Global Article 9 Campaign World Conference Hiroshima
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. 2) 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.
Even in light of the fact that just over 62 years on, Japan has the world's 4th largest military budget after the USA, United Kingdom and France,
Article 9 of Japan's peace constitution is heady stuff; words that make you feel giddy with the potential of the human race to move beyond conflict
as a means of resolving disputes.
That Article 9 is a source of inspiration to peace activists around the world, a model that perhaps one day more countries around the world will adopt
for themselves, was the main message that I came away from the Hiroshima satellite meeting of the Global Article 9 Campaign World Conference held at
Aster Plaza May 5. The Global Article 9 Campaign aims to mobilize domestic and international opposition to voices within the Japanese government
calling for the amendment of the constitution.
It appears that the issue has touched many nerves. The 1100 people gathered at Aster Plaza were told that some 12,000 people packed into the Makuhari Messe - the location of the main 3 day conference in Chiba - the previous day, with a further 3000 turned away at the turnstiles.
In Hiroshima, the main speaker was Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Community of Peace People in Northern Ireland.
Her speech was followed by comments relating to Article 9 by a "relay panel" that included Hiroshima UNITAR Office Director Nassrine Azimi and chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation Steve Leeper who were given the task of
painting a picture of complex issues in a very short time.
Corrigan-Maguire gave a measured but impassioned speech which recognized the important work of the hibakusha who have been giving
testimony to the events of August, 1945 and their aftermath, and urged the next generation to use the moral authority Hiroshima has to continue their
work as the hibakusha age and pass away. More generally, she spoke of the importance of both receiving and giving forgiveness in paving the way for the
hard work of building peace. I could not hold back my tears as she cited the painful experience of the loss of 3 nieces and nephews and her sister that
set her on course of peace activism in Northern Ireland.
She highlighted the plight of Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu on behalf of whom
the local Hiroshima Amnesty group does a lot of work and called on Japan to actively apologize for past acts of aggression while holding out the hand
of friendship to China, Korea and other Asian nations.
It was a wide ranging speech, and if you have a spare 30 minutes I highly recommend watching the
video below (unfortunately, the final 30 seconds are missing due to my battery running out). On the whole the Japanese interpretation provided was
excellent, but I did feel that in translation her final appeal to the young people of Japan lost some of the obvious passion with which it was delivered.
In her comments referencing many of the charts available
here Director of UNITAR's Hiroshma office
Nassrine Azimi asserted that the opportunity to reap a
significant peace dividend after the Cold War had been squandered, and highlighted the unfavorable ratio of military spending to
spending on education and health in many poor countries and conflict zones, countries that can so ill-afford this waste of their national wealth.
Azimi compared some governments to drug addicts- addicted to war and the arms supplies that enable such wars- and the world’s major
arms suppliers (the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council among them) to drug dealers; and called on these nations to
recognize their responsibility and set a different course. She offered one of the few examples given by the speakers of a tangible
benefit of Article 9: that despite Japan having one of the world's highest defense budgets, the peace constitution prohibits the
export of arms from Japan.
The final speaker, Steven Leeper, received rousing applause for his direct appeal for Japan to become a heroic nation, respected throughout the world for its attitudes
towards peace by reaffirming its commitment to Article 9.
He said that in recent reading he had learned that the idea of including an outright
renunciation of war in the constitution was not, as is often claimed, imposed by the American occupiers but came from the Japanese
side. This view of the origin of Article 9 is in contrast to that of
John Dower in his book
Embracing Defeat,
but the overwhelming support for Article 9 among a populace exhausted from years of war is perhaps of more relevance than the nationality
of who first brought it up.
Rather than ascribing moves to revise the peace constitution to domestic nationalists, Leeper firmly laid the blame
for increasing pressure on the US government.
The effort to change Article 9 is being led by people who want to continue working for and making money from the US military industrial complex.
He called on Japan, in much the same way as one would intervene when a friend who has been drinking tries
to drive home, to say "no" to its ally on issues such as the use of nuclear weapons of any size, and military intervention in other nations
unsanctioned by the UN.
Saying “no” to the US right now is Japan’s mission. This is Japan’s most important job. And it starts by saying, “No, we will not change our Peace Constitution. In fact, we want you and all nations to change your War Constitutions.
It was a call for Japan to assert its independence in foreign policy and in a different context, with quite different aims, one could imagine Japan's
hawkish right wing nationalists keen to revise Article 9 and "normalize" Japanese foreign policy applauding these sentiments. In so doing, Steven Leeper
came closest to touching on the question of whether Japan is only able to have a peace constitution because it is so firmly sheltered under the umbrella
of US security, and whether it is a luxury that it could not afford should it start to say "no" to its closest ally and protector.
Leeper spoke, as he has elsewhere, about the need for the move from a war culture to a peace culture and if we are to indeed achieve that, then perhaps we need a vision as heady as the framers of the Japanese constitution had back in 1946. That, and the courage to put it into practice, for Japan to truly take the lead in moving towards a peace culture and transform Article 9 from mostly symbolic to truly iconic.
The meeting seems to have been a call to arms by some of the leading lights of the global peace movement to Japan's peace activists. In this respect there is certainly a place for preaching to the converted, however, perhaps because I don't have a great deal of background knowledge concerning Article 9 or have had much involvement in the Peace Movement, I would have liked more practical ideas on how to generate discussion among people whose minds are consumed with how to pay off their mortgage or getting hold of the latest keitai or pair of designer sneakers; a program of action into which the enthusiasm generated by the inspiring words of the speakers could be channelled. A May 2007 Asahi Shimbun poll cited by Akira Kawasaki in Article 9's Global Impact in Foreign Policy in Focus nearly 80% of the population recognized that “Article 9 has helped maintain peace in Japan,” but how many would fight for it?
I'm the first to admit that I do not have a comprehensive grasp of all the issues involved and the words above are an expression of what went through my mind during and after the meeting.
I would really appreciate if people more articulate than I would chip in and share your opinions over here on the GetHiroshima blog.
Links
Japan Focus article by John Junkerman on the "Tokyo" conference
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