Now, more than 50 years later, it appears the Americans did their job all too well. Japan’s Constitution, including the controversial “peace clause” renouncing war as a sovereign right, was drawn up by Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staffers in short order, not long after the country’s surrender, and it has remained the law of the land ever since. But even as early as the Korean War, American officials began to reimagine Japan as a useful strategic ally in its cold-war fight. The Japanese people, however, less easily overcame the trauma of the country’s first defeat as a modern state. The subconscious, masochistic feelings of servility and dependence toward America remained even after the San Francisco Treaty had been concluded in 1952 and the country regained its independence. At that moment Japan forsook the task of formulating its own Constitution, something that would have marked its true independence as a nation-state. It’s time now for the Japanese people to lay claim to a responsibility abandoned for decades: the Constitution–which shackles the country by its hands and feet–must be totally created anew.
Before he died, I got to know Jiro Shirasu, an aide to the then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who had been one of the Japanese participants in the Constitution-drafting process at the time. In response to my criticism of the way the current Constitution had been drawn up, Shirasu said to me, “Everyone, including Yoshida, knew full well that the whole thing was a fabrication–a quick translation of what was cooked up on the spot. Even so, I felt that we would quickly change such a sorry excuse for a Constitution as soon as we got our independence. What in the world has gone wrong with the Japanese?”
It’s not an easy question to answer. Certainly some blame must fall on weak-kneed politicians who failed to stand up on behalf of the Japanese people. Our national media has also paralyzed the way many think about the country’s international role, pandering as they do to the one-sided criticism that comes from Japan’s Asian neighbors. But something deeper is at work, too. The failure to amend the postwar Constitution is not so much a technical or procedural problem than it is a symbol of prolonged national obsequiousness. And this frame of mind will be altered only when, based on a more balanced view of history, the Japanese people see this document for the illegitimate and unilaterally imposed device that it is. A foreign occupation cannot produce a Constitution of genuine independence.
I really wonder how it is possible for any country that lacks a sense of its true independence to associate with other actors on the international stage, confidently making its own decisions, and seriously and earnestly dealing with the political issues of the day. Japan is ready to shoulder its share of responsibilities abroad, but it will best do so when it undergoes a change in mind-set at home. Scrapping our hand-me-down Constitution is the place to start.
