was the recent Japanese victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 which had swiftly wiped out centuries of awestruck attitude towards China, and replaced them with pejorative images of China and the Chinese in popular discourse. On another level, the soldiers displayed a lack of interest in identifying non-Chinese East Asians. Japanese soldiers assumed subconsciously the role of the coloniser as they nonchalantly lumped together Koreans, Manchurians and other ethnic minorities of the region, possibly because these peoples were not worthy of being properly noticed and given appropriate ethnic designations. Only one soldier, namely Tada, expressed any interest in the Koreans and their customs. Notwithstanding the popular usage of ‘dojin’ with the pejorative connotation, major Japanese dictionaries did not include this meaning until the early 1930s.59 As the anthropologist, Nakamura Jun argues, ‘dojin’ was most frequently applied to ‘natives’ on the periphery of the Japanese colonial empire. As they became assimilated into the Japanese colonial empire, the geographical boundary of who constituted ‘dojin’ correspondingly moved outward, and was then applied to the new ‘natives’ who lived in the ever newly expanding outer geographical boundary of the empire.60 The Ainu were a case in point, as they were ﬁrst designated as ‘dojin’, representing the colonial ‘Other’, but as they became assimilated into Japan, they were no longer the ‘dojin’ but now the ‘kyu¯ dojin’ (former natives). Instead, the new ‘dojin’ became the Micronesian people who were newly incorporated into the Japanese colonial empire in 1914. If we were to continue the colonial discourse, the most prominent characterisation of the Asian ‘Other’ that the soldiers resorted to, namely ‘ﬁlth’, also ﬁtted in comfortably with the usage of ‘dojin’ in this context of unequal power relationship. For them, ‘filth’ became the binary opposite for ‘cleanliness’ represented by Japan, symbolising the ‘civilised’ status of Japanese society. Unsurprisingly, the soldiers did not apply ‘ﬁlth’ to the Russians very often, as the Russians were considered to be on the par with the Japanese as civilised people. The Russians fared much better because they were accorded a higher status as the civilised Europeans against whom the Japanese were ﬁghting. The soldiers, on the whole, were impressed with the Russian presence in their initial encounter with the enemy. Recognising the power of

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 61 architecture in conveying the Russian grandeur, most of the soldiers frankly recorded their awe when they came across some magniﬁcent Russian buildings in Dairen and in other parts of Manchuria. In fact, one even detects their misapprehension in having to ﬁght against an enemy who was as powerful and great as indicated by the scale of their architecture. The distancing of oneself from the colonial ‘Other’ by denigrating the ‘Other’ as being ‘dirty’ or ‘filthy’ was common in the colonial discourse. In some sense, the Japanese soldiers were simply reﬂecting the received wisdom of a colonial power in the age of imperialism. As the oft-rehearsed Japanese ofﬁcial discourse went, the Russo-Japanese war was a ‘civilised war between civilised peoples’ and the soldiers had subconsciously taken up the ofﬁcial mantra.

Conclusion The above analysis of the journey to the front through the diaries of the seven soldiers from the lower and the NCO ranks leads to some important conclusions. At the time of the call-up, most of the soldiers did not profess to exuberant patriotic feeling, apart from one only. On the contrary, they expressed ambivalent attitudes which betrayed their inner turmoil. Many were torn between loyalty to the family and loyalty to the state. Interestingly, however, ambivalence was often subtly expressed by using expressions such as ‘happy and sad’ or in Sawada’s case, ‘elated resignation’. Also, Tada, who clearly felt heartbroken at having to abort his medical career, could only indirectly refer to his feelings through the discussion of his less fortunate medical friend. This indicates that there was an unspoken assumption among the educated middle class, who understood all the meanings of new political terms of the Meiji period such as ‘kokka’ (state) and ‘kokumin’ (national subject) that it was not socially acceptable to reject outright the responsibilities of a good kokumin by not serving in the war. In this sense, the soldiers were very typical of the majority of the Japanese who felt that they could not and did not wish to avoid this duty by taking more extreme measures such as desertion. Indeed, for the majority, they accepted it with the sense of ‘elated resignation’, to borrow Sawada’s superbly chosen phrase. What is striking, however, is the tremendous success which the local elite had in organising the farewell for soldiers. Spearheaded by grassroots patriotic associations of various kinds, the participation of the public – spontaneous or orchestrated – made it more heartfelt. Most impressively, this process of farewell was not a one-off event, but a

62 Naoko Shimazu continuous one through time and space, starting from hometown and extending all the way along the length of the country, down to the port of departure at Ujina. This had a tremendously powerful effect on the soldiers, as it united them with the ordinary people of Japan, giving the perception that the country was united as one behind this war. This journey of farewell made them painfully aware of their role as ‘Japanese’ soldiers defending their country. The overwhelming emotional sense of belonging to the nation converted even the sceptics to fight for the kokka. Thus, it had the desired effect of expanding the sources of identity of these soldiers from a localised one to a more national one. Furthermore, it proved that the horizontal bonding between the soldiers and the kokumin played a most important part in motivating the ordinary men to fight for the state or, more accurately, the nation. As the soldiers have shown, this sideways bonding was much more important for them as reasons to sacriﬁce their lives, than some abstract notion of loyalty to the state or, even more so, loyalty to the emperor. Moreover, the effect of the journey on the soldiers, from the point of view of consolidating their national identity, was signiﬁcant. The journey through Japan from their hometown to the port of Ujina was a ‘Grand Tour’ of Japan for many of the conscripted soldiers who had never been outside their local region. The association of physical sites with the consolidation of one’s sense of identity was much in evidence. Mobilisation had an unintentionally positive effect on the soldiers by allowing them to identify more closely with their country simply by travelling through the geographical space of ‘Japan’. This enabled them to break out of their highly localised identity, and develop a more national one. Therefore, these soldiers not only developed their sense of being Japanese through bonding with the other kokumin in the long process of farewell, but also geographically by experiencing Japan as a ‘traveller’. This becomes patently evident when they ﬁnally encounter the Asian ‘Other’ in Korea and Manchuria, where the soldiers were initially at least happy to take on the mantle of representing the Asian colonial power. What the Russo-Japanese war did was to make concrete the abstract conceptions of kokka and kokumin for the ordinary soldier, albeit in ways which might not have been intended.

Notes 1 Arakawa Sho¯ji, Guntai to chiiki: Shirı¯ zu nihon kindai kara no toi 6, Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 2001, footnote 1, pp. 353–4. I agree with Arakawa’s position on this. 2 Carol Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 39.

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 63 3 On the effects of the railway on mobilisation during the Sino-Japanese war, see Stewart Lone, Japan’s First Modern War: Army and Society in the Conﬂict with China 1894–95, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994, pp. 52–7. 4 The lack of oral history materials from that period means that personal voices of the less educated conscripts remain unheard on the whole. 5 Takada Kiichi (1883–1956) was born in Rokugo¯ -mura (present day Oyama-cho¯), Shunto¯ -gun, Shizuoka, as the third son of Nogi Shinpei. Having graduated from the local higher elementary school in 1895, he worked at the local post ofﬁce in Oyama when he was called up in October 1904 as a reservist (hoju¯hei) at the age of 21 in the Shizuoka Thirty-fourth Regiment. Takada Kiichi, Nichiro sen’eki ju¯gunki, Tokyo: Ikko¯ insatsu kabushiki kaisha, 1963, p. 3. This diary was transcribed by Takada based on his notes taken during the war. It is not known precisely when he transcribed it. 6 Ibid., pp. 3, 87. 7 Infantry First-Class Private Sawada Matashige (1885–1948) was born in Nittajuku, Zama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture, and worked as a school teacher when he was called up as a reservist (hoju¯hei) at the age of 21 in December 1904. Sent out to the front in March 1905, he was attached to the Fourth Squad, First Platoon, Ninth Company, Fourth Regiment of the Imperial Guards Division. His diary was discovered posthumously by his family. Sawada Matashige, ‘Nichiro sen’eki ju¯gun nisshi’, in Zamashiritsu toshokan shiryo¯ hensan gakari (ed.), Nichiro senso¯ ju¯gunki 2, Zamashi shiryo¯ gyo¯sho 5, Zama: Zamashiritsu toshokan, 1990, pp. 4–6. 8 Ibid., p. 46. 9 Infantry Sergeant Mukaida Hatsuichi (1876–1967) was born in Maji-mura, Nima-gun, Shimane Prefecture, as the eldest son. In June 1904, Mukaida was called up as a second-reservist (ko¯bihei) at the age of 28. Mukaida was assigned as the leader of the Second Squad, Third Platoon, Twenty-second Infantry Regiment of the Fifth Division. Mukaida Hatsuichi, Ichi kashikan no nichiro ju¯gun nikki, Tokyo: Nikkan shobo¯, 1979, pp. 181–3. 10 Motoyasu Hiroshi, ‘Senso¯ no fo¯kuroa¯: Kigan to irei o chu¯shin ni’, Jiyu¯ minken 16, March 2003, 95–7. 11 Mukaida, op. cit., pp. 1, 5, 24–5. 12 Private Tada Kaizo¯ (1883–1966), born as the second son of a Shinto priest in Asai-mura, Imizu-gun, Toyama Prefecture. In 1900, he enrolled into a medical school in Tokyo, and in April 1902, he passed an examination to open a medical practice. In December 1902, he was conscripted and entered the Second Infantry Regiment in the Imperial Guards Division, and was mobilised as a medical corps man (kangoshu) in February 1904. Eventually, Tada was attached to the leader of Fifth Squad, First Platoon, Ninth Company, Infantry Thirty-Second Regiment of the Eighth Division. Tada Kaizo¯, Nichiro sen’eki jinchu¯ nisshi: Ichi kangohei no roppyaku nanaju¯go nichi, Toyama: Ko¯gen shuppan, 1979, pp. 321–3. 13 Ibid., pp. 15–16. 14 I have relied extensively on the work of Nogawa Yasuharu, ‘Nichiro senjiki no toshi shakai: Hibiya yakiuchi jiken saiko¯ ’, Rekishi hyo¯ron 563, March 1997, pp. 25–6. 15 Ibid., p.24. 16 Nakahara Akira (ed.), Nakahama To¯ichiro¯ nikki dainikan, Tokyo: Toyama shobo¯, 1995, pp. 302–3.

64 Naoko Shimazu 17 Sawada, op. cit., pp. 46–8. 18 Ibid., pp. 49–51. 19 Makihara Norio, Kyakubun to kokumin no aida: Kindai minshu¯ no seiji ishiki, Tokyo: Yoshikawa Ko¯bunkan, 1998, pp. 160–6. 20 Tada, op. cit., pp. 14–15, p. 17. 21 Akegarasu Haya kensho¯kai, ed., Akegarasu Haya nikki jo¯, Kanazawa: Akegarasu Haya kensho¯kai, 1976, p. 287. 22 Tada, op. cit., p. 24. 23 Ibid. 24 Private Negoro To¯kichi (1879–1929) was born in Nihonmatsu-cho¯, Fukushima Prefecture, as the second son of Genzo¯ and Uno. Although the Negoro family was retainers to the Nihonmatsu clan, To¯kichi grew up in a poverty-stricken ex-samurai household. When he was called up in early February 1904 as a reservist at the age of 24 to be attached to Field Telecommunications Unit (yasen denshintai) of the Second Division, he worked as a school teacher. For his wartime service, he was awarded the seventh rank of the Order of the Golden Phoenix. Negoro To¯kichi, Yu¯yo¯ no bohyo¯, Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1976, pp. 328–33. 25 Ibid., pp. 15–17. 26 Ibid., p. 19. 27 Ibid., p. 22. 28 Ibid., p. 23. 29 Hamada Yu¯suke (ed.), Meiji no hanazono: Ehime kenritsu Matsuyama ko¯to¯ jogakko¯ kyo¯shitsu nisshi, Matsuyama: Hito no mori shuppan, 1995, pp. 30–1. 30 Negoro, op. cit., p. 23. 31 See, for example, Ronald Stone Anderson, ‘Nishi Honganji and Japanese Buddhist Nationalism, 1862–1945’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, 1956. 32 Ibid., pp. 23, 25–8, 34–5, 42. 33 Nakazawa (1881–1974) was born, the eldest son of Sankichi who lived in Sakaigawa-mura, Higashi Yashiro-gun, Yamanashi Prefecture. He was called up on 6 February 1904 and attached to the Eighth Transport Auxiliary Unit. Nakazawa’s diary is of particular interest as he recorded with astute and incisive observation, the internal prejudice against transport auxiliary units (shicho¯hei) in the army, and the extreme hardship endured in the service. Nakazawa survived the hardship and was awarded the seventh rank of the Order of the Golden Phoenix, the eighth rank of the Order of the White Paulownia Leaf, and one hundred yen reward. Kusunoki Yasuji (ed.), Nichiro sen’eki ju¯gun ryakuki: Nakazawa Ichitaro¯, Tokyo: So¯go seihansha, 1996. 34 Ibid., pp. 12, 15, 16, 20. 35 Iwai was born in October 1882, the second son of Yataro¯, in Jizo¯cho¯, Yamagata City. After graduating from Ko¯to¯ sho¯gakko¯, he worked as a waiter at a local normal school. As an ambitious young man from a poorer socio-economic background, he saw the army as a good career which afforded him social mobility, and worked successfully towards becoming a candidate for non-commissioned ofﬁcer. In September 1904, he was mobilised as the leader of the Fifth Squad, First Platoon, Ninth Company, Infantry Thirty-Second Regiment (Yamagata 32nd Regiment) of the

The diaries of Japanese conscripts 65

36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60

Eighth Division. Having been killed in action, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant major, and awarded the seventh grade of the Order of the Golden Phoenix. His diary was written from 2 September 1904 till his death on 27 January 1905. Yamagata-shi shi henshu¯ iinkai, ed., ‘Iwai Shichigoro¯: Nichiro senso¯ ju¯gun nikki’, Yamagata-shi shi shiryo¯ 37, 1974, 7–12. Ibid., pp. 13, 15, 19, 22. Teresa Eden Richardson, In Japanese Hospitals during War-time: Fifteen Months with the Red Cross Society of Japan (April 1904–July 1905), Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1905, pp. 116–17. Mukaida, op. cit., p. 26. Nagano-ken Hanishina-gun Tokura-mura yakuba, Meiji sanju¯shichihachinen nichiro sen’eki Tokura-mura jikyoku shi, Nagano: Nagano-ken Hanishina-gun Tokura-mura yakuba, 1912, p. 355. Arakawa, op. cit., p. 70. For the development of railways in Japan, see Harada Katsumasa, Nihon tetsudo¯shi: Gijutsu to ningen, Tokyo: To¯sui shobo¯, 2001; Uda Tadashi, Kindai nihon to tetsudo¯shi no tenkai, Tokyo: Nihon keizai hyo¯ronsha, 1995; and Steven J. Ericson, The Sound of the Whistle: Railroads and the State in Meiji Japan, Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1996. Takada, op. cit., p. 11. Ibid., p. 12. Sawada, op. cit., p. 47. Ibid., pp. 47, 51. Tada, op. cit., pp. 24–5, 29–30. Negoro, op. cit, pp. 27, 32–3. Yamagata-shi shi henshu¯ iinkai, op. cit., pp. 17, 22–3. Ibid., pp. 28–30, 46–7. Kusunoki, op. cit., pp. 15–16, 20. Takada, op. cit., pp. 14–16. Sawada, op. cit., pp. 50, 53–4. Ibid., p. 56. Tada, op. cit., pp. 30–5. Yamagata-shi shi henshu¯ iinkai, op. cit., pp. 71–4. Negoro, op. cit., pp. 43, 51, 56–8. Kusunoki, op. cit., pp. 21, 25. Nakamura Jun, ‘ “Dojin” ron – “dojin” no ime¯ ji no keisei to tenkai’, Shinohara To¯ru (ed.), Kindai nihon no tashazo¯ to jigazo¯, Tokyo: Kawashi shobo¯, 2001, p. 100. I have relied heavily on this article for my discussion of ‘dojin’. Ibid., p. 101. Ibid., p. 108.

3

Internationalism and nationalism Anti-Western sentiments in Japanese foreign policy debates, 1918–22 Harumi Goto-Shibata

When one reads Japanese journals and newspapers published during the period 1918–22, one soon notices that many authors criticized the Western powers such as Britain and the United States. They used such terms as ‘justice’ (seigi) and ‘humanity’ (jindo¯) to denote their moral high ground. Many people today may consider such a usage by the prewar Japanese authors unworthy of serious consideration. Yet this chapter deals with this point for two reasons. First, we need to examine why Western powers were often described as ‘unfair’, ‘unjust’, and as ‘acting contrary to the interests of humanity’. Second, some of these authors were not unwilling to co-operate with the Western powers and they would be considered in the domestic context as ‘internationalists’. There seems, therefore, to have been some confusion in the thoughts of these ‘internationalist’ intellectuals. Until the 1990s, the literature concerning Japan in the inter-war period tended to divide the Japanese into two distinctive groups: extreme ¯ kawa nationalists and others. The former includes people such as O Shu¯mei, Kita Ikki, and some army ofﬁcers; while typical examples of the latter would be internationalists such as Nitobe Inazo¯. A standard explanation of Japan’s revolt against the West in the 1930s, put simply, would state that the internationalists somehow failed to resist the vocal extreme nationalists. Since the mid-1990s, however, some scholars have come to consider such explanations too simplistic. One example is Shibasaki Atsushi’s analysis of the Society for International Cultural Relations. Although one aim of this organization was international intellectual co-operation as promoted by people in favour of the League of Nations, its main objective was to make people in other countries understand Japan’s national interest. Shibasaki states that inter-war internationalism in Japan essentially coincided with nationalism.1 Were internationalism and nationalism in pre-war Japan separate from each

Internationalism and nationalism 67 other as the traditional literature describes, or was there any connection between them? To address this question, this chapter draws on the opinions expressed in the journal Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ [Revue Diplomatique] during the period 1918– 22, and considers why some Japanese authors, who were interested in international relations, criticized the West. Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ was ﬁrst published monthly in 1898, and was expanded to a twice-monthly publication after 1911. The journal was aimed at those who were interested in foreign relations, and was influential because of the wide range of contributors, including even prime ministers, such as Hara Takashi. The opinions expressed by the authors were varied, from conservative to liberal. My intention is not to examine the thoughts of any single monumentally influential thinker, such as Yoshino Sakuzo¯, but to investigate the wider consciousness shared by a number of intellectuals who were deeply interested in international relations. The period 1918–22 was chosen because it covers important developments in the international political system. The year 1918 was the final year of the First World War, and the debates about how to establish a new international system had already begun. President Woodrow Wilson of the United States announced his Fourteen Points at the beginning of 1918. The Paris Peace Conference was held in the following year, when the victorious Allies attempted to remake the world under the slogans of ‘self-determination’ and ‘international justice’. The problems concerning East Asia and the Paciﬁc Ocean were not settled at Paris; another conference was convened in Washington, DC from 1921 to 1922. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was abrogated at the conference. I argue that many authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ considered that Japan was exposed to new external threats at this time of great change, and that their reactions can be considered a type of defensive nationalism.2 Only two Western powers continued to have inﬂuence in East Asia during this period: the United States and Great Britain, and these countries are the focus of this chapter. Apart from Naoko Shimazu’s work on the racial equality proposal, there have been few studies written in English on Japan’s participation in the Paris Peace Conference. The studies written in Japanese tend to focus on three issues relevant to Japan, namely racial equality, mandates and Shandong. Japan’s reaction to the change in international order and rules as a whole has not attracted sufﬁcient scholastic attention. Shimada Yo¯ichi made a survey of politicians and diplomats, and described their sense of insecurity well, although he did not place the entire issue in the context of Japan’s transactions with the West. His work gives the impression that Japan acted in a vacuum and yet still managed to make

68 Harumi Goto-Shibata mistakes. Nakanishi Hiroshi examined the reaction of Konoe Fumimaro to the new developments after the First World War. Nakanishi’s introductory chapter to his Kokusai seiji to wa nani ka – [What is International Politics?] is also very useful. Compared with the Paris Peace Conference, the Washington Conference has been a more popular topic among Japanese diplomatic historians. However, the analysis has focused on the establishment of the so-called ‘Washington treaty system’; the question of nationalism has rarely been explored.3 This chapter is divided into three sections. The ﬁrst section traces the history of Japan’s encounters with the West from the mid-nineteenth century to the Paris Peace Conference, thus setting the scene for the following sections. The second section introduces the opinions expressed in Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, and the third analyses the thoughts behind the opinions, and the limits of those thoughts.

Setting the scene – Japan and international society until the Paris Peace Conference Let us ﬁrst consider the way Japan came to be a member of the international society of nations. Japan ended its policy of seclusion and opened up (kaikoku) in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the international order was dominated by a tiny club of European Great Powers. The Japanese elite took the expansion of European countries into the non-European world seriously, and made tremendous efforts to gain full recognition as an equal and respected member of international society. The recognized standard of international value at that time was that of ‘civilization’ (bunmei). As the Japanese leaders came to be aware that their country was regarded at best as semi-civilized, they began to attempt to reform it by following Western models. They established a centralized government, introduced a new legal system, and endeavoured to reform social customs.4 They were also determined to master international law and the rules of conduct between states – which they encountered for the ﬁrst time and assumed to be universal and eternal. For these leaders, the Chinese translation of Wheaton’s The Elements of International Law became their ﬁrst textbook. According to Yoshino Sakuzo¯, the Japanese in those days understood international law from the framework of their traditional attitudes. Yoshino wrote that international law and rules were considered to be identical to moral codes (michi), which all human beings should follow piously.5 Moral codes do not change easily. Therefore, the Japanese took the existing pragmatic rules of international society in the late nineteenth century to be absolute and static, though they were not always fully convinced of their value.6

Internationalism and nationalism 69 For some, it was necessary to follow the existing rules in order to achieve Japan’s most important national goal, that is, the renegotiation of unequal treaties imposed upon her by the Western powers, and with it, the removal of the badge of inferiority. For others, it was perhaps simply convenient to be able to pursue their own pragmatic interests without worrying about the moral value. By the outbreak of the First World War, Japan had managed to master the existing rules fairly well and had achieved a certain status in international society. The external threat that Japan might be colonized by some powers had disappeared. She had been victorious in the wars against China and Russia, and had become a colonial power in her own right. Many in the Japanese elite began to think that both their country and they as individuals ought to be treated with certain respect and courtesy by the external world. This newly-acquired conﬁdence made some Japanese dissatisfied with the junior-partner status in Japan’s relations with Britain. In the meantime, Japan had not experienced drastic changes in the rules of international society, nor had she participated in major international conferences where the powers negotiated new rules. As a result, Japan did not fully understand the Western tradition (since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648) that the rules could be revised through negotiations. Japan declared war on Germany in August 1914. Britain had asked Japan to protect Britain’s interests from possible attacks by the German ﬂeet in East Asia. Japan used this request as an excuse to participate in the war. Although the Japanese populace were made to believe that Japan was ﬁghting because of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and Japan’s friendship with Britain, the Dominions (including Australia and New Zealand) were alarmed and did not necessarily prefer the Japanese Imperial Navy to the German navy.7 Relations between the two allies deteriorated further during the war. On the one hand, Britain came to criticize Japan’s war effort, believing that Japan was content to reap its proﬁts and increase her position in the Paciﬁc without contributing anything substantial. Britain thought that Japan should send not only her Imperial Navy but also her Imperial Army to Europe.8 On the other hand, some Japanese openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that Japan was only a junior partner. For example, Ninagawa Arata, an international lawyer born in 1873, wrote that the alliance had already stopped serving the allies, and that Japan was merely being used by Britain.9 The growth of Indian nationalism during the First World War further complicated the relationship between the two allies. Under the AngloJapanese Alliance both sides had agreed that the maintenance of peace

70 Harumi Goto-Shibata in India should be the two countries’ mutual concern, thus drawing Japanese intellectual interest towards India. In February 1915, Muslim soldiers of the Indian Fifth Light Infantry stationed in Singapore rebelled against their British ofﬁcers. The British asked for the assistance of the Japanese Imperial Navy in suppressing the rebellion. This placed the Japanese in a difﬁcult position. On the one hand, the British thought that the Japanese had arrived too late and basically had done nothing to suppress the rebellion. On the other, the Indians were shocked to see the Japanese, whom they believed to be their fellow Asians and supporters of Indian nationalist aspirations, attempt to support the British at all.10 As a result, the Japanese were criticized by both the British and the Indian nationalists. In the same year, another development made the Japanese more aware of the Indian nationalist movement and also made the British more dissatisﬁed with the unhelpful Japanese stance. Rashbehari Bose who had attempted to assassinate the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, sought refuge in Japan. Britain demanded that he should be extradited. From the British viewpoint the response of the Japanese Government was extremely lukewarm. In the meantime, Lala Lajpat Rai stopped in Japan on his way to the United States, staying for about five months. His welcome party was held on 27 November 1915. The fact that the party attracted more than 200 people made the British Embassy even more worried about the Japanese stance on the Indian nationalist movement. It also gave the Japanese Government cause for concern. The order for the extradition of the Indian revolutionaries was issued on 28 November. As there were no ships leaving for the United States within the time limit, ¯ kawa Shu¯mei sympathized with the Indian some Japanese including O nationalists and offered them protection. It is well known that Rashbehari Bose married a Japanese woman in order to stay in Japan, while another revolutionary left for the United States. Bose continued to communicate with the Japanese, supporting pan-Asianism. On 29 May 1916, Rabindranath Tagore, who had received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, arrived in Kobe. He stayed in Japan until the beginning of September and gave several presentations during his stay. The Japanese press devoted considerable space to discussion of his presentations. Tagore’s visit also helped increase Japanese interest in India, though Tagore considered Japanese nationalism too aggressive. ¯ kawa Shu¯mei privately published Indo ni Okeru In October 1916, O Kokumin Undo¯ no Genjo¯ Oyobi Sono Yurai [The Present Situation and Origins of the Nationalist Movement in India], and criticized Britain’s exploitation of India in the form of home charges, the situation of the ¯ kawa’s inﬂuence Indian Army, and the low level of popular education.11 O

Internationalism and nationalism 71 grew as a result of this publication and could not be ignored. He went on to write best-sellers, teach at prestigious universities, head the research institute of the Southern Manchurian Railway, and enjoy connections with leading politicians and the highest ranks of the military.12 The growth of American power through the First World War and Wilson’s appearance on the international scene came to pose a new external threat to Japan. Wilson passionately introduced a new element of morality and justice in international transactions. The United States enthusiastically supported the aspirations of China, the ﬁrst republic in Asia. Some members of Japan’s Foreign Ministry attempted to respond to this new situation by advocating changes to Japan’s foreign policy. For example, Makino Nobuaki, Japan’s representative at the Paris Peace Conference, stated at a meeting held by the Gaiko¯ Cho¯sakai (Diplomatic Advisory Council) on 8 December 1918 that: Although Japan has always claimed that her stance is fair and just, and that she adheres to the policies of open door, non-intervention in China, and Sino-Japanese friendship, her actual policies have been inconsistent with what she has claimed, with the result that the powers have come to regard Japan as untrustworthy.13 Although this was a logical and promising reaction to the situation, it was not acceptable to those who were at the centre of Japan’s foreign policy-making. Ito¯ Miyoji, one of the privy councillors, demanded that Makino should explain why he thought Japan was regarded as unreliable. Both Ito¯ and another senior politician, Inukai Tsuyoshi, strongly insisted that it was necessary for Japan to possess more territory. Following their remarks, Terauchi Masatake, former prime minister from 1916 to 1918, claimed that Japan had never been unfair and unjust.14 The Gaiko¯ Cho¯sakai did not endorse Makino’s opinion. Being far away from the major battleﬁelds of the Great War, the Japanese senior politicians did not grasp how earnestly Europeans sought peace. They considered Wilson’s idealism to be mere lip service, and the majority were convinced that it would be impossible to establish the League of Nations. They prevented Japan from realistically facing the changes that had occurred in international society. The Japanese delegates to the Paris Peace Conference were instructed to make efforts to postpone the establishment of the League for as long as possible, although once the League was established, it would be impossible for Japan to remain isolated from it. Japan attended the Peace Conference as one of the ﬁve Great Powers, but her preparation for it was extremely poor. The delegates, led by Makino, were sent to Paris solely to obtain the spoils of war.15

72 Harumi Goto-Shibata Both the Japanese elite and the intellectuals believed that the former German interests on the Shandong Peninsula should be transferred to Japan without question. Meanwhile, the Chinese started to demand the restoration of various rights they had lost to the powers since the mid-nineteenth century, and the Americans were very keen to support these aspirations. China argued that Germany’s former interests in Shandong should be returned to her immediately. The fact that the Shandong question was discussed and argued at all was enormously shocking both to the Japanese elite and to the intellectuals, no matter what the outcome. Presented with this situation, they felt that their country was being stigmatized in the international arena. The Japanese delegates to the Paris Peace Conference had received very poor instructions before they left the country. They had nothing to say on subjects that were unrelated to East Asia.16 The delegates had also been ordered to refer back home regarding every point of dispute, so that their response was always very slow. Japan came to be nicknamed the ‘silent partner’, with her delegates looking exhausted and merely taking notes quietly.17 Presented with Chinese diplomats who had been educated in the United States and could argue in impeccable English, the Japanese delegates appeared extremely miserable. Both the Japanese press who reported on the situation and those back home who read the reports felt deeply frustrated. It should be noted that the authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ observed the situation indirectly through these press reports.

Opinions expressed in Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ One of the authors who wrote several articles in Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ in 1917 and 1918 was Suehiro Shigeo. Suehiro (born in 1874) graduated from Tokyo Imperial University. He studied in Europe and later became a law professor at Kyoto Imperial University. Presented with Wilson’s ideas, he considered them too idealistic. He wrote that if the world were to be reformed on the basis of Wilsonian idealism, the Great Powers’ colonies, including Egypt and India, should not be left intact – but he doubted that such a thorough reform would be possible.18 Suehiro’s other concern was the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. On the one hand, he considered Britain’s stance to be arrogant. He did not think Britain or France treated Japan as an equal partner, and he stated that it was very self-centred of them to expect Japan to share the same burden while treating her only as an inferior partner.19 On the other hand, he observed that Japan was still not even half as powerful as Britain, so that it was impossible for the former to deny

Internationalism and nationalism 73 the value of the alliance. His conclusion was, therefore, that the alliance should be reformed to make the two partners equal.20 Once the Paris Peace Conference was convened in 1919, the authors writing for Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ showed an interest in the question of selfdetermination. One article by Saigusa Shigetomo (born in 1888) is noteworthy, especially because he was later involved in Japan’s League of Nations diplomacy and was considered an internationalist. Saigusa had been in the same class as Nambara Shigeru at the First High School, when Nitobe Inazo¯ had been the headmaster. He attended the ﬁrst General Assembly of the League held in Geneva in 1920. He worked as a diplomat and became the head of the Research Division of Japan’s League of Nations Union. In his article published in March 1919, he ﬁrst wrote that he considered the Great War to have been a struggle between the ‘have’ and ‘have-not’ countries. He asked Britain, ‘the country of gentlemen who proposed the League of Nations’, to observe its own self clearly. What he meant was that Britain should seriously question whether its huge empire merited praise, or whether it should instead be criticized for exploiting, militarily and ﬁnancially, the colonized people. He then quoted the following from Lala Lajpat Rai’s England’s Debts to India: ‘Justice, honesty, fair play, and the wishes of the people never entered into the programme of Wellesley and his lieutenants.’21 Saigusa continued that Britain should not protect its colonies by imperial and colonial preference, but should open its territories to other countries. He also stated that it was Japan’s role to be a spokesperson for all the suppressed yellow races, and criticized the Japanese government for not making efforts toward this end. Other authors were also concerned about the discrepancy between the ‘have’ and ‘have-not’ countries. In March 1919, both Suehiro and Tanaka Suiichiro¯ (born in 1873) wrote that the British Empire’s entitlement to six votes in the League of Nations would provide it with too large a voice.22 Tanaka was a historian who taught at Keio University. After graduating from Keio, he had studied history and politics in London and Leipzig. In 1919 and 1920, he wrote several articles, criticizing the new international order and the League of Nations. His arguments tend to be illogical and are often very difﬁcult to follow. Yet, as there were only forty-two member countries in the League of Nations, dissatisfaction with the issue of six votes was not unusual. It is well known that Konoe Fumimaro, the Japanese Prime Minister in the 1930s, expressed the same opinion.23 Daniel Varé, an Italian diplomat, also thought this to be absurd. Even the Americans also considered this point extremely unsatisfactory when they discussed whether they should join the League or not. The Senate’s reservations made

74 Harumi Goto-Shibata Britain reassure the USA publicly in December 1919 that the votes of Dominions would not be used in any League of Nations vote involving a dispute between Britain and the United States.24 Once the Treaty of Versailles had been signed and the Covenant of the League of Nations was decided, some authors wrote that the new international order Britain and the United States were establishing together with France was merely in the interest of those major powers. Inahara Katsuji (born in 1880), a journalist who would become the editorial adviser of the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shinbun in 1928, wrote that matters vital to British and American interests were settled to their convenience at the Paris Peace Conference. He continued that, as the standard was established by them, anything ‘unlawful’ meant anti-Anglo-Saxon.25 Yamamoto Miono held the same opinion, and stated that the League of Nations should be reformed on the basis of absolute universal justice – not self-serving justice. He also wrote that all countries in the world should be given equal rights regardless of their national wealth.26 Sato¯ Kenji, who graduated from the History Department of Tokyo Imperial University in 1918 and taught at an army school from 1919, warned that the Japanese should keep an eye on the League, but at the same time he hoped that the majority of the League members would co-operate to prevent one or two satiated powers from behaving without consideration for the weaker countries.27 Both Tachi Sakutaro¯ (born in 1874) and Sugimura Yo¯taro¯ (born in 1884) condemned Article 21 of the League’s Covenant, which accepted the American Monroe Doctrine. They doubted that such regionalism could co-exist with the League’s principles.28 Tachi was an international lawyer. After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1897, he studied in France, Britain and Germany. He became a professor at Tokyo Imperial University in 1904, teaching diplomatic history and international law. Sugimura was a diplomat, who acquired his doctorate in international law at the University of Lyons. He wrote a series of articles in Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ explaining the Covenant of the League of Nations. In 1927, he went to Geneva as the League’s under-secretary and concurrent director of the political section. He can be considered one of the leading internationalists at that time. Inahara Katsuji also criticized the United States for applying the Monroe Doctrine to the American continent while demanding open door and equal opportunities in China. He would not have disagreed with the Americans if they had been consistent and adopted the same principle throughout, either in terms of humanitarian ideals or naked self-interest. But Inahara stated that it would be impossible for him to obey the Americans because they adopted double standards and pursued

Internationalism and nationalism 75 their own interest on the American continent while preaching justice and humanitarianism in China.29 The most vocal of the authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ during the years 1920–22 was Hanzawa Tamaki (born in 1887), who was the editor of the journal from 1920. His major concern was anti-Japanese tendencies in the United States. The restriction of immigrants was hotly debated in the United States. In July 1920, Hanzawa dealt with the issue for the ﬁrst time and wrote that it was unjust and contrary to humanity for one nation to occupy a large part of the earth and not give other nations an equal opportunity.30 Later, noticing American criticism of the situation of Koreans in the Japanese empire, he highlighted the harsh treatment of blacks in the United States. He argued that American double standards were unacceptable. His attention then turned to Britain’s relations with Egypt and India.31 On another occasion, he wrote that considering Japan’s policy towards the continent to be old-fashioned and imperialist was just like regarding Britain’s rule in India as inhumane and oppressive.32 Hanzawa defended Japan’s policy and insisted that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance should be maintained with some revision. Therefore, he contradicted himself as he did not really imply that Britain’s rule was inhumane and oppressive after all. At the same time, however, the use of the terms ‘inhumane and oppressive’ itself suggests that he did not necessarily believe Britain’s rule was humane and benevolent. In the issue published in October 1920, Hanzawa asked if Americans would not allow Japanese to live in California, then why would they not respect the idea of ‘Asia for the Asians’?33 Hanzawa’s argument was illogical. The Americans were debating who could enter their country. In other words, the equivalent to ‘America for the Americans’ should be ‘Japan for the Japanese’, not ‘Asia for the Asians.’ Hanzawa treated Asia as if it were an extension of Japan. Such a stance was not uncommon in pre-war Japan.34 Although Hanzawa’s logic had its shortcomings, the question of who could be American was signiﬁcant. Were Americans only white people? Was the situation of blacks justiﬁed? Hanzawa stated repeatedly that the Japanese should act for all the coloured races in the world.35 Hanzawa expanded the horizon from the yellow races to all the coloured races, including Africans. This development occurred probably because antiJapanese feeling had grown in Korea and China ‘due to American stimuli’36 and it did not seem very convincing to talk only about the yellow races. Count Soejima Michimasa, who graduated from Cambridge University and was in general an Anglophile, was keen on international

76 Harumi Goto-Shibata co-operation in controlling opium trafﬁcking, writing several articles on the matter. In one article, he recorded his conversation with a Briton. This person discussed the Twenty-One Demands that Japan imposed on China in 1915, and asked Soejima why, if Japanese intellectuals thought the demands regrettable, did the Japanese not rescind them and return all the former German interests in Qingdao and Shandong to China? Soejima answered that it was said that British intellectuals considered the Opium War to be the gravest stain in British history. He then asked why the British would not return Hong Kong to China.37 As we have seen, various opinions were expressed in Gaiko¯ Jiho¯. It should be noted that Saigusa, Sugimura and Soejima, who were critical of the Western powers, were also considered internationalists. Both Saigusa and Sugimura very much supported the League of Nations. Soejima wrote that most Japanese liked Britain very much. These people were by no means aggressive nationalists. Having studied or worked in the West, they admired aspects of Western civilization, such as parliamentary democracy and fairness within the boundary of the state. But, why, then, did they criticize the West? Some of the reasons are considered in the next section.

Justice – defending the country Many authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ who wrote during the period under consideration frequently used the terms ‘justice’ (seigi) and ‘humanity’ (jindo¯). The authors of this journal usually discussed timely topics, and the terms, ‘justice’ and ‘humanity’, were hardly used in the earlier issues published from 1914 to 1916. Therefore, it is logical to assume that the words came to be used primarily as a response to Wilson’s idealistic and moralistic stance, which was a new development in international relations. Until Wilson began to play a major role in world politics, the rules of the game were more pragmatic than just. But why did the authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ often consider the United States and Britain to be ‘unfair and unjust’? It seems that the authors thought what was happening in the world was deeply hypocritical, and that their country was being singled out for stigmatization. From their viewpoint, naked pragmatism was more honest than talking about justice while seeking practical proﬁts. There were at least three factors that prompted this sort of thinking. First, as Yoshino Sakuzo¯ wrote, the Japanese intellectuals perceived international law and rules to be equivalent to moral codes, and therefore believed that there should be universal and unchanging rules and standards in international society. On the one hand, this belief prompted the Japanese elite in the Meiji period to strive

Internationalism and nationalism 77 to master the rules from the time of their encounters with the West in the mid-nineteenth century. On the other, Japanese intellectuals considered the notion of determining right or wrong by man-made rules of the game fraudulent. The idea of fair play based on rules, which would prevail only in a certain arena, for them was difﬁcult to consider just, particularly when the arena itself was arbitrarily set out and dominated by Great Powers that imposed their rules upon international society. At the Paris Peace Conference, the Japanese intellectuals saw that the standards themselves could shift, and would probably keep on shifting, thus making it almost impossible for second- and third-ranking nations (including Japan) to meet them. If the standards kept shifting, Japan would never be able to cast off its badge of inferiority. Second, despite all the slogans, the rules, which the dominant powers were making, were by no means ‘fair and just’. Hedley Bull wrote on the concept of justice as follows: We imply, when we say that a person is treated justly, that he or she is treated not arbitrarily but in accordance with rules; that these rules in their substance are themselves fair or non-discriminatory, prescribing that like cases be treated in like fashion and unlike cases differently; and that the rules are applied or administered fairly or impartially.38 The authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ seem to have understood the concept of justice in the same way, and unsurprisingly, thought decisions reached at the Paris Peace Conference to have been inadequate and imperfect.39 Similar cases were not necessarily treated in similar fashion. The authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ provided some examples, such as Article 21 of the League’s Covenant and the failure of the racial equality proposal. This situation made it more difficult for Japanese intellectuals to agree with and adjust to the changes in the international system. They suspected that the dominant powers, while behaving as pragmatically as ever, might be trying to apply the principle of international justice arbitrarily to the situation in East Asia, and brand Japan with the stigma of injustice. Third, Japanese intellectuals were more or less aware that, if they had to think about justice seriously, their country had not treated their neighbours accordingly, especially regarding the colonization of Korea and the imposition of the Twenty-One Demands on China. Japanese imperialist deeds were not extraordinary as far as nineteenth-century international rules were concerned. For example, Britain made Egypt a protectorate in 1914.40 However, if the standards and rules, which Japan

78 Harumi Goto-Shibata had piously followed since the mid-nineteenth century, were outdated and new rules of justice and morality introduced, what she had achieved would be considered simply a shameful injustice. The Japanese intellectuals felt their country’s international prestige was exposed to extreme and imminent threat. There were various shortcomings in the arguments of the authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, and some were obvious even to their fellow authors. For example, in February 1921, Ninagawa Arata criticized the Japanese, who preached racial equality to the world while treating the Chinese as an inferior race.41 This was the most serious and noticeable shortcoming of the Japanese argument concerning justice and racial equality in the pre-war period. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Japan started to claim that it was her duty to liberate all the coloured races from white oppression – but the Japanese did not deny colonial rule as such, and among the coloured races, they took it for granted that they should be at the top of a racial hierarchy. Liberation from whites did not mean complete self-determination and freedom for the coloured races; the Japanese assumed they would be the new leaders. Ninagawa himself would come to justify Japan’s deeds in the 1930s. Why did the authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ frequently mention Britain’s colonies including India, as if they were reacting to Wilsonian idealism? There are at least two plausible reasons. First, the United States and Britain were the two countries who still had inﬂuence in East Asia, and Japan had to think about the possibility of competition with them. Second, it should be noted that the authors frequently used the term Ei Bei, which means Britain and the United States. It seems that some authors were convinced that the two countries were natural allies through the common ties of language and culture, and that the opinions of the two English-speaking countries were identical. They paid almost no attention to the fact that Britain’s diplomacy was as pragmatic as ever and that there were differences and problems between Britain and the United States, such as over the issues of war debts, naval competition and the ratiﬁcation of the Treaty of Versailles. The Japanese authors were obviously mistaken, but this explanation would probably make it clearer how hypocritical the Americans and the British appeared to them. Some authors, therefore, criticized the British Empire to fend off American moral pressure on Japan, and to demand that like cases should be treated in like fashion. They asked that, if Japan’s imperialist deeds were to be criticized, why not those of the British Empire? If the difference between the United States and Britain was scarcely noticed, the difference within the United States, which resulted in Article 21, was almost completely ignored.

Internationalism and nationalism 79 When the United States proposed to convene the Washington Conference, the Japanese leadership was seriously worried that Japan might be treated as a defendant. They were acutely aware that the Americans severely criticized Japan’s China policy and denounced the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. From the American point of view, the alliance had already ceased to serve its original purpose and worked merely as a cover for Japan’s expansion into Asia. Britain was not ready to support Japan at the expense of her friendship with the United States. In the summer of 1921 when the powers prepared for the Washington Conference, the British Foreign Ofﬁce considered it unproﬁtable for the country to be tied with Japan. Mutual distrust among the allies had grown considerably.42 In Washington, the Alliance was abrogated and was replaced by the Four Power Treaty. The problems concerning China were more serious and signiﬁcant for the Japanese than the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The Japanese did not want to lose the spoils gained in war, including the privileges on the Shandong Peninsula, which they had gained from Germany during the First World War. Japanese worries were serious, especially since they did not believe justice would be done if the international judges were American and British. From Japan’s point of view, these were two selﬁsh powers who were incapable of genuine internationalism and who were strongly desirous of wider access to the Chinese market. For that purpose, the two countries needed the good will of the Chinese. In addition, the Japanese could not completely put aside their doubts that they might be treated differently because they were not a white race. Contrary to their worries, however, the Japanese were not treated as defendants at the Washington Conference. On the one hand, the Japanese leaders learned lessons from their failure at Paris and prepared thoroughly for the conference. On the other, although the United States was keen to help China, she did not want the conference convened in the capital to end in failure. The United States needed Japan’s co-operation and maintained a balance between Japan and China.43 Britain wanted to concentrate on the issues of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and naval disarmament, so she was determined to avoid distraction by too many questions from China. The Japanese leaders were relieved, and continued to act within the existing international framework in the 1920s, when Chinese nationalism did not single Japan out as a target for attack.44

Conclusion This study has examined some opinions expressed by Japanese internationalists at a time of great change in the international system. Many

80 Harumi Goto-Shibata Japanese intellectuals had become increasingly conﬁdent about their country’s power and inﬂuence since victory in the Russo-Japanese war. On the other hand, they considered that the drastic changes in international rules exposed Japan to other external threats, and their writings express much anti-Western sentiment as a defensive reaction. Authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ criticized the United States and Britain, whom they thought were setting up a new international order at the expense of the good name of Japan. The authors tried to defend their country because they felt it was under attack from the two English-speaking countries. There were actually many other countries that felt dissatisﬁed with the new international order established after the First World War. China frustrated Japan’s goals at Paris and Washington, but failed to recover the many rights she had lost since the middle of the nineteenth century. Even some British and Americans felt the settlements imperfect. Some British lost their faith in the morality of Britain’s foreign policy. Some looked upon the League as being fundamentally ﬂawed. It is well known that J.M. Keynes left Paris disillusioned. The US Senate did not allow the country to join the League of Nations. Thus, Japanese intellectuals were not alone. Some authors of Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ noted this point and wrote about their hopes that the League would be reformed in future. Their voices, however, were not sufﬁciently inﬂuential to have any effect. Most Japanese leaders and intellectuals observed the world only from their narrow and self-centred viewpoints. Although they were dissatisfied with the existing situation, they did not make any serious efforts to change it in co-operation with other nations, mighty or meek, or by peaceful means. They did not try to bring the issue of justice into open debate in international society. To do so, it would have been necessary for Japan to reform herself internally and externally, and to give up many privileges she enjoyed as a power – however low her ranking internationally. She might not have been a member of the ‘have’ group of nations, but despite the self-righteous illusions of many Japanese, she was by no means an oppressed country during this period. Anti-Western sentiments seem to have remained part of the national consciousness. They might even have provided fertile soil for the extreme nationalism which grew from the late 1920s. Further research is needed to prove this hypothesis, which challenges the mainstream perspective on inter-war internationalists in Japan. As indicated in the introduction to this chapter, the traditional literature concerning pre-war Japan tended to separate internationalists completely from nationalists. However, some revisionist views have started to appear. One example is Shibasaki’s argument, and another example is that of Stephen Large

Internationalism and nationalism 81 who argues in his contribution to the present volume that nationalist extremists of the 1930s Japan managed to exert some influence over society. My analysis here indicates that this new historiographical trend is more convincing than the traditional literature. The two groups of ‘extreme nationalists’ and ‘others’ were certainly composed of different types of people. The former tended to rely much more easily on aggressive and violent methods to achieve their own goals. At the same time, however, the two groups had some things in common. It should be remembered that even internationalists sometimes condemned certain policies of the Western countries. Although they admired many aspects of Western civilization, they sometimes highlighted the unfair actions of the Western powers to defend the dignity of their country. Internationalism and nationalism essentially co-existed in their minds. The hopes of paciﬁst internationalism stood shoulder to shoulder with nationalism. The extreme nationalists could not have succeeded in the 1930s unless some of their remarks sounded convincing to the wider public. When the nationalists criticized the double standards of the Western powers, the exploitation of the colonies and racial discrimination, many Japanese felt that at least some of the statements rang true. In order fully to understand the growth and success of extreme nationalism in inter-war Japan, it is necessary to acknowledge this broader national consciousness.

Notes 1 Shibasaki Atsushi, ‘Kokusai bunka shinko¯ kai no so¯setsu’, Kokusai kankei ron kenkyu¯ 11, 1997, 39–64. See especially section 1-B of the article. See also D. Stegewerns (ed.), Nationalism and Internationalism in Imperial Japan, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, pp. 4–5. 2 Concerning defensive nationalism, see Erica Benner’s chapter in this volume. 3 Naoko Shimazu, Japan, Race and Equality, London: Routledge, 1998; Shimada Yo¯ichi, ‘Ko¯wa kaigi to Berusaiyu jo¯yaku’, Inoue Mitsusada et al. (eds), Nihon Rekishi Taikei 16 Dai ichiji sekai taisen to seito¯ naikaku, Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1997; Nakanishi Hiroshi, ‘20 seiki kokusai kankei no shiten toshite no Pari ko¯wa kaigi (1) (2)’, Ho¯gaku ronso¯, 128–2, 1990 and 129–3, 1991; also Nakanishi Hiroshi, Kokusai seiji to ha nani ka, Tokyo: Chu¯o¯ ko¯ron shin sha, shinsho, 2003, pp. 4–19. 4 Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, The Expansion of International Society, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 119, 217, 220–1, 427–8; G. W. Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. 5 Yoshino Sakuzo¯, ‘Waga Kuni Kindai Shi ni Okeru Seiji Ishiki no Hassei’, Yoshino Sakuzo¯ senshu¯ 11, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995.

82 Harumi Goto-Shibata 6 Banno Junji, Meiji–Shiso¯ no Jitsuzo¯, So¯bun sha, 1977, pp. 16–19, 33–4, 55–7, 180. 7 I. Nish, Alliance in Decline, London: The Athlone Press, 1972, Chapter 7; Kato¯ Yo¯ko, Senso¯ no Nippon kin gendai shi, Tokyo: Ko¯dansha, gendai shinsho, 2002, pp. 170–3. 8 Nish, op. cit., pp. 225–8, 234. 9 Ninagawa Arata, ‘Do¯mei no Sentaku’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 5: 22, 1 Sept. 1915. Ninagawa graduated from Tokyo Imperial University. After studying in Paris, he taught at Do¯shisha and Komazawa Universities. 10 If not otherwise noted, this and the following two paragraphs are based on Furuya Tetsuo (ed.), Kindai Nihon no Ajia Ninshiki, Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyu¯jo, 1994, pp. 82–8. ¯ kawa Shu¯mei no Shoki Indo Kenkyu¯’, Rekishigaku 11 Nagasaki Nobuko, ‘O ¯ kawa was born in 1886 in Sakata, kenkyu¯ ho¯koku, March 1978. O Yamagata Prefecture, and graduated from Fifth High School in Kumamoto and Tokyo Imperial University. After the war, he was sentenced to be a Class A war criminal at the Tokyo war crimes trial, but was later released because it was observed that he was mentally unbalanced. He is also known for having translated the Koran into Japanese. 12 C. W. A. Szpilman, ‘The Dream of One Asia’, in H. Fuess (ed.), The Japanese Empire in East Asia and Its Post-war Legacy, München: Iudicium, 1998, pp. 49–63. 13 Kobayashi Tatsuo (ed.), Suiuso¯ Nikki, Tokyo: Hara shobo¯, 1966, p. 333. Gaiko¯ Cho¯sakai was constituted in June 1917 to unify discussion of foreign policy, and worked until September 1922. 14 Ibid., pp. 334–42. 15 Ibid., p. 308; NHK dokyumento Sho¯wa shuzai han (ed.), Berusaiyu no Nissho¯ ki, Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1986, pp. 210–21. 16 Ibid., p. 232. 17 Ibid., p. 61. 18 Suehiro Shigeo, ‘Beikoku daito¯ryo¯ to heiwa mondai’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 25: 4, 15 Feb. 1917. 19 Suehiro Shigeo, ‘Waga sansen no han’i’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 26: 12, 15 December 1917. 20 Suehiro Shigeo, ‘Nichi ei do¯ mei ni tsuite’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 333, 15 September 1918. 21 Quoted in Saigusa Shigetomo, ‘Kokusai renmei to nihon no chii (ge)’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 344, 1 March 1919, p. 488; Nambara, Saigusa’s classmate, became the President of the University of Tokyo after the Second World War. 22 Suehiro Shigeo, ‘Kokusai renmei kiyaku ron’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 345, 15 March 1919; Tanaka Suiichiro¯, ‘Kokusai renmei kiyaku so¯’an wo yomite’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 345, 15 March 1919. 23 Konoe Fumimaro, Sengo Obei Kenbun Roku, Tokyo: Gaiko¯ Jiho¯ sha, 1920. 24 G. W. Egerton, ‘Britain and the Great Betrayal’, The Historical Journal, 21–4, 1978, pp. 885–911; D. Varé, Laughing Diplomat, London: Murray, 1938. American dissatisfaction with this issue was again expressed at the time of the Geneva Opium Conference of 1924–25. On page 474 of his Opium as an International Problem, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1925, W. W. Willoughby wrote as follows:

Internationalism and nationalism 83 With regard to both Conferences it is, perhaps, worth noting that the British Empire derived considerable special advantage from the separate representation of India and – in the Second Conference – of several of its “Dominions”. This advantage was shown not only in the matter of voting strength, but with regard to representation upon sub-committees. In the First Conference M. Sugimura referred, at one time, to the fact that the British and Indian Delegations seemed to think as but one. 25 Inahara Katusji, ‘Ei bei futsu no san goku do¯mei’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 354, 1 August 1919. 26 Yamamoto Miono, ‘Kokusai renmei ni taisuru ichi gimon’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 355, 15 August 1919. 27 Sato¯ Kenji, ‘Kokusai renmei no kachi wo ronjite taiheiyo¯ mondai ni oyobu’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 369, 15 March 1920. 28 Tachi Sakutaro¯, ‘Kokusai renmei to monro¯ shugi’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 369, 15 March 1919; Sugimura Yo¯taro¯, ‘Kokusai renmei to jo¯yaku’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 375, 15 June 1920. Sugimura was one of Japan’s representatives to the international opium conference held in Geneva in 1924–25. Presented with Britain’s severe criticism against Japan’s loose control of the trafﬁcking in opium and other dangerous drugs, Sugimura argued that Britain’s stance was ‘unfair and unjust’. On Sugimura’s argument on this occasion and Japan’s memory of the ‘Opium War,’ see H. Goto-Shibata, ‘The International Opium Conference of 1924–25’, Modern Asian Studies, 36: 4, 2002, 969–91. 29 Inahara, ‘Gunbi seigen to taiheiyo¯ kaigi no teian’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 402, 1 August 1921. 30 ‘Jiron’ by Hanzawa entitled ‘Kashu¯ no hai nichi mondai’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 377, 15 July 1920. 31 ‘Jiron’ by Hanzawa entitled ‘Gokai saretaru minzoku jiketsu shugi’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 381, 15 September 1920. 32 ‘Jiron’ by Hanzawa entitled ‘Nichi ei do¯mei kaitei ron’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 390, 1 February 1921. 33 ‘Jiron’ by Hanzawa entitled ‘Hai nichi an to nippon no taisaku’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 382, 1 October 1920. 34 See S. Tanaka, Japan’s Orient, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. 35 ‘Jiron’ by Hanzawa entitled ‘Kokusai renmei so¯kai to nippon’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 383, 15 October 1920. 36 ‘Jiron’ by Hanzawa entitled ‘Shina ni okeru nichi bei no sho¯rai’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 394, 1 April 1921. 37 Soejima Michimasa, ‘Nichi ei do¯mei ko¯tei ni tsuite’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 394, 1 April 1921. 38 ‘Justice in International Relations: The 1983 Hagey Lectures (1984)’, in K. Alderson and A. Hurrell (eds), Hedley Bull on International Society, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000, p. 208. 39 A. Roberts, ‘Order/Justice Issue at the United Nations’, in R. Foot, J.L. Gaddis and A. Hurrell (eds), Order and Justice in International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 49. 40 Ariga Nagao, ‘Ejiputo hogo koku Suezu unga sho¯rai no chii’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 6, 15 March 1915.

84 Harumi Goto-Shibata 41 Ninagawa Arata, ‘Hai nichi no gen’in to kanwa saku’, Gaiko¯ Jiho¯, 391, 15 February 1921. After the Second World War, Ninagawa was banned from holding public ofﬁce. 42 Nish, op. cit., pp. 302, 303, 324–5, 331, 341–2; see also H. Goto–Shibata, ‘Hayashi Gonsuke (1860–1939) and the Path to the Washington Conference’, in Hugh Cortazzi (ed.), Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits, vol. 5, Kent: Global Oriental, Japan Library, 2004, pp. 146–53. 43 Hattori Ryu¯ji, Higashi Ajia kokusai kankyo¯ no hendo¯ to Nippon gaiko¯, 1918–1931, Tokyo: Yu¯hikaku, 2001, pp. 89–112. Sugimura Yo¯taro¯, ‘Kaigi gaiko¯ no shinsei men’, Kokusai renmei, 2: 4, April 1922, 104. 44 It was not Japan’s relations with the Western powers but the growth of Chinese nationalism that ﬁnally made Japan act unilaterally. See H. GotoShibata, Japan and Britain in Shanghai, 1925–31, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995.

4

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41, in historical perspective Stephen S. Large

As Prasenjit Duara observes, ‘Nationalism is rarely the nationalism of the nation, but rather represents the site where very different views of the nation contest and negotiate with each other’.1 There are many instances in modern Japanese history from the mid-nineteenth century to recent times where nationalist contention took a violent turn. During the 1920s and 1930s, the period under consideration in this chapter, this violent turn was manifested, for example, in Asahi Heigo¯’s assassination of Yasuda Zenjiro¯, the head of the Yasuda zaibatsu, on 28 September 1921; the assassination by Nakaoka Kon’ichi of Prime Minister Hara Takashi on 4 November 1921; Sagoya Tomeo’s fatal wounding of Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi on 14 November 1930; the Ketsumeidan murders of the former Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke and the Director General of Mitsui Dan Takuma on 9 February and 5 March 1932, respectively; the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi on 15 May 1932; and the assassinations, during the short-lived army rebellion of 26 February 1936, of Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal (and former Prime Minister) Admiral Saito¯ Makoto, and a prominent army general. Although there were fewer such outbreaks of violence after the 1936 rebellion, this was not for lack of terrorist plots which the police uncovered year after year.2 Thus, it is not surprising that speaking in his concurrent capacity as Home Minister, Prime Minister To¯jo¯ Hideki felt compelled to warn the Imperial Conference on 1 December 1941, which decided upon war, that ‘nationalist organizations’ remained ‘very excitable; they are rash, and they may resort to violence. We believe they should be kept under observation and control.’ To¯jo¯ recommended protection for government and ﬁnancial leaders ‘who are regarded by extremists as being pro-British and pro-American’.3 The assassins in the above-mentioned ‘incidents’ – and key ﬁgures in ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, Kita Ikki and Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯ who the wings like O

86 Stephen S. Large supported or influenced them at different times – respected To¯yama Mitsuru and Uchida Ryo¯hei, who were prominent ﬁgures in the Genyo¯sha (‘Dark Ocean Society’, established in 1881) and the Kokuryu¯kai (‘Amur River Society’, founded in 1901), respectively. But the assassins did not come from these organizations. Rather, they comprised the most extreme elements of the loosely structured and highly differentiated nationalist movement, which developed apace in the 1920s and 1930s, to achieve a new ‘Restoration’ and a radical ‘renovation’ (kakushin) of Japan. In brief, the assassins and the extremist groups to which they belonged believed that the high ideals of benevolent imperial rule and national greatness ﬂowing from the 1868 Meiji Restoration had been corroded by the effects of capitalism (epitomized by the zaibatsu), democracy (epitomized chiefly by the mainstream political parties and party cabinets, but also by liberalism, socialism, anarchism and communism), class conﬂict (e.g. labour and agrarian disputes), modernism (broadly, anything ‘foreign’ or ‘Western’ that would undermine an authentic Japanese cultural identity) and internationalism (as manifested in the government’s policy, dating from the 1920s, of ‘cooperative diplomacy’ and in the government’s perceived neglect of national defence, a matter which especially concerned the young ofﬁcers).4 While not all nationalist extremists were militant expansionists, most of them held that it was Japan’s destiny to save Asia from the threats of international communism and Western imperialism. That nationalist extremist protest against the established order peaked in the early 1930s reflected the combined impact of the social and economic crisis of the Great Depression, the uproar over the government’s failure to achieve naval parity with the Anglo-American powers in the 1930 London Naval Treaty, and the crisis of the Manchurian Incident. Some extremists were also stimulated by the rise of fascist regimes in Europe to try and quicken the pace of change in Japan through violent direct action. For all of these reasons, the extremists targeted prominent symbols of wealth, power and privilege in Japan: party politicians, business and ﬁnancial ﬁgures and members of the aristocracy, including ‘liberal’ advisers around the throne who allegedly had come between the emperor and the people. The planning for the 15 May 1932 Incident, the 26 February 1936 Incident and a number of other extremist incidents also included an attempted coup d’état, to install a reformist regime that could purify and unify the country while strengthening national defence. However, neither its speciﬁc grievances nor the diverse political ideas that influenced the extremist movement – for example Kita Ikki’s

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 87 national socialism and Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯’s militant brand of no¯honshugi (agrarian utopianism) – are in themselves sufficient to explain the extraordinary tenacity and passionate intensity of nationalist extremism in this period. What else held the members of extremist groups together in a common and highly dangerous cause? What else sustained their radical faith in the efﬁcacy of violent direct action? In pursuing these questions, we need to dig more deeply into the extremist movement itself, to examine its internal sub-culture of shared symbols, moral values, self-images, rhetoric, rituals, and so forth, which fostered a powerful sense of brotherhood, an adamant defiance of political authority, and a willingness to kill, and if necessary be killed, for the common cause. This I shall try to do in the ﬁrst section of this chapter. In the second section, I will suggest several ways in which to situate nationalist extremism within the broader context of developments in inter-war Japan.

Part one: internal sub-culture Judging from their books, tracts, prison affidavits, trial testimonies, diaries, memoirs and other sources, the hard men of violence in the nationalist ranks were aware of belonging to a special world of their own collective making.5 They romanticized this world, both among themselves and to the general public, emphasizing the contrast between its spirit of patriotism, self-sacriﬁce and resolute moral purpose and the political indifference, decadence and moral confusion which they saw all around them. What, then, were its deﬁning characteristics? It is useful to break this problem down into separate, albeit overlapping, categories as follows.6 Many of my examples are taken from my research on Inoue Nissho¯ and the Ketsumeidan, but I will refer to other individuals and groups as well. I am very aware that one could write a great deal more about this subject than is possible here.7 Names Nationalist extremist groups were organized in a variety of formats, ranging from political parties (to¯), and societies (kai, sha) to the more traditional school (juku), corps or band (dan), and unit or squad (tai, with a military connotation), which were redolent of various nationalist groups in late Tokugawa and Meiji Japan. They were typically small in scale and led by a commanding personality who was greatly respected for his alleged charismatic authority, strength of moral character and political courage. These groups often cooperated with each other,

88 Stephen S. Large although personal and ideological rivalries and disputes over strategy and tactics were more the norm throughout the extremist movement. The names of these groups are important for what they reveal about the political outlook, collective identity, and political mission of their ¯ kawa Shu¯mei and Mitsukawa Kametaro¯ took members. To illustrate, O the name of the Yu¯zonsha, ‘Society of Those Who Yet Remain’, which they founded in 1919, from an ancient Chinese poem: ‘Though all the paths lie overgrown, the pines and chrysanthemums still survive.’ The name signiﬁed an enduring nativist idealism, in contrast to the ‘foreign’ ideologies of socialism, anarchism and communism which most nationalists ardently opposed.8 This nativism was likewise conveyed in the names of LieutenantColonel Hashimoto Kingoro¯’s Sakurakai, or ‘Cherry Blossom Society’, which was central to two abortive army plots in 1931, and the Shichisho¯sha, the ‘Seven Lives Society’, a nationalist student group formed at Tokyo Imperial University in 1925 which inspired some of its members to participate, along with students from other universities, in the Ketsumeidan Incident. The name ‘Shichisho¯sha’ came from a vow, allegedly made by the medieval warrior Kusunoki Masashige, to die seven times for the imperial cause.9 The ﬁerce imperial loyalism which typified the entire radical nationalist movement is also apparent in ¯ kawa’s choice of the name Jinmukai, after the mythical emperor O ¯ shikai, ‘Society Jinmu, for a group he established in 1932, and in the O for Kingly Leadership’ a group of radical young naval ofﬁcers formed by naval Lieutenant Fujii Hitoshi in 1928. Some nationalist names were more prosaic, like the Aikokusha, or ‘Patriotic Society’ (formed in 1928), with which Sagoya Tomeo, Prime Minister Hamaguchi’s killer, was linked, and the Nihon Kokuminto¯ (the ‘Japan National Party’), established by Suzuki Zen’ichi and others in 1929. Signiﬁcantly, however, in good many instances the names to hand were meant to suggest a divinely sanctioned mission to redeem Japan from political chaos and moral decay. Thus, we have the Gyo¯chisha, or ¯ kawa formed ‘Society to Carry Out Heaven’s Way on Earth’, which O in 1924 as a successor to the Yu¯zonsha after his rift with Kita Ikki; the Tenkento¯, ‘the Heavenly Swords Party’, a group of young army ofﬁcers which was formed by Kita’s right-hand man, Nishida Mitsugi, in 1927; and the Shinpeitai, or ‘God-Sent Troops’, as the conspirators in an abortive incident of that name in July, 1933, called themselves. The violent resolve of certain groups was expressed even more bluntly in their names. This was true, for instance, of the No¯min Kesshitai, or ‘Death-Defying Farmers’ Band’. A small eleven-man offshoot of the Aikyo¯juku, ‘the Love of Community Academy’ founded by Tachibana

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 89 Ko¯saburo¯ in 1931 in Ibaraki Prefecture, the No¯min Kesshitai took part in the 15 May 1932 Incident, during which Prime Minister Inukai was slain.10 The Ketsumeidan (‘Blood-Pledge Corps’), formed in 1928 by the self-styled Nichiren Buddhist priest Inoue Nissho¯ , also arose in Ibaraki and it, too, spawned a ‘Death-Defying Band’ which, consisting of five of Inoue’s followers (who were hence also known as the ‘Ketsumei gonin otoko’, or ‘Five Pledged Stalwarts’), included Onuma Sho¯ and Hisanuma Goro¯, the two youths who did the shooting in the Ketsumeidan Incident. It should be noted in passing that the name ‘Ketsumeidan’ itself came into use only after the Incident. Until then, it ¯ arai group’, was known simply as the ‘Inoue’ or ‘Nissho¯ group’, or the ‘O 11 after the coastal town where it originated. In one intriguing case, the militant name of a religious cult misled the police into thinking that the group posed a serious threat to law and order. The Shinaudan (or Shino¯dan), ‘The Band of Those Who Would Die’, was a small group of men (and women) led by another self-styled Nichiren priest, Egawa Chu¯ji, in Kanagawa Prefecture. Already known locally for parading through the streets dressed in black robes and repeatedly shouting ‘Let us Die!’, they brieﬂy attracted national attention in 1933 when the police alleged that they had planned to kill Prince Saionji Kinmochi, the Sho¯wa emperor’s leading adviser at court. This soon prompted nervous speculation in the press that the Shinaudan was a ‘second Ketsumeidan’.12 However, it is more probable that the chant ‘Let Us Die!’ merely signiﬁed an apocalyptic willingness to die for the sake of Japan’s spiritual deliverance and that unlike the Ketsumeidan, Egawa and his followers did not really intend to kill anyone unless, perhaps, it was themselves, to demonstrate the depth of their religious fervour. Historical icons How the nationalist extremists saw themselves also comes out vividly in the historical icons which they commonly revered. As other historians have emphasized, they were determined to emulate the shishi, the ‘men of high purpose’ who attacked the Tokugawa regime, often at the cost of their own lives, in order to ‘restore’ the emperor in the mid-nineteenth century. This sense of historical re-enactment was especially intense in regions such as Ibaraki and Kyushu where the ﬁres of loyalism burned brightly in inter-war Japan. Consider, for instance, the Ketsumeidan and the Mito tradition of loyalism in Ibaraki. Inoue Nissho¯ was the resident ‘priest’ at the Rissho¯ Gokokudo¯ (‘The Temple to Establish Righteousness and Protect the

90 Stephen S. Large Nation’) when he recruited into the Ketsumeidan young men from ¯ arai and nearby villages which had been impoverished by the impact O of the Depression. This small temple had been recently built through the patronage of Tanaka Mitsuaki, former Imperial Household Minister to Emperor Meiji, whose private secretary, a friend of Inoue’s from their earlier Manchuria days, recommended Inoue as resident priest to Tanaka. The temple housed a bronze statue of Nichiren and a medieval mandala bearing Nichiren’s warning of the Mongol attack, which Nichiren interpreted as punishment for Japan’s sinful neglect of the Lotus Sutra. But signiﬁcantly for our purposes, just up the hill from the temple there was a new museum, likewise built by Tanaka, to commemorate both Emperor Meiji and the Mito shishi who had helped pave the way to the Restoration by assassinating the senior Tokugawa minister Ii Naosuke in the ‘Sakuradamon Incident’ of 1860. Thus, Inoue and the Ketsumeidan breathed the air of Mito loyalism and pledged themselves similarly to die as martyrs of the ‘Sho¯wa Restoration’ in their own time.13 Elsewhere in Ibaraki, Tachibana’s Aikyo¯juku, Lieutenant Fujii’s aforementioned circle stationed at the Kasumigaura Naval Air Training Base, the Shizanjuku (‘Purple Mountain Academy’) led by Honma Ken’chiro¯, and other nationalist groups, all breathed the same air of Mito loyalism. Restoration heroes from other areas of Japan inspired the Ibaraki extremists as well. Prominent among them were Yoshida Sho¯in of Cho¯shu¯, Sakamoto Ryo¯ma of Tosa and from Kyushu, Saigo¯ Takamori of Satsuma. Needless to say, the many nationalist extremists in the interwar years who came from Kyushu were even more directly inﬂuenced by this heritage of Kyushu loyalism. Not by accident did Asahi Heigo¯, Lieutenant Fujii Hitoshi and his protégés Lieutenants Koga Kiyoshi and Mikami Taku (both of whom were pivotal in the 15 May 1932 Incident) all came from Saga, as did four of the sixteen young ofﬁcers who led the 26 February 1936 army uprising. Then, too, Sagoya Tomeo came from Nagasaki.14 Lifestyles As one might expect of men who fervently identiﬁed with the shishi, an iconoclastic, free-wheeling independence, which reinforced their deﬁance of political authority, typiﬁed the way many nationalist extremists lived, or aspired to live. Again, Inoue Nissho¯ is a good illustration. Like Asahi Heigo¯, Kita Ikki and numerous other extremists in the inter-war period, Inoue had spent time in China during the stormy early

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 91 years of the new Republic. He later likened himself to a ‘ro¯nin’ (masterless samurai) when recalling his activities as a spy for the Japanese army and his habit, when off duty, of drinking heavily and consorting with prostitutes in China: ‘I was like a wild animal.’15 In part, Inoue attributed this wildness to his failure to discover the ‘truths’ of the universe, but at least while in China he had been what he always wanted to be, a ‘free man’.16 Later, in the different context of forging links with other nationalist extremists in Japan, this continuing determination to live freely sometimes got in the way. Once, at a year-end party on 30 December 1931 which was attended by members of the Ketsumeidan and young ofﬁcers from both armed services to consider plans for direct action, Inoue abruptly interrupted the discussion to join a prostitute in the next room and later that night, he dashed drunkenly into the crowded street, loudly boasting of a coming terrorist incident. The army men who were present on that occasion concluded that Inoue was unreliable. This was a major factor in their decision not to take part in the Ketsumeidan Incident.17 However, the men who worked closely with Inoue when he masterminded the Ketsumeidan Incident never doubted his reliability. They saw him as a man who, having the courage to be oneself, to act unconventionally in daily life, would also have the courage to act decisively upon his political convictions when the time came. In this respect, Inoue personiﬁed the general tendency of seisei do¯do¯ – to be entirely open and above board – which one writer suggests was a distinctive feature of the extreme ‘right-wing’.18 But Inoue was also a man of many contradictions, for he was no less respected for his obsession with self-discipline. This coexistence in his temperament of wildness and self-discipline, which one also finds in the stereotypical shishi, is perhaps not as paradoxical as it may seem if the political will to risk everything for a cause requires both a wild indifference to danger and a disciplined concentration on the task at hand. In any case, following his return to Japan from China in 1920, Inoue practised self-discipline, for example, by sitting for long periods in Zen meditation, by chanting the Lotus Sutra, and by mastering the literary discipline of writing poetry in the tanka and haiku styles. Other nationalist extremists pursued self-discipline through the study of Confucian and Buddhist teachings, training in the martial arts, or as in the case of Kita Ikki, chanting the Lotus Sutra every day following his conversion in China to Nichiren Buddhism.19 But if Inoue Nissho¯ was not unique in this respect, he did carry discipline to extremes. At ¯ arai he had his followers in the Ketsumeidan the Rissho¯ Gokokudo¯ in O cultivate their collective self-discipline by meditating together, chanting

92 Stephen S. Large the Lotus Sutra together and by fasting together for days at a time. Preaching that ‘The way of poverty is the way of the bodhisattva’, he often took them into the countryside, dressed in black robes and straw sandals, and with begging bowls in hand, to cultivate a spirit of humility. This shared life of disciplined austerity bound them closely together as brothers who would one day act politically on behalf of the poor and powerless in Japan.20 Yet herein lay another contradiction. As was true of virtually every other national extremist group in inter-war Japan, civilian and military alike, the members of the Ketsumeidan came from the middle class or lower middle class.21 Thus, when he surrendered to the police soon after the Ketsumeidan murders, Inoue Nissho¯, whose father was a fairly well-off village doctor in Gunma Prefecture, looked anything but poor, despite his earlier ascetic life-style at the Rissho¯ Gokokudo¯. The newspapers reported that he cut ‘a refined figure’, wearing hakama, zo¯ri, a fur scarf and a felt hat.22 In fact, some of the extremists lived like kings. Thanks to protection money he extorted from the Mitsui zaibatsu in the early 1930s, Kita Ikki owned a large house, employed three maids and had a chauffeurdriven car. He also owned a second house where his mother lived.23 Ritual and festival If we take ‘ritual’ in its broadest sense, every nationalist organization had its own internal rituals, the purpose of which was to promote solidarity and provide inspiration in pursuing the cause of a new Restoration and renovation of Japan. Examples are the lecture and discussion meetings of study groups like Yasuoka Masaatsu’s Kinkei Gakuin (‘Golden Pheasant Society’), which politicized some of the young officers and student activists who dedicated themselves to violent direct action; the political meetings of the militant Nippon Kokuminto¯ and the Dai Nippon Seisanto¯ (‘The Greater Japan Production Party’); or the religious services of the Ketsumeidan at the Rissho¯ Gokokudo¯ which, perfumed with incense, resounded to the chants of the Lotus Sutra and prayers to Saint Nichiren for guidance. Inoue Nissho¯ also used religious ritual to raise funds for the Ketsumeidan. A self-professed faith-healer, he would often sell incantations and prayers (kaji kito¯) to the crowds of local villagers who ﬂocked to the Gokokudo¯ seeking remedies for illness and relief from poverty in the Great Depression.24 Sworn pledges and oaths of loyalty typiﬁed the radical nationalist movement. They were usually undertaken at Shinto¯ shrines, Buddhist temples, or at the graves of Restoration heroes. Interestingly, though, it

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 93 appears that only a handful of nationalist groups had elaborate initiation rites in the 1920s and 1930s.25 One that did was the Dai Nippon Seigidan (‘Greater Japan Political Justice Corps’). Established in 1925, and later known for its members’ black shirts, the proto-fascist Seigidan had a Shinto¯ initiation ceremony. New members of some organizations, such as the Daito¯sha, or ‘Imperial Throne Society’, were required to swear allegiance with their own blood in a ‘blood alliance’.26 However, blood oaths were not as common in this period as in the Meiji nationalist movement. In the case of the Ketsumeidan, the ceremony of a blood oath was conﬁned to the previously mentioned ‘Five Pledged Stalwarts’ who met secretly one night at a bathhouse for this purpose.27 Inoue Nissho¯ himself claimed that he did not learn about this ritual until after the Ketsumeidan Incident. When he wrote out the namu myo¯ho¯ rengekyo¯ Lotus prayer for Onuma Sho¯, shortly before Onuma shot Inoue Junnosuke, Nissho¯ added the word ‘ketsumei’, meaning simply ‘pledge’, but not ‘blood pledge’.28 Without doubt, the most important ritual occasions turned out to be the open, public trials, including separate civilian, army and navy trials, for the participants in the Ketsumeidan and 15 May 1932 Incidents. As I have suggested elsewhere,29 the defendants in these trials seized the opportunity of testifying under cross-examination to explain the righteousness of their motives in assassinating Japanese leaders whom they held accountable for weak and corrupt government, economic inequality, social injustice, moral decadence, and the decline of the armed forces. This tactic of evangelizing from the dock succeeded, in that with the mass media reporting their testimonies in great detail for months on end, a signiﬁcant segment of public opinion gradually shifted in their favour, not in the sense of condoning the murders they had committed, but in the sense of honouring the moral purity of their motives. Soon the courts were flooded with thousands of petitions from all parts of Japan demanding leniency for the defendants, while outside in the streets and parks, nationalist groups staged daily rallies, ﬂying ﬂags and shouting slogans on their behalf. When the trials invariably ended with relatively lenient sentences, a festival atmosphere prevailed both within the courtroom and beyond, as people joyously celebrated the verdicts. Initially branded as ‘traitors’, the defendants were now widely seen as would-be ‘saviours’ of Japan. I will return to this point later. The public festival aspect of nationalist extremism was apparent on the several occasions when various nationalist groups tried to forge a united front. An example is the inauguration of the Zen Nippon Aikokusha Kyo¯do¯ To¯so¯ Kyo¯gikai (‘The All-Japan Patriots’ Joint Struggle

94 Stephen S. Large Council’), or ‘Nikkyo¯’, in the spring of 1931. ‘I remember now’, Kodama Yoshio recalled, that ‘we youths recited patriotic poems, performed ancient sword dances and discussed national problems under the cherry blossoms’ as they celebrated the formation of this nationalist alliance. Moreover, during their public rallies, they sang the newlycomposed Nikkyo¯ song. The words of one stanza ran, Daily we submit to hypocrisy and lies, while national honour lingering dies! Arise ye! Oh, Patriots, arise! Onward we march, defying death! Come prison bars! Come gory death! 30 The Nikkyo¯ song, although intended to foster unity and help recruit new members to the alliance, could not have been sung very often, for Nikkyo¯ soon fell prey to successive splits. The ‘Sho¯ wa Ishin no Uta’, or the ‘Song of the Sho¯ wa Restoration’, the words of which were written in 1930 by naval Lieutenant Mikami Taku, was probably sung more frequently by extremist groups in the 1930s and proved to be very popular in the post-war nationalist movement. It went, in part: ‘Proud of their inﬂuence, and without feeling for the nation, the zaibatsu, who boast of their wealth, have no regard for their country and people.’ Another stanza: ‘Under the spring skies of the Sho¯wa Restoration marches a mighty army of warriors, their hearts united in righteousness, like the falling blossoms of the cherry trees.’31 Rhetoric The words to these songs were part of a wider ‘idioculture’, or ‘a system of knowledge, beliefs, behaviours and customs . . . to which members can refer and which they can employ as the basis of further interaction’ in the nationalist extremist movement.32 This idioculture, which comes across in slogans, manifestos, letters, books, and testimonies at civilian trials and military courts, typically featured ‘god terms’, to use Kenneth Burke’s well-known phrase. 33 They included, for example, the sacred ‘kokutai’ (national polity), ‘sokoku’ (ancestral land), ‘ko¯do¯’ (imperial way), ‘kunmin itchi ’ (the emperor and people as one), ‘chu¯kun aikoku’ (loyalty to the emperor and love of the country), ‘nippon seishin’ (Japanese spirit), ‘seimei ’ (life force), ‘ishin’ (restoration), ‘kakushin’ and ‘kaizo¯’ (reconstruction, a term also widely used by the left wing).

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 95 Their meaning was rarely defined with any precision. Nevertheless, these ‘god terms’ performed an important amuletic function within the extremist movement of reinforcing its members’ sense of brotherly solidarity and shared mission.34 Certain individuals in the movement were known for their powerful ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, for instance, characterized Kita Ikki’s rhetorical style. O written and spoken style as direct, thoughtful and inspirational; it radiated the intrinsic interest of Kita’s ideas and evoked a powerful will to act upon one’s beliefs in ways reminiscent of many Chinese and Japanese poems and songs.35 By contrast, an ugly violence punctuated much of the rhetoric of nationalist extremism. In one conversation, for instance, it was reportedly said that as many as 6,000 political and business leaders would have to be killed to bring about a ‘Sho¯wa Restoration’.36 Lurid images of death and destruction prevailed in nationalist manifestos as well. In their manifesto for the 15 May 1932 Incident naval Lieutenants Mikami Taku and Kuroiwa Isamu declared, ‘The political parties are blinded by power and party interests. The zaibatsu collude with them and suck the blood of the masses [minshu¯] . . . Japan is now already dying at the abyss of entangled depravity.’ They continued, ‘You the people, take up arms and arise! Let us massacre the traitors, the privileged classes! . . . Let us destroy the existing foul system! Before a great construction, we need a thorough-going destruction.’37 Ironically, given the emphasis on ‘renovation’, this overwhelming preoccupation with destruction, at the expense of anticipating what the building of a new order would speciﬁcally entail, was very characteristic of the nationalist extremist movement. The most notable exception was Kita Ikki, whose Nihon kaizo¯ ho¯an taiko¯ (Outline Plan for the Reorganization of Japan, written in 1919) provided a fairly detailed blueprint of reform which would follow a coup d’état and the suspension of the Meiji Constitution. But typically describing themselves as ‘martyrs’ (for instance, the ‘giseiteki na sute-ishi ’, or ‘sacriﬁcial road ballast’) of a new ‘Restoration’,38 most all of the nationalist extremists were content to let other men build a new order. As it happened, only a handful of extremists chose martyrdom (e.g. Asahi Heigo¯, who committed suicide right after slaying his victim). For example, Inoue Nissho¯ and others in the Ketsumeidan Incident surrendered to the police or were caught while trying to ﬂee. Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯ ﬂed to Manchuria where he was eventually apprehended by ¯ kawa the police and brought back to Japan to stand trial along with O Shu¯mei, To¯yama Hidezo¯ (a son of the doyen of the nationalist movement, To¯yama Mitsuru) and others for their role in supporting the 15

96 Stephen S. Large May 1932 Incident from behind the scenes. Interestingly, Mikami Taku’s father publicly criticized Mikami for not committing seppuku to demonstrate his moral ‘sincerity’ in helping to assassinate Prime Minister Inukai.39 As for the army rebels four years later, ‘Out of more than twenty ofﬁcers and ex-ofﬁcers who led the 26 February 1936 rebellion, only two committed suicide.’40 Historical mission The sense of being ‘called’ to play a special, decisive role in history was very strong throughout the nationalist extremist movement, particularly in the case of individuals who underwent a personal mystical experience which conferred upon them a certain charismatic authority in the eyes of their followers. Perhaps the best example of this was Inoue Nissho¯, when in 1923, as he was sitting in the ruins of a temple near his home village (Kawaba, in Gunma Prefecture) chanting the Lotus Sutra, a mysterious voice suddenly called out to him, ‘Omae wa sukuinushi da!’ – ‘You are the saviour!’ Inoue recalled that he was at once blessed with a spiritual calm and the conviction that he was destined for greatness in redeeming Japan from the sins of selﬁsh materialism and corruption which he discerned throughout Japanese society and politics.41 The conviction, expressed in mystical terms, that they were ‘chosen’ to save Japan, drove the Ketsumeidan killers as well. Onuma Sho¯ testiﬁed on trial that when he shot Inoue Junnosuke he had been inspired by Inoue Nissho¯’s emphasis on the moral principle of ‘issetsu tasho¯’, a Buddhist term which the Ketsumeidan had interpreted as the compassionate ‘killing of one to save the many’.42 In this, Onuma claimed to have been ‘the instrument of Nyo¯rai’ (the Buddha).43 Hishinuma Goro¯ echoed Onuma, telling the court that his assassination of Dan Takuma had been ‘a mystical assassination’ ordained by ‘divine will’ (shin-i).44 They both proudly said they had administered ‘heaven’s punishment’ of the wicked. It is likely that Kita Ikki, too, felt ‘called’, in his case through the agency of mystical visions, which he experienced frequently. To illustrate, Kita relates that he received a posthumous note from Asahi Heigo¯ after Asahi committed suicide in 1921. Kita hung the note up on the wall and then, while chanting the Lotus Sutra, he saw a vision of Asahi’s smiling face. He had never seen Asahi before but he instantly knew it was Asahi’s face, which was conﬁrmed later when he saw Asahi’s photograph in a newspaper. Kita doubtless felt a personal connection with Asahi in the cause of reforming Japan, just as Asahi had identiﬁed with Kita’s ‘Outline Plan’, mentioned earlier, prior to killing Yasuda Zenjiro¯.45

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 97 Kita’s faith in the Lotus Sutra and his identiﬁcation with Nichiren, who vowed ‘I will be the Pillar of Japan’, probably reinforced in Kita a sense of political destiny, both for himself and the young ofﬁcers whom he inﬂuenced. He kept a ‘spirit diary’ (reikoku nikki), where he recorded the utterances of his wife Suzuko, through whom the gods supposedly spoke to him and some of his closest followers during frequent seances held at his house. On 24 February 1936, after the young ofﬁcers had informed Kita that their army uprising would begin in two days, the gods proclaimed, ‘Light shines from the emperor. There are no dark clouds.’46 But Kita’s optimistic belief that the emperor would support the rebellion, and that it would surely succeed, turned out to be quite mistaken. He was executed, together with Nishida Mitsugi, for his alleged complicity in this doomed attempted coup. Hashikawa Bunzo¯ points out that claims to religious transcendence were common in Japanese ultra-nationalism and often led to an absolute belief in the self (jiga) as the ultimate arbiter of truth.47 Inoue Nissho¯ expressed this belief repeatedly when preaching that there is good in evil and evil in good: ‘The standard of good and evil lies within me.’48 He therefore denounced ‘modern’, ‘Western’ ways of thought which, through logic and reason, drew false distinctions that obscured the fundamental unity and interdependence of all things in the universe. To Inoue, only through reliance upon intuitive insight could the individual come to see that everything in the universe was bound together by a ‘great life force’ (daiseimei).49 Indeed, a good many nationalist extremists blamed what they termed the ‘decline of culture’ (bunka no taihai) in the 1920s and 1930s on the destructive influences of Western rationalism.50 Even the relatively dispassionate nationalist Tsukui Tatsuo would assert that ‘Rationalism is yesterday’s truth. Myth and tradition are becoming today’s truth.’51 They wanted a return to native myths and traditions in Japan’s ancient past when, they believed, the emperor and people had been united in an ideal ethical family-state (kazoku kokka). By reclaiming this lost past, modern Japan would truly extol the peerless kokutai as the cornerstone of its spiritual and moral regeneration.52 Different variations of this tendency to idealize the past can be found in the no¯honshugi thought of ¯ kawa Shu¯mei’s ambitious Gondo¯ Seikyo¯ and Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯, in O project of synthesizing Japanese and other Asian ethical traditions, and in the ideas of other men like Yasuoka Maasatsu, whose lectures were frequently attended by extremist young ofﬁcers and university students. There was, then, a strong millenarian streak in the radical nationalist movement, for it shared with all millenarian movements a ‘yearning for a lost past’ as ‘they await a novel future’.53 Hence, George Wilson writes,

98 Stephen S. Large ‘When twentieth-century Japanese “ultranationalists” championed the kokutai, they were nostalgically harking back to the notion of the realm’ (tenka), a holistic normative vision signifying a moral and political unity that had been supplanted by the state after the Meiji Restoration.54 Their apocalyptic belief that Japan would perish without a new Restoration of this lost realm turned them to political terrorism which they believed was the only path to national salvation.55

Part two: nationalist extremism in inter-war Japan The murder of Prime Minister Inukai in 1932 marked the end of party government in Japan until it was revived under the Occupation. However, a new ‘Restoration’ never took place and if extremist violence represented ‘fascism from below’, this only gave rise to ‘fascism from above’ following the suppression of the 26 February 1936 army rebellion as Japan increasingly prioritized the construction of an impregnable ‘national defence state’ (kokubo¯ kokka) dominated politically by the military.56 That was not what the extremists had meant by ‘renovation’. Ben-Ami Shillony states, of the young ofﬁcers, that they ‘were not interested in having the Army dominate the state. They wanted to reform the state in a way which would eliminate the “privileged classes” and nationalize big wealth.’57 The same can be said of the civilian extremists – Inoue ¯ kawa Shu¯mei and others. Nissho¯, Kita Ikki, Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯, O This attack on the ‘privileged classes’ and the quest for social justice beneﬁting the ‘masses’ brings me to my ﬁrst general point in placing the nationalist extremists in historical perspective: in certain respects there were close afﬁnities between the radical ‘right wing’ and the radical ‘left wing’, despite their intense political rivalry. The nationalist extremists and the anarchists both used the term ‘direct action’ although for the Japanese anarchists the term generally signiﬁed militant class struggle, a general strike and the like, but not political assassination, as found in the history of European anarchism. How far the nationalist extremists were aware of this European connotation of ‘direct action’ is an interesting question for further research. More signiﬁcantly, the nationalist extremists, the anarchists and the communists all professed to speak for the ‘masses’ in opposing Japanese capitalism. The anarchists and the communists sought to overthrow the emperor and the ‘emperor system’ (tenno¯sei). While the nationalist extremists revered the emperor, yet in seeking to liberate him from the clutches of bureaucratic power at court and in the government so that he would become the ‘people’s emperor’ (as Kita Ikki put it), they, too, effectively opposed the ‘emperor system’.58

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 99 These afﬁnities between the far ‘right’ and far ‘left’ suggest that ‘Had the Young Ofﬁcers been college students, they might well have become left-wing radicals.’59 Indeed, some of the young ofﬁcers later claimed to have embraced ‘Imperial Communism’.60 For their part, after prominent communists publicly declared their ‘conversion’ to emperor-centred nationalism in the early 1930s, they typically interpreted nationalist ‘kakushin’ to signify the elimination of capitalism, a goal which they had pursued in the cause of a communist ‘kakumei ’ (revolution). To the extent that the nationalist extremists and the communists shared an egalitarian social vision that would beneﬁt the ‘masses’, it is misleading to characterize them in terms of a sharp ‘right-wing/left-wing’ dichotomy. David Williams observes perceptively that ‘there are ample grounds for insisting that the contest of political ideas in twentiethcentury Japan is better understood as a struggle not between left and right but between the political centre and its periphery, that is between practical realism and utopian idealism’. Viewed from this perspective, ‘the ideological extremist, be he an anarchist or an ultra-nationalist, ﬁnds himself on the periphery, while pragmatic moderates ﬁght with Real-politikers for control of the levels of power in the centre’.61 Second, however, the nationalist extremists were not as far out on the periphery as one might suppose. In view of their brutal violence, they were ‘outlaws’, but also in many cases, well-connected ‘outlaws’.62 For example, at different times in his political career, Inoue Nissho¯ maintained contact with the following men: General Banzai Rihachiro¯, for whom he had been a spy in China; General Araki Sadao, who served as Army Minister in the Inukai Tsuyoshi and Saito¯ Makoto cabinets, from December 1931 to January 1934; Tanaka Mitsuaki, his patron at the Rissho¯ Gokokudo¯ and a lifelong friend; and after Inoue’s release from prison in 1940, Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro, whom he served as a bodyguard and informal adviser at Konoe’s private residence. Inoue also met once with the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, Kido Ko¯ichi in 1940 and three more times in 1941. ¯ kawa Shu¯mei had close links with, among others: General Similarly, O Itagaki Seishiro¯, who played a key part in triggering the Manchurian Incident and later served as Army Minister from June 1938 to January 1939 in the ﬁrst Konoe Cabinet and again during the Hiranuma Kiichiro¯ Cabinet, January–August 1939; General Koiso Kuniaki, who would serve as a wartime Prime Minister from July 1944 to April 1945; and Makino Nobuaki, the Imperial Household Minister from 1921 to 1925 and Privy Seal from 1925 to 1935. Kita Ikki had close political (and ﬁnancially lucrative) ties with the Seiyu¯kai politicians Mori Kaku and Ogawa Heikichi. The leading young ofﬁcers had many links with senior

100 Stephen S. Large ofﬁcers and in the instance of the 1936 rebels, links with the emperor’s younger brother, Prince Chichibu. It is impossible to know from the available evidence how far, if at all, the extremists inﬂuenced key ﬁgures in the military and political establishment, or at the imperial court. Here and there, one ﬁnds hints ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, who always regarded Inoue Nissho¯ of their inﬂuence. O as a maverick, once complained in his diary in 1940 that Inoue and several others had used their personal access to Konoe to try and make him into a ‘ﬁgurehead’ for their views.63 Kido Ko¯ichi’s diary likewise suggests that Inoue spoke for Konoe on occasion. On 10 March 1940 Kido wrote, of his meeting that day with Inoue: ‘He spoke about the details of a conversation he had with Konoe and about Konoe’s action in the future.’64 But again, these references are too vague to establish whether Inoue really ever inﬂuenced Konoe. On the other hand, the fact that some nationalist extremists were able to penetrate the political centre at all suggests how much Japan’s ruling elites feared that unless leading extremists could somehow be co-opted, further eruptions of extremist violence were bound to occur just when Japan needed stability in coping with the ‘China Incident’ and the looming prospect of war with the Anglo-American powers. Inoue Nissho¯’s otherwise inexplicable contacts with Konoe and Kido Ko¯ ichi begin to make sense in this political context. Certainly, Kido used Inoue to gain information on the nationalist extremists and Inoue, glorying in his new respectability, readily gave it. Kido wrote in his diary, on 15 January 1941: Inoue Nissho¯ visited at 8 p.m. and expressed his fear that in view of the serious political situation a terrorist incident might take place. He said that To¯yama [Mitsuru] would be the only man to deal with the situation in the event of an emergency.65 Similarly, on 18 April that year Kido wrote, ‘I heard about the activities of patriotic organizations from Mr. Inoue Nissho¯, who called on me at 11 a.m.’66 Then, too, the growth of public sympathy with the ‘pure’ motives of the extremists caused much anxiety among Japan’s ruling circles. In 1933, Justice Minister Koyama Matsukichi stated that the popular movement for lenient sentences in the Ketsumeidan Incident and 15 May 1932 Incident trials had spread to the point where it could not be contained.67 General Araki had not helped matters. Araki greatly stimulated the leniency movement by stating publicly, of the 15 May Incident defendants:

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 101 We cannot restrain our tears when we consider the mentality expressed in the actions of these pure and naïve young men. They are not actions for fame, or personal gain, nor are they traitorous. They were performed in the sincere belief that they were for the beneﬁt of Imperial Japan. Araki concluded, ‘Therefore, in dealing with this incident, it will not do to dispose of it in a routine manner according to short-sighted conceptions.’68 Public sympathy with the nationalist extremists arose partly because in their courtroom testimonies the extremists dramatically ‘explained’ what had gone wrong in Japan and what should be done about it. Their angry indictment of the zaibatsu, the ‘bourgeois’ political parties and ‘liberal’ advisers at court seemed to ring true to many Japanese who looked for scapegoats. In addition – and here I would like to make a third observation in contextualizing the nationalist extremists – they may well have aroused public sympathy because they tapped into a general social malaise caused by what Daniel Miller has termed the multiple ‘ruptures’ of modernity.69 ‘Modernity’, of course, generally connotes many different things ranging, for example, from the complex material culture of the machine age, radical new experiments in art and architecture, and new lifestyles (epitomized in 1920s Japan by the ‘modern girl’ and other popular icons of modernity), to a deep-seated anxiety that the essential ‘foundationlessness of being’ in the modern world can never ultimately be resolved by the modern project of systematically ordering reality, as Zygmunt Bauman contends in his book, Modernity and Ambivalence.70 In interwar Japan, the issue of modernity was greatly contested. Many writers, journalists, academics and students of modern culture equated the new Western ideas, artefacts and lifestyles then coming into vogue with the evolution of a ‘more human order reached not by overcoming modernity . . . but being overcome by it, by bringing it to completion’.71 Yet this positive discourse on modernity produced a ‘secondary discourse’, which ultimately prevailed in the 1930s, to the effect that modernity was something that had to be overcome in order to preserve Japanese cultural authenticity. In this setting, radical nationalist discourses on the ‘decline of culture’ in the modern age intersected with other Japanese discourses on the crisis of modernity. What especially springs to mind here is the widespread rejection of Western ‘rationality’ while afﬁrming an ‘Asian’, or Japanese, heritage of intuitive wisdom. Such claims that ‘rationalism is yesterday’s truth’ and that ‘the standard of good and evil lies within me’

102 Stephen S. Large were scarcely conﬁned to elements of the nationalist movement; many Japanese thinkers outside the movement had come to believe that Western rationality was ‘but dirty truth’.72 For instance, the writer Kawabata Yasunari ‘believed in the intuitive ability of the senses to exceed the power of words and to regenerate meaning; for him, intuition was the means of overcoming the limitations of conventional insight ¯ sugi imposed by its faith in rationality’.73 Similarly, the anarchist O Sakae rejected the authority of Western rationalism deriving from the Enlightenment and held that truth, and the individual’s will to act, lay within the self (jiga) and more precisely, in one’s basic intuitive instincts (honno¯).74 The philosopher Nishida Kitaro¯ also reached beyond Western rationalism in using Zen categories of thought to develop his theory of ‘place’ (basho) ‘which represented existential space in which universal value is actualized’.75 Suzuki Sadami argues that this general reaction to ‘machine-age rationalism’ was emblematic of many Japanese who privileged the concept of ‘seimei’ (life force) in their thought. He thus identifies ‘seimeishugi’ (vitalism), which broadly denoted a humanist quest for value based on the life experiences of the individual, as a major theme in modern Japanese intellectual history.76 Initially a late Meiji–Taisho¯ discourse, seimeishugi subsequently degenerated under the inﬂuences ﬁrst of Marxism and modernism and then of nationalism, as Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯, Inoue Nissho¯ and other nationalist thinkers increasingly linked their particularistic notions of ‘Japanese spirit’ to the workings of the ‘great life force’ of the universe which they tended to interpret in terms of Buddhist philosophy and Shinto¯ mythology.77 Haunted by a sense that the world they once knew was being lost in a mindless rush to modernity, radical nationalist thinkers searched for ‘myths of rootedness’, in advocating a ‘return’ to an idealized past in Japanese antiquity. Commenting on this general impulse in modern societies, Tom Nairn writes, ‘[i]t seems to me there is another term for such “haunting”: ethnic nationalism’, which he suggests ‘is the reverberation of modernity’s undertow.’78 Ethnic nationalism, in other words, is partly a reaction to the reality that ‘Modern man has suffered from a deepening condition of homelessness.’79 Accordingly, Japanese nationalists wanted their countrymen to be ‘at home’, as Etienne Balibar expresses it.80 Their nostalgic belief that there was a uniquely Japanese cultural ‘home’ to come back to recalls the Italian fascist thinker Julius Evola, for ‘[i]nspiring all of his work is a powerful nostalgia for the archaic in both the temporal and ontological sense’.81 In the broader Japanese context, this belief also recalls the ethnic nationalism of the Japan Romantic School which, as Kevin Doak writes, ‘sought to contest

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 103 the notion of a monolithic conflation of state and modernity by contesting the claims that a modern state made on traditional Japanese cultural identity’.82 Therefore, the nationalist extremist critique of modernity, coupled with an afﬁrmation of Japanese myth and tradition, may have appealed to people who wanted certainty in a troubled time and who were eager to ‘come home’ to the warm hearth of native Japanese communitarian values. If so, the national extremists successfully mobilized ‘pastness’, which Immanuel Wallerstein deﬁnes as ‘a mode by which persons are persuaded to act in the present in ways they might not otherwise act’. A ‘central element in the socialization’ of individuals and groups, ‘pastness therefore is pre-eminently a moral phenomenon, therefore a political phenomenon, always a contemporary phenomenon’.83

Epilogue At ﬁrst glance it would seem that the sub-culture of protest which held nationalist extremist groups together and sustained their faith in violent direct action constituted a fanatical world situated on the outer margins of Japanese society. The extremists’ frequent allusions to high moral principle and patriotism cannot conceal the fact that these men were outlaws, killers and thugs. As Mark Gayn writes of Inoue Nissho¯, ¯ kawa Shu¯mei, they were ‘three great Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯ and O Japanese plotters of patriotic murder’ and ‘philosophers of extreme nationalism, men who did no killing themselves but whose ideas ﬁred young fanatics into patriotic mayhem’.84 However, we have seen that in several key respects this extremist world was linked with the wider world around it – through characteristics it had in common with the communists and anarchists, through its connections with men in power, and through its reﬂection of anxieties that were felt by many Japanese in the inter-war period. Like the communists and anarchists, the nationalist extremists demanded a redistribution of wealth and power that would beneﬁt the urban and rural ‘masses’. The connections between nationalist extremists and men in power, and the ability of the extremists on trial to play to public opinion by addressing contemporary social and political problems, are even more signiﬁcant, for although the relentless crisis of war from the Manchurian Incident to the ‘Greater East Asian War’ of 1941–45 was decisive in turning Japanese nationalism into ‘ultra-nationalism’, the readiness of state and society to absorb nationalist extremism also contributed to this outcome. Public sympathy with the ‘patriotic’ motives of the extremists

104 Stephen S. Large launched their remarkable transformation from ‘traitors’ to ‘saviours’ in the 1930s. By 1940, the government had caught up with public opinion; what started out as a popular movement demanding leniency for the extremists ended up with their release from prison and in some cases, their admission into the halls of power. The imperial state itself played a major role in this story. Mark Beissinger comments, ‘State authority at some level is almost always involved directly in encouraging or perpetuating violence, either through the signals and cues that state actors send to populations or through the explicit organization of violence by state institutions.’85 It follows that the state can also send out ‘signals’ and ‘cues’ to the effect that men of violence can be forgiven when a growing public consensus that they acted out of ‘patriotic’ motives makes it politically expedient to forgive them. This is what happened in Japan. The ﬁrst such ‘signals and cues’, in response to public pressure, are evident in the verdicts reached at the conclusion of the open terrorist trials of the early 1930s. To reiterate, whereas the prosecution demanded heavy sentences, the judges handed down lesser sentences, including life imprisonment instead of death for Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯ and Inoue Nissho¯, in 1934. Some judges even expressed their personal sympathy with the ‘patriotic’ motives of the defendants and strongly inferred that soon they would be released from prison. This was also the prevailing speculation in the press as the government debated whether and when to announce a general amnesty.86 In the event, the extremists still in prison were released in 1940 through a series of pardons granted by the government on behalf of the emperor. The newspapers were crucial to the public rehabilitation of the extremists as ‘pure-hearted patriots’. For instance, the evening edition of the Yomiuri shinbun on 19 October 1940 reported that when Inoue Nissho¯ and Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯ were released from Kosuge Prison on the 17th, both were greeted by their families and other well-wishers who accompanied them ﬁrst to a shrine where they prayed for puriﬁcation and then to the Imperial Palace Plaza, to pay homage to the emperor. Afterwards, Inoue visited To¯yama Mitsuru, to pay his respects to To¯yama, who symbolized the continuity of militant nationalism dating from the Meiji era.87 The impression given by this article is that these were all honourable men. Another article, published in April 1941 – by which time Inoue was already working privately for Konoe and seeing Kido Ko¯ichi – reported enthusiastically that Inoue and ‘the poet-General’, Saito¯ Ryu¯, who had supported the army rebels in 1936, had been commissioned to return in their spare time to Kosuge Prison to teach the prisoners how to write tanka and haiku poetry as a means of maintaining the prisoners’

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 105 ‘patriotic spirit’. The writer went on to explain that Inoue and Saito¯ had previously taught poetry there while serving their own sentences. During that time, they had established a poetry society which attracted 250 prisoners in classes held three times a week. The poems were published in the society’s prison magazine and they were said to have expressed a healthy ‘national consciousness’ (kokumin ishiki) and ‘racial consciousness’ (minzoku ishiki). The prison warden was quoted as saying how delighted he was that Inoue and Saito¯ had agreed to resume this good work. An accompanying photograph showed Inoue dressed in the robes of a Buddhist monk and wearing glasses.88 He looked very scholarly. Neither of these articles mentioned the fact that Inoue had coordinated the Ketsumeidan murders of Inoue Junnosuke and Dan Takuma in 1932 and that he had originally planned to kill twenty of Japan’s leading politicians, businessmen and court ofﬁcials.

Notes 1 Prasenjit Duara, ‘Historicizing National Identity, Or Who Imagines What and When’, in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds), Becoming National: A Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 152. ¯ no Tatsuzo¯, ‘Sho¯wa ishin’ to uyoku tero, Tokyo: Shin Nippon 2 O shuppansha, 1981, pp. 271–4. 3 Nobutaka Ike (ed.), Japan’s Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences, Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press, 1967, p. 273. 4 The best account of the young ofﬁcers and their role in the nationalist extremist movement is Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan: The Young Ofﬁcers and the February 26, 1936 Incident, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973. 5 On the conscious construction of protest sub-cultures, see James M. Jasper, The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography and Creativity in Social Movements, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997, p. 65. 6 My approach here takes its cue from John Loﬂand, ‘Charting Degrees of Movement Culture: Tasks of the Cultural Cartographer’, in Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans (eds), Social Movements and Culture, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995, pp. 188–216. ¯ no, ‘Sho¯wa ishin’; 7 For detailed studies of the nationalist extremists, see O Richard Storry, The Double Patriots: A Study in Japanese Nationalism, Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifﬂin, 1957; Ben-Amy Shillony, Revolt in Japan; and Stephen Large, ‘Nationalist Extremism in Early Sho¯wa Japan: Inoue Nissho¯ and the “Blood-Pledge Corps Incident”, 1932’, Modern Asian Studies, 35: 3, 2001, 533–64. 8 George Wilson, Radical Nationalist in Japan: Kita Ikki, 1883–1937, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969, p. 97. 9 Marius Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Harvard, 2000, p. 547. 10 Thomas Havens, Farm and Nation in Modern Japan: Agrarian Nationalism, 1870–1940, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 243.

106 Stephen S. Large 11 Large, ‘Nationalist Extremism’, pp. 534–5. 12 Hori Yukio, Uyoku jiten, Tokyo: Sanreishobo¯, 1991, pp. 269–70, and Hosaka Masayasu, Shinaudan jiken: gunkokushugi no kyo¯shin to dan’atsu, Tokyo: Gendaishi shuppankai, 1985, pp. 103–13. 13 Large, ‘Nationalist Extremism’, pp. 540–1. The Temple and museum are still standing today. 14 Ben-Ami Shillony, ‘Patterns of Violence: Political Terrorism in Pre-war Japan’, in Collected Writings of Ben-Ami Shillony, London: Japan Library, 2000, p. 245. 15 Inoue Nissho¯, Ume no mi, in Ketsumeidan jiken jo¯shinsho gokuchu¯ shuki (hereafter, KJJGS), Tokyo: Ketsumeidan jiken ko¯han sokkiroku kanko¯kai, 1971, p. 52. 16 Ibid., p. 70. 17 Suyama Yukio, Nishida Mitsugi ni ni roku e no kiseki, Tokyo: Fuyo¯ shobo¯, 1979, pp. 216–17. 18 Tendo¯ Tadashi, Uyoku undo¯ 100-nen no kiseki, Tokyo: Tachibana shobo¯, 1992, p. 140. 19 On Kita’s religious faith, see Wilson, Radical Nationalist in Japan, pp. 57–62. 20 Inoue, Ume no mi, p. 64. 21 Maruyama Masao, ‘The Ideology and Dynamics of Japanese Fascism’, in his Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, London: Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 57–65. 22 ‘Kuromaku no Inoue Nissho¯, tsui ni jishu’, Tokyo nichi nichi shinbun, 13 March 1932 (evening edition), in Mainichi Komyunikeshonzu (ed.), Sho¯wa nyu¯su jiten (hereafter, SNJ), 3, Tokyo: Sho¯wa nyu¯su jiten hensan iinkai, 1991, p. 121. 23 Christopher Szpilman, ‘Kita Ikki and the Politics of Coercion’, Modern Asian Studies 36: 2, 2002, 487. 24 Inoue Nissho¯, Ichinin issatsu, Tokyo, 1953, pp. 254–5. 25 Storry, The Double Patriots, footnote 1, p. 30. 26 Ibid., p. 46. 27 Large, ‘Nationalist Extremism’, p. 543. 28 Ketsumeidan Jiken Ko¯han Sokkiroku Kanko¯kai (ed.), Ketsumeidan jiken ko¯han sokkiroku, (hereafter, KJKS), I, Tokyo: Ketsumeidan jiken ko¯han sokkiroku kanko¯kai, 1962, pp. 414–15. 29 Stephen Large, ‘Substantiating the Nation: Terrorist Trials as Nationalist Theatre in Early Sho¯wa Japan’, in Sandra Wilson (ed.), Nation and Nationalism in Japan, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 55–68. 30 Kodama Yoshio, I Was Defeated, Tokyo: Asian Publications, 1951, p. 28. 31 Translated from Hori, Uyoku jiten, pp. 329–30. 32 Gary Fine, ‘Public Narration and Group Culture: Discerning Discourse in Social Movements’, in Johnston and Klandermans, Social Movements, pp. 128–9. 33 Jasper, op. cit., p. 273. 34 Ivan Morris, Nationalism and the Right-Wing in Japan: A Study of Postwar Trends, London: Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 427–8. ¯ kawa Shu¯mei Kankei Monjo Kanko¯kai (ed.), O ¯ kawa Shu¯mei kankei 35 O monjo, Tokyo: Fuyo¯ shobo¯, 1998, p. 349.

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 107 36 Inoue Nissho¯, ‘Ketsumeidan hiwa’, Bungei shunju¯, July 1954, 116. 37 The original text which I have translated here is found in Hori, Uyoku jiten, pp. 186–7. 38 KJJGS, p. 717. 39 ‘Jiketsu shite hoshikatta to Mikami chu¯i no chichi kataru’, Osaka mainichi shinbun, 17 May 1933, in SNJ, IV, 123–4. 40 Ben-Ami Shillony, ‘Myth and Reality in Japan of the 1930s’, in W.G. Beasley (ed.), Modern Japan: Aspects of History, Literature and Society, London: Allen & Unwin, 1975, p. 87. 41 Inoue, Ume no mi, pp. 58–9. 42 Regarding the textual source of this term and a Buddhist scholar’s critique of Inoue’s interpretation, see Large, ‘Nationalist Extremism’, pp. 539–40, footnote 15. 43 KJJGS, p. 552 44 Ibid., pp. 228–9. 45 Hashikawa Bunzo¯, ‘Sho¯wa cho¯kokkashugi no shoso¯’, in Hashikawa Bunzo¯ (ed.), Cho¯kokkashugi, vol. 31 of Gendai nihon shiso¯ taikei, Tokyo: Chikuma shobo¯, 1967, pp. 20–2. 46 Kita Ikki, Kita Ikki reikoku nikki, ed. Matsumoto Ken’ichi, Tokyo: Daisan bunmeisha, 1987, pp. 314–15. 47 Hashikawa, ‘Sho¯wa cho¯kokkashugi’, pp. 22–4. 48 KJJGS, p. 193. 49 KJKS, I, p. 338. 50 Tendo¯, Uyoku undo¯, p. 103. 51 Tsukui Tatsuo, Bunka to seiji, Tokyo, 1941, p. 18. 52 Inoue, Ume no mi, p. 110. 53 Yonina Talmon, quoted in George Wilson, Patriots and Redeemers in Japan: Motives in the Meiji Restoration, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, p. 80. 54 Ibid., p. 42. 55 In this, they resembled the earlier ‘apocalyptic mythology’ of George Sorel; see Jack Roth, The Cult of Violence: Sorel and the Sorelians, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980, p. 45. 56 The theme of ‘fascism from below’ and ‘fascism from above’ is suggested in Maruyama, ‘The Ideology and Dynamics of Japanese Fascism’. 57 Shillony, Revolt in Japan, p. 217. 58 Note, however, that the nationalist extremists did not use the term ‘emperor system’. 59 Shillony, Revolt in Japan, p. 67. 60 Ibid., p. 66. 61 David Williams, ‘In Defence of the Kyoto School: Reﬂections on Philosophy, the Paciﬁc War and the Making of a Post-White World’, Japan Forum 12: 2, 2000, 152. 62 See Maruyama Masao, ‘Thought and Behaviour Patterns of Japan’s Wartime Leaders’, in Thought and Behaviour, pp. 129–31. ¯ kawa Shu¯mei nikki, Tokyo: Iwasaki gakujutsu shuppansha, 1976, 63 O p. 243. For Inoue’s account of his relationship with Konoe, see his Ichinin issatsu, pp. 322–32. 64 Kido Ko¯ichi nikki, II, Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai, 1966, p. 860. 65 Ibid., p. 849.

108 Stephen S. Large 66 Ibid., p. 869. 67 Harada Kumao, Saionjiko¯ to seikyoku, 3, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1950, p. 148. 68 Quoted from Maruyama, ‘Ideology and Dynamics’, p. 67. 69 Daniel Miller, ‘Introduction: Anthropology, Modernity and Consumption’, in D. Miller (ed.), Worlds Apart: Modernity Through the Prism of the Local, London: Routledge, 1995, p. 1. 70 Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, London: Polity Press, 1991. 71 Harry Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture and Community in Interwar Japan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 101. 72 Stuart Hall, ‘Ethnicity: Identity and Difference’, in Eley and Suny (eds), Becoming National, p. 341. 73 Yumiko Iida, Rethinking Identity in Modern Japan: Nationalism as Aesthetics, London: Routledge, 2002, p. 33. ¯ sugi Sakae saiko¯’, in Suzuki Sadami (ed.), Taisho¯ 74 Hidaka Sho¯ji, ‘O seimeishugi to gendai, Tokyo: Kawade shobo¯, 1995, pp. 122–9. 75 Tetsuo Najita and H.D. Harootunian, ‘Revolt Against the West: Political and Cultural Criticism in the Twentieth Century’, in Peter Duus (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 6, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 737. 76 Suzuki, ‘Taisho¯ seimeishugi: sono zentei zenshi zen’ya’, in Suzuki (ed.), Taisho¯ seimeishugi, p. 75. Also see his book ‘Seimei’ de yomu nihon kindai: Taisho¯ seimeishugi no tanjo¯ to hatten, Tokyo: Nihon ho¯so¯ shuppankai, 1996. 77 Suzuki, ‘Seimei’ de yomu nihon kindai, pp. 235–55. 78 Tom Nairn, ‘The Curse of Rurality: Limits of Modernization Theory’, in John A. Hall (ed.), The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 108. 79 David Morley and Kevin Robins, ‘No Place like Heimat: Images of Home(land) in European Culture’, in Eley and Suny, Becoming National, p. 457. 80 Etienne Balibar, ‘The Nation Form: History and Ideology’, in Eley and Suny, Becoming National, p. 139. 81 Thomas Sheehan, ‘Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist’, Social Research, 48: 1, Spring 1981, 61. 82 Kevin Doak, ‘Ethnic Nationalism and Romanticism in Early TwentiethCentury Japan’, Journal of Japanese Studies, 22: 1, Winter 1996, 89. 83 Immanuel Wallerstein, ‘The Construction of Peoplehood: Racism, Nationalism and Ethnicity’, in I. Wallerstein and Etienne Balibar (eds), Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, London: Verso, 1988, p. 78. 84 Mark Gayn, Japan Diary, New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948, p. 322. 85 Mark Beissinger, ‘Nationalist Violence and the State: Political Authority and Contentious Repertoires in the Former USSR’, Comparative Politics 30: 4, July 1998, 401. 86 Large, ‘Nationalist Extremism’, 561.

Japanese nationalist extremism, 1921–41 109 87 ‘Nissho¯, Tachibana-shi kari shussho no onten’, Yomiuri shinbun, 19 October 1940, in Shinbun shu¯sei: Sho¯washi no sho¯gen, vol. 14, Tokyo: SSB shuppankai, 1985, p. 540. 88 ‘Gokusha ni moeru aikokushin: Saito¯ Ryu¯ to Inoue Nissho¯-shi ga oshisho¯’, Asahi shinbun, 6 April 1941, in Shinbun shu¯sei, vol. 15, p. 167.

5

The making of Ainu moshiri Japan’s indigenous nationalism and its cultural ﬁctions Richard Siddle

Understanding nationalism is complex. Is it an instinct, a strategy or an ideology? Is it primarily ethnocultural or civic, or always some combination of the two? Are we dealing, in Japanese, with minzoku or kokumin as the object of nationalism, or both, and what are the differences between these conceptions? Can we ever talk about a single ‘nationalism’ in a state such as Japan, or are we dealing with multiple, overlapping and, often, conﬂictual strands of nationalism within the political borders of one state? Contemporary states are nearly always multi-ethnic. In some instances tensions between the dominant majority and ethnocultural minorities or disadvantaged peripheral regions are expressed in the form of a breakaway or separatist tendency that takes on nationalist forms. Indigenous nationalism is one example of this. The decades after the Second World War saw a wave of anti-colonial nationalist struggles in the Third World. Those that were successful enabled former colonies to join the international system as fully independent states, thereby transforming it. ‘Internally colonized’ indigenous peoples around the world, the so-called Fourth World, were bypassed by these struggles for independence but were influenced by their ideas and strategies. Fourth World populations appropriated the language of nationhood and became, in their own eyes, ‘peoples’ with the right to selfdetermination as enshrined in the UN Charter. Their situation, though, ‘encounters a much less supportive, sympathetic environment’ since whereas ‘Third World nationalism had a natural and satisfying outlet in an expansive international system capable of accommodating newly independent states . . . Fourth World indigenous nations, by contrast, remain trapped within the domestic politics of individual states.’1 Since independence is mostly an unrealistic goal, in part because of the tiny populations of some indigenous peoples, citizenship has instead become

The making of Ainu moshiri 111 the site of contest between competing visions of assimilation and multiculturalism. Discussions of nationalism in Japan tend to conﬂate state with nation so the focus of analysis is simply ‘Japanese nationalism’ rather than ‘nationalism(s) within Japan’. Japan has long been regarded by many both inside and outside the country as virtually ‘unique’ in the degree to which state and nation overlap in the tan’itsu minzoku kokka or homogeneous nation-state. In fact, the Japanese state is the arena for a number of competing nationalisms that conventional analyses fail to consider. Indigenous nationalism is represented by the struggle of the Ainu people of Hokkaido, and will be the focus of this chapter. Another, though less clear-cut, example can be found within the complex and unequal relationship between Okinawa and ‘mainland’ Japan. Once the independent kingdom of Ryu¯kyu¯ within the Chinese world order, Okinawa was controlled and then annexed by Japan in 1879 and then treated until 1945 as a backward, inferior region inhabited by natives who were, at best, only ambiguously Japanese.2 Under the American military occupation after the war, Okinawans formed a strong nationalist movement for reunification with the homeland, Japan. This was achieved in 1972. Since then, however, for many Okinawans, the Japanese state has lost its legitimacy as a provider of social justice and development over the ongoing issues of the American bases and relative economic deprivation (despite massive government subsidies). Some Okinawan protest movements now adopt nationalist postures based on local identities in which the nation in question is now the Okinawan people or Ryu¯kyu¯ minzoku, not Japan.3 There is even a ﬂedgling indigenous nationalist movement.4 At the very least, these phenomena are relevant to Japanese nationalism since they constitute counter-narratives to that of Japanese nation-building and are tied to movements that could potentially deny the validity of the current Japanese state. To categorize these movements as nationalist indicates that nationalism is a broad church. Numerous historical and contemporary movements provide an overwhelming empirical field to which scholars have attempted to bring some order, as in Breuilly’s classic typology of nationalism.5 The study of nationalism is fractured by theoretical debates (modernist versus primordialist, for instance) and characterized by conceptual confusion. But whether the nation itself is regarded as either an ideological construction or an ethnographical fact, most approaches agree that nationalist movements are concerned with struggles over power and resources. In this, Breuilly is surely correct in his central argument that nationalism is primarily a ‘form of politics’.6

112 Richard Siddle In the end, what scholars choose to focus on within the ﬁeld depends as much upon their disciplinary perspectives as the empirical record. For many, including myself, the issue is not the typological pigeon-holing of a particular variety of nationalism, but how nationalist concerns over culture and belonging are utilized by speciﬁc groups of actors within particular historical conﬁgurations of material and power relations to empower or divide groups of human beings. This involves the investigation of how everyday lived practices become reiﬁed as ‘culture’ and then elevated to symbols that mark the social boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’. A related issue is how the process of nation-building had to hide the fact that the common culture and language that deﬁned the nation were in themselves often inventions, and involved the falsiﬁcation of history, or outright invention of a ‘useful past’, in its effort to create new narratives of ‘who we are’ and ‘where we come from’. This raises some interesting questions. For instance, just because nationalist ideas, and the identities to which they are core, can be clearly seen to have been constructed out of often dubious elements – they are ‘cultural ﬁctions’ in other words – does this imply that they are ‘false’? On the contrary, once accepted, either simply as ‘truth’ or as a cynical justiﬁcation for instrumental gain, such collective representations have real power to inﬂuence behaviour. If people internalize them as meaningful constructs that inform social understanding and action they have very real social effects. This is just as true for the construction of the Japanese nation and identity in the 1880s as for the Ainu nation in the 1980s. This chapter will ﬁrst provide a brief overview of indigenous nationalism among the Ainu, the indigenous people of northern Japan. It will then investigate the notion of the Ainu homeland, known in the Ainu language as Ainu moshiri. (This is the katakana-ized reading of contemporary Japanese; linguists usually transcribe this term as Ainu mosir.) While the Ainu moshiri of contemporary activists is a modern cultural construction that bears little resemblance to historical and ethnographic evidence, it forms an important element in the new narrative of the modern Ainu movement that makes it as real and important as the idealized world of Edo is for modern Japanese.7 However, the Ainu attempt at nation-building is taking place at a time the idea of the nation, or at least the nation-state, is itself regarded as problematic and scholarship, with all the authority of secular ‘truth’ behind it, is devoting much effort to its deconstruction. This makes it easy to regard the ‘Ainu nation’ itself as nothing more than a cultural ﬁction in the service of special interest politics despite the real meaning it has for Ainu men and women themselves.

The making of Ainu moshiri 113

Indigenous nationalism and the Ainu As a mere ethnic category, the term Ainu includes different kinds of people with different relationships to this identity. There are many individuals, ascribed an Ainu identity on the basis of descent, who prefer to hide or deny it wherever possible, and others who use it instrumentally to gain welfare benefits or work in the tourist trade. There are others, though, who positively identify themselves as Ainu. For these men and women, being Ainu in contemporary Japan is based on belonging to the imagined community of the Ainu ethnocultural nation, the Ainu minzoku. They share a sense of a common ancestry and cultural heritage that transcend regional identities and rivalries (although these still exist) and set them apart from their Wajin (majority Japanese) neighbours. They share a common history of oppression and resistance, and a sense of a common homeland and political destiny. This sense of belonging is not a survival from the premodern past; rather, as I have argued elsewhere, it is the result of an ethnic mobilization in the second half of the twentieth century that has been driven by a number of factors and is primarily political in nature.8 As a result of these factors, the size of the Ainu nation is not clear. While the ofﬁcial population ﬁgure is given as 23,767 in 1999, since the Japanese census provides no options to positively proclaim an Ainu ethnic identity, it is not possible to be deﬁnitive.9 The Ainu population of Hokkaido were excluded from the newly found prosperity of Japan in the decades after the Second World War. Ainu communities suffered from high levels of poverty and associated social problems while Ainu individuals were subject to prejudice and discrimination. The late 1960s saw a wave of radical citizen protest in Japanese society that inspired young Ainu and inaugurated a new Ainu politics. Since then, Ainu activists have explicitly rejected the state’s rhetoric and policy of assimilation, although this had been accepted by earlier generations of Ainu leaders. On the one hand, the political struggle has focused on issues of citizenship, on overcoming the mechanisms of exclusion that have prevented Ainu from meaningful participation in political life and have barred access to the wealth and resources of Japanese society. On the other hand, it has also been a struggle over identity. Ainu are challenging the dominant notion of an inferior ‘dying race’ and the paradox of being denied a separate identity as a supposedly assimilated group in ‘homogeneous Japan’ while being systematically categorized at the level of the individual as a racialized ‘Other’ and subjected to discrimination. They are attempting to create a contemporary Ainu cultural identity. This identity does not just fulﬁl individual

114 Richard Siddle psychological needs (though that is clearly important) but is overtly politicized in that speciﬁc rights are now demanded on the basis of this separate cultural identity as a ‘people’ (minzoku). This speciﬁc form of ‘national’ identity – indigenous people – is not an objective anthropological category but a political construct explicitly linked to international law and human rights movements. International law has developed a body of instruments to protect the rights of minorities. Indigenous leaders have argued that these do not adequately reﬂect the special circumstances and needs of aboriginal peoples who have been marginalized within their own homelands by colonial invasion. Borrowing from the successful Third World nationalist liberation struggles, they see aboriginal peoples as ‘ﬁrst nations’ who have yet to be decolonized. The resulting movement within the UN has pushed forward the concept of a special category of ‘indigenous rights’ enshrined in a draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Alongside sections that protect the cultural identity and practices of indigenous peoples are more fundamental, and controversial, rights of political empowerment in the form of self-determination. For a small and powerless group like the Ainu, access to such a movement is a clear advantage. In this sense, identity is a political resource, and rather than simply conceiving of ethnic identity as an essential, a priori attribute that shapes speciﬁc forms of politics, it is necessary as well to consider how politics itself can create new categories of identity. Ainu politics was initially fragmented and ideologically divided but came together in a broad movement in the early 1980s. The central political aim was the enactment of new legislation based on the concepts of self-determination and other indigenous rights, to replace the 1899 Former Natives Protection Act. The position of the Japanese government was that all Ainu had long been assimilated or were soon to be so, and it was not until 1991 that they were ﬁnally recognized in a report to the UN as a ‘minority ethnic group’ (sho¯su¯ minzoku). In 1997, Ainu goals were partially achieved with the enactment of the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act (CPA). The struggle by Ainu to transform themselves from a ‘dying race’ to the ‘Ainu nation’, and to link this nation to the larger community of ‘indigenous peoples’, is still ongoing and has been further complicated by the CPA, which has left the ofﬁcial deﬁnition and authentication of Ainu culture, and even identity, in the hands of the state and its agents.10 It has also de-centred and disunited the Ainu movement. The state remains extremely resistant to depictions of the Ainu as a nation – even in the CPA and the discussions preceding it they prefer to refer to Ainu ‘persons’ (hitobito) with certain ethnic (minzokuteki) attributes. Nevertheless, the state was forced for the ﬁrst

The making of Ainu moshiri 115 time to enact multicultural legislation, however weak, that on one level denies the common myths of homogeneous Japan. One result of these events has been a ‘cultural revival’ among the Ainu. The notion of a ‘revival’ is perhaps misleading in its implication of an unbroken continuity, however tenuous, between premodern Ainu culture and the present. This is not the case. Ainu communities have been fundamentally transformed by their incorporation into the market economy. Ainu are as far removed from the ‘traditional’ way of life, the social world of the kotan (village community), as their Japanese neighbours are from the idealized Edo or castle towns of the jidaigeki samurai drama. ‘Ainu culture’ is a modern abstraction. Ethnic and nationalist politics in contemporary states involves the reification of everyday (or past) social practices as ‘culture’ and the selective use of certain cultural elements as symbolic boundary markers.11 Not anything goes, of course, and the acceptance of these cultural markers depends on their ability to resonate with the imagined past. A few Ainu elders in the early days criticized some of the recreated rituals and ceremonies of the Ainu movement as inauthentic.12 But other Ainu accepted them, and the cultural markers of Ainu identity today include language, dance, ritual and oral literature alongside aspects of material culture such as clothing and handicrafts. Ainu cultural identity can thus be symbolically ‘performed’ at both formal occasions such as political rallies or festivals and at informal parties or family gatherings. Alternatively, it can be presented in commodiﬁed form to tourists. One of the consequences of the CPA has been to strengthen the importance of these ‘traditional’ elements to notions of Ainu identity by giving them official blessing as authentic.13 Alongside the ‘cultural stuff’, building a nation entails the construction and articulation of new historical narratives. The past, immediate or distant, takes on a new signiﬁcance as a resource for the reinterpretation or outright invention of an idealized history, national heroes, and national traditions. It can be used to assert, often simultaneously, both the differences and the continuities with the present. It is more than merely nostalgia; speciﬁc versions of the past legitimize new political struggles and provide stable underpinnings to uncertain identities in times of ﬂux. The conscious recreation of the emperor as a ‘modern monarch’ during Japan’s troubled transition to modernity, to provide both continuity with the past and a new modern future, provides a fascinating example.14 In her essay ‘The invention of Edo’, Carol Gluck explores how, from the Meiji Restoration onwards, the Edo period ‘evoked what was other to the modern. It was both gone and not gone, both the world that was lost and the world that never was.’15 Whether

116 Richard Siddle idealized, despised, reinterpreted or commodiﬁed, the memory of Edo was indispensable to the project of constructing modern Japan. More recently, the struggle over the representations of Japan’s wartime actions in textbooks and elsewhere has become highly contentious, with nationalist groups reinterpreting Japan’s recent past in line with their vision of a proud and unrepentant nation that should take pride in its history. Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, have long been denied a history. Colonial historiography, often itself in the employ of nationbuilding, had every reason to deny competing claims to national territory. Indigenous peoples were relegated to the ranks of the primitive in terms of economic, social and political organization. Occasionally they might appear as one particularly cruel and irrational manifestation of the forces of nature, to be overcome by heroic pioneers taming the wilderness. Since the establishment of Western academic disciplines in Japan in the 1870s, Ainu Studies have focused mainly on salvage anthropology in which the remnants of the dying race were preserved in museums, or on the history of Native Policy, a minor side issue in the history of development in Hokkaido. The Ainu, like other indigenous peoples, have challenged such hegemonic narratives with new versions of the past. Since the late 1960s, Ainu activists have emphasized a heroic resistance to the invasion and occupation of their homeland by a rapacious Japanese state. Central to this narrative is the concept of the Ainu homeland itself, known as Ainu moshiri. The recreation of tradition and the reinterpretation of history in indigenous nationalism are highly visible to contemporary scholars who possess an increasingly sophisticated understanding of these processes. This has been seized on by critics as evidence that contemporary indigenous peoples are no longer ‘real natives’, overlooking the identical processes at work within their own societies. In the American context, for instance, James Clifton has criticized the ‘invented Indian’ as a cultural ﬁction, an ideological construction that serves the interests of Indian politics.16 The Indian version of history consists of a ‘dominant narrative structure’ punctuated by keywords like ‘exploitation, oppression, struggle, resistance movements, ethnic resurgence, liberation, victimization, colonialism (and neo- or internal colonialism), cultural persistence, cultural pluralism, nationhood, a New Golden Age, and the like’.17 In a similar vein, Ko¯no Motomichi describes contemporary Ainu as ‘new-Ainu’ (as opposed to ‘post-Ainu’, those of Ainu descent who reject an Ainu identity) who are creating a ‘nation’ (minzoku) for political and economic gain by reconstructing Ainu culture and reinterpreting history in a ‘subjective’ and ‘ethnocentric’ way.18

The making of Ainu moshiri 117 They are right, of course. Or rather, they are right within the limits of their paradigms. Ko¯no’s analysis, while fascinating and informative, is clearly inﬂuenced by dogmatic Marxist perspectives on ethnicity as a form of false consciousness and history as an objective science. Different perspectives could yield different, equally valid, conclusions. Cultural ﬁctions are the stuff of nationalist politics everywhere and while they may be false by the standards of scientiﬁc ‘truth’, they may just as well be ‘real’ for the people involved. And it is worth remembering that social scientiﬁc knowledge itself is not the absolute truth it often claims to be. The list of paradigms now discredited – ‘race’, eugenics and social Darwinism, to name but a relevant few – but once accepted as authoritative in their time should serve as a caution. And individual scholars, too, are not abstracted from real life. It is open to speculation, for instance, to what extent Ko¯no’s recent arguments, cloaked though they are in a scientiﬁc ‘objectivity’ that he goes to great pains to proclaim, are inﬂuenced by his contentious dismissal by the Ainu Association of Hokkaido and his ongoing legal battles with Ainu activists.19 Scholars, myself included, maintain often ambiguous and uneasy relationships with the people they study. In the light of the above observations, the remainder of this chapter outlines the two competing narratives of Ainu moshiri.

Ainu moshiri – a cultural ﬁction? As with the multiple significations of Edo, Ainu moshiri (sometimes translated somewhat clumsily as ‘the quiet earth where humans live’ – ningen ga sumu shizuka na daichi) stands for more than just a place, however important the need for a sovereign geographical territory. It stands also for a pre-capitalist golden age in which the Ainu lived independent and happy lives in harmony with nature before both their society and nature itself were destroyed by invasion and colonization. It legitimizes the claims of the Ainu to be both a separate nation and an indigenous people. Ainu moshiri represents a communal, egalitarian hunter–gatherer lifestyle nurtured in the bosom of Mother Earth that harmonizes with dominant images of indigenous peoples, while the history of its invasion ﬁts also into a common historical narrative of violent dispossession. Ainu moshiri is conceived of as having been an autonomous, indeed, sovereign Ainu territory until this invasion. In this narrative, an early expression of national feeling is found in the 1669 Shakushain War which is portrayed as an unsuccessful war of liberation from Japanese colonial exploitation. Ainu activists mourn the fact that unlike many Indian peoples of North America they never had a treaty

118 Richard Siddle which could objectify their status as a nation as they attempt to redeﬁne their relationship to the Japanese state. The next best thing, however, is a ‘country’ – Ainu moshiri. As a ‘people’ with a deﬁnite identity and territory from the earliest times of contact with the Japanese, the Ainu clearly become a conquered and colonized ‘nation’ with the right to selfdetermination in international law. This concept of Ainu moshiri as the homeland of the Ainu nation began to be articulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s as identity politics took hold among Ainu activists. Ironically, some of its most enthusiastic early advocates were Japanese terrorists who adopted the Ainu cause in a murderous bombing campaign. Less violent but no less enthusiastic left-wing intellectuals like Shinya Gyo¯ were able to see their ideals of human organization mirrored in the harmonious community life of the kotan (Ainu village). For Shinya, for instance, in Ainu moshiri status distinctions and power relationships did not exist, community leaders were merely one among equals selected for their experience in folklore and ritual.20 The notion of Ainu moshiri as an Ainu Republic took hold among activists, and this was symbolized by a national ﬂag, designed by Sunazawa Bikky for the Sapporo May Day parade of 1973, in which nature is emphasized in the colours that represent the sea, sky, earth and snow of the homeland.21 This positive reinterpretation of the past is in contrast to the attitudes of Ainu activists in the pre-war period, who were subject to a rigorous assimilation policy and isolated from minority movements elsewhere. These men and women mainly regarded the past as a dark age from which they had to escape through education and assimilation. They almost never used the term Ainu moshiri. Nevertheless, they could often be proud and nostalgic. One of the ﬁrst visions of Ainu moshiri was in fact articulated in 1922 by a 17-year-old Ainu girl, Chiri Yukie, a protégée of scholar Kindaichi Kyo¯suke. Though she referred throughout to Hokkaido, her vision of an idyllic life in harmony with nature still resonates among Ainu today. In the old days, this broad land of Hokkaido was the free land of our ancestors. Truly children of nature, what happy people they must have been, living happy and quiet lives embraced in the bosom of nature like innocent children.22 This vision has its contemporary form in Nature as Mother Earth. Ainu moshiri is thus linked to the image of Mother Earth that has become an important element of the essentialist pan-indigenous identity that is emerging in international forums. While it is undeniable that the

The making of Ainu moshiri 119 relationship between native peoples and their land is a special one, as much spiritual as it is material, the concept of Mother Earth itself is actually a construction imposed upon native peoples by nineteenthcentury European and American anthropologists. Be that as it may, since then, Indians in recent decades have, through their appropriation of Mother Earth, attached to her the qualities that articulate distinctively ‘Indian’ in contrast and superior to ‘white’ American, attributes. They do not plow or mine, tear or desecrate the earth as they see ‘white’ Americans doing. Thus Mother Earth helps Indians retain their identity, their pride and dignity. By holding Mother Earth as their goddess, native Americans have articulated what is most distinctively Indian, and they have done so by appropriating and transforming the myth of their oppressors.23 This use of Mother Earth as cultural shorthand for a special relationship with the land (in its speciﬁc form as Hokkaido and more generally as Nature) was adopted by Ainu activists from the early 1970s as they began increasingly to study the situation of native peoples in North America. For Yu¯ki Sho¯ji, leader of the radical Ainu Kaiho¯ Do¯mei (Ainu Liberation League): Ainu moshiri was the Mother Earth (haha naru daichi) that formed Ainu culture, and this remains unchanged to this day. The gods in whom the people believe have not left Ainu moshiri for ever. The present situation where magniﬁcent ethnic ceremonies are carried out every year in various regions and prayers offered respectfully to the gods of Nature, conﬁrms Mother Earth, Ainu moshiri, as the territory, albeit spiritually, of our people.24 Yu¯ki’s left-wing sympathies are also present in his characterization of Ainu moshiri as a ‘proto-communist’ (genshi kyo¯sansei) society living peacefully for many thousand years in coexistence with nature, free from concepts of class or ownership.25 The struggle for Ainu moshiri is portrayed as being one between ‘followers of nature’ (shizenshugisha) and ‘destroyers’ (hakaishugisha).26 These ideas are further articulated by Toyooka Sannyo – Ainu, who translates them from the left-wing politics of Japan in the 1970s to the global indigenous movement of the 1990s and its links to New Age and anti-capitalist counter-cultures.27 Ainu and other indigenous peoples provide a link back to an ecologically sound ancient past before the advent of agriculture and the beginnings

120 Richard Siddle of man’s domination over nature (in this Toyooka privileges the lifestyle of hunter–gatherers and conveniently forgets the millions of native people, particularly in South America, who are cultivators). Indigenous peoples are the guardians of the earth and hold the key to a new way forward for humanity by virtue of their concepts of all nature, including human beings, as interrelated and sacred.28 The time for domination by ‘whites’ is at an end.29 Ainu thus have common ground with environmentalists, though like with other native peoples this can occasionally be an uneasy alliance (usually over issues of animal cruelty or the hunting of endangered species). Ainu have been active since the 1970s in campaigning against power stations, dams and golf courses. One Japanese supporter describes visiting an Ainu activist, Toma Kazumi: After the struggle over the power plant in Date, it was only natural that Toma would endeavour to protect Ainu Mosir – the land entrusted to him by his ancestors – by opposing the plan to build a nuclear power plant. ‘The Ainu spirit cannot allow the building of nuclear reactors or the bringing of nuclear fuel into Ainu Mosir’, he said.30 The Ainu moshiri of these activists is clearly a cultural ﬁction. Indeed, it could be nothing else. Ainu are pursuing a distinctly modern form of politics – nationalism. Like all nationalist symbols, Ainu moshiri is constructed out of selected or reinterpreted elements of the past, a past that is ironically often only accessible in the form of the scholarship of their oppressors. Moreover, it is only one, admittedly powerful, element among other symbols and ceremonies of the new Ainu nationalism. Yu¯ki, for instance, was also active in the invention of ‘traditional’ ceremonies, such as the annual icharpa memorial service at Nokamappu, that celebrate iconic moments in the new Ainu history, thus providing the essential continuity between the contemporary struggle and a revalued heroic past. Nevertheless, just because these symbols of Ainu nationalism have clearly been recently constructed does not mean that they are any more false than some of the most cherished elements of Japanese nationalism. As Basil Hall Chamberlain famously remarked of the ‘emperor cult’: But the twentieth century Japanese religion of loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing ideas have been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses, and have found a new centre of gravity. Not only is it new, it is not yet completed; it is still

The making of Ainu moshiri 121 in the process of being consciously or semi-consciously put together by the ofﬁcial class, in order to serve the interests of that class, and, incidentally, the interests of the nation at large.31 The difference between Japanese nation-builders in the early twentieth century and the Ainu at its end is that, while the strategies and intentions are the same, the development of modern social science has provided a body of authoritative ‘factual’ knowledge about the Ainu past against which the Ainu narrative can be contrasted and found wanting. In the case of Japanese nationalism, its ideological elements were already established before academic deconstruction began. Indeed, early academics were often enthusiastic participators in nation-building, eager to lend the new authority of science to subjects like the origins of the Japanese. Once such narratives were established, new knowledge that contradicted them could easily be ignored. Even now, the academic conceptions of an invented emperor cult or an idealized Edo that could be reconstructed to stand for anything desired of the past may have little, if any, resonance among the majority of Japanese outside academic circles. The Japanese nation, and its traditions, is all too obviously an established commonsense ‘fact’.

Ainu moshiri – the scientiﬁc ‘truth’? For Japanese academics like Ko¯no, the Ainu moshiri of contemporary Ainu is a cultural fiction that bears no resemblance to historical or ethnographic fact. But without wishing to fall into a nihilistic cultural relativism that would deny any form of truth, it is still important not to forget that social scientiﬁc knowledge is socially constructed and that its products – conferences, papers, volumes like this – are cultural artefacts. Nevertheless, in the contemporary world the social sciences hold an authoritative claim to the ‘truth’ about the Ainu past that stands in stark contrast to the narratives of Ainu nationalists. This was uncontested until challenged by Ainu activists from the 1970s in their writings, protests and even in the courts.32 Certain aspects of this narrative once established as ‘fact’ have thus had to be discarded, notably the social Darwinistic representation of the Ainu as a dying race (horobiyuku minzoku). More recently, the judgment of the Sapporo District Court in favour of the Ainu plaintiffs in the Nibutani Dam case in 1997 accepted a new historical interpretation of the settlement of Hokkaido and the dispossession of the Ainu, and sanctioned a ‘counternarrative profoundly challenging the society’s master narrative of a mono-ethnic nation’.33 This is by no means a complete victory for

122 Richard Siddle the Ainu version, however, since in all other legal and ofﬁcial contexts Hokkaido is still regarded by the state as inalienable Japanese territory since time immemorial. The focus of this section is on the interpretation of ethnographical evidence on premodern Ainu social and political organization. The mainstream view is that the term Ainu moshiri is certainly of premodern origin, but that there is very little evidence to support the idea that Ainu moshiri represented the sovereign territory of even a fledgling Ainu nation. As the linguist Hiroshi Nakagawa explains, when the term appears in oral literature ‘it did not originally mean “the country of the Ainu” but “the land of humans” as opposed to “the land of gods”, kamui moshiri’.34 Japanese scholarship has tended to deny both a collective identity and a common territory for Ainu.35 One reason for this is that evidence from the period upon which to construct an Ainu world-view is extremely scarce, consisting of suspect Japanese records or Ainu oral literature. But the interpretation of evidence itself is never neutral. Equally important, the dominant view of those in Ainu Studies until recently was that the Ainu were a primitive people doomed to die out before the onward march of progress, a view that made it seem a natural course of events that Hokkaido should have been taken over by the Meiji administration as, in effect, terra nullius, or empty or unowned land. As a savage hunting people, the Ainu could not possibly have ‘owned’ land or had more than a primitive tribal political organization. Ainu history was therefore the history of ‘Native Policy’.36 Either way, the term, Ainu moshiri, could not have signiﬁed anything resembling an autonomous territorial or political unit. Most Japanese historians who deal with Hokkaido in the premodern period prefer to use the historical term, Ezochi (Barbarian Land), the name by which the Japanese of the time knew the area outside the control of the Matsumae fief on the southern tip of Hokkaido. A few scholars have been interested in attempting to establish the origins and extent of premodern Ainu ethnic identity. The native Ainu scholar, Chiri Mashiho, ﬁrst proposed that certain oral epics (yukar), those of the hero, Poiyaunpe, set in the context of conﬂict between the people of the land (yaunkur) and the people of the sea (repunkur), describe ‘ethnic’ conﬂict between bearers of the two distinct cultural complexes, named by archaeologists as the Satsumon and Okhotsk, that existed in regions of Hokkaido between the eighth and thirteenth centuries.37 The historian, Emori Susumu, further argues that epics of this spiritual quality point to nothing less than the ethnogenesis or formation of a people.38 This dovetails with the ﬁndings of archaeologists who point to a uniﬁed culture complex emerging around that

The making of Ainu moshiri 123 time.39 Other scholars dispute this theory, arguing that the epics describe later inter-Ainu conﬂict, pointing to the fact that the two groups do not seem to differ culturally or linguistically, and are competing for ‘treasures’ (ritual objects of Ainu society).40 The descriptions also contain many elements from later Ainu society. Notwithstanding the problems with oral data,41 these theories tend to unproblematically assume that behind the material assemblages identiﬁed by archaeologists were distinct ‘peoples’ with a clear ‘ethnic’ consciousness, a fallacy not unknown among archaeologists themselves.42 In much analysis this ethnicity is then reiﬁed as a fact, a given ‘reality’ that affects relations between ‘Ainu’ and ‘Japanese’ rather than being a creative dimension interwoven into the very fabric of such interactions, and further transformed by them. In fact, Ainu cultural identity needs to be considered as learned, articulated, negotiated and contested in the day-to-day contexts of Ainu–Japanese interaction in trade and ceremony under the trading post system developed from the seventeenth century. As Kikuchi Isao and David Howell have argued, Ainu identity was consciously manipulated by the Matsumae authorities in Ezo through the use of ceremonial and the maintenance of rigid boundaries through prescriptions on the adoption of Japanese clothing and hairstyles.43 In other periods, notably under the bakufu between 1799 and 1821, assimilation and forcible Japanization were encouraged. Identity is relational; self always requires an other. Since the Ainu have never been an isolated group, but were part of trading networks that extended from Japan into maritime Siberia, it is not surprising that some form of broader Ainu identity existed. This is hinted at from recorded instances of Ainu names for both themselves and the surrounding peoples with whom they were in contact. Eighteenth-century documents show that the Ainu preferred to be called by their own self-designation Aino, instead of the pejorative Ezo that was used by the Japanese. A nineteenth-century Japanese explorer in north Sakhalin relates how Ainu living among the Nivkh and Uilta identiﬁed themselves by announcing ‘I am Ainu’.44 Seventeenth-century accounts show that the Ainu also identified themselves regionally by use of group names such as ‘easterners’ (menashunkur) or ‘people of *** (***unkur) as they do to this day.45 Ainu called the Japanese shisam (neighbour), and in fact this form, corrupted to shamo, appears in Japanese documents as early as 1643 and regularly thereafter.46 The peoples of Sakhalin were rebunkur or rebun moshiri unkur and Manchurians (or perhaps northern Sakhalin Nivkh) were called santakur or other derivations of this name. What distinguished Ainu in their own eyes from their neighbours were their customary practices and beliefs (later to be reiﬁed as ‘Ainu

124 Richard Siddle culture’ but not yet understood in those terms). Many observers recorded the resistance and distress shown by the Ainu after many of their practices, including tattooing, beards and the bear ritual, were banned by the bakufu authorities in an attempt to promote assimilation after 1799. Most Ainu feared the resulting wrath of the gods that would come if they abandoned this cultural identity ‘handed down to them from the gods of their ancestors’.47 But this cultural identity was not only regional and varied (Sakhalin Ainu culture differs markedly from Hokkaido groups) but also was not concurrent with political organization. This was based instead on powerful regional groups that controlled trade and entered into different alliances with the Matsumae and Japanese traders, and occasionally fought each other over territory and resources. These groupings became fragmented into much smaller entities after the 1669 Shakushain War as Japanese power increased. If a unified Ainu cultural and political community is problematic, then the term Ainu moshiri that appears mainly in oral literature cannot be its territorial expression. The dominant interpretation of scholars was that Ainu moshiri (Ainu mosir) simply refers to the human world as opposed to the realm of the gods (kamui mosir) or the underworld (pokna mosir), a human world not tied to any territorial actuality. Ainu here means ‘man’ or ‘human’. The main sources of data are the Ainu oral tradition, the yukar (epics) or wepeker (tales). In at least one Ainu epic the main characters are actually Japanese, the sons of the lord of Matsumae and a heroine who proclaims at one point ‘asinuma ka sisam a-ne p un, I am Japanese, aynu a-ne p un, I am a human being’ that is, a human being in contrast to a god.48 In the Ainu language mosir can be a simple geographical term meaning ‘land’ or ‘island’ with no apparent connotations of territory. This strict geographical sense of mosir is evident in Hokkaido place names which still exist. When ‘home’ is mentioned in the epics it is usually on the level of ‘my village’ (akor kotan) or ‘our (home)land, Sinnutap settlement’ (a-kor-rok-mosir, sinnutap-kotan).49 So, Ainu oral sources do not lend strong support to the theory that premodern Ainu society had clear concepts of an ethnic ‘Ainu people’ or ‘Ainu territory’. This does not mean that local Ainu groups had no relationships of territory and ownership to the land. A more careful examination of Japanese historical evidence from sources other than oral literature gives some limited indication of Ainu perspectives on identity and territory. Although sparse, documents dating from the sixteenth century onwards show that the Ainu in fact had clear concepts of territory and ownership at the community level. Communal hunting and ﬁshing grounds were clearly demarcated and trespassing was a serious offence. Much of the

The making of Ainu moshiri 125 landscape was intimately named, and many of these place names survive today. Sapporo, for instance comes from sat poro pet (large dried-up river). These territories were called iwor, a more specific term than mosir. For coastal communities in areas like the Kuriles, these rights extended out to sea as well. Certain gathering areas or bear dens were also owned by families or individuals.50 The Ainu also named the territories of their neighbours. Thus the territory of the Matsumae clan, the outpost of the Tokugawa state that occupied the southern tip of Hokkaido, became shamo moshiri,51 Matomai moshiri,52 or ‘the land of the great lord’, tono moshir.53 Sakhalin was rebun moshiri while the Kurile Ainu were the people of chukmoshiri. The historical evidence, admittedly scanty, is backed up by similar territorial terms appearing frequently in the oral literature. In the epics there are references to shisam mosir (land of the Japanese) or shamor mosir (Honshu). Both of these terms appear in the yukar transcribed by Nakagawa, though Nakagawa, while informing us that shisam mosir means ‘country of the Japanese’, is clear that Ainu mosir does not mean ‘country of the Ainu’.54 In one yukar we even ﬁnd some Ainu raiding Kyo¯to mosir and carrying off some court maidens (Kyo¯to menoko). This fascinating yukar was recorded in Sakhalin by Kindaichi Kyo¯suke in 1915 but never published.55 Historical sources contain just one instance, but an extremely interesting one, that ties the term Ainu moshiri to a notional Ainu homeland. In 1591, three hundred years before the study of the oral tradition began, the Jesuit Ignacio Morera visited the palace of Hideyoshi and recorded a meeting with an Ainu accompanying a delegation from the north. The Ainu told Morera that he came from a place called ‘Ainomoxori’ – Ainu moshiri. Incidentally, this is the ﬁrst time that the word Ainu appears in any historical record. The part of the island situated near this place is called Yezo by the Japanese and Ainomoxori by the indigenes. According to what we learned from an inhabitant of that area they used to travel to other islands in the west and also to another land called Rebunkur that extends to the north of Yezo.56 This Ainu was not reciting an oral epic; he was responding to a direct question as to his origins. The Ainu moshiri he referred to was a concept couched in the common-sense categories of everyday discourse, not that of the oral tradition. Conversely, this single record illustrates that the concepts of territories (as areas of habitation at least) implicit in terms such as shisam mosir that do appear three hundred years later when the oral literature began to be taken down may well be of much earlier origin.

126 Richard Siddle Such territories, of course, would not have been understood as continuous, bounded horizontal space imagined bird’s-eye fashion as on a map, in the way that territory is represented in modern nation-states. Equally obviously, Ainu moshiri was not a territorial nation-state; although the Japanese had a state and the Ainu did not, a ‘sense of nation’ was equally lacking among both Ainu and Japanese during the Edo period. Given these constraints, the Ainu moshiri of 1591 was not the homeland of an ethnic nation but ‘the place where Ainu people live’. Nevertheless, evidence from as early as 1591 shows that the Ainu clearly distinguished between themselves and other peoples. Furthermore, this sense of distinctiveness, however ill-defined, also extended to the geographical areas occupied by these peoples. In this sense, Ainu moshiri was not terra nullius as it was to become in the ofﬁcial version of the history of Hokkaido. The egalitarian ‘proto-communist’ society of the kotan, though, is another matter. Evidence points to Ainu society, especially when organized into larger groups under powerful chieftains at the height of its power before the 1669 Shakushain War, as embracing distinct divisions in status between rich and poor, and even the presence of ‘slaves’. Moreover, these groups were in competition over resources that occasionally led to violence. The small, scattered communities that became the object of nineteenth-century or later ethnographic research were no more natural than the larger communities around the Japanese trading posts, being the product of the same forces of conquest and control. As in most societies, gender relations were unequal.57 Conﬂict and warfare were also recorded, extending to the killing of women and children, among Ainu themselves as well as with the Japanese and other native peoples in the north. Additionally, the notion of Mother Earth never existed in Ainu society, as, indeed, it never existed in most Native American societies.58 The Ainu world-view and whole way of life were totally interconnected with the natural world, to be sure; the concept of ‘nature’ as a separate entity was unknown. Ainu believed that deities existed in all living and many inanimate things and that they were all interconnected but such beliefs were never personiﬁed into a single Earth Mother goddess. Ainu creation myths varied with locality but never involved a Mother Earth-type ﬁgure.59

Conclusion Academic knowledge, with its strong claims to secular truth, illustrates that much of the contemporary vision of Ainu moshiri is the stuff of cultural ﬁction. In particular, the utopian view of a free and egalitarian

The making of Ainu moshiri 127 society in harmony with nature clearly owes more to contemporary anticapitalist discourses of a counter-culture weary of the excesses of modern civilization. In a way, Ainu, like other native peoples, are internalizing an idealistic version of ‘native’ life imposed upon them by industrialized societies, despite the oppositional uses to which this narrative is put. On another level, Ainu moshiri is one cultural ﬁction in a larger narrative that legitimizes the political struggle for special rights as an indigenous people. To return to the original question: while this may indeed be accurate, does it mean that Ainu moshiri, and the rest of this narrative, is false? From the perspective of scholarship, the answer has to be yes, despite some conﬂicting messages that only partially deny Ainu claims to have been a ‘people’ with a ‘homeland’. In one sense, though, this is irrelevant. Ainu activists can continue to deny a ‘truth’ based upon the scholarship of their oppressors and present an alternative idealized version of Ainu moshiri that satisﬁes the emotional and political needs of contemporary Ainu activism. In the eyes of the Ainu and other indigenous peoples, the ‘truth’ of scholarship is forever tainted by the very real history of oppression at the hands of scholars in the service of the state.60 The two narratives talk past each other. In one sense, this whole debate is indicative of the problems of being a latecomer to the nationalism game. Beginning in the 1880s, Japanese nationalist ﬁctions were allowed to work their transformative effects on Japanese society (leaving aside the issue of how ideology actually functions and the extent to which it ever achieves hegemony) without a developed body of social scientiﬁc knowledge to disprove them. Native peoples like the Ainu, employing the same strategy, are vulnerable in that these fictions can now be easily discredited by those in positions of power – not just the political authorities but also those academics whose careers are based upon their role as official ‘interpreters’ of native culture. The Japanese nation is clearly now an established fact, however crude some of its early cultural ﬁctions, whether emperor or Edo. The Ainu nation, however, is not so safe.

Notes 1 A. Cairns, ‘Afterword: International Dimensions of the Citizen Issue for Indigenous Peoples/Nations’, Citizenship Studies, 7: 4, 2003, 500–1. 2 R. Siddle, ‘Colonialism and Identity in Okinawa before 1945’, Japanese Studies, 18: 2, 1998 117–33. 3 R. Siddle, ‘Return to Uchina¯: the Politics of Identity in Contemporary Okinawa’, in G. Hook and R. Siddle (eds), Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity, London: Routledge, 2001; M. Tanji, ‘The Dynamic

128 Richard Siddle

4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Trajectory of the Post-Reversion “Okinawa Struggle”: Constitution, Environment and Gender’, in G. Hook and R. Siddle (eds), Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity, London: Routledge, 2001. Siddle, ‘Return to Uchina¯’. J. Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 2nd edn, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993. Ibid., p. 1. C. Gluck, ‘The Invention of Edo’, in S. Vlastos (ed.), Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. R. Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, London: Routledge, 1996. Hokkaido¯ Kankyo¯ Seikatsu Bu, Heisei 11-nen Hokkaido¯ Utari seikatsu jittai cho¯sa ho¯kokusho (Report on the 1999 Survey into Ainu Living Standards), Sapporo: Hokkaido¯ Kankyo¯ Seikatsu Bu So¯mu Ka Ainu Shisaku Suishin Shitsu, 2000, p. 3. R. Siddle, ‘An Epoch-Making Event? The 1997 Ainu Cultural Promotion Act and its Impact’, Japan Forum, 14: 3, 2002 405–23. T.H. Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, London: Pluto Press, 1993, pp. 101–4. Siddle, Race, p. 174. Siddle, ‘An Epoch-Making Event?’. C. Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985; T. Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. Gluck, ‘The Invention of Edo’, p. 284. J. Clifton, ‘Introduction: Memoir, Exegesis’, in J. Clifton (ed.), The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1990. Ibid., p. 19. M. Ko¯no, Ainu shi: gaisetsu (An Outline of Ainu History), Sapporo: Hokkaido¯ Shuppan Kikaku Senta¯, 1996, pp. 15–27, 154–68, 195–7. Ibid., p. 18; Siddle, ‘An Epoch-Making Event?’, pp. 419–20. G. Shinya, Ainu minzoku teiko¯ shi (History of the Resistance of the Ainu People), Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo¯, 1972, p. 58. Anutari Ainu, 1, 1973, 2. Y. Chiri, Gin no shizuku: Chiri Yukie iko¯ (Silver Droplets: The Posthumous Writings of Chiri Yukie), Tokyo: So¯fu¯kan, 1992, p. 18. S. Gill, ‘Mother Earth: An American Myth’, in J. Clifton (ed.), The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, p. 142. S. Yu¯ki, Ainu sengen (The Ainu Manifesto), Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo¯, 1980, p. 43. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 12. S. Toyooka, ‘The Future of Humankind and the Creation of a Third Philosophy: An Ainu Viewpoint’, in N. Loos and T. Osanai (eds) Indigenous Minorities and Education: Australian and Japanese Perspectives of their Indigenous Peoples, the Ainu, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, Tokyo: Sanyu¯sha, 1993.

The making of Ainu moshiri 129 28 Ibid., pp. 350–3. 29 Ibid., p. 358. 30 T. Miyajima, Land of Elms: The History, Culture and Present Day Situation of the Ainu People, Etobicoke, Ontario: United Church Publishing House, 1998, p. 156. 31 B.H. Chamberlain, The Invention of a New Religion, London: Watts and Co., 1912, p. 6. 32 R. Siddle, ‘Academic Exploitation and Indigenous Resistance: The Case of the Ainu’, in N. Loos and T. Osanai (eds), Indigenous Minorities and Education: Australian and Japanese Perspectives of their Indigenous Peoples, the Ainu, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, Tokyo: Sanyu¯sha, 1993. 33 M. Levin, ‘Essential Commodities and Racial Justice: Using Constitutional Protection of Japan’s Indigenous Ainu People to Inform Understandings of the United States and Japan’, New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, 33: 2, 2001, 503. 34 H. Nakagawa, Chitose no Ainugo shiryo¯ shisakuban 1: Shirasawa Nabe no kamui yukara: Waori: aobato ga chiisaku natta wake (Chitose Ainu Language Materials Study 1: The Kamui Yukara of Shirasawa Nabe: Waori: Why the Dove Shrank), Chiba: Chiba Daigaku Bungakubu, 1988, line 33. 35 For instance Ko¯ no, Ainu shi, pp. 197–9. 36 S. Takakura, Ainu seisaku shi (A History of Ainu Policy), Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo¯, 1972. 37 M. Chiri, ‘Yukara no hitobito to sono seikatsu’ (The People of the Yukara and their Life), in Chiri Mashiho cho¯saku shu¯ (Collected Works of Chiri Mashiho), vol. 3, Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973, pp. 55–9. 38 S. Emori, Ainu no rekishi: Hokkaido no hitobito to (History of the Ainu: People of Hokkaido 2), Tokyo: Sanseido¯, 1987, pp. 49–56. 39 K. Yamaura and H. Ushiro, ‘Prehistoric Hokkaido and Ainu Origins’, in W. Fitzhugh and C. Debreuil (eds), Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1999. 40 M. Kudo¯, ‘Kodai Ezo no shakai: ko¯eki to shakai soshiki’ (Ancient Ezo Society: Trade and Social Organization), Rekishi Hyo¯ron, 434, June 1986, 26–8. 41 Oral literature is, of course, problematic in a number of respects. First, the context of these epics is not the stuff of everyday human experience but that of a limited world of imaginary heroes and gods. Valuable as it is for reconstructing aspects of Ainu life, the oral tradition cannot tell us how individual Ainu interpreted their world in practical everyday terms. Second, the vast majority of extant oral literature has been recorded within the past hundred years. To take this recent data and from it build a timeless model of Ainu society that ignores change and development is to subscribe to the view that the Ainu, as a ‘primitive’ society, were somehow static and ahistoric. As yet, it has not proved possible to identify within the oral tradition ‘old’ elements as opposed to ‘modern’ ones, or even to date the origins of the tradition itself. 42 See S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present, London: Routledge, 1997. 43 I. Kikuchi, Hoppo¯ shi no naka no kinsei Nihon (Early-Modern Japan in

130 Richard Siddle

44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60

the History of the Northern Regions), Tokyo: Azekura Shobo¯, 1991; D. Howell, ‘Ainu Ethnicity and the Boundaries of the Early Modern Japanese State’, Past and Present 142, 1994 69–93. S. Kodama, Ainu: Historical and Anthropological studies, Sapporo: Hokkaido University School of Medicine, 1970, pp. 70–1. Kikuchi, Hoppo¯, p. 91. Ibid., pp. 90–6. S. Takakura, ‘The Ainu of Northern Japan: A Study in Conquest and Acculturation’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 50: 4, 1960, 79. N. Shirasawa, ‘Matsumae no wakasama no kamui yukara’ (Kamui Yukara of the Young Lord of Matsumae), recorded and transcribed by Sato¯ Tomomi, 30 May 1992. Unpublished, lines 194–5. Ainu Mukei Bunka Densho¯ Hozonkai, Eiyu¯ no monogatari: STORIES OF MEN, Sapporo: Ainu Mukei Bunka Densho¯ Hozonkai, 1982, p. 128. Takakura, ‘Ainu of Northern Japan’, pp. 5–16; H. Watanabe, The Ainu Ecosystem, London: University of Washington Press, 1973; H.D. Ölschleger, ‘Technology, Settlement, and Hunting Ritual’, in W. Fitzhugh and C. Debreuil (eds), Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1999, pp. 218–19. Japanese document of 1808, cited in M. Kaiho, Shiryo¯ to kataru Hokkaido¯ no rekishi (History of Hokkaido Related through Documents), Sapporo: Hokkaido Shuppan Kikaku Senta¯, 1985, p. 81. Kikuchi, Hoppo¯, p. 96. Ibid., p. 97. Nakagawa, Chitose no Ainugo, lines 33, 103 and 134. K. Kindaichi, ‘Karafuto Ainugo shiryo¯ Vol IV, Taisho¯ 4-nen 8-gatsu – 9gatsu’ (Karafuto Ainu Language Materials, vol. 4, August–September 1915). Unpublished ﬁeld notes held by the Hokkaido Prefectural Library. I am grateful to Sato¯ Tomomi for the translation. Kodama, Ainu, p.15. E. Ohnuki-Tierney, ‘Ainu Sociality’, in W. Fitzhugh and C. Debreuil (eds), Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press, 1999, p. 244. Gill, ‘Mother Earth’. S. Ogihara, ‘Mythology and Animal Tales’, in W. Fitzhugh and C. Debreuil (eds), Ainu, p. 275. Siddle, Race, pp. 77–87.

6

The battle for hearts and minds Patriotic education in Japan in the 1990s and beyond Caroline Rose

Japan’s ‘third textbook offensive’1 of the 1990s has been the focus of much academic and media attention in recent years. In particular, the activities and publications of the Society for History Textbook Reform (Atarashii kyo¯kasho o tsukuru kai, hereafter Tsukuru kai) and the Liberal View of History Study Group (Jiyu¯shugi shikan kenkyu¯kai), represented by high-profile members such as Nishio Kanji, Fujioka Nobukatsu, and Kobayashi Yoshinori, have caused concern among many Japanese and Western observers and scholars who view the latest textbook campaign as an ominous sign of neo-nationalist resurgence. The attempts of the Ministry of Education (hereafter MoE)2 and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (hereafter LDP) to tighten up the curriculum and the textbook screening process, and place more emphasis on patriotic education, for example, through textbook content (emphasizing the role of the emperor, downplaying Japan’s aggression during the war, and so on) or through legislation (for example, making the raising of the national flag and singing of the national anthem compulsory) have also been the subject of much criticism within Japanese educational circles and beyond. More recent developments, such as the ongoing, heated debates over the government’s education reform package as a whole, proposals for revision of the Fundamental Law of Education, and the introduction of controversial teaching materials produced by the Ministry of Education – Kokoro no no¯to – have convinced many in Japan (and beyond) that neo-conservatism has taken hold and could lead inexorably to a more nationalistic education system reminiscent of the pre-war and war-time periods. The debate that sparked the third textbook offensive – that is, how to represent the nation and its history to Japanese children – is by no means new, and has been fuelling discussions of history and moral education in Japan ever since the 1950s (the ﬁrst offensive occurred in the mid-1950s, the second in the early 1980s). What is particularly

132 Caroline Rose noteworthy of this particular instalment of the textbook offensive, however, is the relative longevity of the domestic debate in Japan and the way it has evolved to form part of the debate about education reform as a whole. The number and type of groups and individuals involved in the movement and counter-movement are also notable. The aim of this chapter is to consider the origins and implications of the most recent battle for control over Japan’s ‘patriotic education’. It considers the dispute over middle school history textbooks, in particular the Tsukuru kai’s Atarashii Rekishi Kyo¯kasho, but then explores some of the other issues which have developed out of the larger debate about education reform in Japan, for example, the recently introduced Kokoro no no¯to and discussions about the revision of the Fundamental Law of Education. It argues that the conservative push (seen here as both a top-down initiative and a grass-roots movement) to create a more patriotic style of education, and win the hearts and minds of Japanese schoolchildren, may have made some progress since the mid-1990s, but it has encountered considerable resistance from progressive groups (domestic and foreign) who perceive the trend as pernicious, retrogressive and a threat to Japanese democracy.

Education reform in Japan The battle for patriotic education in Japan in the 1990s should be seen against the background of changes in Japan’s education system as a whole, which, in turn were driven by social, political and economic change in Japan (the end of the Showa period in 1989, the collapse of the political left, the fall and rise of the LDP, the prolonged economic recession, and so on), in addition to external developments and pressures (such as the end of the Cold War and globalization). Debates about education reform in Japan in the 1990s formed an integral part of the entire reform agenda but had, in fact, been ongoing since the end of the Occupation. Education assumed greater prominence in the 1980s with Prime Minister Nakasone’s attempts at reform, followed in the 1990s by Prime Minister Hashimoto’s Heisei reforms which were continued by Prime Ministers Obuchi, Mori and Koizumi. In the 1980s, Nakasone’s Rinkyo¯shin (Ad Hoc Council on Education) proposed changes in four areas (individuality, internationalization, information technology, and lifelong learning). Nakasone was responding to the demands of the period and his proposals for education reform had much in common with the new right policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.3 Although his reforms were not fully implemented, many of his ideas were picked up by the main advisory body to the

Patriotic education in Japan 133 MoE, Chukyo¯shin (Central Council on Education, CCE) in the 1990s and developed by LDP committees and study groups, and other, nongovernmental organizations. The various reports and plans produced in the 1990s envisaged an education system that would place an emphasis on creativity, ﬂexibility and a ‘relaxed’ approach to education (yutori kyo¯iku) which would develop in children a richness of mind (yutaka na kokoro). The new system would foster in children a strong sense of what it means to be Japanese, and a sense of belonging (to the community and to the nation), but at the same time would encourage creativity and individuality in order to produce a workforce that could help Japan succeed in the twenty-first century. Specific measures included a slimmed-down curriculum, greater choice of subjects, a ﬁve-day school week, and diversification of assessment – some of which had been implemented by the early 2000s.4 The national curriculum and textbook authorization in Japan Education reform, including the implementation of, or revisions to, a national curriculum, was high on the agenda of many liberal democracies in the 1990s as they reacted to the pressures of globalization and the need to maintain international competitiveness. The reassertion of national and cultural identity could be seen in the attempts of a number of governments (for example, England, Wales, Scotland, the United States, New Zealand and Australia) to increase central control over the school syllabus via a national curriculum. Priestley labels this ‘cultural restorationism through curriculum prescription’ and argues that ‘at least an element of curriculum policy across the Anglophone states [Britain, New Zealand, Australia] can be viewed in such terms as a nationalistic reaction to the perceived threats posed by globalization’.5 Invariably, one of the most controversial areas of the various proposals for creation or strengthening of a national curriculum in the 1980s and 1990s centred on the content of history education. ‘History wars’ broke out in many countries and history textbooks, which play a central role in the production of a national memory and identity, became the battleground for political and intellectual contests over how best to render the past, and, in so doing, mould the present and future.6 Unlike other liberal democracies which sought to establish central control over school curricula in the 1990s, however, the Japanese system was already highly centralized. The MoE maintains control over the curriculum and textbook content in a number of ways. First, it sets out guidelines for textbook writers (kyo¯kasho kentei kijun), which themselves

134 Caroline Rose conform to a national curriculum or Course of Study (gakushu¯ shido¯ yo¯ryo¯). Second, it has the authority to pass or fail textbooks through a system of textbook authorization (kyo¯kasho kentei seido). The Course of Study consists of a set of guidelines as to the general content of the syllabus for all subjects taught in junior and senior schools. The Course of Study tends to be revised every ten years and provides the opportunity for the government of the day to update the syllabus according to the social and political agenda of the time. Since the late 1980s these revisions have been controversial since increasing emphasis has been placed on inculcating Japanese children with a greater sense of patriotism and self-awareness of their ‘Japanese-ness’ in order to help them function well in international society (this was particularly noticeable in the new Course of Study for primary and secondary schools issues in 1998 for implementation in 2002, discussed below). Revisions to the Course of Study are often greeted with alarm in the Japanese media and progressive circles which regularly highlight those areas of most concern. Instructions regarding the national ﬂag and anthem, for example, are of particular interest. The 1958 Course of Study stipulated that it would be desirable for the ﬂag and anthem to be used, but it took until 1987 for the Course of Study to stipulate their compulsory use in schools. Such changes have, therefore, been incremental, evidence more of a creeping conservatism than a sudden resurgence of neo-nationalism, but they are no less worrying in the view of their opponents. Although the Course of Study sets down the general framework and tone of the school syllabus, it does not provide speciﬁc information as to detailed content of the curriculum.7 It is, rather, the Ministry’s textbook authorization process that allows the Japanese government to intervene more directly in the subject matter. The textbook authorization process underwent changes (in 1989 and 1999) which were aimed at simplifying the system and making it more transparent,8 but the basic process is as follows: a publisher submits a manuscript to the Ministry’s textbook division. A Textbook Examination Committee (TEC) carries out a preliminary survey which is passed on to the relevant subject committee of the Textbook Authorization Research Council (TARC). The TARC then carries out an inspection of the manuscript and makes a recommendation to the Education Minister to pass, fail, or ‘withhold a decision’ (that is, to recommend changes). If changes are required, the authors are asked to revise the relevant sections and resubmit them for re-inspection.9 Thus, Japan is fairly unique amongst liberal democracies in the extent to which it is able to inﬂuence the content of textbooks, and Japan’s textbook crises from the 1950s to the present day illustrate the vicious circle of reaction and counter-reaction to alternating

Patriotic education in Japan 135 approaches of liberalization and centralization of history (and other) textbook content.

Japan’s history textbook battles 1950s–1990s Domestic politics in Japan has, as in other countries, considerable inﬂuence over the writing and teaching of history. Contending approaches to the interpretation and explanations of Japan’s history, both ancient and modern, emerged in the immediate post-war period represented by ‘progressives’ (teachers, professors, the JTU, socialists) and conservatives (the LDP, MoE, and right-wing groups).10 The struggle to record what each side viewed as the ‘correct’ version of history began in earnest in the 1950s which saw a conservative turn in educational policy after the end of the Occupation when the MoE regained control over textbook authorization. The ﬁrst major conﬂict between the two camps took place in the mid-1950s when some LDP members and the Ministry began to criticize what they saw as ‘biased textbooks’ – that is, those written predominantly by teachers and academics adopting too liberal a stance. A second textbook offensive took place in the 1980s, again led by LDP members, the MoE, and right-wing groups, aimed at exposing the ‘deplorable’ state of textbooks. In both campaigns, the conservative camp complained about the lack of patriotic tone in history textbooks.11 Both textbook offensives occurred when the LDP had re-gained political ground (for example, 1955 saw the merger of the Liberal and the Democratic Parties and the subsequent election of the LDP to power; the late 1970s saw a return to majority rule of the LDP in both houses of the Diet after a period of ‘equality’ (hakuchu¯ kokkai) throughout the early 1970s), and had the confidence and power to follow policies through. This could take the form of advice to textbook authors (via textbook guidelines, or through informal channels and administrative guidance) to ensure a more patriotic tone in textbooks, or via the MoE whose textbook examiners would be encouraged to be more rigorous in their comments and opinions on certain passages in textbooks (for example, in references to the Emperor system or the Sino-Japanese war in history textbooks). The most symbolic representation of the long-running battle for control over history textbooks was the series of court cases brought against the Ministry of Education by history textbook author and Tokyo University professor, Ienaga Saburo¯, who argued that textbook screening was unconstitutional and violated the Fundamental Law of Education. In the early 1970s as a result of a favourable ruling by Judge Sugimoto in Ienaga’s second lawsuit, the MoE relaxed its criteria for

136 Caroline Rose textbook authorization, and textbooks containing more information on Japanese wartime atrocities were approved.12 For example, references to the Nanjing Massacre began to appear in high school and middle school history textbooks after 1974.13 By the early 1980s when the LDP sought once again to clamp down on ‘deplorable’ textbooks, the pendulum began to swing back, and textbook screening was temporarily tightened. With the internationalization of the textbook issue in 1982 (in which Chinese, Korean and other Asian governments lodged diplomatic protests against the ‘beautiﬁcation’ of descriptions of Japan’s aggression in Asia during the war), and Ienaga’s third textbook trial (brought in 1984 and focusing on the Nanjing Massacre, rape, Unit 731 and the Okinawa war), textbook screening was once again relaxed. In 1984 all middle school textbooks and by 1985 all high school books referred to the Nanjing Massacre, with some references to Unit 731.14 In the early 1990s, the screening of history textbooks was fairly relaxed. Taking advantage of this, middle school and high school textbook authors and publishers were able to ‘improve’ the content of passages on Japan’s war of invasion, including references to the comfort women system and the attempts of individuals from Korea and China to claim private compensation for their wartime suffering.15 It was this relaxation of textbook content, and in particular the introduction of descriptions of the comfort women system in textbooks that gave rise to the third textbook offensive. The content of these textbooks soon met with criticism within Japan. Articles appeared in the right-wing press (Sankei shinbun, Shokun, Seiron) in 1993 and 1994, and some LDP Diet members began to ask questions in the Diet. By 1995 attention was being turned towards the state of middle school textbooks in particular, with, for example, right-wing groups sending faxes to publishing houses and ministries calling for better treatment of such issues as the emperor system, wartime ‘personalities’, Japan’s defence, and so on.16 The third textbook offensive began in earnest when the results of the 1996 screening of middle school history textbooks were announced at the end of June, revealing that all seven textbooks contained some reference to the comfort women and post-war compensation.17 For newly-forming revisionist history groups, and some members of the LDP, this was unacceptable and they launched a campaign to correct this ‘masochistic’ trend.

The third textbook offensive The third textbook offensive differs from the previous two campaigns in a number of ways. Tawara labels the campaign a ‘right wing grassroots

Patriotic education in Japan 137 movement’, but this is slightly misleading since there was no single central group orchestrating a grand plan, rather a series of efforts by disparate groups working both from the top-down and bottom-up.18 The grass-roots element of the campaign was initiated by ‘liberal history’ groups which then developed links with some of the new LDP groups that had formed in the early 1990s and which drove the top-down element of the campaign. Traditional right-wing groups were also involved, although members of the new ‘liberal history’ groups were at pains to stress that their approach was quite different from that of the right wing. Second, the counter-offensive was particularly active. Led by citizens’ groups such as Textbook 21 and leading Japanese academics, the counter-offensive soon attracted widespread attention both domestically and overseas, and was effective in its attempts to discredit the arguments of the revisionist groups, and to highlight the activities of the LDP and MoE. Third, the textbook offensive converged with the broader, ongoing domestic debate that encompassed not just speciﬁc details of middle school history textbooks, but the larger issues of history and moral education as a whole, Japan’s social problems, and the need for a reconstruction of Japanese national identity at a time of international and domestic change. The offensive The groups which were influential in launching the attacks on the textbooks had already begun to form in the early 1990s and involved a mix of LDP and former New Frontier Party politicians (Shinshinto¯),19 academics, journalists, right-leaning media and publishing houses (for example, Sankei shinbun, Bungei Shunju¯, Fuso¯sha – a subsidiary of Sankei), as well as pro-constitutional reform groups (in particular the Nippon Kaigi) and the more radical right-wing groups. The most active group was undoubtedly the Tsukuru kai, formed in December 1996, whose key members included Tokyo University professor Fujioka Nobukatsu, Nishio Kanji who is professor at the University of ElectroCommunications, writer Nishibe Susumu, and manga artist Kobayashi Yoshinori. Their declared objective was to ‘develop and disseminate history textbooks founded on common sense, textbooks that will assure us that we have transmitted the correct version of our history to Japan’s future generations’.20 The Tsukuru kai targeted the newly-authorized history textbooks, arguing that the textbooks would make it difﬁcult for school-children to take pride in their country. A central concern was the topic of the comfort women system (which many members of the Tsukuru kai claim

138 Caroline Rose did not exist at all, or else was not implemented by the state), but problems were also to be found in descriptions of Meiji modernization, the Emperor system, the Nanjing Massacre and the second Sino-Japanese war.21 The groups argued that there was a need for schoolchildren to learn about the heroes and heroines of Japanese history, and to develop a ‘healthy nationalism’. It should be noted that the group was equally critical of LDP and governmental policy as it was of the progressive view of history. The campaign, therefore, had multiple targets, criticizing, on the one hand, the Japanese government’s diplomacy of apology, its handling of the comfort women issue, and the weakness of the textbook screening system which allegedly pandered to the demands of foreign governments; and, on the other, the content of purportedly leftleaning, masochistic textbooks. The Tsukuru kai’s main aim, as its name suggests, was to write textbooks that would correct the self-deprecating tendencies of existing textbooks and ‘portray Japan and Japanese with dignity and balance in the context of world history’.22 It produced two textbooks, Atarashii Rekishi Kyo¯kasho (The New History Textbook), written by Nishio Kanji and others, and Atarashii Ko¯min Kyo¯kasho (The New Civics Textbook), written by Nishibe Susumu and others, both of which were submitted for authorization in April 2000. The progress of the new textbooks through the screening process was closely followed by domestic and foreign observers. The history textbook was singled out for a great deal of criticism and many Japanese historians publicly stated their objections from the outset. When the textbook was authorized a year later, it prompted a domestic and international outcry as critics expressed concerns about the book’s emphasis on the heroes of Japanese history and its lack of attention to Imperial Japan’s aggressive policies in Asia. Problematic passages in the textbook were references to the ‘foundation myths’ of the Japanese nation (and the treatment of the Emperor Jinmu as a ‘real’ historical ﬁgure), the Greater East Asian War and its justiﬁcation as a war of liberation.23 This was a view of history that was hardly liberal. According to Nelson, it attempted to provide ‘a positive sense of Japanese cultural identity’ by means of ‘a strategy of asides, allusions, comparisons, and contrasts, together with omissions and obfuscations’.24 The response to the publication of the new textbook from Japan’s neighbours, China and South Korea, was particularly vocal, and the Chinese government referred to the spectre of Japanese militarism and the growing strength of right-wing nationalism in Japan as being a destabilizing factor in the region.25 Although the ‘liberal history’ groups tried to locate themselves at the other end of the political spectrum to ‘traditional’ right-wing groups,

Patriotic education in Japan 139 there was, nonetheless, considerable overlap in their activities and in the membership of the various groups. Writing in 2000, McCormack warned that if the liberal history groups ‘were to be successfully integrated in a front alongside the established parliamentary and extraparliamentary forces of right-wing nationalism, the signiﬁcance would be considerable’.26 While the movement is still far from ‘integrated’, the various groups have provided support for each other. The Japan Council (Nippon Kaigi),27 for example, provided support at the local level to various events and activities aimed at raising awareness of the problems associated with history education. At party political level, the Nippon Kaigi gained the support of a cross-party group formed in 1997 called the Japan Council Diet Members Group (Nippon Kaigi kokkai giin kondankai) which enjoyed a membership of over two hundred made up of mainly LDP Diet members, but also Shinshinto¯ members. The group set up study groups on history, education, and family problems, on defence, foreign policy and territorial problems, and on the constitution, the imperial family and the Yasukuni Shrine problem. In cooperation with the Nippon Kaigi, it was influential in the promotion of the controversial Kokoro no no¯to books in 2002, discussed below.28 Needless to say, the LDP also played an important role in the third textbook offensive and provided the political impetus for the ensuing patriotic education movement. One LDP group, in particular, called the Committee on History and Screening (Rekishi kento¯ iinkai), was formed in 1993. The 105-strong membership included senior members of the LDP such as Hashimoto Ryu¯taro¯, Mori Yoshiro¯, and Nakayama Taro¯ as well as younger members such as Abe Shinzo¯, Eto¯ Seiichi, and Kawamura Takeo. The group developed links with academics such as Nishio Kanji and Takahashi Shiro¯ and in 1995 published their interpretation of the war in a book entitled Daito¯a senso¯ no so¯katsu.29 The book made four main points: that the Greater East Asia War (GEAW) was one of self-defence and liberation; that the Nanjing Massacre and stories about comfort women were fabrications; that a new textbook battle was necessary in light of the emphasis on damage and invasion in recent textbooks; and that a national movement was needed to disseminate the historical view put forward in the ﬁrst two points.30 In June 1996, over one hundred members of the LDP formed the Diet members Alliance for a Bright Japan (Akarui Nihon kokkai giin renmei), ¯ kuno Seisuke (who had publicly denied in 1988 that the war headed by O was one of aggression). Upper House LDP diet members also formed a group to discuss the textbook problem, and called for some passages to be deleted from textbooks. The LDP General Council (So¯mukai) raised criticisms about the comfort women, Nanjing Massacre and Marco Polo

140 Caroline Rose Bridge incident, and the textbook problem was raised in Diet sessions on 11 and 18 December. Political activism was not restricted to the LDP. Some members of the Shinshinto¯ formed their own group called the Diet Members League for Passing on Correct History (Tadashii rekishi o tsutaeru kokkai giin renmei) which issued a statement on 20 December criticizing the textbooks.31 Another LDP group with links to the Tsukuru kai was formed in 1997 and was made up of younger members of the LDP. The group, the Young Diet Members Committee to Consider the Future of Japan and History Education (Nihon no zento¯ to rekishi kyo¯iku o kangaeru wakate giin no kai) was particularly pro-active in making contact with the Textbook Bureau of the Ministry of Education, publishing companies and textbook authors and was particularly concerned with the descriptions of the comfort women system and the war of aggression in history textbooks. Key members include Abe Shinzo¯, Nakagawa Sho¯ichi, and Hiranuma Takeo, young LDP hawks who are in favour of a new Fundamental Law of Education and constitutional revision.32 By the late 1990s, the LDP and MoE embarked upon a patriotic education campaign reminiscent of the early 1980s, with the aim of reclaiming some control over history (and other) textbooks. This coincided with a shift back to LDP dominance after a period of relative lack of power in 1993–96 when prime ministers Hosokawa and Murayama had attempted to settle the past in a more conciliatory way than the LDP and supporting groups would have liked. In 1998 Education Minister Machimura Nobutaka stated that history textbooks lacked balance. In the following year the MoE requested textbook publishers to ensure ‘more balance’ in textbooks, a policy line allegedly backed up by ‘pressure’ from the Prime Minister’s Ofﬁce in mid-1999 in the form of telephone calls to textbook publishers. The Ministry also directed editors to place more emphasis on respect for national symbols, speciﬁcally the national ﬂag and anthem.33 The effect of these tactics could be seen in the results of the 2000–1 authorization process. Seven middle school history textbooks were screened alongside the Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho, and, compared with the previous versions of the same texts, there were some notable changes to the content. Most notable was that of the seven textbooks which had previously described the comfort women issue, only one textbook contained a more detailed discussion of the system, whereas the other six had either removed all references or had substantially reduced the length of the passages relating to the issue. Aside from the comfort women issue, other areas which received attention from the MoE examiners in the 2000–1 screening were the ‘Three Alls Policy’ (deleted),

Patriotic education in Japan 141 the term aggression (shinryaku – replaced by advance shinshutsu), Unit 731 and the Nanjing Massacre (toned down to ‘incident’).34 These changes represented a clear shift away from the tend of the previous few years towards a more restricted presentation of the past, and were a source of great concern for those engaged in the struggle against the neo-nationalist groups. The counter-offensive The activities of the revisionist groups faced ﬁerce opposition at home, and one of the marked differences between the first two textbook offensives and that of the 1990s is the level of citizen activity, in the form of new groups such as Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21, academics, journalists and writers, PTA groups and so on, seeking to raise awareness of, and protest against, the activities of the LDP, MoE, the Tsukuru kai and other groups. Support has also come from overseas groups and academics. The Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21 (Kodomo to kyo¯kasho zenkoku netto 21, hereafter Textbook 21) is one of the leading organizations, headed by Tawara Yoshifumi.35 One of its main functions is to disseminate information about the nature of the so-called liberal view of history, the content of the Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho and other ‘dangerous’ textbooks, and general educational issues. Other organizations concerned speciﬁcally with the textbook issue and the problem of historical revisionism include the Committee for Truth and Freedom in Textbooks (Kyo¯kasho ni shinjitsu to jiyu¯ o renrakukai), the Advisory Committee for Discussing Social Studies Textbook Problems (Shakai kyo¯kasho kondankai sewaninkai), the Japanese Society for Democratic Education (Zenkoku minshushugi kyo¯iku kenkyu¯kai) and many more. They publish pamphlets, books, journal articles and conference proceedings, and maintain websites on which they publicize workshops and other events.36 Just as the LDP, Tsukuru kai and other revisionist groups lobbied local assemblies, so too did opposing groups organize their counter-offensive at the local level, gaining the backing of parents’ groups, local schoolteachers, university professors, and lawyers. For example, when the Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho was going through the authorization process, the groups lobbied central government, issuing an appeal in December 2000 which warned that ‘the certiﬁcation of such a textbook by the Japanese government and its adoption for use in history education will pave the way for the revival of chauvinistic history education of pre-war and wartime Japan’.37 The appeal was initially signed by sixty Japanese historians, but the number of signatories

142 Caroline Rose soon increased as it was publicized domestically and abroad, reaching 899 in March 2001. A further appeal was made by concerned academics and writers in March 2001 which criticized the government’s stance on the textbook problem, demanded that the government enhance the transparency of the textbook screening process, and called for an open debate on the reform of the textbook system as a whole.38 As a result of the pressure brought to bear by the Textbook 21 and related groups on local education boards during the screening process, the New History Textbook was adopted in only 0.039 per cent of schools,39 a tiny percentage when compared with the 51.3 per cent share enjoyed by Tokyo Shoseki’s textbook, Atarashi shakai: Rekishi (New Society: history).40 The groups gained the support of other Japanese organizations involved in the debate on the issue of war responsibility such as Violence against Women in War–Network Japan (VAWW–Net Japan) and the Centre for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility (Nihon senso¯ sekinin shiryo¯ senta), and through these links, they have been successful in internationalizing their activities. Of particular note was the Asian Solidarity Conference on Textbook Issues in Japan (Ajia rentai kinkyu¯ kaigi) held in Tokyo in June 2001. The conference brought many of these groups together, along with participants from Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. It produced a thirty-six-point action plan which aimed, broadly, to stop the adoption of the Tsukuru kai’s Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho in schools, and ‘to establish history education to create a common future of [sic] Asia’. Activities were planned at all levels, from community-level lobbying of local schools and education committees to international-level appeals to UN agencies and global NGO networks. Furthermore, the Conference agreed to form an Asian Network on History Education (Rekishi kyo¯iku Ajia nettowa¯ku) which has since launched a project aimed at developing a common history reader for use in China, Korea and Japan.41 This sort of activity highlights the expanding role of civil society in Northeast Asia, and suggests that a new space is opening for more open, frank, transnational debate of the past, one which is not constrained by the political agendas of the Japanese conservatives. Thus, the refusal of the ‘liberal history’ groups to accept anything but a national history of Japan has, ironically, resulted in the initiation of the sort of joint history that they reject out of hand. The Tsukuru kai’s declaration states that: It is impossible for nations to share historical perceptions. Japan has progressed far beyond the early stage of nationalism, while our Asian neighbours are just arriving, and explosively so, at that point.

Patriotic education in Japan 143 If we were to make compromises with other Asian nations regarding our perception of history, and vice versa, that would amount to an act of submission on the part of Japan. Such an act would only aggravate the system that has already presented itself, i.e., the loss of a national history.42 The joint history project is driven by academics and citizens’ groups in Japan, Korea and China who are determined to produce a more inclusive, outward-looking discourse in contrast to the exclusive, inward-looking one of the revisionist groups.43 While collaborative history projects are notoriously difﬁcult to undertake (as the various attempts to implement Japan–Korea joint study groups attest),44 that such a project is underway nonetheless offers some hope for the eventual production of a shared narrative.45

Revision of the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE) and the restoration of moral education We have seen that the third textbook offensive resulted in the toning down of descriptions of the comfort women system in the middle school history textbooks screened in 2000–1, but that the Tsukuru kai was not successful in its efforts to get its textbooks adopted widely in schools in 2002. Nonetheless, the battle continues on all fronts. The Tsukuru kai launched a campaign with the aim of getting the Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho adopted by 10 per cent of schools when the selection process took place in 2005. It arranged lectures, symposiums, and exhibitions, and continues to publish widely in newspapers and weekly magazines to publicize its aims. Needless to say, the progressive groups have once again sprung into action and have organized emergency meetings and started petitions to raise awareness amongst teachers and education boards of the dangers of adopting the Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho.46 Attention has also turned to high school history textbooks, in particular, Nippon Kaigi’s Saishin Nihonshi, published by Meiseisha. Tawara calls this the high school version of Tsukuru Kai’s Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho, and is concerned about the increase in adoption rates since 2004, with eleven new schools choosing to use the textbook.47 But the textbook offensive has perhaps been eclipsed by the broader debate on education reform which points to the escalation of the conservatives’ patriotic education movement. While the Tsukuru kai’s initial aims were to effect change through the production of textbooks, its members have now set their sights much higher. Thus there is now considerable cooperation between groups like Tsukuru kai, Nippon

144 Caroline Rose Kaigi and pro-reform LDP Diet members on FLE revision and other related projects such as the ‘improvement’ of moral education in primary and middle schools. Since its introduction in 1947, the FLE has been the thorn in the side of the conservative camp, a reminder of the imposition of foreign (US) values over Japanese traditional ones. Various attempts have been made since the 1950s to address the perceived deﬁciencies in the law and a possible revision of it was mooted in the 1960s.48 It is only in the past few years, however, that the conservative push for amendment of the FLE has gained strength. Proposals put forward in 2000 by the National Committee on Education Reform (NCER) stressed the ‘cultivation of patriotism’, ‘respect for Japanese history and traditional culture’ and ‘international coexistence’. Speciﬁcally, and worryingly for its critics, the NCER also proposed revision of the FLE and a re-examination of history textbooks including ‘new perspectives’ (a reference to the views of the Tsukuru kai). Such recommendations were considered most worrying by opponents who saw in them evidence of a desire to return to a pre-war, nationalistic style of education. Such fears were not allayed by the results of Chukyo¯shin’s deliberations on revision of the FLE delivered in March 2003. The report, entitled the ‘New Fundamental Law of Education and Basic Promotional Plan for Education Beﬁtting to the New Times’, stressed, among other things, the need for education to foster ‘a sense of civic responsibility’, ‘respect for tradition and culture, and a sense of love and respect of the country and home and internationalism’.49 For its opponents, any revision of the FLE is considered one step closer to constitutional revision. If the FLE was amended along the lines put forward by Chukyo¯shin, Miyake argues, it would have the effect of ‘dismantling’ Articles 19, 21, 23 and 26 of the Constitution.50 Okada too sees a revision of the FLE as paving the way for Japan to revise its constitution and renounce the pacifism therein, thereby dismantling the democratic basis of Japan’s political system.51 While the revision of the FLE is not yet a foregone conclusion, the government has nonetheless been hard at work on fostering these values through the medium of moral education classes. Civic responsibility, respect, love of country, and so on are the very themes that feature heavily in a series of controversial books entitled, Kokoro no no¯to (literally, Notebook for the Heart; or translated by MoE as ‘Notebooks for Moral Education’) produced by MoE and distributed from 2002 onwards to all primary and middle schools as a new ‘teaching aid’ designed for use both by teachers in moral education classes (do¯toku) and by parents at home.52 Once the books were distributed, the MoE was at pains to stress that they were not textbooks

Patriotic education in Japan 145 but, nonetheless, encouraged local education committees to ensure that they were used appropriately either in the classroom or at home. The MoE also conducted a survey to establish whether all students had indeed received the books, and how they were being used.53 There are four books in the series, three to cover grades 1–6 of primary school, and one for grades 1–3 of junior high school. All the books follow the same format, their content becoming more sophisticated as children move up the grades. They all contain four chapters corresponding to the main objectives of the do¯toku ‘syllabus’ as set out in the new Course of Study implemented in 2002. Thus, the ﬁrst chapter of each book starts with themes to do with the individual, the second develops these themes in relation to other people, the third considers how the individual ﬁts with nature and humanity, the fourth, the wider community. For example, the middle school version54 explores issues to do with: ‘oneself’ (i.e., developing as an individual, pursuing dreams and objectives, striving for success, self-improvement, taking responsibility for actions, and so on); ‘others’ (i.e., one’s relationship with others, showing consideration for others, understanding others, and tolerating differences); ‘nature and piety’ (thinking about life, death and humanity); and ‘groups and society’ (being a useful member of a group and of society, rights and duties, creating a just and fair society with no prejudice and discrimination, thinking about your family, school, hometown, country, and the world).55 The books are fully of glossy images and colourful text, with catchy slogans (for example, ‘I want to decide for myself’, jibun no koto wa jibun de kimetai),56 and lots of white space for children to write down their thoughts and impressions. While the books have been well received in some quarters,57 they are considered controversial for a number of reasons: ﬁrst, since they are not ‘textbooks’, they have not undergone the screening and selection process, and yet they are distributed to all schools by MoE along with guidelines for their use. Furthermore, reminiscent of pre-war stateauthored textbooks (kokutei kyo¯kasho), the books offer no information about the authors (it is normal for textbooks to provide such information).58 Critics, therefore, consider them a present-day version of the pre-war and wartime shu¯shin textbooks.59 The most problematic, and for some, frightening, aspect of the books, however, is in their content, and the way in which, according to the critics, they attempt to ‘control the minds’ of children.60 This is done in skilful, subtle ways through imagery and careful use of language. The most problematic sections are the ones that deal with ‘groups and society’, particularly with their references to patriotism. Miyake’s analysis of the middle school version describes one particular page with the title ‘love one’s country and wish

146 Caroline Rose for its growth’ (waga kuni o aishi, sono hatten o negau) on which a map of Japan forms the central image (showing the Northern Territories down to Okinawa, with the disputed Takeshima and Senkaku islands in view, but no sign of the Korean peninsula, China or Taiwan), surrounded by smaller photographs showing symbolic images (Mount Fuji) and pictures associated with the ‘four beautiful seasons’ of Japan. The text asserts that ‘our country’ (waga kuni) has four clearly deﬁned seasons and beautiful scenery, and that it is perfectly natural ‘to love this country we live in’ and to wish for its development. Miyake argues that the aim here is to elide the image of Japan as an ‘ecological’ entity (hence the pictures of the seasonal symbols) with Japan as a constructed state or people (hence the map), and reassure the reader that these feelings of love are natural.61 Sure enough, the text assures us that loving this country is not a narrow, exclusive gloriﬁcation of one’s own country, but that ‘loving this country is connected to loving the world’.62 Takahashi is also critical of the corresponding section of the primary school version for third and fourth graders. In particular, he argues that the use of the word country (kuni) is ambiguous, given that it can mean birthplace/ hometown or country (state) depending on the context. Also problematic is the premise that one’s love for the family radiates out as one develops to encompass the school, community, hometown, and then country, and that this is ‘natural’ and healthy.63 The origins of the Kokoro no no¯to books can be traced back to the debates that took place in the Diet and education boards in the wake of such events as the sarin gas attach on the Tokyo subway by the Aum shinrikyo¯ cult in March 1995, and the gruesome murder of a primary school student by a 14-year-old boy in 1997. The debates centred on the perceived decline in values among the youth of Japan and the need for greater emphasis on moral education or ‘education for the mind’ (kokoro no kyo¯iku).64 While the term is not a new one, the current movement to enhance moral education has been actively supported by the same sort of groups and individuals who backed the textbook offensive. Within the LDP, Nakasone Hirofumi (son of former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro), Kawamura Takeo, and Kamei Ikuo and many others are in favour of the books.65 Also involved are large sections of the Tsukuru kai and Nippon Kaigi who have also thrown their full support behind the plans for revision of the FLE (via the Atarashii kyo¯iku kihonho¯ o motomeru kai).66 The sort of long-term, strategic thinking that critics perceive in the proposals for FLE revision is seen to lie behind the introduction of the Kokoro no no¯to, and indeed the books are seen as a means of paving the way for the introduction of a revised FLE. In turn, revision

Patriotic education in Japan 147 of the FLE, it is believed, will lead inexorably to revision of the constitution. In his analysis of Kokoro no no¯to, Tawara argues that the effects of the content of these books will be demonstrated in the next ten years when the students currently using them will reach voting age. Given that leading LDP politicians have suggested that that there will be a referendum on constitutional revision within the next ten years, Tawara sees no lack of coincidence in the introduction of teaching materials which seek to impress upon Japanese children the importance of a Japan that can contribute to international affairs, or more worryingly for Tawara, ‘a Japan that can go to war’.67

Conclusion In one sense, the politics of Japan’s textbook offensive of the 1990s bears a great resemblance to the history wars played out in other liberal democracies during the same period, and reﬂects a ‘universal’ reaction against the pressures of globalization in the form of attempts to strengthen national identity through education. This could be seen most clearly in the sphere of history education, which was marked in the 1980s and 1990s in countries like the United States, the UK and Germany by debates about what, and how best, to teach children about their country’s past and foster patriotism. In Japan too, the debate developed along similar lines, and conservative forces pushed for more emphasis on patriotism, traditional culture and values, and a better awareness of what it means to be Japanese. But, in Japan, the debate has developed further, and unlike in other countries, the conservatives have made gains. The third textbook offensive was not totally successful; the views expounded by groups like the Tsukuru kai, while gaining some popularity among the young, have nonetheless been discredited by academics and their textbook was not widely adopted in 2002. On the other hand, the patriotic education campaign of the LDP and MoE, backed by Tsukuru kai and other groups, seems to have inﬂuenced the content and tone of other textbooks by forcing textbook authors to tone down their descriptions of Japanese wrongdoings during the war. Other aspects of the broader debate on education reform, such as the implementation of the new Course of Study which stresses the need to foster a love of country, have, as we have seen, already been incorporated into the syllabus with the introduction of Kokoro no no¯to. Revision of the FLE, if it succeeds, could institutionalize patriotic education still further. The struggle over the content of textbooks represents one aspect of the larger contest over the present and future of Japan. While the

148 Caroline Rose Tsukuru kai’s aim is to (re-)create a national history so that Japan is strong enough to contend with the various domestic and external pressures placed upon it, groups like Textbook 21 are concerned that this revisionist, retrogressive approach will only weaken the state by shaking what are already, for them, wobbly democratic foundations. Both sides are ultimately concerned with the same question, Japan’s ‘survival’ in the face of a series of crises, but they remain diametrically opposed in their ideas about how this can best be achieved. The textbook offensive of the mid-1990s represented one in a series of post-war crises in Japan over history textbooks marked by cycles of relaxation and tightening of control over the history curriculum. But as the offensive gained momentum, it converged with the debate over Japan’s education system as a whole, and the even bigger issue of Japan’s identity and its place in a rapidly changing world. With the return to power of the LDP in the mid-1990s and the active participation (intervention) of powerful and popular civil society groups like Tsukuru kai and Nippon Kaigi in the educational process, the conservative agenda has no doubt advanced, but the persistence and vigour with which the progressives are ﬁghting their corner should not be underestimated, and the debate is far from over.

Acknowledgements The author is grateful to the British Association of Japanese Studies, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, and the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee for their support in the funding of this project.

Notes 1 It is worth clarifying here that by ‘textbook offensive(s)’, I am referring to the domestic disputes in Japan over textbooks; these invariably led to ‘textbook issue(s)’ meaning diplomatic spats with Japan’s neighbouring countries, for example, the ﬁrst textbook issue occurred in 1982 when the Chinese and Korean governments accused the Japanese government of beautifying history in school textbooks. 2 The Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho¯) was renamed Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho¯, or MEXT) in 2001. For the purposes of this chapter MoE is used throughout except when referring to the Ministry’s publications. 3 See A. Okada, ‘Education of Whom, for Whom, by Whom? Revising the Fundamental Law of Education in Japan’, Japan Forum 14: 3, 2002, 425–41. 4 For an assessment of some of these reforms, see R. Goodman and D. Phillips (eds), Can the Japanese Change their Education System? Oxford: Symposium Books, 2003.

Patriotic education in Japan 149 5 Priestley, M., ‘Global Discourses and National Reconstruction: the Impact of Globalization on Curriculum Policy’, The Curriculum Journal, 13: 1, 2002, 133. 6 See, for example, A. Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia, New York: Routledge, 1995; D. McKiernan, D., ‘History in a National Curriculum: Imaging the Nation at the End of the 20th Century’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 25: 1, 1993, 3–51.; and G.B. Nash, C. Crabtree, and R.E. Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past, New York: Vintage, 1997. 7 The MoE does produce a great deal of supplementary literature explaining how the Course of Study should be interpreted and implemented, see, for example, Monbusho¯, Chu¯gakko¯ gakushu¯ shido¯ yo¯ryo¯ kaisetsu: shakai hen, Tokyo: Monbusho¯, 1999 and Ko¯to¯ gakko¯ shido¯ yo¯ryo¯ kaisetsu: chiri rekishi hen, Tokyo: Monbusho¯, 2000. 8 The publishing union, Shuppan Ro¯ren, takes a somewhat different view of the various changes made to the authorization process in the late 1990s. Rather than making the system smoother, they argue that the MoE merely attempted to tighten its control over textbook publishers and authors. See, for example, their annual reports on textbooks, Kyo¯kasho Repo¯to 1999 and 2000, for various articles criticizing the introduction of the new kentei kijun. 9 MEXT, Kyo¯kasho seido no gaiyo¯ (Outline of the Textbook System), Tokyo: MEXT, 2001, p. 9. 10 In fact, the two camps were never fully united in their respective struggles, and there are many examples of factionalism within each of the groups. See L.J. Schoppa, Education Reform in Japan: A Case of Immobilist Politics, London: Routledge, 1991; and R.W. Aspinall, Teachers’ Unions and the Politics of Education in Japan, New York: SUNY Press, 2001, for examples of the many differences of opinion within the MoE, LDP, Nikkyo¯so, and so on. 11 See C. Rose, Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations: A Case Study in Political Decision-making, London: Routledge, 1998, for descriptions of the ‘biased textbook campaigns’ of the 1950s and 1980s. 12 Y. Nozaki and H. Inokuchi, ‘Japanese Education, Nationalism, and Ienaga Saburo’s Court Challenges’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 30: 2, 1998, 42. 13 Y. Tawara, Tettei Kensho¯: Abunai kyo¯kasho (Dangerous Textbooks – A Thorough Inspection), Tokyo: Gakushu¯ no yu¯sha, 2001, p. 49. 14 Ibid., p. 50. 15 Y. Tawara and H. Ishiyama, Kyo¯kasho kentei to kyo¯ no kyo¯kasho mondai no shoten (Focus on Textbook Authorization and Today’s Textbook Problem), Tokyo: Gakushu¯ no yu¯sha, 1995, p. 64. Descriptions of military comfort women appeared in 1994 for high school textbooks, and 1997 for middle school textbooks (Tawara, Tettei Kensho, p. 50). 16 Tawara and Ishiyama, Kyo¯kasho kentei, p. 68. 17 Tawara Tettei Kensho¯, p. 50; P. Bu, ‘Guanyu Riben lishi jiaokeshu wenti’ (On Japan’s History Textbook Problem), Kangri zhanzheng yanjiu 4, 2000, 169. 18 Y. Tawara, ‘Sengo hosho¯ mondai no genjo¯ to kyo¯kasho (Textbooks and the Current State of Post-War Compensation)’, in Kyo¯kasho ni shinjitsu to

150 Caroline Rose

19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26

27

28

jiyu¯ o renrakukai (ed.) Ima naze senso¯ sekinin o mondai ni suru no ka (Why is War Responsibility a Problem Now?), Tokyo: Kyo¯ iku Shiryo¯ Shuppankai, 1998, p. 207. The New Frontier Party was formed by Hata Tsutomu and Ozawa Ichiro¯ in 1993 as a breakaway party from the LDP, and was, therefore, largely conservative in its political leanings. Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, The Restoration of a National History, Tokyo: Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, 1998, p. 3. Shuppan Ro¯ren (ed.), ‘Chu¯gaku rekishi kyo¯kasho ni ima nani ga okotteiru ka’ (What is Going on with Middle School History Textbooks?), Kyo¯kasho Repo¯to¯ l: 41, 1997, 2–15. Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, Restoration, p. 32. For critical analyses of the Tsukuru kai’s activities and the new textbook, see J.K. Nelson, ‘Tempest in a Textbook: A Report on the New MiddleSchool History Textbook in Japan’, Critical Asian Studies, 34: 1, 2002, 129–48; T. Beal, Y. Nozaki, and J. Yang, ‘Ghosts of the Past: The Japanese History Textbook Controversy’, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 3: 3, 2001, 177–88; T. Morris-Suzuki, ‘The View Through the Skylight: Nishio Kanji, Textbook Reform and the History of the World’, Japanese Studies, 20: 2, 2000, 133–9; and, T. Takahashi, ‘The Emperor Showa Standing at Ground Zero: On the (Re-)Conﬁguration of a National “Memory” of the Japanese People’, Japan Forum, 15: 1, 2003, 3–14. The civics textbook was also authorized in 2001. For a critical analysis, see Kodomo to kyo¯kasho zenkoku netto 21, Konna kyo¯kasho kodomo ni watasemasu ka (Can We Hand These Textbooks to Our Children?), Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 2001. Nelson, ‘Tempest in a Textbook’, 131. For a more detailed analysis of the Chinese response to this third textbook issue, see C. Rose, Sino-Japanese Relations: Facing the Past, Looking to the Future, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. G. McCormack, ‘The Japanese Movement to “Correct” History’, in L. Hein and M. Selden (eds), Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000, p. 56. Originally formed in 1981 as the Nihon o mamoru kokumin kaigi (Citizens’ Association for the Defense of Japan), the group is one of the largest right-wing organizations in Japan, in favour of constitutional revision. It produced a controversial high school history textbook in 1986 which became the focus of Chinese attention during the second textbook issue under Prime Minister Nakasone (the ﬁrst textbook issue occurred in 1982). In 1997, the group merged with Nihon o mamoru kai (a religious organization) and was re-named Nippon Kaigi. Other right-wing groups that have lent their support in the textbook offensive include the Japan Association of War Bereaved Families (Izokukai), and National Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honcho¯), and the Council for Correcting Textbooks (Kyo¯kasho zesei kyo¯gikai). See Tawara, ‘Sengo hosho¯ mondai’, p. 209. Tawara, Y. ‘Kyo¯iku kihonho¯ kaiaku o kyo¯ko¯ suru fujin o shiita Koizumi dainiji kaizo¯ naikaku’ (Koizumi’s Cabinet Reshufﬂe Creates a Line-up

Patriotic education in Japan 151

29 30 31 32

33 34

35

36

37 38

39

Which Will Enforce Revision of the FLE’) in Senso¯ Sekinin Kenkyu¯, 42, 2003 Reproduced at HTTP: (accessed 21 July 2004). The book included chapters written by Nishio and Takahashi, both members of the Tsukuru kai. Tawara, Tettei Kensho¯, pp. 50–1. Shuppan Ro¯ren, ‘Chu¯gaku rekishi kyo¯kasho’, p. 5. As criticism against Tsukuru kai’s Atarashii Rekishi Kyo¯kasho mounted in 2001, the Wakate giin no kai expanded to include Diet members from other parties include Minshuto¯, Jiyu¯to¯, Hoshuto¯ and independents. This cross-party group put pressure on MoE, among other things, to remove the ‘neighbouring countries’ clause from the kentei kijun in which textbook authors are asked to take into consideration the feelings of neighbouring countries when writing about Japan’s pre-war and wartime actions. See Tawara, ‘Kyo¯iku kihonho¯’. M. Negishi, ‘Education Ministry Pushes Pride in Flag and National Anthem in Textbook Screening’, Japan Times International, 1–15 July 1999. H. Inokuchi and Y. Nozaki, ‘The Latest Report on the Japanese Government Screening of Junior High Social Studies Textbooks’, H-Japan online posting January 23, 2001; Tawara, Y., ‘Junior High School History Textbooks: Whither “Comfort Women” and the “Nanking Massacre”?’, Available HTTP: (accessed 23 July 2001). It is essential to note here that some element of self-censorship was evident on the part of the textbook authors, since in a number of cases it was not the MoE textbook examiners who imposed changes on the texts, rather the original authors themselves had omitted such descriptions. This group originated from the National League for Support of the School Textbook Screening Suit (Kyo¯kasho kentei sosho¯ o shi’en suru zenkoku renrakukai), the support group behind Ienaga Saburo¯’s various court cases, which was disbanded in 1998 after Ienaga’s partial victory. Internet activism on the textbook issues has seen a marked increase in recent years in Japan, Korea and China and has played an important role in bringing activists together. For a study of Japan–Korean transnational activism, see I. Ducke, ‘Use of the Internet by Political Actors in the Japanese-Korean Textbook Controversy’, paper presented at a conference at MIT on ‘Media in Transition II’, 11 May 2002. Available HTTP: (accessed 29 July 2004). December 2000 Appeal by Japanese Historians and History Educators, available at http: //www.ne.jp/asahi/kyokasho/net21/e_yukou_seimei2001 205.htm (accessed 4 October 2001). ‘Deeply concerned about the regressive history textbooks, we urge the Japanese government to take appropriate action’, available at http: //www.iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/text/statement01.html (accessed 23 July 2001). The textbook was adopted by a handful of state-run schools for handicapped children and six private schools. Nelson, ‘Tempest in a Textbook’, p. 144.

152 Caroline Rose 40 Shuppan Ro¯ren (ed.), ‘2002 nendo yo¯ kyo¯kasho no saitaku kekka’ (Results of Adoption of Textbooks for Use in 2002), Kyo¯kasho Repo¯to¯, 46, 1997, 66. 41 An English translation of the conference declaration can be found online at: http: //www.angelﬁre.com/ny2/village/textbook-conf.html (accessed 6 August 2003). 42 Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, Restoration, p. 3 (italics added). 43 The project, entitled ‘Rekishi ninshiki to higashi Ajia heiwa fo¯ramu’ (Forum for Historical Consciousness and Peace in East Asian, hereafter Peace Forum) met for the ﬁrst time in Nanjing in 2002, Tokyo in 2003, and Seoul in 2004. Chinese participants include the ‘Japan Textbook Issue Research Group’ attached to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall and members of the editorial board of Anti-Japanese War Studies (a journal produced by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). On the Japanese side are representatives of Textbook 21 and the Centre for Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility. I spoke to a number of participants on the Chinese and Japanese sides and, while aware of the inherent difﬁculties of the project, all were hopeful that once the middle school reader was completed, they would be able to produce a high school version, too. For reports on the Nanjing and Tokyo conferences, see the Asian Network for History Education, Japan, available at http: //www.jca.apc.org/ asia-net. 44 See K. Kimijima, ‘The Continuing Legacy of Japanese Colonialism: The Japan-South Korea Joint Study Group in History Textbooks’, in L. Hein and M. Selden, (eds) Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, Armonk, N.: M. E. Sharpe, 2000. 45 Yang points to some of these difﬁculties, including institutional obstacles, the lack of ﬁt between each nation’s educational objectives, and even disagreements between the academics involved in the projects. Citing Sun Ge, he notes that collaboration between Japanese and Chinese historians since 1997 ‘is combining exchange at a shallow level with absence of communication at a deeper level’ D. Yang, ‘ “Regime of Truth” and Possibilities of Trans-national History in Japan and China’, paper presented at Meiji Gakuin University International Workshop on ‘Can We Write History?: Between Postmodernism and Coarse History’, March 19, 2002, available HTTP: (accessed 29 July 2004). 46 See, for example, the poster advertising an emergency meeting arranged for July 20 2004 to alert people to the possible adoption of the Atarashii rekishi kyo¯kasho by a new six-year secondary school in Tokyo. The meeting was arranged by Tsukuru kai kyo¯kasho o soshi suru Tokyo nettowa¯ku (Tokyo Network for the Prevention of (Adoption of) the Tsukuru kai’s Textbooks). Available at http: //www.ne.jp/asahi/kyokasho/ net21/syuukai2004720.htm (accessed 20 July 2004). For an explanation of the new six-year secondary schools, see P. Cave, ‘Japanese Educational Reform: Developments and Prospects at Primary and Secondary Level’, in R. Goodman and D. Phillips (eds), Can the Japanese Change their Education System? Oxford: Symposium Books, 2003.

Patriotic education in Japan 153 47 The total number of schools using this textbook as of 2003 was twentyﬁve, and the number of copies ordered for these schools totalled 4,175. While this was an increase over previous years, nonetheless it counted for less than 1 per cent of the take-up rate. See Tawara, ‘Kyo¯iku kihonho¯’. 48 Okada, ‘Education of Whom’, 431. 49 MEXT, ‘Education Reform – Fundamental Law of Education and Basic Promotional Plan’, 2003. Available HTTP: (accessed 28 July 2004). 50 A. Miyake, ‘Kokoro no no¯to’ o kangaeru (Thoughts on Kokoro no no¯to), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003, p. 59. 51 Okada, ‘Education of Whom’, 425–41. 52 Pre-war and wartime style seishin kyo¯iku or shu¯shin or moral education classes were banned by the Occupation to prevent any repeat of national indoctrination. This did not stop early post-war governments from attempting to reinstate moral education as a separate course, but JTU protests stymied their efforts. Nonetheless, by 1958, the LDP succeeded in re-establishing moral education, renamed do¯toku, for one hour per week in elementary and junior high schools. There are no ofﬁcial, authorized textbooks at this level (senior high schools have Civics textbooks), but there are many ‘teaching aids’ and teachers’ guides, in addition to the guidance provided in the Course of Study. The content of moral education classes has been one of the perennial battle grounds between the Left and Right ever since its reintroduction, and conservatives have frequently lamented the lack of emphasis on patriotism and national identity, calling for an augmentation of moral education. Education reform of the late 1990s, early 2000s also placed an emphasis on home education (katei kyo¯iku), stressing the importance of parents as transmitters of values. 53 Y. Tawara, ‘Ima, kyo¯iku · kyo¯kasho ga abunai’ (The Current Dangers of Education and Textbooks), Gunma no kyo¯iku July 2003, reproduced at HTTP: (accessed 21 July 2004). 54 I have used the version commercially available in bookshops. 55 MEXT, Japanese Government Policies in Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2002. Available HTTP: http: //wwwwp.mext. go.jp/wp (accessed 31 July 2004). 56 This example is taken from the 2002 middle school version of Kokoro no no¯to, p. 22. Teachers have praised the textbooks for these catchy slogans, which students are able to remember, see Miyake, ‘Kokoro no no¯to’, p. 7. 57 Ibid., pp. 7–8. 58 For a list of people involved in the production of the books, see Shuppan Ro¯ren, Kokoro no no¯to to wa nanimono ka’ (What is Kokoro no no¯to?), Kyo¯kasho Repo¯to, 47, 2003, 23–7, and Miyake, ‘Kokoro no no¯to’, p. 64. 59 T. Takahashi, ‘Kokoro’ to senso¯ (‘Minds’ and War), Tokyo: Sho¯bunsha, 2003, p. 35. 60 Tawara, ‘Ima, kyo¯iku’. 61 Miyake, ‘Kokoro no no¯to’, pp. 47–8. 62 MEXT, Kokoro no no¯to (Chu¯gakko¯) (Notebook for Moral Education for Middle Schools), 2002, Tokyo: Akatsuki Kyo¯iku Tosho, p.47. 63 Takahashi, ‘Kokoro’, pp. 45–6.

154 Caroline Rose 64 65 66 67

Shuppan ro¯ren, ‘Kokoro no no¯to’, 23–7. Tawara, ‘Ima, kyo¯iku’. Takahashi ‘Kokoro’, p. 90. Tawara, ‘Ima, kyo¯iku’.

7

The national politics of the Yasukuni Shrine Tetsuya Takahashi (Translated by Philip Seaton)

Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ and Tokyo Mayor Ishihara Shintaro¯ have repeatedly worshipped at Yasukuni Shrine since 13 August 2001 and 15 August 2000 respectively, and have expressed their intentions to continue worshipping in the future. In the face of this worship, there has been bitter criticism from inside and outside Japan. There are doubts over whether worship by public ﬁgures at Yasukuni Shrine, which is an autonomous religious institution (shu¯kyo¯ ho¯jin), contravenes Articles 20 and 89 of the Constitution, the provisions concerning the separation of religion and the state. Furthermore, worship at the shrine where Class A war criminals, those found guilty as the leading war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, are enshrined, is seen as Japanese political leaders’ neglect of Japan’s war responsibility and causes distrust among the people of Asia, including China and South Korea. Elsewhere I have criticized the prime minister’s and others’ Yasukuni Shrine worship both from the perspective of the constitutional issue of the separation of religion and the state, and from the perspective of war responsibility.1 The aim of this chapter is to argue that the essential meaning of Yasukuni Shrine worship is to oppose the constitutional separation of religion and the state, by clarifying, from a philosophical and historical perspective, the political objectives held by the prime minister and others who repeatedly worship at the Shrine.

The political nature of Prime Minister Koizumi and Mayor Ishihara’s Yasukuni worship In terms of the political objectives of Yasukuni Shrine worship, one aspect that has been widely examined is the inﬂuence of the Izokukai (War Bereaved Association), which has been politically active in demanding the ofﬁcial worship of the prime minister and emperor. If the

156 Tetsuya Takahashi prime minister worships at Yasukuni Shrine, the ruling party can obtain the votes of the Izokukai, which amounts to hundreds of thousands. During the Liberal Democratic Party (hereafter LDP) leadership contest in 2001, Koizumi used the promise to worship at the Shrine against Hashimoto Ryu¯taro¯, a former prime minister and former chairman of the Izokukai. This study, however, is concerned with political objectives which exist above domestic politics, namely national objectives. ‘National politics’ (nashonaru poritikkusu), that is, an attempt to lead the country or the entire nation in a specific direction, merits a philosophical and intellectual analysis and is the focus of this chapter. Prime Minister Koizumi attempts to give the impression that his Yasukuni Shrine worship is not political in nature, but that it stems from natural feelings of commemoration or mourning for the war dead. For example, in a statement made by Koizumi on the occasion of his ﬁrst visit to Yasukuni since becoming prime minister, he commented as follows: When I stand before the souls of the people who, believing in the future of their country, fell in battle during that difﬁcult period, I think again how the peace and prosperity of today’s Japan is built upon their precious sacriﬁce, and I have come here to renew my yearly pledge for peace.2 Furthermore, at a press conference following his fourth visit on 1 January 2004, he said: I worshipped with many thoughts in mind: the thought that the Japan of today is built upon the precious sacriﬁce of the people who lived in a time of war and unwillingly had to give up their lives, with gratitude for peace, and the hope that from now on Japan will prosper in peace.3 From these comments, it seems at a glance as if Koizumi is simply expressing apolitical sentiments of commemoration or mourning and desire for peace. But the problem is that this act of ‘commemoration’ or ‘mourning’ is nothing more than the political act of state recognition of the souls enshrined at Yasukuni, hence, a political act with a national objective. In the prime minister’s statements above, he repeatedly used the phrase ‘precious sacriﬁce’ (to¯toi gisei). Saying that the ‘the peace and prosperity of today’s Japan’ or ‘the Japan of today’ is built upon the ‘precious sacriﬁce’ of the Japanese soldiers and civilian employees of

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 157 the military (gunzoku) enshrined at Yasukuni, is to praise, beautify and honour the soldiers and civilian employees who built ‘the peace and prosperity of today’s Japan’ or ‘the Japan of today’. Whether the ‘Japan of today’ is ‘prospering’ in ‘peace’ is not necessarily self-evident as witnessed, for example, in the Okinawan situation. There is a logical inconsistency with the proposition that the ‘Japan of today’ is only possible thanks to the war dead enshrined at Yasukuni. Even without making this clear leap of logic, the prime minister’s attitude of honouring the ‘precious sacrifice’ of those enshrined at Yasukuni further indicates the political nature of the act of his worship. Why cannot Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ and Ishihara Shintaro¯ leave the commemoration and mourning of the souls enshrined at Yasukuni up to the priests at the shrine? And if the prime minister and mayor of Tokyo want to commemorate and mourn for the enshrined, why do they not choose to worship quietly on their own as ‘private individuals’? When Japan’s political leaders worship at Yasukuni as prime minister and mayor of Tokyo and praise the ‘precious sacriﬁce’ of the enshrined, they send the strongest message to the Japanese people that ‘dying for one’s country’ is a ‘precious’ act and an act worthy of national honour. In contemporary Japan, a political movement to make the Japanese state once again into an agent capable of prosecuting war (senso¯ suiko¯ shutai) is gaining strength. While for the ﬁrst time since the end of World War II, heavy armour from the Self-Defense Forces (hereafter SDF) is being sent to Iraq, a state of emergency is gradually being put in place. There is talk of the enactment of a permanent law to allow the overseas deployment of maritime SDF, and debates about revision of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. In democratic states, even if the constitution makes military action possible, that on its own is not enough for the prosecution of a fullscale war. For the state to undertake a full-scale war, the strong support, cooperation and participation of the people are necessary. On top of the inevitability of casualties, including soldiers and civilian employees in the military, it is necessary for the people to accept the sacriﬁce necessary ‘for one’s country’ (okuni no tame) in order to protect the ‘national interest’ (kokueki). The people must support war as a national policy, and in time, the ‘heart’ (kokoro) and ‘national spirit’ (kokumin seishin) of the people will come to accept sacriﬁces ‘for their country’. In order for the people to accept the above sacriﬁce and support war, their sacriﬁce must be praised by political leaders as ‘precious sacriﬁce’. ‘Sacrifice’ must be praised, beautified (bika) and made the object of ‘respect and gratitude’ (kansha to keii). Even if the people remain unmoved by the suffering of the enemy, if they come to feel their own

158 Tetsuya Takahashi suffering and the suffering of family, friends and fellow countrymen as painful, empty and something that should not have happened, they will no longer be able to accept the sacrifice that accompanies war. The people will then lose their desire to support, cooperate and participate in wars that bring new sacrifice. While accepting the inevitability of death in war, if political leaders do not acknowledge death as ‘precious’ or express ‘thanks and respect’ in public, the state will ultimately be unable to mobilize the people for war. Prime Minister Nakasone articulated this idea in 1985, arguing that In America they have the Arlington Cemetery. If you go to the Soviet Union and other foreign countries they have Tombs of the Unknown Warriors. They have places where the people can express their thanks to those who have fallen in battle. This is perfectly natural. Otherwise, who is going to give their life for the country?4 Prime Minister Koizumi has repeatedly expressed his ‘respect and thanks’ to those enshrined at Yasukuni: ‘With feelings of respect and gratitude to the war dead, I expressed my feelings of mourning’.5 If political leaders repeatedly express their ‘gratitude and respect’ to the fallen, the deaths of those who fell in war will be praised, beautiﬁed and honoured at the level of national politics as ‘deaths worthy of respect’ and ‘model deaths that should be learned from’. Therefore, ‘gratitude and respect’ became the most politically effective words for achieving the state’s political objective of being a war-prosecuting agent, stirring the ‘heart’ of the people and creating a ‘national spirit’. At a press conference following the December 2003 cabinet decision to send the SDF to Iraq, Prime Minister Koizumi commented, ‘[t]he spirit of the Japanese people [Nippon kokumin no seishin] is being tested’.6 This use of ‘the spirit of the people’ is connected with the meaning of the ‘heart’ of the people and the ‘spirit of the people’ mentioned above. It is possible that there will be casualties in action among the SDF personnel sent to Iraq. While this kind of sacriﬁce by the people is foreseen, what ‘being tested’ means is whether or not that kind of sacriﬁce can be accepted, whether the people can continue to support the dispatch of troops to Iraq, and whether ‘the Japanese people’ have that kind of ‘spirit’ regardless of the nature of the sacrifice. Therefore, if there is a situation in which there are casualties among the SDF personnel sent to Iraq, the prime minister can simply substitute the words ‘war on terrorism’ for ‘war’, and using exactly the same trick he has used on each occasion of his Yasukuni worship, he can honour the sacrifice of the SDF personnel. In other words, Koizumi would

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 159 commemorate fallen SDF personnel with words like ‘[w]e live in the era of war on terrorism, and the Japan of today is built on the precious sacriﬁce of those who unwillingly gave their lives . . .’. The role of education is important in creating the ‘heart’ and the ‘national spirit’ of a people that supports war. The Koizumi administration’s proposal to revise the Basic Law on Education is related to the prime minister’s repeated worship at the Yasukuni Shrine. Former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, who worshipped at Yasukuni Shrine arguing that ‘if we do not extend our gratitude to the fallen, who is going to give their life for the nation?’, stated in 2003 that ‘[n]ow, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the topics of Japan’s national image and the spirit of the people are once again on the agenda’, and ‘it is necessary to start reform from a complete change to the Basic Law on Education as the mental backbone of the nation’.7 In 1999, Kawamura Tateo, then head of the LDP’s Basic Law on Education Research Group, explained that ‘we want to debate the issues with a Heisei Imperial Rescript on Education in mind’.8 The Imperial Rescript on Education, proclaimed in Emperor Meiji’s name in 1890, underpinned education during the era of the Japanese empire. It inculcated the following: ‘in times of emergency, be of public service and help to support the imperial fortune in heaven and on earth’, in other words, in times of war, resolve to lay down your life for the Emperor and the nation. The Imperial Rescript converged with the doctrines of the Yasukuni Shrine to mobilize the people for war. Since becoming Education Minister in October 2004, Kawamura Tateo has wanted to reform the Basic Law on Education by turning it into a ‘Heisei Rescript on Education’ with the aim of submitting it to the Diet in 2005. At the February 2004 launch of the Committee for the Promotion of Reform of the Basic Law on Education, an LDP–Democratic Party of Japan (hereafter DPJ) cross-party group, DPJ member Nishimura announced that: We will create Japanese people who do not mind laying down their lives for their country. We will teach children that where there are people who lay down their lives for their country there is a fatherland. This I promise.9 This sentiment precisely reﬂects the Imperial Rescript on Education of 1890, while at the same time, it also reﬂects the nature of the political objectives of worship at the Yasukuni Shrine.

160 Tetsuya Takahashi

Yasukuni Shrine as a device for the ‘spiritual mobilization of the people’ What effect does the worship of Yasukuni Shrine by the emperor, prime minister and mayor of Tokyo have on creating a ‘national spirit’ which supports potential future wars? In order to understand this, we must look into the general mobilization of the ‘national spirit’ in the era of the Japanese empire. At ﬁrst, the Yasukuni Shrine was a device for creating a psychology whereby soldiers fought and sacriﬁced their lives in war for the emperor and the state. According to Yokoyama Natsuki’s Shining Yasukuni Tales, published in April 1943: Death in war is undoubtedly a tragic thing. But, for ordinary Japanese, more than going to war and being sent to war, death in war is giving one’s life to the nation, so it is not just any death. It is the peak of shining honour. It is a boy’s ultimate dream. In Japan, boys are born to protect their country. They are born to create the brilliant history of Japan. Our ancestors were all like that. And of course, our descendants must also be like that. So, the eternal light of shining Japan is here in this shrine of Yasukuni. The passionate will of the people is a consistent and unfailing light, and the pure act of giving one’s life for one’s country is a light that shines in the world.10 Thus, ‘boys born in Japan’ must pursue death in battle for their country, and make being worshipped at ‘the shrine of Yasukuni’ their ‘ultimate dream’. But the Yasukuni Shrine not only has the function of mobilizing Japanese ‘boys’ to be Imperial soldiers. Elements of the ‘Yasukuni Doctrine’ (Yasukuni shinko¯) and ‘Yasukuni Spirit’ (Yasukuni seishin) not only encompassed Japanese soldiers, they encompassed all the Japanese people, including women and children, and gave them equal value within the Japanese ‘national spirit’. This was presented in an easy-to-understand form in references to the Yasukuni Shrine in the ethics textbook, Shu¯shin. The ﬁfth edition of Shu¯shin (Elementary Second Grade) used from 1941 states: On Kudan Hill (Kudanzaka) in Tokyo, a large bronze torii (shrine gate) stands tall. Inside one can see a marvellous shrine. This is Yasukuni Shrine. At Yasukuni Shrine there are many loyal people enshrined who resolved to die for the emperor and the nation.

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 161 Every spring on 30 April and every autumn on 23 October there are Commemoration Ceremonies attended by distinguished people. There are also special ceremonies when people who died loyally are enshrined. At these times, their majesties the emperor and empress attend. On days with commemorative events, there is a continual stream of worshippers and, of course, military personnel, and the spacious courtyard becomes packed. It is the desire of his majesty the emperor that the people who resolved to die for the emperor and for the nation are enshrined and worshipped in this way. And in our home regions too, there are Gokoku Jinja [Nation Protecting Shrines] where the war dead are worshipped. While being grateful for the many blessings bestowed on us by His Majesty the Emperor, we must learn from the loyalty of the enshrined and pledge ourselves to the emperor and the nation. (author’s italics) The overwhelming majority of those who died in war and were enshrined at Yasukuni were soldiers who were meant to have internalized the ‘spirit of Yasukuni’ through education. However, since it was also targeted at all pupils regardless of gender, the ‘spirit of Yasukuni’ was not necessarily demanded only of male soldiers. Women, such as nurses, who were employed by the military and who had died and were enshrined, were also presented as calling out to young girls to ‘follow us and devote yourself to the emperor and nation’. In Women of Yasukuni, published in August 1941 by the Society to Honour the Women of Yasukuni, the stories of the lives and deaths of forty-one women who had died while serving with the military (and seven who died in the Meiji Restoration) were told; their deaths were honoured and women were urged to ‘follow their example’. Ikuta Tatsuo wrote in his Introduction: The over 200,000 gods enshrined at Yasukuni are the ancestors, fathers, brothers, leaders and children of our people, and their achievements are truly the incarnation of the Japanese spirit (yamato damashii). Among these many gods there are a little over 50,000 female gods. These gods are in no way inferior to the male gods and are strong women like guardian angels (oni) protecting the country. We have established the Yasukuni Society to Honour Japan’s Guardian Angels, and have investigated the achievements

162 Tetsuya Takahashi of these loyal and brave women. Now we have completed the investigation, we have published Yasukuni Retsujofu (‘Yasukuni’s Female Gods’). We give great honour to their virtue. This autumn, with many incidents occurring, the rise or fall of the nation depends particularly on the readiness of women. We want them to be aware of the situation and to be loyal servants to the cause of domestic order and security.11 In the ‘spirit of Yasukuni’, it did not matter whether people were men or women, as long as they were Japanese, they were required to embody that spirit. However, even more important was how to start manipulating the emotions of the bereaved families for whom the Yasukuni Doctrine had taken away family members. Accordingly, the Yasukuni Doctrine were particularly connected with the families of the war dead and had to make the families accept the war death of their relatives and even make them welcome bereavement. Here one can mention the way that the bereaved families, the ‘Yasukuni wives, mothers and children’, should behave. These were the essential structural elements of the Yasukuni Doctrine. At this point, let us turn to Yasukuni no Seishin (The Spirit of Yasukuni) published in 1942 by Takagami Kakusho¯ (1894–1948). Takagami was a Buddhist scholar of the Chisan sect of Shingon Buddhism, who published many works on Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy before and during the war.12 After the war, he continued to attract a wide readership with works such as Hannya shingyo¯ ko¯gi. Takagami’s writings on the Yasukuni Doctrine provide an interesting insight, because they were written from the perspective of a Buddhist scholar aimed at a general audience. The spirit of Yasukuni formulated in this work, as the subtitle ‘To the Families of the War Dead’ demonstrates, was addressed to bereaved families and aimed to convince them that: The spirit of Yasukuni is not only a spirit that soldiers have in wartime. It is a Japanese spirit that all Japanese people should adhere to identically in both war and times of peace. But, how can we instil this spirit of Yasukuni? Ultimately I think we should use the following words. Spill your blood with joy for the nation. Shed tears of joy for the people. Gladly make yourself sweat.

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 163 For truly, it is only through that blood, those tears and that sweat that we can bring about a spring of bright peace to heaven and earth in East Asia, and throughout the world.13 Here we can see the very same function of Yasukuni Shrine being expressed: it is a device for the general mobilization of the ‘national spirit’. In other words, the Yasukuni spirit is nothing more than the Japanese spirit that all Japanese people should adhere to identically in both war and times of peace. However, it was particularly important that mothers who had lost sons, and wives who had lost husbands, internalized the Yasukuni spirit and became Yasukuni mothers and Yasukuni wives. According to Takagami, this was only possible if the sadness of the bereaved families could be turned into joy: It seems there are many people who think ‘why only my child?’ or ‘why only my husband?’ There are also a considerable number of people who are distraught with grief as if their own children or husbands had sacriﬁced their lives; this can also be thought of as a somewhat mistaken way of looking at things. . . . I think that there is a great difference between feeling joy at the wonderful service performed by children and husbands, and feeling grief at the unfortunate death for the country of children who were brought up with so much care. Whether one feels joy or grief, these are feelings for one’s own heart. However much one thinks of property as one’s own, in reality it is not one’s own thing. Everything belongs to the state. And it is not only property. Our bodies and lives too are all gifts from he who reigns over us. So in times of need, we must all ceaselessly and earnestly strive to be of great service. The bereaved families are the people who gracefully gave us the children they lovingly brought up and husbands they looked after as shields against harm. They have returned to the emperor what he has bestowed unto us. But, those sons and husbands are now enshrined at Yasukuni, and for all eternity they will be worshipped by the emperor and looked up to by the people as loyal defenders of the nation. I think there are no higher aspirations that a boy can have. . . . When someone dies an ordinary death, we may feel sympathy, but not necessarily respect and gratitude. . . . The bereaved families can receive considerable gratitude and respect from people they have never met thanks to their sons and husbands who gave their lives for the nation.14

164 Tetsuya Takahashi Prime Minister Koizumi’s repeated use of the same rhetoric of ‘respect and gratitude’ every time he worships at Yasukuni Shrine is notable in the context of Takagami’s words. People who have died an ordinary death might attract sympathy, but just because they have died, it does not mean that they will be thanked or respected. However, the people who became gods at Yasukuni by giving their lives for the nation will for all eternity receive ‘gratitude and respect’ as ‘loyal spirits defending the nation’ (gokoku no chu¯rei). During the Paciﬁc War, the emperor and empress, and successive prime ministers – To¯jo¯ Hideki, Koiso Kuniaki, and Suzuki Kantaro¯ – worshipped at Yasukuni Shrine, thereby expressing ‘gratitude and respect’ for the ‘loyal spirits defending the nation’. Thanks to their husbands and sons, the mothers and wives whose sons and husbands became the objects of gratitude and respect as loyal spirits defending the nation, they themselves became the objects of gratitude and respect from people they had never met. Accordingly, their misfortune did not become grief. On the contrary, they should have felt joy at the glorious service of their sons and husbands. The most archetypal verbal expression of the joy felt by ‘Yasukuni mothers’ at their husbands’ and sons’ glorious service, as opposed to grief over their unfortunate deaths, can be found in the June 1936 edition of the magazine Shufu no Tomo (Housewife’s Friend) in an article entitled ‘Tearful Meeting with Proud Mothers who Gave their Only Sons for the Nation’. The article contained a transcript of a conversation with several old ladies from bereaved families who had travelled to Tokyo from the Hokuriku region to participate in a special ceremony held at the Yasukuni Shrine to enshrine the soldiers who had died in the early stages of the fighting. There is a transcript of a conversation with several old ladies from bereaved families who had come to Tokyo all the way from the Hokuriku region to participate: MORIKAWA:

You raised him on your own from the age of seven, didn’t you? MURAI: Yes, in between agricultural jobs, I worked hard making straw hats and mats. I had a boy so I tried hard to at least put him through school to the second year. It was not a very caring upbringing, but I did not want people talking about him behind his back because he only had a mother. I did all I could. ¯ : When my brother was drafted, he was saying he wanted to give SAITO his life for the emperor as soon as possible.

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 165 MORIKAWA:

On the evening when that white box [containing her brother’s remains] was placed in Yasukuni Shrine, I couldn’t stop saying, thank you, thank you. I was just so grateful this lowly boy was given the chance to be of use to the world. MURAI: It is by the grace of the emperor, it is almost too much to bear. NAKAMURA: Everyone cried, didn’t they? TAKAI: They were tears of joy. We were just crying because we were so happy. NAKAMURA: We are just truly grateful that people like us could have children who were of use to the emperor. A bugle call sounded, I think it was soldiers playing. And when the hearse arrived and the bugle sounded, I just can’t express it, I was thinking, thank you, thank you. MORIKAWA: It was such a beautiful sound. My son was truly happy in that beautiful white box. Usually you cannot receive that kind of honour. ¯ : And the emperor came and worshipped, didn’t he? We bowed SAITO in appreciation. NAKAMURA: We truly appreciated it, it was too much to bear. ¯ : It is just what we have been hoping for in our hearts since the SAITO beginning of the war. We have heard that because he cares for us, the emperor has been working so hard and eating humble food. We just thought we somehow had to pay back his kindness, and when we bowed down to the emperor, we could not hold back the tears. Having worshipped at Yasukuni and bowed down to the emperor, I can have no more regrets. When the sun goes down today I will be satisﬁed; I can die happy. As a result of what happened today you know. NAKAMURA: I have had the chance to see Shinjuku Gyoen [park] you know. I am so grateful. My son will be commemorated here, I have seen some wonderful places . . . ¯ : There are so many ﬂowers in bloom. Wherever you go it is a SAITO vast garden, it is like paradise. TAKAI: My son is going to be happy in nirvana. He died a good death. If I show tears, I will feel bad for the emperor you know. Everything we do is for the country, so, if you think that, you always feel cheerful. NAKAMURA: That’s it. There’s nothing I can do about feeling sad that my son won’t come back, but he died for his country and if we think how he has been honoured by the emperor, I cannot think of any greater happiness and feel cheerful again. MORIKAWA: I give thanks that my lowly boy could be of use.

166 Tetsuya Takahashi This section was cited by Hashikawa Bunzo¯ (1922–83), well known for Nippon Romanha no Kenkyu¯ (‘Research on Japanese Novelists’), at the beginning of his article ‘The Establishment and Development of Yasukuni Thought’ (Chu¯o¯ Ko¯ron, October 1974) with the comment ‘I have not read such a fine expression of the Yasukuni Doctrine as this’.15 When Hashikawa saw in these ‘a somewhat primitive, eerie atmosphere’, he said ‘when you read the tragically sad words of the old women who had lost their sons in war at the prime of their lives, I feel a strange shudder saying, don’t let me be thought of as part of that world’. And, what he loves in the ‘words that showed absolutely no protest or [feminine] weakness (memeshisa)’ is reminder of the type of woman he knew as a small child and who was brought up in the doctrines of attaining nirvana in the Hokuriku region. In other words, these were women who ‘whatever the hardships, made no complaint and always lived modestly’ and ‘whose strength of belief astounded the fullblooded male’. In the period 1937–45, many special ceremonies were held when tens of thousands of war dead were enshrined at a time. On each occasion, many bereaved families were chosen and invited to Tokyo – from Sakhalin in the north to Manchuria in the west to Taiwan in the south – at the government’s expense to participate in these special ceremonies to enshrine the war dead as ‘gods’. The bereaved families ﬁlled both flanks of the approach to Yasukuni Shrine, the list of the war dead (eireibo) was carried on a special carriage by the shrine priests to the main hall of the shrine, and the emperor, acting as principal mourner, passed up the same path and paid his respects. The bereaved families not only participated in this sho¯konshiki ceremony, they also visited famous spots in Tokyo – such as Shinjuku Gyoen, the Imperial Palace and Ueno zoo – had commemorative photographs taken, and returned home as ‘honourable war bereaved families’ (meiyo no izoku). These people were from the lower levels of society and if there had been no war, there would probably have been no chance of them ever leaving their home regions. But because these people had lost sons or family in the war, they were invited to Tokyo at the government’s expense, praised as ‘honoured bereaved families’ and even got to see the emperor, the ‘son of heaven’ (tenshisama), at close quarters. The emotions expressed by all the old ladies of ‘gratitude’ and ‘being too much to bear’ are not something to be dismissed as tatemae: they reﬂect reality. Saito¯ said, ‘Having worshipped at Yasukuni and bowed down to the emperor, I can have no more regrets. When the sun goes down today I will be satisﬁed; I can die happy as a result of what happened today.’ Similarly, Nakamura said, ‘[my son] died for his country and if we think

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 167 how he has been honoured by the emperor, I cannot think of any greater happiness and feel cheerful again.’ These words reﬂect the psychological function of the ‘emperor’s shrine’ Yasukuni, namely that Yasukuni not only functioned to motivate men to go to war and become ‘heroic spirits defending the nation’ (gokoku no eirei), but also had the function of mobilizing women for the country’s wars as ‘Yasukuni mothers’ and ‘Yasukuni wives’. The mother who lost the son she had struggled to bring up on her own did not feel grief-stricken; on the contrary, she felt joy at his ‘honourable war death’, shed ‘tears of joy’, and gave thanks, saying ‘I couldn’t stop saying thank you, thank you.’ Why was this kind of response possible? It is wholly because ‘the emperor came and worshipped [her son who had died for his country]’ and ‘[the son] has been honoured by the emperor’ (author’s italics). In sum, as a result of worship at the Yasukuni Shrine where their sons were enshrined by the emperor, their sons were revered, gloriﬁed and honoured. This made the old ladies ‘feel a sense of serene happiness’ which was ‘out of this world’. In the 7 April 1943 edition of Shashin shu¯ho¯ [Photography Weekly], there was a special report about the ‘Yasukuni orphans’, who came to the Yasukuni Shrine from Sakhalin in the north, Okinawa in the south and Manchuria in the west, to worship their fathers who had become gods. In an article following a large photograph whose caption read ‘Fathers’ Love for the Children of Yasukuni, Prime Minister To¯jo¯ Encourages the Proud Orphans’, we discover that: The Manchurian Orphan’s Brigade, which had come to Tokyo from all the way over the Kizanko¯, arrived in Tokyo on the 26th and on the same day visited the ofﬁcial residence of Prime Minister To¯jo¯ and offered their greetings. Prime Minister To¯jo¯ made time in his many important affairs of state specially for the orphans. The prime minister patted their heads, placed his hand upon their shoulders and said ‘Never be ashamed of what your fathers have done’. The orphans were deeply moved at the prime minister’s kindness and tears ran down their cheeks at Prime Minister To¯jo¯’s consideration and at their fathers’ deaths. (author’s italics) The back cover of the magazine contained a tribute to the orphans with the message ‘be like the Yasukuni orphans’. It read: Bow your head in the direction of Yasukuni, The endearing sight of heeding a father’s dying wish,

168 Tetsuya Takahashi Resolve to meet your fathers again by giving your lives to the nation. We pray that they will grow up healthy With one soul and with our joint strength We all hope to be like those fathers. (author’s italics) In this way, the Yasukuni orphans were destined to follow in the footsteps of the fathers who had been honoured for dying for their country; and similarly, those that followed the orphans were also destined to follow the fathers’ lead. In this way, all the Japanese people – ‘the glorious dead of Yasukuni’ (Yasukuni no eirei), the ‘strong women of Yasukuni’, ‘the mothers of Yasukuni’, ‘the wives of Yasukuni’, and ‘the orphans of Yasukuni’ – were encompassed by the Yasukuni Doctrine. The spirit of Yasukuni was synonymous with the spirit of the Japanese people, a vital aspect of the general mobilization of the ‘national spirit’. Importantly, the emperor had to worship and honour the war dead, and the prime minister, army and navy ministers and others had to worship and express their gratitude and respect to the fallen. Today, Prime Minister Koizumi repeatedly worships at Yasukuni Shrine because he knows that Yasukuni Shrine is where he can continue to express his ‘gratitude and respect’ to the ‘precious sacriﬁce’ of the enshrined. This is clearly a political act at the level of national politics with a view to making Japan once again a ‘state capable of prosecuting wars’. It is to show the people that when new war deaths among the SDF (or a reconstituted Japanese army) occur, these deaths will be praised as ‘precious sacriﬁce for the nation’ and the country’s top political leaders will express their ‘gratitude and respect’. Worship by the emperor at Yasukuni Shrine has been suspended since the enshrinement of the Class A war criminals came to light. Consequently, in order to recreate a ‘Japanese national spirit’ which can tolerate war and the sacriﬁce it brings, the prime minister’s worship is seen as particularly important. At this point, let us look at an important historical document to make more explicit the meaning of Yasukuni worship by political leaders and the function of Yasukuni Shrine. Why does the state honour the war dead as the ‘glorious dead’ and make the bereaved families ‘proud bereaved families’? On 14 November 1895, just after the Sino-Japanese War, an article entitled ‘We Should Hold a Grand Ceremony for the War Dead’ was published in Jiji shinpo¯. Whether or not Fukuzawa really penned these articles published in Jiji shinpo¯, as has been debated, is not the problem which need concern us here.16 Rather, the content of the Jiji

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 169 shinpo¯ article is of importance to the central theme of this study. The article lists the number of war casualties: According to the reports up to 29 September, the number of our soldiers who have fallen in the Sino-Japanese and Taiwanese wars is: battle deaths, 851; death from wounds, 233; death from disease, 5,385; this is a total of 6,469 and there will probably have to be quite a few more deaths from here on.17 The Sino-Japanese war of 1894–5 was the ﬁrst major international conﬂict fought by the modern Japanese state. Following its victory in the Sino-Japanese war, Japan and China concluded the Treaty of Shimonoseki and Japan succeeded in acquiring Taiwan as a colony. But Taiwanese resistance was ﬁerce, and the Japanese army was dispatched to quell resistance, resulting in many casualties on both sides. The ‘Subjugation of Taiwan’ is given a distinct identity from the SinoJapanese War in the Yasukuni Shrine. According to the current (17 October 2001) list of enshrined souls, there are 13,619 souls enshrined from the Sino-Japanese War and 1,130 souls enshrined from the Subjugation of Taiwan, a total of 14,749; so, at the time that the Jiji shinpo¯ article was written, less than half of the people eventually enshrined had died. So, why was Fukuzawa taking issue with the fact that ‘there will probably have to be quite a few more deaths’? According to Fukuzawa, the surviving soldiers were given the highest honours and received not only the thanks of the people, but medals and rewards, too. But the war dead were unable to receive medals or rewards, to be welcomed home by the people, or to be showered in glory as the triumphant returning soldiers were. The bereaved families received meagre beneﬁts and support, struggled to make ends meet and had already lost their fathers and brothers, whose safe return after meritorious exploits in the war they had prayed for. When the bereaved families looked across at the glory showered on their fallen families’ ‘comrades in arms’, all they could do was cry. In contrast to the supreme honours and glory given to the triumphal returning soldiers, the war dead and their bereaved families had no honour and glory, and were forgotten by society. The article argued that the war dead and their families should be given as much honour and glory as possible. Why so? To begin with, those who had fought and died did not make a lesser contribution to the country than those who had survived and returned in triumph. But it was not only this; the major reason why the war dead and their families should be offered the highest honour and glory was as follows:

170 Tetsuya Takahashi The situation, especially in East Asia, is becoming more precarious by the day and we cannot predict when and in what way incidents will happen. In the unfortunate event that war breaks out, who should we rely on to defend our country? Since we have no other choice than to rely on the courageous, fearless souls that dare to confront death, to cultivate this spirit is the most urgent task for the defence of our country. To foster such a spirit, as much honour as possible should be given to the war dead and bereaved families so that people would never fail to feel a sense of happiness about falling on the battleﬁeld. In the case of another war, who could be relied upon to defend the country? The only solution was to foster a martial spirit among soldiers so that they did not fear death, and fight and give their lives. The cultivation of this spirit became vital for the defence of the country, and as a result, the highest honour needed to be given to the war dead so that ‘people would never fail to feel a sense of happiness about falling on the battleﬁeld’. In other words, it was necessary to make people feel happy to die in battle. The state was neglecting the grief of the relatives of the war dead and, therefore, was unable to foster a martial spirit in soldiers who would ﬁght and sacriﬁce their lives for their country in the next war. But by giving the highest state honour to the war dead and their families, mobilizing soldiers who wanted to have an ‘honourable death’ for their country became possible. How were the war dead and their families to be given the highest honour? The article explained: Although commemorative ceremonies for the souls of the war dead have been held at various locations to the present date, one should not think these are sufﬁcient. I fervently hope that we will go a step further by building a national altar in Tokyo, at the heart of the empire, where relatives of the war dead are to be invited from around the nation to attend the ceremonies and feel the highest honour. His Imperial Majesty the Emperor would be graciously asked to lead the ceremony for those bereaved relatives, with hundreds of military and civilian ofﬁcers in attendance, and to offer an imperial proclamation to commend the meritorious deed of the fallen soldiers and console their souls. After the Sino-Japanese War and the Subjugation of Taiwan, commemorative ceremonies (sho¯konsai) were held in every region, but this

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 171 was not enough. Bereaved families were to be invited from all over the country to the imperial capital Tokyo, the emperor would lead the worship, the exploits of the dead would be revered, an imperial proclamation would commend the souls of the dead, the dead and their families would be given the highest honour, and the people would be ‘made to feel happy to fall in battle’: When a commemorative ceremony was held in Sakura, there was an old man among the war bereaved. Saying that his dead son was his only child and as he was the only surviving parent, the father could not stop crying when he ﬁrst heard of the unfortunate death of his son in the war. After attending the ceremony, however, he felt honoured and went back home content in the feeling that even the loss of his child was nothing to regret. If his Imperial Majesty himself leads a special ceremony, the dead will appreciate the grace of heaven from their graves, and the bereaved relatives will cry in honour, ﬁnd joy in the deaths of their fathers and brothers, and the people will be willing to die for their nation when demanded. No expense should be spared. We sincerely hope for this kind of commemoration. (author’s italics) There is no simpler explanation of the logic of the state in honouring the war dead. The old man invited to the commemorative ceremony at the barracks in Sakura was deeply moved by his son’s death being praised as an ‘honourable death’ at the ceremony, and when he went home, he was very satisﬁed and cherished the death of his only son. If the emotions of the bereaved relatives were felt as simply human beings, it could only result in grief. However, the grief became converted into joy as a result of the state ceremony. From grief to joy, from unhappiness to happiness, in what was akin to an alchemist’s trick, the bereaved relatives’ emotions had been turned around 180 degrees. The author is saying that if the supreme commander of the imperial Japanese forces (the Emperor Meiji) and other leaders were the principal worshippers, and if a large commemorative ceremony was held, the war dead from heaven (ko¯sen no kuni), would feel grateful to the emperor for his grace. The important point is that if there was another war, people who were moved to tears and felt joy at the war death of a family member, and ordinary people who felt the same way, would give their lives for the emperor. The state that had mobilized the people for war had to prevent itself from bearing the brunt of the people’s dissatisfaction. Above all, it was necessary to make ‘ordinary people’ come forward of their own accord to give their lives for the state by honouring

172 Tetsuya Takahashi the war dead. ‘No expense should be spared’ – in other words, the war bereaved should be invited to Tokyo from all parts of the country, told how grateful the ‘nation’ and the ‘son of heaven’ were and go back home feeling deeply moved. This is nothing more than ‘emotional alchemy’ based on the Yasukuni Doctrine. Fukuzawa (or his ghost writer) does not use the words ‘Yasukuni Shrine’ once throughout the entire article. The author only says the ceremony should be held in ‘the imperial capital Tokyo’. The Yasukuni Shrine had been built in 1869 as the Tokyo Sho¯konsha (Shrine to Invoke the Spirit of the Dead) and, ten years later in 1879, it was renamed Yasukuni Shrine. After becoming a special government shrine (kansha), it began the enshrinement of soldiers killed overseas with the 1874 Taiwan Expedition and continued into the Sino-Japanese war. However, at this stage, it is not possible to say that the system of Yasukuni Doctrine had been established. About one month after the article was published in Jiji shinpo¯, an enshrining ceremony (sho¯konshiki) was held at Yasukuni Shrine on ¯ tera Yasuzumi 15 December 1895, in the presence of Major General O and 1500 people. As if in response to the arguments in the article, a special grand ceremony (rinji taisai) for the dead of the Sino-Japanese war was held from 16 December that lasted for three days. On the ﬁrst day, an imperial messenger attended, and on the second day, the Supreme Commander Emperor Meiji and others worshipped at Yasukuni Shrine. In response to this, Jiji shinpo¯ published a further article entitled ‘The Dead are Honoured’, which commented: The recent special commemorative ceremony held at Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead was a glorious occasion held in the gracious presence of His Majesty the Emperor. People were moved to tears at the thought of becoming enshrined, and I suppose the feelings of the families and ordinary people will continue to be so. We desire that people recognize and reward the great service performed by the war dead and their families.18 In this way, Yasukuni Shrine gradually gained authority, and after the Russo-Japanese war, it had attained a definitive status as the central institution for the commemoration of the war dead. Imperial Japan gave special status to Yasukuni Shrine, and through its ceremonies, soldiers and civilian employees who had died in battle were continually honoured as eirei (glorious spirits). This was to soothe the grief of the bereaved families and prevent the state from bearing the brunt of any dissatisfaction, but more than anything else, by giving

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 173 the highest honours to the war dead, it was intended to draft soldiers who would ‘follow in their footsteps’ and willingly ‘die for their country’. Fukuzawa Yukichi, as a leading intellectual at the time the Yasukuni doctrine was being established, wrote about the mechanisms of Yasukuni in Jiji shinpo¯ from the perspective of those who were using the doctrine. As we have already seen from the extract from the ‘Tearful Meeting’, about forty years later, the mechanism had already become largely invisible and the ‘feeling of joy at falling in battle’ had mostly replaced grief at the loss.

Yasukuni Shrine as a place to honour the war dead, not to ‘mourn’ them At the 1936 ‘Tearful Meeting with Proud Mothers who Gave their Only Sons to the Nation’, grief at a family member’s war death had become joy, and sadness had been converted into happiness. The ‘emotional alchemy’ of the Yasukuni Doctrine was almost complete. But if one looks closely, one can see that it was not always necessarily the case. Hashikawa Bunzo¯ said that he loved the ‘words that showed absolutely no protest or [feminine] weakness (memeshisa)’. But were they really ‘words that showed absolutely no protest or weakness’? For example, in the last part cited above, Nakamura says, ‘[t]hat’s it. There’s nothing I can do about feeling sad that my son won’t come back but he died for his country and if we think how he has been honoured by the emperor, I cannot think of any greater happiness and feel cheerful again.’ Here we see that the sorrow for her son’s death brieﬂy raises its head, but is then immediately shut out by the feelings of happiness that her son died ‘for the country’ and ‘for the emperor’. Part of the meeting that Hashikawa did not cite reveals the conﬂict even more clearly: MORIKAWA:

I think about how my child is dead, but then when I see ﬁt and healthy soldiers I think how he could still be alive. I’m all alone, so recently I have done nothing but complain. I’m a little embarrassed to say this but in the evening, in a mother’s heart there’s this feeling of affection (kawaii na, kawaii na) for her children. Soon after I think that, I think of the honour, and I don’t know how, but I manage a smile.

It is, therefore, not that case that the women’s words ‘showed absolutely no protest or weakness’. Hashikawa simply did not cite the section that revealed these emotions. Similarly:

174 Tetsuya Takahashi TAKAI:

Overall, parents don’t want that sort of thing to happen to their child. . . . MORIKAWA: When their boys go to the front, even if people say ‘I don’t want to know you if you come back’, in their hearts of course they feel pity and really don’t want them to die. But you know, we have given our son to the emperor. How could we have held him back? I just feel glad that our son could be of use to the son of heaven. These comments by Morikawa are effused with the feelings of pity in their hearts for an only son lost in war. The unresolved grief for a lost son is very evident. What we see here is that as soon as the grief is expressed, it is psychologically repressed and shut out; and although it is replaced by feelings of honour (‘giving a son to the emperor’ and ‘being of use to the emperor’), at the very least we can detect the conﬂict in the bereaved families between grief and honour. For families that have lost members in war, the most natural emotion is sadness. When the death is not from old age but a violent death, and when it is a death in war where people must kill and be killed, it is normal to have strong feelings of sadness, emptiness and detachment. In psychological analysis, when something for which one feels a certain extent of love is suddenly lost, it is called ushinau – hiai (loss – sorrow). When a family member dies, the family experiences loss and sorrow; but as could be seen above when Morikawa said ‘I think about how my child is dead, but then when I see ﬁt and healthy soldiers I think how he could still be alive’, it is very difﬁcult to accept the reality of the loss of a family member who has been the object of love. When bereaved relatives repeatedly have to face the reality of their loss, they gradually learn how to bear and deal with the loss, and through the work of mourning (trauer arbeit) they can recover from the loss and sorrow. Through feeling adequate grief at the death of a family member, it is possible to evade excessive grief and distracted melancholy. However, at the time when the bereaved relatives needed to be learning how to accept and face up to the reality of the loss of an object of their love, they were forced to avoid directly facing up to their loss. Instead of grief, they were provided with the emotion of ‘honour’, which can be thought of as an unnatural but speedy compensation for their grief. When state ceremonies honouring the war dead were held and the national leaders expressed their ‘gratitude and respect’, it is not surprising that through the strong authority of the state, the meanings given to the deaths by the state suppressed and shut out the natural feelings of grief.

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 175 In pre-war and wartime Japan, the meanings given to the authority ﬁgures (zettaisha) of the ‘nation’ and ‘son of heaven’ were not as strong as suggested. What Kawakami Hajime calls the ‘national religion’ (kokkakyo¯),19 is nothing more than a system whereby ‘the state as a god = authority figure’ holds and aims to monopolize the highest authority, the meaning of Japanese people’s death in war, or more generally the meaning of Japanese people’s lives and deaths. But it was not so much an act of ‘alchemy’ but an act of violence by which people had to treat the deaths of family members with joy, honour and gratitude while natural grief was suppressed and they were forced to shut out pain. The creation of a ‘national spirit’ to support war, and to require people to adhere to the spirit of Yasukuni, which makes war death a precious sacriﬁce and the object of gratitude and respect, are forms of psychological violence. Mourning (tsuito¯) is to follow the dead (otte) and feel pain (itamu); in other words, it is to feel sadness, and as the Chinese characters for the word ‘mourning’ (tsuito¯) suggest, to feel pain at the death of the departed. Mourning and giving condolences (aito¯) are ‘the work of grieving’ (hiai no sagyo¯). Honouring the dead is quite the opposite. The worship of the emperor, prime minister or political leaders at Yasukuni Shrine is to honour the consecrated war dead as gods (kami), and give gratitude and respect. As long as this is a political act which aims to create a ‘national spirit’ to support war, it is completely different to the normal forms of mourning for the war dead. The way in which the Yasukuni Shrine completely ignores the feelings of mourning among the bereaved families demonstrates that the shrine is an institution where the state honours rather than mourns the war dead. This is clearly evident in the case of the demands made by bereaved families from the former colonies of Taiwan and Korea that their relatives be removed from enshrinement. According to ﬁgures published by Yasukuni Shrine, in October 2001 there were 28,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans enshrined at Yasukuni. The majority of these people died after being drafted from Taiwan and Korea into the Japanese military when the Asia–Paciﬁc War was at its height. This means that the Yasukuni Shrine has enshrined Taiwanese and Koreans who were victims of colonial rule by Japan in precisely the same way as Japanese people who died perpetrating the colonial rule and suppression of Taiwan and Korea as ‘gods who defended the nation’ (gokoku no kami). For the bereaved families from Taiwan and Korea who suffered colonial rule, this is an insult. In the summer of 1977, the Yasukuni Shrine handed over a list of 27,000 Taiwanese soldiers and auxiliary staff enshrined at Yasukuni to

176 Tetsuya Takahashi a group of Taiwanese visiting Japan. This had the opposite effect to what was intended, and became the seed for the current controversy over the enshrinement of people from former colonies. The following year in February 1978, a group of Taiwanese residents in Japan who had learned about the list held a meeting and stated: ‘Our compatriots, who with a red slip of paper [akagami, draft papers] were rounded up and sent to their deaths, have not received compensation; it’s unacceptable that all we got was this white slip of paper [the Shrine’s list of enshrined souls].’ The Taiwanese group then started legal proceedings to get the Taiwanese removed from Yasukuni. In the same year, a grocer from Kaohsiung (Takao-shi) in Taiwan came to Japan and said angrily: My father was drafted into the auxiliary corps and never returned. They say he died in the Philippines but I never even received ofﬁcial notiﬁcation of his death. I have received a certiﬁcate saying he was enshrined at Yasukuni in 1970. My father held a grudge for being semi-forcibly taken away and he is probably bitter about being arbitrarily worshipped at Yasukuni Shrine which is part of a foreign religion. I want them to stop this kind of insult to Taiwanese people. In the following year in February 1979, a group of seven indigenous Taiwanese (Takasago zoku, the name given to them under colonial rule) bereaved relatives came to Japan and, for the ﬁrst time, demanded that their relatives be removed from enshrinement. The shrine, however, refused. At the time, Priest Ikeda explained the reasons for Yasukuni Shrine’s refusal to remove the souls from enshrinement in the following way: At the time when they died they were Japanese, so it is not possible for them to stop being Japanese after they died. As Japanese soldiers, they fought and died with the feeling that they were going to be worshipped at Yasukuni, so they will not be removed from enshrinement as the relatives have asked. It is natural that they are worshipped at Yasukuni because they cooperated in the war in the same way as people from Japan proper (naichijin) and participated in the war as Japanese. In Taiwan, the vast majority of bereaved families are grateful for their relatives’ enshrinement.20 Since then, the Yasukuni Shrine has consistently refused to consider the demands of people from former colonies for the removal from enshrinement of their relatives, including from Korean bereaved relatives.

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 177 As can be seen, Yasukuni Shrine’s imperialist nature has not changed at all in the post-war era. The excuse that ‘they were Japanese when they died’ means that the war dead from former colonies will always remain Japanese people under colonial rule and prisoners of their former colonial masters. There is no more self-righteous or arrogant comment than ‘they cooperated in the war in the same way as people from Japan proper and participated in the war as Japanese’ (author’s italics). This is nothing less than the sort of self-righteousness and arrogance that colonial rulers held towards their subjects. In June 2001, fifty-five members of bereaved families from South Korea ﬁled a suit at the Tokyo District Court demanding the removal from enshrinement of their relatives. In their petition to the court, the plaintiffs said it was an unbearable insult that their relatives were worshipped as ‘heroes who defended the nation’ (gokoku no eirei) alongside those who ‘plotted and actively participated in’ the invasion and colonial rule of their own country. Yasukuni Shrine continues to enshrine the victims of colonial rule alongside the perpetrators and treat them as Japanese gods despite the fact that the people were semi-forcibly (han-kyo¯seitekini) drafted into the war. For a long time the bereaved relatives did not receive ofﬁcial notiﬁcations of death or have the remains returned to them. Moreover, the Yasukuni Shrine refuses to remove the dead from enshrinement despite the fact that they were arbitrarily enshrined without their relatives’ knowledge. In Priest Ikeda’s comments cited above, the following section is particularly important: ‘As Japanese soldiers, they fought and died with the feeling that they were going to be worshipped at Yasukuni, so they will not be removed from enshrinement as the relatives have asked’ (author’s italics). This comment reveals the true nature of the Yasukuni Shrine as an institution for the commemoration of the war dead. ProYasukuni groups say that Yasukuni Shrine is the central institution for the mourning of the war dead. But, the people who feel the most pain at war deaths and have the most right to mourn are the bereaved relatives. Normally, nobody can refuse the rights of bereaved families to mourn their dead. There is an ongoing debate about the public mourning of the Class A War Criminals; but even with the Class A War Criminals, nobody can deny the right of the bereaved relatives to mourn the deaths privately. In Germany, the public mourning of Hitler is impossible; but even Hitler had relatives and nobody can stop them from privately mourning his death. What should be done when the bereaved families, who have a privileged position concerning the mourning of their relatives, object to their relatives becoming the subject of special public mourning? What

178 Tetsuya Takahashi happens when the bereaved relatives want to prevent their relatives becoming the object of worship by particular groups because it hurts the families? The Yasukuni Shrine bluntly ignores these kinds of thoughts and feelings and takes the position that ‘they will not be removed from enshrinement as the relatives have asked’. This is not only the case with people from former colonies. Requests for the removal from enshrinement at Yasukuni were made by Japanese people even before people from former colonies. In 1968, a Protestant priest, Tsunoda Saburo¯, became the ﬁrst bereaved relative to ask for his two brothers to be removed from enshrinement at Yasukuni, but his request was turned down. Following that, as part of the ‘Christian War Bereaved Association’ he requested removal from enshrinement again, but was again rejected. The Yasukuni Shrine responded saying: ‘[r]eflecting the founding principles and traditions of this Shrine, we are physically unable to respond to the requests’. When discussing the issue with Father Tsunoda, Priest Ikeda said, ‘[t]he war dead are worshipped in accordance with the wishes of the emperor; enshrinement was carried out without concern for the wishes of the bereaved families and therefore it cannot be undone’. In other words, according to Yasukuni Shrine’s logic, enshrinement was carried out exclusively in accordance with the emperor’s wishes, so once somebody has been enshrined, even if they are Class A War Criminals, former colonial subjects or anyone else, and even if the bereaved families desire it, removal from enshrinement is impossible. The bereaved families’ feelings are irrelevant and completely ignored. What are the emperor’s wishes? An excerpt from a shrine memorial (saibun) written when the Tokyo Sho¯konsha was renamed Yasukuni Shrine and became a special rank governmental shrine on 25 June 1879 reads as follows: from the time of the Meiji Restoration to today, whenever the emperor punishes tyrannical enemies inside and outside of Japan or subjugates rebels, you have no individual will but only loyalty; forget your family and lay down your life, and through the highest distinction of pursuing death in battle we can rule over a great imperial nation, and we invite you to think accordingly . . . from now on, let us ensure you will be tirelessly worshipped. As one can see, there is not a single hint of mourning for the war dead or sympathy and empathy for the bereaved families. One can only see the thinking of how the great exploits of individual soldiers in the

National politics of the Yasukuni Shrine 179 Imperial Army who died in battle against the enemy were to be revered and praised for eternity. Earlier in the ‘Tearful Meeting with Proud Mothers who Gave their Only Sons for the Nation’, some mothers had said ‘I gave my son to the son of heaven’ or ‘I am just so grateful to have had a son who could be of use to the emperor’. In The Spirit of Yasukuni, Takagami Kakusho¯ addresses the ‘bereaved relatives of the loyal dead’ and states that they should not be sad but happy because the bodies and lives of the Japanese people are ‘gifts from the emperor’, and the families whose sons and husbands died in battle have ‘returned to the emperor what he originally gave to them’. At the heart of this way of thinking is that if the emperor grieves and mourns for Imperial army soldiers, it is because they are his ‘children’, so the grief or feelings of the bereaved relatives are irrelevant. If soldiers in the future really belong to the emperor (that is, the state) and not to families, the emperor’s (the state’s) will takes priority over bereaved relatives. Worshipping the fallen at Yasukuni Shrine becomes only natural (to¯zen) and granting the bereaved families’ requests for removal from enshrinement become unthinkable. We must be extremely careful of Priest Ikeda’s comments that ‘it is the emperor’s wish that the war dead are worshipped, and they are worshipped without consideration of the bereaved relatives’. If this is the case, it is not only the feelings and views of the bereaved relatives demanding removal from enshrinement that are being ignored. It so happens that their views and emotions are simply equated with the will of the emperor. Fundamentally, this is no different to their views being ignored completely.

Conclusion To conclude, the Yasukuni Shrine is an institution that ignores the feelings and views of the bereaved relatives. It simply regards the people’s will as being the same as the emperor’s will. What seems to be regard for the feelings of the people who are honoured by enshrinement in Yasukuni Shrine actually occurs because the will of those people happens to be effectively the same as the will of the emperor. At any rate, Yasukuni Shrine forces on people the emotions that dying for the emperor and the country are honourable and dying in battle is a joy. In this way, the essence of Yasukuni Shrine, which was founded as the ‘emperor’s shrine’ through an imperial proclamation of the Meiji emperor, has not changed over the sixty years of the post-war period and continues to adhere to its founding principles. As a result, the views and feelings of the bereaved families are fundamentally ignored, and the

180 Tetsuya Takahashi bereaved families who feel insulted and pained by the enshrinement of their relatives continue to have their feelings hurt. Worship by political leaders such as the prime minister and mayor of Tokyo, with the sort of political objectives that I have outlined at length in this chapter, is causing increasing pain and insult not only to the bereaved relatives, but also to people who hope to develop friendly relations with Asia by reﬂecting on Japan’s past wars, and those who, for intellectual reasons or for reasons of conscience and belief, do not want to have the Yasukuni Doctrine forced upon them.

Notes 1 Takahashi Tetsuya, Kokoro to senso¯, Tokyo: Sho¯bunsha, 2003, Chapter 4. 2 ‘Koizumi shusho¯ danwa of 13 August 2001’, 13 August 2003 (yu¯kan), Asahi shinbun. 3 ‘Koizumi shusho¯ kasha kaiken of 1 January 2004’, 1 January 2004 (chyo¯kan), Asahi shinbun. 4 Author’s italics. ‘Nakasone Yasuhiro shusho¯ ko¯en’, Jiminto¯ Karuizawa semina¯, 27 July 1985. 5 Author’s italics. ‘Koizumi shusho¯ danwa of 14 January 2003’, 2 January 2004 (chyo¯kan), Asahi shinbun. 6 ‘Koizumi shusho¯ kasha kaiken of 9 December 2003’, 10 December 2003 (chyo¯kan), Asahi shinbun. 7 Author’s italics. ‘Nakasone moto shusho¯ intabyu¯’, 30 March 2003 (chyo¯kan), Asahi shinbun. 8 Kawamura Tateo, http: //www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/16/01/ 04010502.htm. 9 Author’s italics. 26 February 2004, Asahi shinbun. 10 Author’s italics. Yokoyama was an elementary school teacher, army personnel ofﬁcer, an employee of Ho¯chi shinbun, and ultimately, a successful children’s author. Yokoyama Natsuki, Kagayaku Yasukuni monogatari, Tokyo: Taihei shobo¯, 1944, p. 226. 11 Author’s italics. Yasukuni restsujo itoku kensho¯kai, ed., Yasukuni retsujo den, Tokyo: Shuppan bunka kenkyu¯kai, 1941. 12 Takagami Kakusho¯, Takagami Kakusho¯ zenshu¯, 10 vols, Tokyo: Rekishi toshosha, 1978. 13 Author’s italics. Takagami Kakusho¯, Yasukuni no seishin, Tokyo: Dai ichi shobo¯, 1942, p. 94. 14 Ibid., p. 98. 15 Ibid. 16 Hirayama Hiroshi, Fukuzawa Yukichi no shinjitsu, Tokyo: Bunshun shinsho, 2004. 17 Fukuzawa Yukichi, Fukuzawa Yukichi zenshu¯, vol. 15, Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1970, pp. 321–2. 18 Ibid., p. 341. 19 Kawakami Hajime, ‘Nihon dokuji no kakka shugi,’ in Sugihara Shiro¯ (ed.), Kawakami Hajime hyo¯ron shu¯, Tokyo: Iwanami, 1999. 20 16 April 1987, Asahi shinbun.

8

Conclusion Towards nationalisms in Japan Naoko Shimazu

In this concluding chapter,1 I will attempt to make some general remarks about some of the more salient themes which emerged from our collective study. What comes out most strongly in each of the individual case studies in this volume is the complexity of nationalism in modern and contemporary Japan. There were many manifestations of nationalism, or to put it provocatively, many nationalisms, because there were many different nationalists with many different experiences. The fact that Goto-Shibata’s ‘internationalist nationalists’, Large’s ‘nationalist extremists’, Siddle’s ‘Ainu nationalists’, and Rose’s Tsukuru-kai (Society for History Textbook Reform), as well as Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯, can all be lumped together under the umbrella of ‘nationalist’ is remarkable to say the least. More to the point, it underlines the highly complex nature of nationalism which can be used (and, indeed, abused) to describe and explain a myriad of ideas and experiences. Many of the so-called culturally essentialist symbols and values exist widely (obviously in different garbs) in other cultural contexts, ironically, each claiming to be unique. Consequently, the importance of contextualizing Japan as a comparative case study within the general conceptual and empirical framework of nationalism cannot but be emphasized. As Benner demonstrated, ethnonationalism existed in Japan much as it existed elsewhere in Europe. Moreover, the transformation of national consciousness experienced by the ordinary soldiers during the Russo-Japanese war attested to the universality of such experience in modern nation-states. What the ordinary Japanese soldier in 1904–5 thought about his national identity was not much different from that of the ordinary British, French or German soldier in the Great War. Western versions of Large’s ‘nationalist extremist’ could be found in 1930s Europe. In the 1960s, there was a new global trend towards recognizing a separate ‘national’ identity of indigenous minorities within the nation-state boundaries, of which Ainu was one.

182 Naoko Shimazu Likewise, the rise of anti-Japanese nationalism in China from the 1990s mirrors to some extent the neo-nationalist take on the history textbook offensive in 1990s Japan as well as the more recent resurgence of the nationalist language used by the Koizumi Cabinet. Contrary to what die-hard nationalists would like to believe, therefore, Japan is not a sui generis, in as much as no nation-state is. This is why the comparative approach is crucial in order to avoid the intellectual oversimpliﬁcation of essentializing the Japanese experience. To this end, too, it may be more accurate to think of ‘nationalism in Japan’ than ‘Japanese nationalism’ as the latter denotes a particularity of the Japanese condition. Nationalism is dynamic – it is not static and unchanging. Richard Siddle’s chapter on the Ainu moshiri proved beyond all doubt the existence of other nationalisms in Japan. We saw the rise of an altogether new type of nationalism within Japan, hitherto officially ignored, stiﬂed, and suppressed through a long history of colonial assimilation. Ainu nationalism from the 1960s to the present is an interesting case, showing how the international political and legal climate prompted changes in the self-perception of the collective identity of an indigenous minority group, leading them to appropriate the rhetoric and strategies of nationalism, thereby fundamentally contesting what seemed an incontrovertible notion of ‘Japanese’ national identity. The resurrection of the Ainu identity and the politicization of it led to a new crisis in politics of identity in Japan. There are other minority groups in Japan with issues which need to be resolved urgently, as in the cases of KoreanJapanese and of Chinese-Japanese, for instance. On the other hand, Takahashi’s discussion of the continued recent resistance of the Yasukuni Shrine to withdraw the enshrinement of the kami from the former colonial territories underlined the difﬁculty of dismantling the official edifice of what constituted the Japanese nation in pre-war Japan. These two case studies emphasized how qualitatively different one type of nationalism can be from another. Instead of ‘nationalism in Japan’, should we be closer to the complex reality if we were encouraged to think more in terms of the plural, that is, ‘nationalisms in Japan’. Thinking about nationalism in a more pluralistic sense may help us to understand the element of ‘ambiguity’, or to put a positive gloss on it, ‘ﬂuidity’, regarding the meaning of nationalism. Benner illustrated that Japanese national thinking held four different patterns – ‘defensive’, ‘cautious engagement’, ‘enlightened international leadership’, and ‘radicalization’ – over the period of 150 years until 1945. As she states, they were never clear categories as they often overlapped with each

Conclusion 183 other and, moreover, often resulted in hybridization by the virtue of the fact that ideas do not exist in a vacuum. In other words, it is normal to have ambiguity, or ﬂuidity, in national thinking because it is always in a state of ﬂux, subject to continuous negotiation and renegotiation. Contributions by Shimazu, Goto-Shibata and Large demonstrated the existence of ambiguity in agency. Ordinary Japanese soldiers had ambiguous feelings about going to sacrifice their lives for the state (kokka) under the wartime nationalist propaganda in 1904–5. On the one hand, their ambiguity was genuine because they were initially not convinced by the top-down nationalist propaganda. On the other hand, the ambiguity also underlined the pluralistic constitution of individual identity which, amongst other things, included national identity – the latest addition which had to vie for its position alongside other more established sources of individual identity such as the socio-economic and religious. On a different level, we saw signs of ambivalence as Japanese intellectuals faced problems of divided loyalty in the early 1920s. Many of the so-called ‘internationalist nationalists’ were ‘internationalists’ within Japan; once abroad, they became more concerned with protecting and promoting Japan’s national interest. Goto-Shibata’s discussion not only underlined the problematic nature of categorizing thinkers into mutually exclusive groups, but also that being a ‘nationalist’ could co-exist with being an ‘internationalist’, as much as it could co-exist with being a Christian, for the sake of argument. In a similar vein, Large underlined the blurred boundary between ‘nationalists’ and ‘nationalist extremists’ as the latter were partially incorporated into mainstream culture of the former in the 1930s. If one were to define ‘nationalist extremists’ as the radicalized group of mainstream ‘nationalists’, then, how would one justify the victim mentality of the post-war Japanese, premised on the benign nature of 1930s Japanese society, which was victimized by a group of ‘nationalist extremist’ militarists? Moreover, as mentioned above, where should one draw the line between the categorical distinctions made of different types of ‘nationalists’? In principle, there should be common ground between the ‘internationalist nationalist’ and the ‘nationalist extremist’ as both embraced the generic label of ‘nationalist’. In reality, these two groups stand far apart from each other. Then, what did it mean to be a ‘nationalist’ in pre-war Japan? When nationalism became discredited in the post-war period, we tend to lose the ambiguous complexity that was the hallmark of pre-war nationalism. Recent manifestations of nationalism by neo-conservatives tend to portray pre-war nationalism as one-dimensional, mostly relying

184 Naoko Shimazu on a few sensational and effective pre-war and wartime symbols, such as the Yasukuni Shrine, the state-produced textbooks, and moral education classes. Rose’s conclusions pointed to an ominous future as the history of textbook offensives shows no sign of abating. Textbook issues are now being fought between generations who have no direct experience of the war. Generational change is a significant factor as Takahashi’s criticism of Koizumi’s Yasukuni worship is a case in point. Koizumi (born in 1942) represents a new generation of right-wing politicians who lack the war experience, and possibly because of that, do not hold back from using one of the most highly controversial symbols of pre-war and wartime nationalism. In the post-war period, the oversimpliﬁcation by the interested parties – be they academics, journalists, policy-makers, or politicians, to name but a few – have transformed the complexity that was pre-war nationalism, into a monolithic and static ideological ediﬁce. Tempting though it may be, we should nonetheless not assume that the symbolic use of the language from the pre-war days by the current group of neo-nationalists would automatically mean the replay of pre-war nationalism. Forces of current political and social environment led to the emergence of neonationalists today. In spite of their misplaced fondness for the pre-war past, they could never recreate the past, nor is it likely to be their desire to do so, because their interest is in creating a ‘new’ Japan which is nationalistic in the international environment dominated by the neoimperialist United States. Consequently, the international environment more often than not acts as a stimulant to strengthening the sense of national identity, or adds to the sense of urgency in deﬁning the national ‘Self’ as a contrast to the ‘Other’. Benner’s analysis centres on the notion of security as a deﬁning factor in inﬂuencing national thinking in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. All four patterns of national thinking that she elucidated are different ‘responses’ to the external pressures faced by Japan. In Shimazu’s chapter, it was the very act of the nation– state engaging in an international warfare that forced the ordinary Japanese to accept the identity of being a ‘Japanese’ soldier as opposed to their otherwise more locally based sources of identity. Goto-Shibata’s example of Sugimura Yo¯taro¯ as an ‘internationalist nationalist’ illustrated how Sugimura’s international exposure as one of Japan’s leading international bureaucrat informed and, in turn, formed his national identity. Had Sugimura not been exposed to the international environment, he might have remained an idealistic internationalist. Similarly, Ainu nationalists were profoundly affected by the changing international norm in the treatment of indigenous minorities.

Conclusion 185 Rose argued in her chapter that, on the one level, the ‘third textbook offensive’ can be viewed as a response to the perceived threat of globalization to the national identity of Japan. On the other, the textbook issue was ultimately about a particularly nationalistic interpretation of national history, which not only threatened the liberals and the leftwing in Japan, but also offended the sensibilities of Japan’s neighbours as former victims of Japan’s pre-war and wartime aggressions. So, too, has the ‘ambiguous’ nature of worship of Prime Minister Koizumi at the Yasukuni Shrine, sounded alarm bells throughout Asia. Continuous ‘negotiation’ between nationalists and the external world both informs and shapes the debates in national contexts. In spite of the post-war preoccupation to separate categorically the pre-war from the post-war at the 1945 defeat, there is much continuity between these two historical periods in the study of nationalism. For one, there is much overlap in the rhetoric used by right-wing politicians and policy makers in contemporary Japan, with that of the pre-war political elite. Takahashi discussed the debate surrounding the ‘Heisei Education Rescript’ (Heisei kyo¯iku chokugo) which is taken from the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education known as the Kyo¯iku chokugo. The word, ‘chokugo’, means an imperial rescript under the absolutist emperor-centred system of the pre-war years. The Koizumi Cabinet serving the democratic, constitutional state is using the same language to inculcate the sense of ‘national spirit’ (kokumin seishin), the contemporary version of the notorious pre-war ‘Japanese spirit’ (Yamato damashii ). However much Koizumi and his group might resort to the anachronistic use of the pre-war language to foster neo-nationalism, will it have the desired effect on today’s youths who are growing up in one of the most afﬂuent societies in the world? As previously mentioned, the pre-war orthodoxy saw nationalism as not only a good thing, but an absolutely vital element of nationhood. Yet, the painful legacy of wartime nationalism has led to its condemnation generally in the post-war period by the liberals and the left-wing. As a result of the political pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other, post-war domestic debates on nationalism caused a polarization of views along the ideological spectrum. In both Rose’s and Takahashi’s contributions, neo-nationalists were fighting against the post-war orthodoxy imposed by the liberals and the left-wing. Ideological polarization has not been conducive to fostering a healthy public debate on nationalism, as the majority of the nation is left out of it. Although Rose’s case showed promising signs of the increasing involvement of civil society in the ‘third textbook offensive’, there has to be a much greater involvement of civil society in all matters of national and local

186 Naoko Shimazu importance in Japanese society across the board. Will the Japan of tomorrow ever be able to espouse a more liberal form of nationalism? Or is nationalism of any form in Japan to be condemned forever? The above issue relates to another point which is one of ‘politics of knowledge’. How to interpret a national past is a jealously guarded and highly contested territory. As we have seen in Rose’s discussion on the third textbook offensive, the Tsukuru kai members are extremely jealous about who gets to write the ‘ofﬁcial’ national history. The choice of language by the Tsukuru kai, such as ‘masochistic history’ and ‘loss of a national history’, revealed their defensive attitude in the face of the perceived threat to their particular conceptions of national identity. Evidently, the Tsukuru kai felt the need to ‘reclaim’ the dying nationalist narrative of Japan from the sea of post-war liberalism. Moreover, one detects a strong element of ‘kuni okoshi’ (rebuilding the nation) in the Tsukuru kai’s chauvinistic attitude, which undoubtedly was shaped by the loss of national confidence spurred on by the unprecedented economic crisis from the early 1990s. The contest between different national narratives also infected the Ainu nationalists. The cultural construction of the Ainu moshiri showed that tensions arose between new nationalist narratives and symbols (cultural ﬁctions), and modern scientiﬁc knowledge. Siddle’s discussion underlined the problem of who owns the ‘truth’. Not surprisingly, the ‘politics of knowledge’ affects contemporary scholarship on nationalism. In our group of scholars from two different academic communities, Britain and Japan, it became clear in the course of workshop discussions that the Japan-based academics are functioning within a more polarized, and politicized intellectual environment where ‘national history’ is highly controversial, and subjected to an ideological tug of war. This particular environment influenced the extent of the choice of topics, language, and interpretation. Even scholars who are not directly engaged in the debate can feel the constraints of expression. Therefore, the study of nationalism in Japan may be generally more politicized than in Britain, though not necessarily more than in most other countries in the world. Moreover, Japanese scholars may argue reciprocally that the study of nationalism in Britain is also subject to its own biases and limitations. It goes without saying that the British-based academics need to remain sensitive to the politics surrounding the study of nationalism in Japan. As an outsider, however, one can contribute to the debate or generate an alternative debate that the insider may not be able to do without being drawn into an ideological battle. Needless to say, many nonJapan-based academics have already been doing this for some time. If

Conclusion 187 anything, the study of nationalism in Japan should be more internationalized, in order to open up the debate further. The development of a multilateral history of the Second World War in Asia that Rose mentioned is, hence, a highly important initiative. However, it remains to be seen whether such a project which requires a high degree of multilateral collaboration in a region rife with tension is realizable. Finally, we return to where we started: the title of this edited volume, Nationalisms in Japan. This collective study has demonstrated beyond any doubt the existence of multiple nationalisms in Japan. We refer not only to the more apparent type, as in Richard Siddle’s discussion of Ainu nationalism, but to less obvious ones, for example, the diversity of nationalisms in pre-war Japan, as illustrated in the chapters by Shimazu, Goto-Shibata, and Large. We need to develop a more sophisticated understanding of nationalism in Japan, and not fall into intellectual complacency, labelling all nationalisms as one and the same. Our case studies have shown that nationalism is situationally dependent. It can have different meanings to different people at different times in different places. Hence, the title of this volume is intended to suggest the direction of future research on nationalisms in Japan towards a more nuanced and complex one. This study may have ended up with more questions than answers. How we continue to deepen our understanding of nationalisms in Japan remains a priority for scholars in future.

Note 1

Although I have obviously beneﬁted from the discussions made in the workshop, I remain alone responsible for the general remarks made in this chapter.

Index

Advisory Committee for Discussing Social Studies Textbook Problems 141 Aikokusha 88 Aikyo¯juku 88, 90 Ainu 125, 126, 184; communal territorialtiy 124–6; cultural identity 113–14, 115, 122–4; Cultural Promotion Act 114–15; Former Native Protection Act 114; Hokkaido 111, 113–17, 121–2; Japanization 123–4; national ﬂag 118; national identity 6, 181, 182; nationalism 5–6, 113–17, 181, 187; oral literature 122–3, 124, 129n41; Other 59, 60; see also Ainu moshiri Ainu Association of Hokkaido 117 Ainu Kaiho¯ Do¯mei 119 Ainu moshiri 112, 116–21, 116–27, 182, 186 Aizawa Seishisai 19–22, 24, 31, 38n16, 38–9n17 Akegarasu Haya 46–7 Algeria 33–4 anarchists 98, 102 Anglo-Japanese Alliance 67, 69–70, 72–3, 75, 79 Arakawa Sho¯ji 51 Araki, General 100–1 army rebellion 85 Asahi Heigo¯ 85, 90, 95–6 Asian Solidarity Conference on Textbook Issues 142 assassinations 85–6

assimilation 111, 123, 124 Association for Liberal View of History 131 Aum shinrikyo¯ cult 146 Australia 69 Balibar, Etienne 102 banzai (rallying call) 46, 47, 48, 49–51, 50–1 Bauman, Zygmunt 101 Beissinger, Mark 104 Benner, Erica 1, 2–3, 181, 182–3, 184 bereaved families 163–7, 171, 173–4, 177–9; see also Yasukuni Shrine Biwa, Lake 52–3, 54 black people, USA 75 Bose, Rashbehari 70 Boxer Rebellion 44 Breuilly, J. 111 Britain: China 33; colonialism 27, 73, 83n24; Egypt 75, 77; foreign policy 80; India 33, 75, 78; and Japan 66, 67, 69–70; nationalisms 186; USA 78 Buddhist inﬂuences 96, 102, 162 Bull, Hedley 77 Burke, Edmund 25–6 Burke, Kenneth 94 Centre for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility 142 Chamberlain, Basil Hall 120 Chamberlain, Joseph 36

Index 189 Chichibu, Prince 100 Children and Textbooks Japan Network 21 141 China 33, 71, 77, 79, 138, 182; see also Sino-Japanese entries Chinese villages 57–8, 59 Chiri Mashiho 122 Chiri Yukie 118 Christian War Bereaved Associaton 178 Christianity 19, 31–2 Chukyo¯shin (CCE) 133, 144 civilization 33, 40n56, 68 Clifton, James 116 colonialism 10, 27, 33–4, 61, 69, 72–3, 83n24 coloured people 78; see also black people, USA; yellow race concept comfort women 6, 136, 137–8, 139, 140, 143–7 commemoration 156, 161, 170–1 Committee for Truth and Freedom in Textbooks 141 Committee on History and Screening, LDP 139–40 communism 99 Confucianism 21 coup d’éétat attempt 86, 97 Course of Study 134, 145, 147 Cultural Promotion Act 114–15 culture: differences 17; essentialism 58–9, 181; ﬁctions of 112, 115, 117–21, 126–7; identity 86, 101, 102–3, 112–15, 122–4; restorationism 133; symbols 4–5 Dai Nippon 28 Dai Nippon Seigidan 93 Dai Nippon Seisanto¯ 92 Daito¯a senso¯ no so¯katsu (LDP) 139 Daito¯sha 93 Dan Takuma 85, 96, 105 deaths: honourable 41, 167, 171; mourning/honouring 173–9; precious 7–8; see also war dead Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN) 114 defence 14, 17–22, 182–3

democracy 12, 86 Diet Members Alliance for a Bright Japan 139 Diet Members League for Passing on Correct History 140 Doak, Kevin 102–3 dojin (natives) 57, 59 Duara, Prasenjit 85 Edo 112, 115–16, 121, 127 education 13; ethnocultural 20; national identity 133, 134, 147; national spirit 159; nationalism 6–7; patriotism 132, 134; self-awareness 134; see also textbooks educational reform 131–5, 143–4 Egawa Chu¯ji 89 Egypt 75, 77 Ei Bei (Britain and USA) 78 elite 72, 76–7, 98 Emori Susumu 122 emperor 10, 26, 115; loyalty 62, 104, 120–1; myth 88, 138; nationalist extremists 98; patriotism 120–1; worship by 155–6, 164, 167, 178 essentialism, cultural 58–9, 181 ethnic minority rights 114 ethnicity 17–22, 102–3, 117 ethnocentricism 18, 21–2 ethnonationalism 181 Evola, Julius 102 expansionism 10, 12–13, 17, 34–5, 71, 77, 117 extremists: see nationalist extremists The Federalist Papers 22, 34–5 15 May 1932 Incident 85, 86, 89, 90, 93, 95–6, 100 foreign policy 4, 9, 32, 67, 80; see also international relations Former Natives Protection Act 114 Formosa 28; see also Taiwan Four Power Treaty 79 France 26, 33–4 Fujii Hitoshi 88, 90 Fujioka Nobukatsu 131, 137 Fukuzawa Yukichi 3; expansionism 34–5; foreign policy 30, 32;

190 Index nation building 23, 29–32; war dead 169–70, 172 Fundamental Law of Education 131, 132, 135–6, 143–7, 159 Gaiko¯ Jiho¯: criticizing US and Britain 80; international relations 72–6; justice 76–9; Paris Peace Conference 4, 67, 68 Gayn, Mark 103 Genyo¯sha 86 Germany: Hegel 22, 26, 32; Hitler 177; Japan 26, 36, 39n32; modernization 25; Shandong Peninsula 72; World War I 69 Gluck, Carol 115–16 Gondo¯ Seikyo¯ 97 Goto-Shibata Harumi 1, 4, 181, 183, 184 gratitude for sacriﬁce 157–8, 164, 174 Great Depression 86, 92 Great Powers 68; colonialism 72; expansionism 12–13; inequalities 37; leadership 27; membership 14, 32–3, 71; nationalism 33 Greater East Asian War 103, 138, 139 Grifﬁs, William 28 Guizot, F.P.G. 29 Gyo¯chisha 88 Hamaguchi Osachi 85, 88 Hamamatsu Patriotic Ladies Association 46 Hamana, Lake 53 Hamilton, Alexander 15 Hanzawa Tamaki 75 Hara Takashi 67, 85 Hardinge, Lord 70 Hashikawa Bunzo¯ 97, 166, 173–4 Hashimoto Kingoro¯ 88, 132–5 Hashimoto Ryu¯taro¯ 156 Hegel, G.W.F. 22, 26, 32 Heijikai (Military Affairs Association) 44–5 Heisei Education Rescript 7, 132–5, 159, 185 Herder, Johann Gottfried 18 Hideyoshi palace 125

Himeji Volunteer Ladies’ Association 54 Hiroshi Nakagawa 122 Hiroshima 53 Hishinuma Goro¯ 89, 96 history education 147 history textbooks 133, 135–6, 140–1 Hokkaido 111, 113–17, 121–2 Honma Ken’chiro¯ 90 Howell, David 123 human rights 6, 31–2 humanity (jindo¯) 66, 76 Ienaga Saburo¯ 135, 136 Ii Naosuke 90 Ikeda, Priest 176, 177, 178, 179 Ikuta Tatsuo 161–2 Imperial Rescript on Education 7, 185 Imperial Reservist Association 44 imperialism 32–4, 38–9n17; see also colonialism; emperor; expansionism Inahara Katsuji 74–5 India 33, 69–71, 75, 78 indigenous minorities 114, 116, 119, 181, 184 Inoue Junnosuke 85, 93, 105 Inoue Nissho¯ 5, 87, 89–93, 95–6, 99, 100, 102, 104 intellectuals 4, 66, 72, 79–80 international law 68–9, 76–7, 114 international relations 9, 10, 12–17, 30, 38n16, 72–6 internationalists: defence 86; intellectuals 66, 79–80; national identity 184; nationalism 4, 66–7, 81, 181, 183 Inukai Tsuyoshi 71, 85, 89 Iraq 158–9 Ishida Ichiro¯ 23 Ishihara Shintaro¯ 7, 155–9 Islam 19 Ito¯ Hirobumi 24, 27–8 Ito¯ Miyoji 71 Itsukushima Shrine 53, 54–5 Iwai Shichigoro¯ 49–50, 55–6, 58–9, 64–5n35 Izokukai 155–6

Index 191 Jansen, Marius 32–3 Japan Council (Nippon Kaigi) 139 Japan Romantic School 102–3 Japanese Imperial Navy 70 Japanese Society for Democratic Education 141 Java 20 Jiji shinpo¯ 168–9, 172 jindo¯ (humanity) 66, 76 Jinmu, Emperor 138 Jinmukai 88 Jiyu¯shugi shikan kenkyu¯kai 131 jo¯i (barbarians) 24 justice (seigi) 4, 32, 66, 76–9 Kamei Ikuo 146 Kant, Immanuel 18 Kawabata Yasunari 102 Kawakami Hajime 175 Kawamura Tateo 146, 159 Ketsumeidan 87, 89–90 Ketsumeidan Incident 85, 88, 91, 93, 95–6, 100, 105 Keynes, J.M. 80 Kido Ko¯ichi 99, 100, 104 Kikuchi Isao 123 Kindaichi Kyo¯suke 125 Kinkei Gakuin 92 Kita Ikki 5, 66, 85–7, 91–2, 95, 96–7, 99–100 Kobayashi Yoshinori 131, 137 Koga Kiyoshi 90 Koizumi Jun’ichiro¯ 181; educational reform 132; national spirit 185; Yasukuni Shrine 2, 7–8, 155–9, 164, 168–9 kokka (state) 3–4, 42, 46, 52, 62, 111, 155 kokkyo (national doctrine) 16, 37n1 Kokoro no no¯to (Notebook for the Heart) 7, 132, 144–7 kokumin (national subjects) 3–4, 41, 43, 52, 61, 62 Kokuryu¯kai 86 kokutai (nation) 20, 21, 39n35, 97–8, 185 Ko¯no Motomichi 116–17, 121 Konoe Fumimaro 68, 73, 99, 100, 104 Korea 58, 60, 75, 77, 138, 175–7

Korean Strait 57, 58, 59 kotan (proto-communist society) 126 Koyama Matsukichi 100–1 Kuroiwa Isamu 95 Kusunoki Masashige 88 Kyo¯iku chokugo 185 Kyoto 46, 49 Kyushu loyalism 90 Lajpat Rai, Lala 70, 73 Large, Stephen 1, 4–5, 80–1, 181, 183 leadership, enlightened 15, 27–32, 182–3 League of Nations 4, 76; Covenant 74, 77; criticized 80; inequalities 36, 73; Japanese 71, 73–4; USA 73–4, 80 Liberal Democratic Party 6, 131, 135–6, 139–40, 156 life force (seimei) 102 Locke, John 33 London Naval Treaty 86 loyalism 89–90 loyalty 41, 62, 92–3, 120–1, 161, 183 Luzon 20 McCormack, G. 139 Machimura Nobutaka 140 Makihara Norio 46 Makino Nobuaki 71 Manchuria 41, 57, 58, 60 Manchurian Incident 86, 103 Marco Polo Bridge incident 139–40 martyrdom 95–6 Marxist inﬂuences 117 Meiji Constitution 24, 25, 46 Meiji period 4, 5, 76–7, 138 Meiji Restoration 86, 115–16, 178 Micronesian peoples 60 Mii Temple 54 Mikami Taku 90, 94, 95, 96 Military Affairs Association 44–5 military conscription 13 Mill, John Stuart 27, 29–30, 39n36 Miller, Daniel 101 Ministry of Education 131, 133–4, 140, 144–7

192 Index Mito School 2, 19, 89–90 Mitsukawa Kametaro¯ 88 Miyajima 54–5, 56 Miyake, A. 144, 145–6 modernity, crisis of 5, 86, 101 modernization 9, 15, 22–7 Monroe Doctrine 28, 74 moral education 7, 137, 153n52, 184 Morera, Ignacio 125 Mori, Y. 132 Mori Arinori 46 Mother Earth concept 5–6, 117–21, 126; see also Ainu moshiri mourning 156, 164–7, 171, 173–4, 175, 177–8 Mukaida Hatsuichi 43–4, 50, 63n9 Murray, Gilbert 36 Muslim soldiers’ rebellion 70 myths 10, 21, 88, 138 Nagoya 55 Nairn, Tom 102 Nakagawa, H. 125 Nakahama To¯ichiro¯ 45 Nakamura Jun 59, 60, 65n58, 166–7, 173–4 Nakanishi Hiroshi 68 Nakaoka Kon’ichi 85 Nakasone Hirofumi 146, 157–8 Nakasone Yasuhiro 132–5, 146, 159 Nakazawa Ichitaro¯ 45, 49, 56, 59, 64n33 Nanjing Massacre 6, 138, 139, 141 nation: see kokutai national anthem 140 National Committee on Education Reform 144 national consciousness 11, 12 national curriculum 133–5 national doctrine (kokkyo) 16, 37n1 national ﬂag 118, 140 national identity 2–4, 11–12, 184; Ainu 6, 181, 182; cultural differences 17; education 133, 134, 147; indigenous peoples 181; journey to the front 56–7; kokka 62; Other 41; reconstruction 137; soldiers 181; textbooks 185

national isolation (sakoku) 24 National Learning, School of 18–19 national spirit 159, 160, 175, 185 national subjects: see kokumin national thinking 2, 3, 9–10, 182–3; anti-foreignism 19; defensive patterns 14, 17–22, 182–3; engagement with foreign powers 14–15, 22–7, 182–3; international factors 9, 10, 11–17; leadership, enlightened 15, 27–32, 182–3; modernization 22–7; nationalism 36–7; radicalization 16, 32–6, 182–3 nationalism 1–2, 3; Ainu 5–6, 113–17, 181, 187; assassinations 85–6; Breuilly 111; civilization 40n56; conquest 40n56; defensive 17–22; Duara 85; education 6–7; ethnicity 102–3; ethnocentricism 18, 21–2; Great Powers 33; healthy 138; India 69–71; indigenous 5–6, 110–11, 113–17; internationalism 4, 66–7, 81, 181, 183; liberal 27, 32; national thinking 36–7; oversimpliﬁed 184; politics 110–11; radical 16, 36; renovation ideals 86; see also nationalist extremists nationalisms 14, 127, 186, 187 nationalist extremists 81, 181, 183; assassinations 85–6; emperor 98; groups 87–9; historical icons 89–90; historical mission 96–8; inter-war 98–103; life-styles 90–2; nationalism 4–5, 81; newspapers 104–5; public sympathy 4–5, 100–1, 103–4; rhetoric 94–6; ritual/festival 92–4; violence 103 nation-building: Aizawa 19–22; Burke 26; cultural ﬁctions 112, 115; Europe 13; expansionism 10; Fukuzama 23, 29–32 native American Indians 116, 119 nativism 31, 88 Negoro To¯kichi 47–9, 54–5, 59, 64n24 Nelson, J.K. 138

Index 193 neo-conservatives 183–4 neo-nationalism 131, 182, 185 New History Textbook 142 new international order 74, 80 New Theses (Aizawa) 19 New Zealand 69 newspapers 104–5 Nibutani Dam case 121 Nichiren 90, 97 Nihon Kokuminto¯ 88 Nikkyo¯ 94 Ninagawa Arata 69, 78 Nippon Kaigi (Japan Council) 139, 143, 147 Nippon Kokuminto¯ 92 Nishibe Susumu 137, 138 Nishida Kitaro¯ 102 Nishida Mitsugi 88, 97 Nishio Kanji 131, 137, 138 Nogi, General 47 No¯min Kesshitai 88, 89 Notebook for the Heart: see Kokoro no no¯to Obuchi, Prime Minister 132 ¯ kawa Shu¯mei 5, 66, 70–1, 82n11, O 85–6, 88, 95, 97, 99 Okinawa (Ryu¯kyu¯) 5, 111 ¯ kubo Toshimichi 29 O ¯ kuno Seisuka 139 O Onuma Sho¯ 89, 93, 96 opium trafﬁcking 76 oral literature 122–3, 124, 129n41 orphans of war dead 167–8 Osaka 46, 55 ¯ shikai 88 O ¯ sugi Sakae 102 O ¯ tera Yasuzumi 172 O Other 41, 57–61, 62 Ozaki Yukio 47 Paciﬁc War 164 pan-Asianism 70 Paris Peace Conference 4, 67, 68–72, 77 Patriotic Ladies Association 46 patriotism 11, 15, 50; education 132, 134; emperor 120–1; idealised 46; journey to the front 56–7; nationalist extremists

103–4; Sawada 51; sexual tensions 48; see also deaths, honourable Perry, Matthew 22, 30 poetry workshops 104–5 political factors 18, 110–11, 135–6, 156–7, 186 Priestley, M. 133–5 prison poetry workshops 104–5 Provisional Treaty of Amity 22–3 public sympathy 100–1, 103–4 public trials 93, 100–1, 104 Pure Land sect 46, 49 race factors 16, 36, 75 radicalization 16, 32–6, 182–3 railways 63n3 rationalism, rejected 101–2 redistribution of wealth 98, 103 religion 26, 96–7, 155, 175 Restoration heroes 90, 92–3 revisionist approach 4, 5, 80–1, 141–3 Richardson, Teresa Eden 50 Rinkyo¯shin (Ad Hoc Council on Education) 132 Roosevelt, Theodore 28, 29 Rose, Caroline 1, 6–7, 181, 185–6 Rousseau, Jean-Jaques 17–18, 32 Russians 57–8, 60–1 Russo-Japanese War: intellectuals 80; mobilization 3, 41–2, 181; national identity 41, 62; relief work 44–5; Yasukuni Shrine 172–3; see also soldiers sacriﬁce 43, 156–8, 160–1, 163–4, 171–2, 174 Sagoya Tomeo 85, 88, 90 Saigo¯ Takamori 90 Saigusa Shigetomo 73, 76 Saionji Kinmochi 89 Saishin Nihonshi (Nippon Kaigi) 143 Saito¯ Makoto 85, 166 Saito¯ Ryu¯ 104 Sakamoto Ryo¯ma 90 sakoku (national isolation) 24 Sakuradamon Incident 90 Sakurakai 88

194 Index Sato¯ Kenji 74 Sawada Matashige 43, 45–6, 51, 53–4, 57–8, 61, 63n7 seigi (justice) 4, 32, 66, 76–9 seimei (life force) 102 self-awareness 134 Self-Defense Forces 156–7, 158–9 self-deﬁnition 17–22 self-determination 73, 110 self-discipline 91–2 Shakushain War 6, 117, 124, 126 Shandong Peninsula 72, 79 Shashin shu¯ho¯ 167 Shibasaki Atsushi 66, 80 Shichisho¯sha 88 Shillony, Ben-Ami 98 Shimada Yo¯ichi 67–8 Shimazu Naoko 1, 3–4, 67, 183, 184 Shimonoseki Treaty 169 Shinaudan 89 Shinbashi Station 47 Shinpeitai 88 Shinshinto¯ 140 Shinto¯ mythology 102 Shinya Gyo¯ 118 shishi (men of high purpose) 89, 90 Shizanjuku 90 Shufu no Tomo 164–6 Shu¯shin (ethics textbook) 160–1 Siddle, Richard 1, 5–6, 181, 182, 186, 187 Singapore Muslim soldiers’ rebellion 70 Singh, Bhagwan 70 Sino-Japanese friendship 71 Sino-Japanese War 63n3; ceremony for dead 7, 172; Military Affairs Association 44–5; post-victory 28; Taiwan 169; in textbooks 138 skin colour 73, 75, 78 social Darwinism 121 Society for History Textbook Reform: see Tsukuru kai Society for International Cultural Relations 66 Soejima Michimasa 75–6 soldiers 41–2, 45; call-up 42–4; Chinese 59–60; death 7–8; diaries

42, 181; farewell 44–52, 61–2; grassroots support groups 61–2; journey to the front 52–7, 62; kokumin 62; loyalty 62, 183; martial spirit 170; Muslim rebellion 70; national identity 181; Other 57–61, 62; Russians 60–1; sacriﬁce 160–1 Spencer, Herbert 29 The Spirit of Yasukuni (Takagami) 179 spiritual mobilization 160–73; see also national spirit state: see kokka Suehiro Shigeo 72–3 Sugimura Yo¯taro¯ 66, 74, 76, 83n28, 184 suicide 95–6 Sunazawa Bikky 118 support groups, grassroots 44–5, 61–2 Suzuki Sadami 102 Suzuki Zen’ichi 88 Tachi Sakutaro¯ 74 Tachibana Ko¯saburo¯ 5, 85–9, 95, 97, 102, 104 Tada Kaizo¯ 44, 46–7, 54, 58, 60, 61, 63n12 Tagore, Rabindranath 70 Taiwan 59, 169, 170, 172, 175–7 Takada Kiichi 42–3, 52–3, 57, 63n5 Takagami Kakusho¯ 162–4, 179 Takahashi Korekiyo 85 Takahashi Tetsuya 1, 7–8, 146, 182, 184, 185 Tanaka Mitsuaki 90 Tanaka Suiichiro¯ 73 Taoism 21 Tawara Yoshifumi 136–7, 141, 143, 147 Tenkento¯ 88 Terauchi Masatake 71 Textbook Authorization Research Council 134 Textbook Examination Committee 134 textbooks: authorization 133–5, 138; counter-offensive 141–3; ethics 160–1; FLE 135–6; LDP

Index 195 136; national identity 185; offensive 6, 131, 136–43, 148n1, 149n8; revisionist approach 141–3; state-produced 184; see also Tsukuru kai Three Alls Policy 140–1 Tocqueville, Alexis de 29, 33–4 To¯jo¯ Hideki 85, 167 Tokyo 48–9, 55, 166–7, 171 Tokyo Shoseki 142 Toma Kazumi 120 To¯yama Hidezo¯ 95 To¯yama Mitsuru 86, 104 Toyooka Sannyo 119–20 trade, Western 19–20 treaties, renegotiated 69 Tsukui Tatsuo 97 Tsukuru kai (Society for History Textbook Reform) 181, 186; Atarashii Ko¯min Kyo¯kasho 138; Atarashii Rekishi Kyo¯kasho 132, 142, 143; national history 147–8; textbooks 6, 7, 131, 137–8 Tsunoda Saburo¯ 178 26 February 1936 Incident 85, 86, 90 Twenty-One Demands, China 77 Uchida Ryo¯hei 86 ultra-nationalism 98, 103 UN Charter 110 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 114 United States of America: as allies 35; Anglo-Japanese Alliance 79; blacks 75; Britain 78; China 71; criticized 74–5; The Federalist Papers 22; inﬂuence 66, 67, 144; League of Nations 73–4, 80; native American Indians 116, 119 Varéé, Daniel 73 Versailles, Treaty of 74, 78 violence 95, 103; see also assassinations Violence against Women in War–Network Japan 142 Wallerstein, Immanuel 103

war, state of 15, 17–18, 32, 41 war dead 156–7, 169–70, 172, 173–9; see also deaths Washington Conferences 4, 67 wealth, redistribution 98, 103 Weber, Eugen 40n56 Weber, Max 14 Western way of life: civilization 68; criticized 66, 80, 101–2; imperialism 34–5; on Japan 23–4; modernization 9; as temptation 21; trade 19–20 Westphalia, Treaty of 69 Wheaton, H. 68 Williams, David 99 Wilson, George 97–8 Wilson, (T.) Woodrow 67, 71, 76 Women of Yasukuni 161–2 World War I 69 World War II 187 worship: by emperor 155–6, 164, 167, 178; politics 156–7; by prime minister 155–6, 164 xenophobia 10, 38n13 Yamamoto Miono 74 Yasuda Zenjiro¯ 85, 96 Yasukuni Doctrines 162, 168, 172, 173 Yasukuni no Seishin (Takagami) 162–4 Yasukuni Shrine: colonials interred 182; emperor 155–6, 164, 167, 178; Koizumi 2, 7–8, 155–9, 164, 168–9; Korean dead 175–7; Nippon Kaigi 139; public ﬁgures 155–9; spiritual mobilization 160–73; as symbol 184; Taiwan 169, 175–7; women 161–2; see also bereaved families; sacriﬁce Yasuoka Masaatsu 92, 97 yellow race concept 73, 75 Yokohama Martial Association 45 Yokohama Patriotic Ladies Association 45 Yoshida Sho¯in 23, 90 Yoshino Sakuzo¯ 67, 68, 76–7 Young Diet Members Committee to

196 Index Consider the Future of Japan and History Education 140 Yu¯ki Sho¯ji 119 Yüüzonsha 88

zaibatsu 85, 86, 94, 95, 101 Zen inﬂuences 102 Zen Nippon Aikokusha Kyo¯do¯ To¯so¯ Kyo¯gikai 93–4