He used to write in essays as a schoolboy “I want to become a police officer or a member of the Self-Defence Forces (SFD) to protect my family” …Now an SDF reservist, he undergoes a regular programme of basic training, bivouacking, live fire exercises and such “thanks to the cooperation of my colleagues at work…my grandfather who used to serve in the army also backed me up.” (A mental healthcare worker, age 35).
She joined up with her parent’s support, because she wanted to receive training as an emergency rescue worker. “When I first held a rifle in my hands, I truly felt that its weight will let me protect people, “ says she who is due to begin her career as a policewoman next spring. (Senior at Sacred Heart Women’s College, 21).
He used to play pro soccer in France, and was influenced by friends there who joined the army. “I wanted to serve my country too,” he felt, so he joined the SDF reservists. Fluent in French, he workers for a travel agency. “I wanted to utilize this special skill for peace-keeping operations and such in the future.” (Travel agency employee, 32).
These comments come from a five-page photo feature headlined “We Are The Best of SDF Reservists!” in a recent issue of the popular weekly magazine Sh?kan Bunshun showing close-ups of young to middle age company employees, students and even housewives. They include students from elite Tokyo University and Sacred Heart Women’s College, a travel agent, a Buddhist priest and a housewife. Many are aiming or cleaning their rifles. What is most striking is that such a prominent feature in a popular weekly would have been unthinkable in Japan certainly for decades since the end of World War II and maybe even until a few years ago.
The article – not a paid recruitment ad for the SDF – ends with a reminder that reservists receive about 8,000 yen ($80) per day when they take part in the training and ends thus: “Under this system, you can contribute to society and strengthen your body as well as receive a bit of pocket money. Why don’t you give it a try?”
I have been reading Sh?kan Bunshun for well over 40 years, much of that time spent abroad, because, for one thing, I can only afford one weekly, but also because its middle-of-the-road cultural and social editorial policy more or less reflects the Japanese mainstream. In this magazine and its more authoritative sister monthly Bungei Shunj?, and other magazines I catch here and there and, since the advent of the Internet, in a wide array of Japanese news websites, I have rarely seen such a shift in public sentiments on what used to be super controversial subjects of rearmament and military recruitment.
I can clearly recall the times, may be up to the 1970s, when left-wing intelligentsia were very influential in Japan’s academic world as well as the media, when epithets like “tax thieves” were hurled at SDF men who didn’t want to go out in public in their uniforms. Through the 70s up to the 80s, much of which period I worked as a news agency and newspaper journalist outside Japan, I perceived a long period of media indifference, except for when they carried out relief and rescue operations during floods, snowstorms and such, and some peacekeeping operations in the Middle East and elsewhere..
A source of major political dispute used to be the fact that the Self-Defence Forces (Jieiitai), created to meet real needs, had to be named as such instead of Army, Navy and Air Force to get around the wording of the 9thArticle of the US-imposed, post-WWII Constitution. It stipulated that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes, and “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Warnings against remilitarization of Japan from what remains of the socialist forces, whose influence has diminished since the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991, are rarely heard or carried any longer by the media
Nowadays, it’s rare to hear any criticism of the SDF (except in military technology publications). This is partly because of the rising tensions between Japan on one hand and China and South Korea on the other. Heroic efforts of SDF rescue and relief teams after the 2011 East Japan Tsunami Disaster alongside US forces that came to help in “Operation Tomodachi” generated a groundswell of good will for these men and women in uniform. It didn’t take long for the idea of defence against natural disasters to overlap with defence against foreign threat.
At this point, I must make my own position clear. As a former international news journalist and columnist, I am merely reporting that such a significant sea change seems to have quietly “phased in” in Japan. I am not saying stepped-up military recruitment is good for Japan’s future. Nor am I saying it is a bad sign of return to militarism, which once caused a lot of suffering for countries around Japan as well as for Japanese civilians. The reader is asked to judge for himself or herself, and find out more if concerned.
Canadian and American Japanese folks, in particular, share the bitter historical experience of being forcefully relocated and interned after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. Analysts on both sides of the Pacific have not ruled out the possibility of a flare-up between Japan and China over Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands, but this time Japan is a key ally of the US. Should Japan and China, God forbid, come to engage in hostilities again, Japanese Canadians/Americans may have to, depending on the circumstances, come up with a personal position both toward Canadians/Americans in general and specifically toward Chinese Canadian friends and acquaintances. Am I neutral or indifferent? Am I pro-Japan? Am I against Tokyo? Am I against Beijing? And so forth.
If there has been a shift in the Japanese people’s sentiments, it is a subtle one because there has not been much public discussion or debate. This is often the case in Japan when the majority begin to feel differently about a major issue (e.g. military service). Maybe we don’t need to debate the pros and cons in public because “we all feel the same way anyway.” We also stand to lose some intellectual face if we admit to changing our minds about an important subject.
Back in the years before the Pearl Harbor attack, there was an information divide between the Issei who mostly only read the local Japanese-language newspapers, whose contents were virtually the same as the completely pro-government media in Japan at the time, and the Nisei who read the Canadian English-language press. Many Issei even thought Japan would win the war. Today, we are much better informed and have a much broader global outlook, thanks to the abundance of information in new media like the Internet – or so we’d like to think. But are we now more capable of making a well-informed judgement?.
Let’s hope peace prevails.
