A Buddhist View of Revising Japan's Constitution
by Ryumyo Yamazaki
I have been writing books and essays for nearly forty years, but looking at the blank page before me now I find myself feeling strangely nervous. This is not an exaggeration: what I am about to write is what I would like to be the testament to my life as a Buddhist.
War Hurts Both Sides
The Vietnam War started in 1965. America's savage bombardment of North Vietnam was undertaken as part of its official policy to protect Vietnam from Communism. However, in fact it was a war between the United States and the Soviet Union fought on Vietnamese soil. Human beings really are stupid. It seems we can never stop waging war, never stop killing one another. The twentieth century has been called the century of war; during those one hundred years, 250 major or minor wars were fought around the world, killing some 200 million people.
After the Vietnam War ended, wars continued to break out all over the world--the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, and ethnic conflicts in a number of countries. Wars are not natural disasters. Human beings cause wars. Thus, human beings must be the ones to stop them. Indeed, we can without a doubt stop wars. In particular, people who profess religious faith should surely be sensitive to these acts of human folly.
Once a war has begun, nobody knows when it will be over. War hurts both the agressors and the victims. That is why it is said there is no such thing as true victory in war. It has now been nearly forty years since the Vietnam War. Yet we read reports about some American soldiers who fought in that war who are still unable to take part in ordinary life because they continue to experience fear of the unseen enemy. Every strange person they see reminds them of a Viet Cong guerrilla. These men are both agressors and victims. And now we read that more than thirty-two hundred American soldiers and more than thirty thousand Iraqi civilians have died in the Iraq War.
Even worse, there appears to be no end in sight in Iraq--not only that, but the course being taken is making the war bog down even further. This war will probably not be resolved no matter how many more American troops are sent in. Such a course will simply create an even bigger mountain of corpses. As soon as possible, all the combatants must admit to their own stupidity and savagery and start looking for a peaceful way to resolve the conflict. Public opinion polls in the United States show that more than 60 percent of Americans think the Iraq War is wrong. President Bush has become frantic and insisted on sending in thirty thousand more troops. Meanwhile, on March 20, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the start of the war, a huge antiwar demonstration took place in the United States, including a parade of coffins draped with the American flag. Japan also sent a contingent of its Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, but none of them were killed, and none used their weapons to kill anyone. Why was that? This raises the central theme of my essay: Japan's Constitution.
The sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II occurred in 2005, and the topic of revising Japan's Constitution was much discussed at that time. As many Japanese readers may be aware, loud voices were raised by the movement in favor of "throwing out the Constitution forced on Japan by the United States," or "creating our own, original constitution." I would like to delve into this issue from the perspective of my Buddhist faith. A nation's constitution is of extreme importance to its citizens. So, I am thoroughly disgusted by the spectacle of politicians who take the issue lightly or even ignore it completely.
The present Constitution is the means by which the people place restraints on the state to prevent it from abusing its power or infringing on their liberty and other rights. Article 98 clearly states that the Constitution is the country's supreme law.
Heading toward War
The authority of the Japanese state rests in its Constitution, which is based on the principles of (1) popular sovereignty, (2) fundamental human rights, and (3) pacifism. These principles are the priceless legacy of the countless people who suffered and died in the course of our history. And as some people may also be aware, Article 96 places certain restrictions on the process of amending the Constitution.
Our current Constitution's chapter 2 places special emphasis on the "renunciation of war," as stated in Article 9: "Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, 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.
"In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."
In the draft of a new constitution proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party on November 22, 2005, the part of this article's second paragraph that prohibits "maintaining war potential" was eliminated. Instead, the party offered four clauses dealing with a "self-defense military." The draft clearly empowers the state to maintain a self-defense military with the prime minister as its supreme commander. In January 2007, the Defense Agency became Japan's Ministry of Defense.
Though I will spare readers lengthy quotations from that draft constitution, I do not think I am the only person who believes that it was intended to open a swift, easy path to war. The thrust of its proposed revisions is to restore the Self-Defense Forces to full military status and clearly reinstate Japan's right to maintain war potential, and as such it must be interpreted as a menace to the above-mentioned principles of pacifism and fundamental human rights. Such revisions would not improve, but rather would degrade, our Constitution.
I think that the present Constitution is consistent with the spirit of Buddhism in that it embodies the three principles of respect for life, protection of human rights, and renunciation of war. Though there are many sects of Buddhism, I am sure that the precept of not taking life and practicing nonviolence are fundamental to all of them. Can anyone blame me for saying that someone who denies or disregards these principles is not a Buddhist?
Our present reality is extremely harsh in some respects. Just as the twentieth century, the "century of war," came to a close and the new century began, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States were perpetrated. From that point on, our world changed. As an official policy to keep our homelands secure, advocates started calling loudly for massive military strengthening without reasonable balance. The nuclear experiments conducted by North Korea even seemed to transform most of Japan's population of some 127 million into militarists. All wars are fought for perceived reasons of self-defense, and the participants nominally consider them good wars (such as holy wars and crusades). But in truth there are no such wars. Whatever kind of wars there may be, they are humankind's worst folly and worst sin. This I learned from the Buddha.
I set great store by the words of the Buddha, who said that fear does not lead us to arm ourselves with weapons, but arming ourselves with weapons leads to fear.
The fear and uneasiness felt by nations without nuclear weapons leads them to conduct nuclear experiments, and to play this as a diplomatic trump card in the international arena. At the same time, countries that do have nuclear weapons criticize and bring tremendous pressure to bear on other countries for possessing or seeking to possess nuclear capability. This is the accepted order of things in our present world.
Something Wrong with Idealism?
A disciple of the Buddha shall not, out of personal benefit or evil intentions, act as a country's emissary to foster military confrontation and war causing the slaughter of countless sentient beings. (Brahma Net Sutra)
Do not use swords, staves, or other weapons, but always seek to drive all kinds of evil away through ways and means based on correct wisdom. (Mahaparinirvana Sutra)
This is the message from the Buddha. The Larger Sutra on Amitayus also says, "Wherever the Buddha comes to stay, there is no state, town, or village that is not blessed by his virtues. The whole country reposes in peace and harmony. The sun and the moon shine with pure brilliance; wind rises, and rain falls at the right time. There is no calamity of epidemic, and so the country becomes wealthy, and its people enjoy peace. Soldiers and weapons become useless; and people esteem virtue, practice benevolence, and diligently cultivate courteous modesty." I am always impressed by the line about how soldiers and weapons become useless. This is the world for which Buddhists should be striving.
Whenever I write something like this, I always receive the same reaction: "That is nothing but idealism." This in turn always reminds me of a saying of the prominent Buddhist scholar and educator Junjiro Takakusu: "People without ideals inevitably become degenerate." It is said that in our present age, adults can no longer speak of having a dream for the future. Perhaps we can no longer speak of having ideals, either. It could be said that is a blind spot of our age, in which ideals are blocked out.
Katsumi Hirakawa, a well-known Japanese entrepreneur, writes, "Laws are not enacted to justify existing reality, but to bring reality into line with the principles expressed by the laws. This is the fundamental purpose of establishing laws, but as long as society does not respect the law, laws will continue to seem idealistic" ("Article 9: Is There Something Wrong with Idealism?" Asahi Shimbun, January 13, 2007).
Thanks to its constitutional promise to completely renounce war, Japan has not killed a single person, and no Japanese people have been killed, through a military exercise of Japan's "sovereign right as a nation" since World War II. We must not forget these facts. I think they have been forgotten by those who are prepared to create "a nation that can go to war at any time" in reaction to the tense international situation. That is leading to the constitutional degradation movement. This kind of overall context also allows us to understand recent legislation to revise the Fundamental Law of Education that aims to make children more obedient, patriotic, and willing to give up their lives for their country, although current social problems involving youth crime were tacked on to help justify the changes.
Recently, many letters have been written to the leading newspapers by elderly Japanese who are afraid of war taking place. Almost all talk of Japan's last war is confined to how the Japanese people suffered, however. This led one person to write of "handing down the stories of war's tragedy, even at times of victory." He wrote, "We need to do more about admitting our own faults in killing, wounding, capturing, and otherwise causing suffering to those on the other side" (Asahi Shimbun, June 29, 2005). A different sort of opinion was also expressed in that newspaper's readers' column by a tanka poet: "Military conscription seems not so bad / when I see young people lounging about on street corners." In answer to that, another person pointed out: "Isn't it too simplistic to think that putting idle young people into the military will solve these problems? The military is where humans are transformed into tools of war, not a place where young people are educated as human beings. The state of Japanese society causes young people to become wild and slovenly--shouldn't it be society's responsibility to rehabilitate them?" (August 4, 2006).
I know many people who think that military service is a good way to teach discipline to young people. This makes me sad. Reading the last letter above, I was greatly impressed by the writer's healthy approach. In Shuju no Kotoba (Words of a Dwarf) the author, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, wrote: "The first job of the military is to deprive people of their reason." We must not think, even out of mere ignorance, that military service is a way of educating youth.
Toward Prohibiting War
Kiyohiko Koike, formerly a bureau chief at the Defense Agency and now mayor of Kamo City in Niigata Prefecture, circulated a petition far and wide calling for rejection of the Iraqi Special Measures Law, a bill enabling deployment of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to Iraq. He has continued to protest this law on the grounds that it allows the SDF to be deployed overseas and is therefore unconstitutional. Many people, including retired Defense Agency officials, agree with his position. Koike is a constitutional revisionist and believes that Japan should have a strong military. However, while working with the United States military forces he gained a new understanding of the significance of the Japanese Constitution's Article 9. He writes of the Peace Constitution as Japan's treasure and declares that "without Article 9 Japan would have become totally engaged in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War. The Japanese people would also not be respected throughout the world as a peace-loving nation, as we are today" (Asahi Shimbun, November 30, 2003). He expresses his belief that those who lost their lives in the last great war would want more than anything for us to protect our Constitution and refrain from sending soldiers overseas.
That is what someone who studied at the Royal College of Defense Studies of the United Kingdom and served as president of the National Institute for Defense Studies and as chief of the Bureau of Education and Training of the Defense Agency had to say about Article 9.
The Iraq War has bogged down. As in the previous case of the Vietnam War, it has become guerrilla warfare that shows no signs of being resolved. America is finding it difficult to bear the cost and is looking to its allies to enter the war. We must not overlook the problems created by the constitutional degradation movement, which originated with the United States and is an attempt to accommodate the United States. Experts in the field have pointed to the strong influence exerted by American economic trends on an entire series of Japanese government administrative reforms as well. Japan is not one of America's states. When I think about the oppressive presence of American military bases in Japan, I begin to wonder if Japan is an independent country after all.
Nine years ago, the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in the Netherlands brought together some ten thousand citizen from around the world. The first of the ten principles it issued called on the parliaments of all nations to adopt a resolution barring their government from engaging in war, as Japan's Article 9 does.
Thoughtful people in other countries who have been victimized and harmed by wars value and support the Japanese Constitution even more than the Japanese people do. This is something more Japanese ought to know. I will never forget what one young American said to me while I was in the United States: "Article 9 of your Constitution is a wonderful thing. I think Japan's Constitution is the only constitution that its people can universally be proud of before the whole world. Why don't Japanese people seem to realize this?" This conversation took place about ten years after the end of the Vietnam War.
I often say that the awareness of belonging to a group creates outsiders. The happy chatter of a close circle of friends makes pleasant listening, even from the sidelines. However, that very awareness of being a member of a group inherently includes an exclusiveness that repels those who do not belong. I do not really believe in the concept of nations as "allies," because this also inherently assumes shunning those nations that are not allies. This in turn gives rise to various kinds of hatred and conflict that often lead to war.
The menace posed by military power can certainly create tense relations, but it never does lead to reconciliation. It leads rather to a chain reaction of violence that is difficult to stop once it gets started. It is therefore a monumental task to achieve peace without relying on recourse to military power.
"Creating peace requires courage, wisdom and patience--not the kind of courage needed to fight and die, but the kind needed to say 'No,' together with the kind of wisdom that can discover alternatives and the kind of patience and broad-mindedness that can endure adversity without flinching.
"If local societies and entire nations could develop these powers, the world would be a happier place than it is at present. If they consciously accepted that as their goal, conflict resolution methods other than war would become possible and a different world could be achieved," writes Mari Ichida ("War Is Not the Answer," Zen no Tomo [Zen Friends], [December 2006]).
Viewing the Misery of War
Now more than ever, it is time for humankind to join together and move toward creating peace. The twentieth century having been the "century of war," it seems that the twenty-first century should be a good opportunity to do this, even though at present the world is still a crucible of discrimination, poverty, and conflict. The flames of war burn all over the world, and its victims are many. The wisdom and faith of Buddhists are again being called into account. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's proposed revisions to the Fundamental Law of Education were aimed at creating a younger generation that would be useful to the state, unwilling to defy their superiors, and ready to die for their country, forming a nation of a hundred million people with a single will, prepared to go to war at any time. To that end he and some of his colleagues were trying to revise the Constitution as well.
The first Japanese World War II war criminal to be executed by the Allied Powers was Kei Yuri, age twenty-six; he left behind his mother and his fiancee He believed it was for the good of his country and to honor his beloved mother to grow up as a youth imbued with a militaristic spirit, experiencing no doubts as he followed that path straightforwardly. He quickly forged a successful military career and while still very young was appointed commander of Prisoner of War Camp No. 17-B at Omuta in Fukuoka Prefecture on Kyushu. He was executed for his responsibility for atrocities inflicted on Allied prisoners when he served in that capacity. After his death, his mother, Tsuru, declared, "I am the one who killed my son. It was the great sin of a stupid mother." She was a mother who single-mindedly taught her son that he should be a soldier and serve the emperor. He was a son who believed that obeying his mother was his filial duty, and who was executed at the age of twenty-six for his pains. At that time, most people said, "It was the fault of the government; we were tricked by the government." However, Tsuru Yuri acknowledged her "great sin of a stupid mother"--that was her apology to her son and her expression of profound repentance for her inability to see clearly the error and misery of war. Even now, more than sixty years later, countless people still live with unhealed wounds suffered in that war.
Before I put down my pen, I would like to finish with a comment from a reader's letter to the Asahi Shimbun that impressed me greatly:
We have the Peace Constitution now because my father and so many other people died. If they want to change it, they should bring my father back to life first. Only after that.
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