Gwynne Dyer: Japan's August election is a revolution
Hey BT'ers! I received this email today from a longtime reader. He asks: " What do you think about the following article?" He continues by saying: "For me, the part that really stuck out was mentioning the use of yakuza enforcers by the LDP. Years ago, I read a book called Japan the Blighted Blossom which was written in the mid '80s and the book was a counter-argument against the '80s notion that Japan would turn into this global economic monster devouring everything in its path. One part mentioned talked about activists for those harmed by polluted lake water, had the shit kicked out of them by yakuza thugs brought in by the local politician."[My opinion] Dyer's article is very interesting and I agree with many points. I believe that the yakuza, for example, are in almost every facet of Japan. Politicians are backed by yakuza, some religious organizations, shipping, construction and many service companies are backed by yakuza. Heck even the yakuza handle(d) various dealings on and outside US bases in Japan via "legitimate" companies. This is nothing new to the Japanese, although it may come as a surprise to the average foreigner in Japan.The Liberal Democratic Party had the backing and blessing of the US during the Cold War mainly due their help in securing / creating certain alliances in Asia. For example, the extension of the Mutual Security Treaty with the United States in 1960's was endorsed by Parliament and of course the LDP. Nobosuke Kishi (1958 Prime Minister) was helped by a rich ultranationalist, Black Dragon Society member and Class A war criminal, Yoshio Kodama (who would later be under the "services" of the CIA after his release from prison). Kodama provided the funds that started the Liberal Party. He provided more money in 1955 when the party merged with the Democratic Party to create the American-backed Jiyu-Minshu-To or LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), the party of Japan's conglomerates or zaibatsu.In 1958, Kodama went to work for the CIA and helped funnel money to the LDP who in return kept communism at bay. He "aided" in stopping communism in Indonesia and even helped lay the groundwork towards a peace treaty between Japan and South Korea. The Japan Socialist Party was opposed to the US-Japan Security Treaty and was basically a major thorn in the side of the LDP. Kodama via friends helped quite the noise.Kodama also, with the help of a friend with "connections" who had a connection with the head of the Korean CIA who had help from another "backer," helped create the downfall in 1960 of the very anti-Japanese Syngman Rhee in favor of the military dictator General Park Chung Hee. Park helped the US have a NATO-style military alliance in the Pacific Rim. Que my entry into the region in 1981 and my first taste of international democracy via one of many lessons learned on the Korean Peninsula.So with that said and adding a little more background information to the Dyer article, do I feel the DPJ's victory is a revolution? Yes and no! Yes, because the Japanese voters got fed up with the crap the LDP dished out decade after decade and voted the party out of "favor" not power. No, because the old guard is wearing a new acronym and those no longer in favor are regrouping behind the scenes and still hold many key alliances within US and other nations political and business circles. Those in power (the LDP and DPJ) will not lose what their father, grandfather and those before them created. The DPJ barely had a transition team in place to deal with the victory. Can I seriously believe that they can deal with the LDP and CHANGE in Japan? Well, only time will tell. Then again, if the Japanese voters are as impatient as some Americans and those in the "news" business dealing with CHANGE in America, time may be told faster than a new prime minister in Japan!Note: all information provided above was derived from unclassified OPEN sources found in various journals,newspapers, research papers, public documents, books and interviews.
[Gwynne Dyer] "Some years ago, a political science professor at a Japanese university told me that he reckoned you could fit everybody who counted in Japan into one room. There are about 400 of them, so it would have to be a ballroom. All but a couple would be men, of course—and at least half of them would be there because their fathers and grandfathers were in the same ballroom 25 and 50 years ago.
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a landslide victory in the election on August 30, sweeping the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) out after an almost unbroken 54 years in power, but it still must break that system if it is really going to change Japan. It won’t be easy.Since the last elected LDP prime minister resigned three years ago, three other members have filled the job: Shinzo Abe, the grandson of a former prime minister; Yasuo Fukuda, the son of a former prime minister; and now Taro Aso, also the grandson of a former prime minister. And what about Yukio Hatoyama, the DPJ leader who will soon be the prime minister and promises to break the system? He is the grandson of the prime minister who defeated Aso’s grandfather.The DPJ should end up with between 308 members in the 480-seat House of Representatives, which should be a majority big enough to crush all opposition, but it’s a bit more complicated than that in Japan. Not everybody in that small ballroom filled with the 400 people who matter is a politician.Most of them are the businessmen who run the giant corporations that used to be called zaibatsu (the pre-Second World War industrial conglomerates) and the top layer of senior civil servants—all of whom have been in bed with the LDP all of their working lives. In Japan they call it the “iron triangle”: LDP faction leaders, senior civil servants, and industrial bosses, all working together to stifle change and keep themselves in power. It’s a hard combination to beat.The one previous time in living memory when the LDP lost power—to a fragile coalition of opposition parties in 1993—the iron triangle immediately set to work to undermine and discredit the new government, and the LDP was back in power in 11 months. That isn’t going to happen this time, for three reasons.
- The LDP has presided over another 15 years of economic stagnation, and people no longer link it with the boom years.
- This time it is a single opposition party, ready to take over the government.
- The recession is ending in Japan, although unemployment remains high.
- Nevertheless, it will be a miracle if the Democratic Party of Japan can really change the country even with four undisturbed years in power.
About 15 years ago, when I was young and foolish, I spent a couple of months in Japan pursuing a single question: why was Japan the only developed country outside the Communist world that didn’t have a “Sixties”? (I had just finished a television series, which is the moral equivalent of living in a cave for two years, so I needed to get out a bit.)Was there something unique in Japanese culture that insulated it from social and political trends elsewhere in the industrialized world? Why were Japanese people still so deferential, so hierarchical, so docile in the face of arrogant power and insolent corruption? Why was Japan, for all intents and purposes, a one-party state?That was the question I went with, in my ignorance—but everybody in Japan knows the answer. Japan’s equivalent of the “Sixties” actually began in the 1950s, but it was ruthlessly crushed.By the 1950s the Cold War was going full blast in Asia, and the United States was afraid that the youth revolution getting underway in Japan was the prelude to a Communist take-over. It probably wasn’t anything of the sort, but the U.S. was occupying Japan and so took action to stop it.The old zaibatsu were allowed to rebuild, because that was the quickest way to get Japan back on its feet economically. Conservative politicians (including some war criminals) were encouraged to form a political party that received full American support, the LDP. And the government that emerged from this, with considerable help from its yakuza (gangster) allies, beat the kids’ revolt into the ground.By the time the rest of the developed world had its Sixties, the battle had been fought and lost in Japan. During the half-century that followed, most people just kept their heads down and stayed out of trouble. It is still rare for ordinary people to discuss politics in Japan, even though the active repression ended a generation ago.That is the system and the mindset that the DPJ must start to dismantle if Japan is to become a normal democratic country. The “iron triangle” will fight until the very last ditch to preserve the present system, however badly it has served the country. So the key question becomes: can the DPJ reach and take the last ditch in only four years?"Gwynne Dyer’s latest book, Climate Wars, was published recently in Canada by Random House. Note: This article was originally published on August 25 and was updated on August 31 to take Japan's official election results into account.[ad#468x60-ad]
