The Breakaway from the Century of
War - Article 9 as the Overcoming of European Modernism (Dec.8, 2007)
Curating an Art Exhibition about Japanese Peace
Constitution Article 9
Alteration
of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan to the Constitution of Japan after
the Defeat
“The
MacArthur Draft” Has Been Secretly Developed
What is
the “Atomic Sunshine” Conference?
Who
proposed Article 9?
Function
of Article 9 in the Postwar Period
About the
Definition of European States that Caused World War II
World War
II created Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of the “Other”
As a Problem
of Modernism ? The Historian’s Quarrel in Germany and the Yasukuni Shrine
Dispute in Japan
The Possibility
of Article 9 in the 21st Century
Curating
an Art Exhibition about Japanese Peace Constitution Article 9
The Constitution of Japan was
essentially written by the U.S. Military officials from the General
Headquarters (GHQ) during the Occupation of Japan. “Article 9” of the Japanese
Constitution, known as the Peace Constitution (Heiwa Kenpo), renounces war and
possession of potentially belligerent forces as a sovereign right of the
nation.
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.
This unique provision in the
peace clause of the Constitution, unlike any seen elsewhere, reflects the
idealism of the American New Dealers. This constitution, well received by the
Japanese people who experienced the bitterness of war, has not been altered for
60 years. But now, with political instability in Asia and an upsurge in
nationalism, its very existence is being questioned.
Article 9 greatly helped
Japan recover from war and indeed reshaped the country, and through this
article Japan avoided direct confrontation with other countries. There have
been no casualties of war for more than 60 years. Although Article 9 has kept
Japan from direct involvement in wars, indirect involvement in conflicts has
allowed Article 9 to support a twisted status quo. This unique situation has
given artists the opportunity to discover a theme to tackle and express in their
works. Numerous artists have grappled with issues such as post-war problems and
identity problems; these works are also related to the issue of Article 9 and
world peace.
The art exhibition “Into the
Atomic Sunshine - Post-War Art under Japanese Peace Constitution Article 9,”
mounted in a climate in which the Constitution is faced with possible revision,
attempts to raise issues and increase awareness of the influence of the peace
Constitution, which played such an important role in shaping post-war Japan ,
and the reaction toward it of post-war art.
Outline of
Constitutional Reform
8
February 1946 (Showa 21)
Papers of SATO Tatsuo, #22
National Diet Library
Alteration of the Constitution of the
Empire of Japan to the
Constitution of Japan after the Defeat
Just after the defeat, the Japanese
Government expected that the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (so-called
GHQ) would demand the revision of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan. On
October 4, 1945, Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of GHQ, suggested an
amendment of the constitution to Fumimaro Konoe, who was then Minister of State
of the Higashikuninomiya Cabinet. Therefore, Konoe started to investigate the
Constitution’s amendment. Parallel to this, Prime Minister Shidehara, who
organized a new cabinet on October, 9 installed the Constitution Investigation
Committee (so called Matsumoto Committee) led by Joji Matsumoto, the Minister
of State, as a chairman, and began researching the constitutional amendment.
However, because of his war responsibility
and being outside the Cabinet, there was a strong objection to the
investigation of constitutional amendment by Konoe, and the matter came to a
deadlock. The constitutional amendment work was given only to the Matsumoto
committee, launched under a Shidehara cabinet. The Matsumoto committee was held
from October 27, 1945 to February 2, 1946; it submitted “Private Plan of the
Amendment of Constitution” on January 9, 1946.
“The MacArthur
Draft” Has Been Secretly Developed
At first, GHQ was not going to interfere
excessively in the amendment, but it then initiated an investigation of the
Japanese constitution, especially focusing on a private constitutional
amendment draft (“Draft Outline of the Constitution”) created by the
Constitution Research Association (Kenpo Kenkyu Kai), from the beginning of
1946.
The concern inside of GHQ was MacArthur’s
legal authority toward the Japanese constitutional amendment. On the issue of
the Japanese Constitution, Courtney Whitney, who was the Senior Official of GHQ
Government Section (Minsei Kyoku), submitted a report saying that any kind of
steps, if MacArthur thinks they are suitable, need to be realized. This
document suggests that after the launching of the Far East Committee, which
included Soviet Union and Australia and which was approaching on February 26,
the authority of MacArthur would not be unlimited.
In addition, on February 1, the day
Whitney’s report was submitted, Mainichi Shimbun published a scoop regarding
“the Matsumoto Committee Plan.” “The Matsumoto Committee Plan,” in this
article, was comparatively liberal in the drafts submitted to the Matsumoto
Committee; but Whitney analyzed the character of this plan as extremely
conservative, and it did not get support by Japanese people. Therefore, GHQ
judged that if it was assigned to the Japanese Government, world opinion,
represented by the Far East Committee, might demand the abolition of the
Emperor system. Therefore GHQ decided to create a draft.
On February 3, MacArthur established three
principles to draft the Plan of Constitution of Japan on GHQ’s side—emperor as
symbol of state and of the unity of people, renunciation of war, and
sovereignty residing in the people—and gave this to Whitney. By receiving these
three principles, GHQ Government Section created a committee to draft the
constitution, and on February 4, Whitney ordered the drafting members that a
constitution was the first priority and to draft it confidentially.
Among the twenty-five drafting members in
the Government Section, four had experiences as lawyers, but none of them
specialized in studying the constitution. Therefore, they referred to private
Japanese constitution drafts such as the one written by the Constitution
Research Association, and also constitutions of various other countries. An original
plan was created from the tentative plans by working day and night at
Government Section, and the draft was completed on February 12. On February 13,
the “MacArthur Draft,” which was very liberal at that time, was submitted from
the GHQ side to the Japanese Government.
Constitution of
Japan (GHQ Draft)
13 February
1946
Papers of SATO Tatsuo, #31
National Diet Library
What is the
“Atomic Sunshine” Conference?
The exhibition title “Atomic Sunshine”
derives from a nickname given to the conference that created the new
Constitution of Japan, which was attended by General Courtney Whitney of GHQ,
Shigeru Yoshida (Prime Minister of Japan from 1947), Jiro Shirasu (translator),
and Jyoji Matsumoto, the minister of the Department of State who was in charge
of creating the new Japanese Constitution, on February 13, 1946.
The “MacArthur draft” presented to the
Japanese Government on February 13 was an answer to the Matsumoto Committee
Plan, which the Japanese Government had submitted on February 8. However, the
Japanese side knew nothing of the drafting work done by GHQ, and were
completely surprised by this “MacArthur Draft.”
General Whitney rejected Matsumoto's
conservative Constitution scheme, and explained that the GHQ’s version of the
Japanese Constitution scheme was a definitive plan embodying Japan’s current
needs for principles, and that it was already approved by General MacArthur,
the Supreme Commander of GHQ. Then the American group came down to the garden
of the palace and gave the Japanese group the time to read out the English
version. While an American bomber flew overhead and shook the palace, the
translator Jiro Shirasu came out to the garden and joined the American group.
Whitney said to Shirasu,
“We
have been enjoying your atomic sunshine.”
General Whitney’s comment made it clear to the Japanese who was the winner and loser of the war. He remarked that accepting the provisions stipulated in the GHQ draft would be the best way to keep the Emperor “secure,” and if the Japanese government did not accept this plan, then General MacArthur would propose this plan directly to the Japanese people. This conference creating the new Constitution later came to be called the “Atomic Sunshine Conference.”[1] Based on this GHQ plan, the Japanese cabinet created the amendment plan, and it was proclaimed as the new Japanese Constitution on November 3, 1946.
Outline of a
Draft for a Revised Constitution
6 March
1946 (Showa 21)
Papers of SATO Tatsuo, #46
National Diet Library
The new constitution including Article 9
was written substantially by the GHQ, but there are various opinions about where
the idea of Article 9 came from, and two opinions among many are well-known.
The first one is that it came from Douglas MacArthur, and the second is that it
came from then prime minister Kijyuro Shidehara.
About the MacArthur theory, both MacArthur
and the United States were concerned about the rearmament of Japan, so to avoid
that, they included the clause of pacifism in the Constitution. The article of
renunciation of war, stated in MacArthur’s three principles (also known as
MacArthur Note), is as follows:
2. War as a sovereign right of the nation
is abolished. Japan renounces it as an instrumentality for settling its
disputes and even for preserving its own security. It relies upon the higher
ideals which are now stirring the world for its defense and its protection. No
Japanese army, navy, or air force will ever be authorized and no rights of
belligerency will ever be conferred upon any Japanese force.[2][3]
However, on the side of the Shidehara
theory, Prime Minister Shidehara visited MacArthur on January 24, just before
the announcement of MacArthur’s three principles, and Michiko Hamuro, the
daughter of Ohira, heard from her father what Shidehara talked about with
Komatsuchi Odaira, the Privy Councilor, and regarding this conference, she
wrote:
（Shidehara）said that starting from the
idealistic position that the world should not maintain any military, to make a
society without war we should renounce war itself. Then, MacArthur suddenly
stood up, and grasped Shidehara’s hand with both hands, and, full of tears, he
said, that is right. Shidehara was a little surprised by this. … MacArthur
seemed to think about doing something good for Japan as much as possible, but
some parts of the U.S. government, some members of GHQ, and also the Far East
committee began an argument that had a tremendous disadvantage for Japan.
Countries such as the Soviet Union, Holland, and Australia feared the
institution of the Emperor itself. … Therefore, they insisted that to abolish
emperor system, the Emperor needed to be judged as a war criminal. MacArthur
seems to have been troubled about this very much.
Therefore MacArthur thought
that the idealism of Shidehara, the announcement of renunciation of war, need
to be done as soon as possible, and show that Japanese people do not cause war
in the world and get trusts of foreign countries, and clearly define that
Emperor is a symbol of Japan in the constitution, so we can start to keep
Emperor system without the interference of various countries. … Both of them
agreed that there is no other method to keep Emperor System in Japan, so Shidehara
made up his mind to accept this draft.[4]
In addition, MacArthur tells in his
autobiography Reminiscences (1964)
that the article of war renunciation was suggested by Shidehara[5],
supporting the opinion that Article 9 was proposed by Prime Minister Shidehara.
However, Shigeru Yoshida, who became the prime minister after Shidehara, denied
this theory in the book The Yoshida Memoirs (1957), and
mentioned that General MacArthur had declared his intentions earlier than
Shidehara.
Function of
Article 9 in the Postwar Period
Considering post-war Japan, maintaining
Article 9 led Japan to economic prosperity. However, the process was
complicated.
In
1951, Japan became independent of the occupation by the U.S. at the Treaty of
Peace with Japan in San Francisco. Although the Republic of China participated,
People’s Republic of China, Republic of Korea, and Democratic People's Republic of Korea did not, and this became a
huge war responsibility problem in post-war Japan. However, the message of
Article 9, that Japan ”renounces
war,” also had a meaning of apology toward the Asian countries which Japan had
invaded.
On the same day of the peace treaty, Japan
and the United States concluded the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (later it became
Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan).
Since then, the situation of Article 9 has been part of an even more twisted
status quo; Article 9 sustains the presence of the U.S. military in Japan. This
is the reason why the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and Article 9 are often
discussed together.
Furthermore, after the outbreak of the
Korean War and the drastic change of American policy concerning Japanese
democratization and non-militarization (the so-called reverse course), Japan
started to organize the National Police Reserve in 1950, which became the National
Safety Force in 1952 and the Self Defense Force in 1954. Furthermore, when
Nixon visited Japan in 1953, he mentioned that Article 9 was a mistake, and
Japan should revise the constitution.
To oppose the reverse course of
conservative government and revision of the constitution, in 1951, under the
policy of “protection of the Constitution and anti Japan-U.S. security treaty,”
both the right and left wings of Socialist Party Japan were united and became
the biggest political party in Japan. At the request of financiers who felt the
crisis by the unification of the Socialist Party Japan, two existing parties,
the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Party united, forming the Liberal
Democratic Party. Since then, the two-party system of the Liberal Democratic
Party, advocating “revision of the Constitution / conservative / protection of
Japan-U.S. security treaty”, and the Socialist Party Japan, advocating
“protection of the Constitution / innovation / anti Japan-U.S. security treaty”
were formed (the so-called 55 year system), and it lasted until 1993.
Furthermore, during the wars in Korea and
Vietnam, built on Cold War underpinnings, Japan received economic benefits for
its indirect cooperation with the U.S., all the while maintaining Article 9 and
avoiding dispatching troops. However, mainland Japan and Okinawa were
criticized both from inside and outside the country for collusion with the U.S.
by maintaining U.S. military bases. Inside Japan, a brutal demonstration and
struggle against the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty has grown.
In addition, during the Gulf War, the
Japanese posture of refusing the dispatch of troops to the PKO because of
Article 9 has been criticized both from inside and outside Japan. At the same
time, Japan created an extremely rare economic development model, in that while
it became a world economic power, Article 9 ensured that the military industry
was not enlarged.
However, what I want to carefully
contemplate is the “otherness” that Article 9 itself contains. Although the
Japanese constitution possesses a viewpoint of a post-WWII constitution,
expressed in its negation of the absolutization of national sovereignty and
internationalization of the constitution, these have been considered in
extremely nation-centered terms, such as the viewpoint of the state’s
confrontation with other states. The definition of the Japanese nation was done
by the U.S. occupation military, and the message of Article 9 was directed
toward the Asian countries that Japan had invaded.
Therefore, I want to think this issue as a
global issue, not as a Japanese domestic issue. What does it mean to include
“renunciation of war” in one’s own constitution, and to appeal this way toward
the others?
About the
Definition of European States that Caused World War II
Nation-states were created during the
modernization in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, and constitutions have been
used to define nationality—in other words, to regulate the nation. Furthermore,
the idea of nation-state resulted in the idea of colonialism, and through this,
it has been exported to Asia.
About the concept of the state, Max Weber
reflected that the idea of the state should be defined by its use of violence.[6]
Weber places the political group that monopolized the “means” of using the
violence as the “state,” and this state uses violence to consolidate the order.
That is to say, domestic problems are judged as a crime under the authority of
states, but Weber points out that the mechanism of monopolizing the use of
violence was completed in the process of modernization.
In addition, Carl Schmitt states that in
the political arena, the distinction of allies and enemy becomes a specific
index,[7]
and states that war is produced by the hostility of denying the existence of
the others. In other words, war is caused by hostility. By denying the
recognition of others outside of its own state, which monopolizes the use of violence—that
is to say, the violence of the negation of others in the battle between the states,
which as political groups monopolize violence, will result in war. Then, the
process of modernism bound up with the nation-state completes the mechanism of
using violence. Two world wars were an inevitable result.
World War II created
Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of the “Other”
As a result of fascism, in which the war
machine took over the state, Europe experienced the tragedy of the Holocaust;
and to reconsider the violence of the negation of others, the philosophy of
“others” represented by Emmanuel Levinas was born. Levinas’ philosophy of
others was a post-war European philosophy, and as such can be created only by
the person who experienced the violence of the Holocaust, which absolutely
lacked the philosophy of the “other.” The importance of the philosophy of
others is that it abolished the violent ontology of Heidegger and brought
ethical questions into philosophy again.
Levinas writes that wisdom is to find the
possibility of existence of war forever, and also that no one can be distant
from war. He mentions that war, rather, destroys the identity of the “same.”
For the philosophical
tradition the conflicts between the
same and the other are resolved by theory where by the other is reduced to the
same - or, concretely by the community of the State, where beneath anonymous
power, though it be intelligible, the I rediscovers war in the tyrannic
opposition it undergoes from the totality.[8]
Also Levinas points out that to “let him
be,” a relationship of discourse is required, and a face-to-face approach, in
conversation as “Justice.”[9]
Furthermore, Levinas continues, the
exceptional presence of the “other” is inscribed in the ethical impossibility
of killing him in which I stands.[10]
Between the I and what it
lives from there does not extend the absolute distance that separates the
same from the other. … The reversion of all the modes of being to the I, to the
inevitable subjectivity constituting itself in the happiness of enjoyment, does
not institute an absolute subjectivity, independent of the non-I.[11]
Levinas also says that the power of the
“other” is an ethical thing from the beginning, and the asymmetric relationship
with the “others” creates war. Peace must be my peace, in a relation that
starts from an I and goes to the other, in desire and goodness.[12]
As a Problem of
Modernism – The Historian’s Quarrel in Germany and the Yasukuni Shrine Dispute
in Japan
In the post-war period, relating to
violence and the “other,” there are two interesting historical facts. Germany
in Europe and Japan in Asia, both the aggressor countries and the defeated
countries, have similar large-scale disputes. One is “Historikerstreit (Historian’s
Quarrrel)”—an argument whether the relativization of the Nazi regime can be
possible or not, mainly represented by Jürgen Habermas and Ernst Nolte; and the
other one is “Yasukuni Ronsou (Yasukuni Dispute)”—whether we can justify the
worshipping of the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the war dead (called Eirei) who devoted their lives for
Japan, mainly represented by Tetsuya Takahashi and Norihiro Kato.
The “Historian’s Quarrel” started in the
early summer of 1986 with Habermas’s criticism of two texts: Nolte’s lecture
which was to be given in Frankfurt, and Andreas Hillgruber’s book Zweierlei Untergang (Two Kinds of Ruin).[13]
In particular, Nolte claimed that
Auschwitz is rather a reaction toward the Russian Bolshevik revolution and its
copy rather than traditional anti-Semitism, and such kind of tragedy was
inevitable in history, and comparable to the Great Purge of Stalin, and the
massacres of Pol Pot.[14]
That is to say, his position is conservative: he interprets the crimes of the
Nazis in a relative way, and tries to maintain the national pride of Germany.
Habarmas criticized Nolte as a
revisionist, and claimed that the only patriotism that avoids the estrangement
of West Germany from Western Europe is constitutional patriotism (German
Constitution was also written by the United Nations); the loyalty to various
universal principles of the constitution is now only what one is able to take
pride in, unfortunately after and through Auschwitz, in Germany.[15]
Through this huge dispute, lots of
questions had been raised: whether the historian is a leading figure of
national identity; whether what Germans try to get is a constitutional patriotism
that loves the constitution, or a national patriotism that loves the identity
of the nation; whether history is abused for political disputes; and whether
the education of history should be historicized or moralized.
Almost a decade after this dispute, the
Yasukuni Dispute erupted in Japan. In the book Haisengo Ron (Theory of
Post-War, 1999), Norihiro Kato insisted that in post-war Japan, the improvement
of the constitution caused the “dissociated personality,” and as a result a “dissociation
of the dead”—so by having a funeral for its own three million war-dead, then,
Japan can build its own subject so as to make apology for the twenty million
victims in invaded Asian countries.[16]
Compared to this, in the book Sengo Sekinin
Ron (Theory of Post-War Responsibility), Tetsuya Takahashi objected that
not by considering Japan’s dead first, but only by maintaining the memory of
the disgrace and continuing being ashamed—that is to say, considering the total
responsibility of the war of aggression as a present problem—will the
possibility of Japanese politics and ethics become realized.[17]
One thing to learn here is that both the
Historian’s Quarrel and the Yasukuni Dispute are not solved by pure logic
anymore. What Habarmas and Takahashi try to argue is a question of ethics and
the “other,” as Levinas had discussed. Therefore, does the setting of the
ethical question itself correspond to the face-to-face discourse with the
“others”?
The Possibility of
Article 9 in the 21st Century
Article 9 is the unprecedented declaration
that the definition of the nation itself takes the existence of the “other” as
a premise, thus overcoming the structure of modernism. The definition of
Article 9, which defines the “Japanese” as a nation who “renounces war” was
essentially written by idealistic American New Dealers—who are also the “other”
for the Japanese. Then, the message of “renunciations of war” prompts
discourses outside of “Japan,” namely to the “other”. In other words, the
definition of the Japanese nation has a completely new form, and it has a global
expanse.
The modern nation-state had tried to
clarify the concept of hostility to prevent civil wars as a response to the
Thirty Years War, and in it there also appears the constitution, the definition
of the nation. However, in this era of globalization, to mark those outside the
nation as hostile—in other words, to deny the existence of the “other” and
create an enemy—is impossible. Not denying the existence of others and creating
an enemy, but accepting the existence of the “other” and declaring “[we]
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation” in its own
constitution, might allow the overcoming of modernism, which completes the mechanism of
state as a political institution monopolizing the use of violence.
Article 9 is a declaration of the Japanese
nation that “You” and “I” are “the same human beings,” and I do not attack the
“other” who is the “the same human being.” This is an irreplaceable philosophy
that overcomes European modernism, and will ground the possibility of making a
21st century without war.
The job of the artists is to express an
ideal. As a person who engages for art, I want to think through the philosophy
of Article 9, which is outside modernism, with Japanese, Americans, Asians, and
all the people in the world. And at first, this exhibition starts with its own
aim; mounted outside Japan, which is the “other” for Japan, because Article 9
is exercised in its communication with the “other”.
So, let’s step into the Atomic Sunshine,
and deliberate. By reading a complex historical situation, and examine the
influence of Article 9 on post-war art—the theme of this curatorial exhibition.
Shinya Watanabe is an independent curator based in New York. He
acquired a MA at New York University and has traveled to 34 countries. His main
focus has been the relationship of art and nation-state. He has curated
numerous exhibitions such as Another Expo
– Beyond the Nation-State, Action
Painting Street Battle! Ushio Shinohara and Ryoga Katsuma. He is also a chair
of Atomic Sunshine – Article 9 and Japan
Exhibition Committee.
