HOW CAN WE AID DEMOCRACY IN JAPAN?
Romer, Samuel
How Can We Aid Democracy In Japan? JAPANESE MILITARISM—Its Cause and Cure, by John M. Maki. Alfred A. Knopf. $3. Reviewed by Samuel Romer IF Pearl Harbor caught this country unprepared for war,...
...An important part of Maki's tentative solution concerns political reform in Japan such as elimination of an independent military system, return to the Diet of budget control, etc...
...not a pleasant thing but inevitable if Japan is to attain political maturity...
...it is a pity, therefore, that Maki doesn't discuss its corollary—how will the occupying forces, who use the emperor and his power as a front for its rule, treat the inevitable nationalist movement which must, in its opposition to American rule, necessarily attack the emperor as a foreign puppet...
...His review of the political, economic, and military oligarchies which have dominated Japan's history, of the gradual development of the "emperor idea" and the absorption of foreign influences, while adding little new to the subject, presents a complete picture of the Japanese people for the ordinary reader...
...Army occupation manuals, please copy...
...They could agree to the mass surrender of the armies, the surrender of the fleet, the demilitarization of Japan and the temporary policing of Japan by occupation forces...
...Japan's development as a world power was due to a desire by the United States and Britain to forge a precarious balance of power in Asia against a potentially dominant China and Asiatic Russia...
...Especially for those readers who have not had the opportunity to read Sansom's definitive Japan: A Cultural History, Maki will prove invaluable in his cogent summary of the fundamental bases of Japanese society...
...This, Maki points out, will bring forth social chaos in Japan...
...Frequent public appearances, radio speeches, abolition of the stilted honorific language now' used in reference to the emperor would, he feels, rid Hirohito or his successor of much of the mystery which surrounds his role of divinity...
...IN any case, a true democratic turn by Japan will almost certainly mean the loosening of hierarchical relationships both within the family system and in Japanese society itself...
...BUT all this, although the bulk.of the book, is merely background for Maki's important final chapter, "The Future of Japan...
...It will be a test of statesmanship of the victorious United Nations," Maki notes, "to allow Japan to pass through a period of disorder and dislocation that is necessary if she is really to be defeated and if she is to rebuild herself along sane and orderly lines in the future...
...Such a peace would leave untouched the internal structure that has made Japanese militarism and aggression possible...
...Reviewed by Samuel Romer IF Pearl Harbor caught this country unprepared for war, the beginnings of our military occupation of Japan have doubly caught us unprepared for the uneasy peace of tomorrow...
...And to speak of the demilitarization of Japan as a guarantee for avoiding Japanese militarism in the future is arrant nonsense...
...Peace in Asia, as elsewhere, cannot be postulated upon demilitarization ; it must grow out of the natural desires of democratic peoples...
...Part of this process, he suggests, is the shattering of the economic oligarchy as well as the military gang...
...He speaks somewhat wistfully of a possible civil war in Japan growing out of the defeat and aimed at the emperor as "a healthy purge to rid the country of the most dangerous element of its political mediaevalism," . but realistically he is forced to deny the immediate likeliness of such a development...
...All this makes a lot of sense...
...But he recognizes the surface qualities of these measures...
...We can impose a cessation of hostilities on Japan," he points out, "but we cannot impose the conditions of peace on the Japanese people...
...he is certain, however, that the major share of responsibility must be shouldered by the Japanese...
...basic to political reeducation is, at the very least, great modification of the position of the emperor...
...HOW to insure the growth of democracy in Japan is Maki's principal problem...
...similar conditions in the next two decades may well see the United States again resorting to the same tactic...
...We have undertaken, by the Potsdam declaration, responsibility for a country and people about which our knowledge is next to nothing and our myths are innumerable...
...Without pretensions to omniscience, Maki here presents the problems of occupation which must be solved for the future of the Far East and, indeed, the world...
...If Japan is to undergo the political, economic, intellectual and moral equivalents of a social revolution, how can the occupying forces assist the process...
...The key to this denaturalization process would be abolition of lese majeste as a crime—reduction of the emperor to a political figure subject to popular criticism and control...
...he is skeptical of our ability to do this well...
...the crux of political reform is the political education of the Japanese people...
...Maki is not sure of the complete answer...
...Harry Paxton Howard once suggested a parallel with the situation in occupied Turkey after the first World War when the Young Turks, rising against their British conquerors, not only got rid of the British but the "divine" Caliph as well...
...Maki here proposes the "denaturalization" of the emperor to make him a human being...
...This is, of course, exactly what has happened...
...An important contribution to an understanding of the main currents of Japan's social history has been made by John H. Maki, an American of Japanese descent, in his Japanese Militarism...
...Such a development is not impossible in Japan, but its success, ironically enough, will be proportionate to our failure to develop a democratic policy of occupation...
...It is a tribute to his astuteness that, long before the actual cessation of hostilities, he was able to foresee correctly the nature of Japan's surrender...
...Pointing out the empty distinction between the meaningless phrases of "negotiated peace" and "unconditional surrender," he says: "Faced with the prospect of absolute and complete destruction of the economic structure of the country and the loss of much of its manpower, it is conceivable that the "Japanese government might express its willingness to accede to unconditional surrender...
...Development of a well-rounded policy of occupation based upon ignorance is impossible...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 40
