Japanese Liberalism and Shintoism
HUNTER, EDWARD
Japanese Liberalism and Shintoism By Edward Hunter ANY discussion of Japanese ehareeteri»tics nowadays SNW to tor down in an argument over Japan's liberals. They are the individuals to whom...
...The way they practiced their liberalism was by collaborating with the extremists in subjecting one lsnd after another to conquest, snd in facilitating the worst excesses of the Jspanese extremists...
...The old method of doing things failed...
...Only we do not torture animals for our sport, at least not generally...
...IIKRE we come across one of the words which the Japanese use so often—liberals as well as extremists—"understand...
...His goal is the same—world conquest...
...It has been a heaven-sent gift to Japan's propagandists and apologists...
...Woodrow Wilson said: "I can pre ^ diet with absolute certainty that within another generation there will be another World War, if the nations of the world do not concert the method whereby to prevent it...
...It can conceal so much...
...The Japanese liberal would much prefer to have the world tamely accept the sovereignty of the Japanese god-man...
...On the 26th of the same month, only a matter of minutes before the collapse which ended his active part in world affairs, he cried out: "I do not hesitate to say that the war we have just been through though it was shot through with terror of every kind, is not to be compared with the war we should have to face next time...
...What he means is to "understand Japan's special position as the land of the gods, destined to rule the earth and exploit all other peoples by virtue of that special position...
...He loudly proclaims himself the inheritor of the earth, by divine *%hfc (Who would have ever thought, after World war I ended the theory of the divine right of kings, that World War n would have the divine right of contort as an issue...
...It has the overwhelming advantages of tradition and success...
...Special position" is another such deceiving expression in the vocabulary of the Japanese...
...Civfli*tion failed...
...he is the terrorist...
...AH Japanese sre Shinto-it is compulsory, and is thoroughly and scientifically indoctrinated in every Japanese from birth...
...That was why I was able to hear liberals talking liberal in Japan, and then see the same men in Manchuria and elsewhere in China translating their liberalism into extremist practices...
...It is only their manner of expression and procedure that differ...
...Shintoism, and Japanese liberalism are not so bad after all...
...Our natural reaction is to visualize Japanese liberals u jimilar to our own...
...Tto Japanese chauvinist is a viciously hard master...
...But in politica, as in groceries, similar labels do not necessarily mean similar contents...
...He is in the vanguard of Japan's conquests...
...Even in the highly censored, expurgated copies of our State Department papers of that time, we come across constant evidence of this...
...But without the liberal Debuchi, Japan would never have succeeded in the conquest of Msnchuria...
...They are the individuals to whom Ambassador Grew refers in such forgiving, hopeful trust, as if a personal issue were involved—which is indeed the case...
...They can only be a front...
...Understand," for instance...
...It makes no difference whether a Japanese is a naa8m" or a citizen of some other country, or merely "wdes abroad...
...Fundamentally he is considered a Shintoist—one of the gods—and thus owes his funda-loyalty to hia chief god on earth, the Emperor...
...The Japanese liberal loves this word, in all its forms and tenses...
...It could not be otherwise, for the liberal and the extremist are both Shintoists...
...He would have us "understand...
...So long as the Japanese do not atrip their tribal cult of this dsngeroes aspect, of which the Em-porer is the vitsl symbol, Jspan'a liberals cannot be trusted...
...The resultant weasel-worded decree by the government explained the difficulty away diplomatically, with the same double-talk that for years denied there waa any Sinn Japanese War, but only a "China incident...
...It was just twenty years ago that the life of Wood-row Wilson came to an end...
...There is a fundamental difference...
...So long as their orthodox Shintoism continues, Jspan will remain a world menace, and the Japanese liberal will be libersl only in the means he uses to seek his ends...
...The ends will be those of a Shintoism that classifies the Jspanese as the liberal kin of the gods...
...Yes, indeed, without the Debuchis, the evil precedent in aggression would not have been set that was ultimately to cost us so much blood and property, and to threaten our whole existence...
...It worked like a charm...
...The Japanese, however, cleverly did not force the issue...
...J"HK head of this Shinto religion is the Japanese Emperor, who is also a god in the Shinto pantheon...
...8, 1910...
...IT has been ststed recently that the Jspanese * Emperor and Shintoism arc stabilizing forces which should be preserved in postwar Japan, the basis upon which to rebuild a "democratic'' and peaceful Japan with which we can cooperate...
...The Shintoism that was taught to all Japanese led them to accept the Emperor as the direct descendant of the gods by an unbroken lineage, and hence a god himself, and that the Japanese People shared this divinity...
...Its observances remained the same as before, of course...
...They complain that we "misunderstand...
...That is where the Japanese liberal differs from the Japanese extremist...
...Because the fathers were fools in 1919, the sons are dying in 1944...
...Edward Hunter, Far Eastern editor of the New York Po»f, here analyzes this theory, snd demolishes it The New Leader plana to publish in future is-sues seversl srticles dealing with Japan, and the problems of the American citizen of Japanese ancestry...
...He believes that you often can get farther by soft words than by shouts...
...The Japanese Foreign Office, employing its liberals in the role in which they have proven most useful, thought up a beautiful formula' that enabled the missionaries to evade the issue...
...It was not just the United States that failed...
...The story of our failure in 1919 is long and complicated...
...AN EDITORIAL Our Second Chonce QN Sept...
...He was such a suave gentleman...
...I But it is to give a message of hope that the friends of Woodrow Wilson send out their booklet...
...Debuchi was his name, and he was much admired and heeded by our State Department...
...They tell us in various forms, in the words of far-scattered speakers and writers, that we are given second chances but not an endless serie.« of them...
...It's the analysis of the content* that counts...
...The pupils would bow to the gods, and to the spirits of the soldier dead, and return to their classrooms convinced that surely this Shintoism was supreme...
...Washington socifty just loved him...
...It was not just the little group of willful Senators who failed...
...Without the Debuchis for whom our Grews are nrW paving the way by their pro-Hirohito and other appeasement pleas, the Japs would not have a chance to win World War III, for which they are already preparing, even if they lose World War II...
...Whereas Japanese extremists prefer to gain their ends by being blunt and ruthless, the liberal thinks it more advisable to sugar-coat his aims by using words to which we have been pleasantly accustomed, "pet words" which do not lrighten us...
...they call us intractable and aggressive for "not understanding...
...If the Christian missionaries in Japan had been true to their faith, they could not conceivably have consented, as they did, to wster their own religious teachings in accordance with Shintoist precepts...
...Other loyalties are permissible, only so long as they do conflict with this basic once, indeed, they are enraged as a convenience that is useful when one is Preparing a Pearl Harbor, for instance...
...His double talk was the envy of the diplomstic colony...
...It is against this background that you must consider Japan's liberals...
...In Japan, therefore, you could meet a Catholic priest, an Episcopalian minister, or the pastor of almost any Christian denomination, leading his flock of Japanese pupils to a Shinto shrine for the national religious observances...
...Calvin Coolidge waa President, and the League of Nations had been fatally hamstrung by the Senate of the United States...
...Under the liberal formula Tokyo formally announced that Shintoism was not to be considered as a state religion...
...The reason is deep-rooted in Japen'a politico-religious gystem known as Shintoism...
...Ha must prove before history that Us pre-war trust in Japanese liberals was justified...
...His beliefs are in no way different from that of any other Japanese as regards the god hood of the Emperor and his own share of that divine blood...
...Larry Tajiri, editor of the Pacific Citizen will contribute one such article...
...In every classroom, his picture was bowed to and revered as that of en alter god...
...That is what they did, however, when confronted by the Japanese with a take-it-or-leave proposition...
...he expresses his supposed superiority in exploitation and atrocities, as auita his mood snd purposes...
...The State Department has Intimated that the Emperor...
...Japanese may profess themselves to be Buddhists, or yven Christians, but they are simultaneously Shintoists...
...He considers his relstion to other peoples very much ss we consider our rels-tionships to the dumb besets of the fields...
...Time after time.our government took no action over an extremist "coup because of the appeal by Debuchi that this would be embarrassing to the "liberal element" in Japan...
...It colors every action and viewpoint of every Japanese...
...Of course, there is a basic conflict between the dogma ef Shintoism and other religions, particularly Christianity...
...not necessarily be forced...
...There is little if any argument regarding the character of Japan's chauvinists—the type •f Japanese who has always been accepted as an extremist, whose ranks provide the immolating ronin, the akull-crushing soshin, the political gangsters who do the dirty work...
...Thus they have been brought up from infancy, with anything else in addition that they may choose to adapt and subordinate...
...Without the Debuchis, and the other smirking liberals of the Tokyo Club to which Ambassador Grew was such a loyal member, Japanese extremists would never have gotten away with their crimes and their Pearl Harbor...
...This Japanese belief in his divine jW to rule the earth relegates all other peoples, be •ay Americana or Britons or Chinese, to an inferior *»•»• Other people are admittedly of the stuff of this **> created out of the earth, without even a drop of *• divine blood that each Japanese is taught pours J*»b>bly through the veins of his Emperor, and only less »«ehly through his own veins...
...Sadly and reverently it must be said, a part of the failure was Woodrow Wilson's...
...You inn across it often, snd it has worked marvels for Japan...
...How could it be otherwise when even the priests and ministers of other religions seemingly accepted it, even leading them to its ceremonials and services...
...The Japanese liberal is an entirely different breed than our own...
...But Japan's Foreign Office liberals explained that henceforth Shintoism as decreed by the government would be classified as a tradition, as a set of national customs, as any phraseology you pleased, so long as you did not interfere with the ceremoniala and the prayers snd the other practices common to all religion...
...Such a liberal was the Japanese Ambassador at Washington when the Manehurian conquest started in 1931, which set the precedent for the whole series of aggressions that led to World War II...
...But the tragic nature of our failure is evident in every casualty list...
...The extremist is frank and boastful...
...Of hope— and also of warning...
...The Wood-row Wilson Foundation calls our attention to these things with a commemorative pamphlet entitled Our Second Chance...
...The difference is only in the means by which he hopes to obtain the rights and privileges that naturally should go with such superiority...
...Thus, it cannot be stressed too often, Japan's liberals hsve exsctly the same aims as Japan's extiemists, and these aims are totalitarian in their demand for world conquest and the subservience of all other peoples...
...He excelled in chitchat at tea parties...
Vol. 27 • March 1944 • No. 10
