To
His Majesty, the Emperor Akihito of Japan
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - I am taking the liberty of writing to you because I know you care
deeply about the people of Japan. Few letters see the light of day, but I hope
this one somehow reaches you because it comes from my heart. I am sure that
just like ordinary Japanese, you are deeply distressed at the tens of thousands
of people still taking shelter in makeshift surroundings since the earthquake
two weeks ago in Niigata prefecture northwest of Tokyo. And when it comes to
Iraq, just as we citizens are grieved, you too must also be shocked and
distressed to hear of the passing of a young Japanese hostage who was beheaded
by a militant group there last week.
As Japan is confronting such complex and difficult situations, please forgive
me for writing this unexpected letter to Your Majesty. I am taking the liberty
of expressing my views because of your recent remarks on the issue of the
Hinomaru, the rising-sun flag, and the Kimigayo national anthem. I am also
making an entreaty to you via this letter, and I sincerely hope officials at
the Imperial Household Agency will pass my appeal on to you.
Your recent stunning - and for many of us encouraging - remarks on October 28
concerning Hinomaru, literally meaning "Rising-Sun Flag" in English, and
Kimigayo, meaning "The Reign of Your Majesty", appeared to come totally out of
the blue and took us by surprise. I hope you know that many Japanese welcomed
your candor and wisdom. You said it is "desirable not to force" teachers and
students across the nation to hoist the Hinomaru flag, and sing the Kimigayo
anthem in unison at school.
The repercussions from your words are still being felt at home and abroad, just
as aftershocks are felt out there in Niigata. This is because, as you know, the
issue of the national flag and anthem has been one of the nation's thorniest
political questions in the post-World War II period, especially as our nation
moves forward to assume a larger global role. And, Your Majesty, as you know
far better than most, the question of whether to recognize Hinomaru and
Kimigayo legally as national flag and anthem had been very controversial up
until August 1999, when the Diet (parliament) finally designated Hinomaru as
the national flag and Kimigayo as the national anthem.
Still, not a few Japanese, especially teachers' unions, consider Hinomaru and
Kimigayo to be social and cultural remnants, and unhelpful ones, of the
nation's wartime militarism. Nobody on Earth, excluding the people around you,
can know what you really meant by those few words at your autumn garden
reception, or your true intentions. Your remarks, however, already appear to
have had a great effect on Japan's political and educational circles as a
warning to and preventive move against militarist right-wingers, who recently
have been quite active in the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi and in Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara's metropolitan administration.
And it was not you who raised our nation's sensitive issue, one that symbolizes
controversial militarism, at the your autumn garden party, one of your and
Empress Michiko's two graceful and gracious annual imperial garden
get-togethers at the Akasaka Imperial Garden in Tokyo. You had invited about
1,700 prominent figures from various fields, including Japan's gold medalists
in the Athens Olympics and Nissan Motor's chief executive Carlos Ghosn, as well
as others from fields of academe, arts and literature.
Instead, it was Kunio Yonenaga, permanent holder of the top title of Japanese
chess, Shogi, who brought up the flag and anthem issue with you at your garden
party. This is because Yonenaga has been very active since 1999 as a
conservative member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education. On August 26,
the board finally adopted the controversial history text, The New History
Textbook, among eight authorized textbooks for use in the April
2005-March 2006 period at a junior high school, integrating with one public
high school.
'It is not desirable to do so'
In a conversation broadcast nationwide television, Yonenaga told you: "Making
teachers and students to raise the national flag and sing the national anthem
in unison at schools across the country is my job." But you rejected his ideas,
simply saying, "It's not desirable to do so."
Faced with your unexpected and far from supportive words, Yonenaga replied, as
we all saw and heard on television, "Of course, it should not be, sir. Thank
you so much for giving me such wonderful words."
Yonenaga seemed surprised at your remarks, then backed down from his previous
words by swiftly concurring with you. I believe Yonenaga had been striving to
flatter you by expressing his ongoing nationalistic efforts (he would say
patriotic efforts). But though good came of it through your wise comments, it
was his carelessness and fault for introducing such politically controversial
issues into the traditionally amiable, relaxed and sociable setting beneath the
lovely autumn sky.
I was so surprised to watch this exchange on several TV channels because you
have seldom talked about political issues in general, as the constitution
prohibits you from doing so. It stipulates that you shall be "the symbol of the
state and the unity of the people", without any political powers related to
government. However, in response to Yonenaga, you commented on the very touchy
issue of the Rising-Sun Flag and Kimigayo.
As you probably know, last autumn, the Tokyo government led by Governor
Ishihara circulated detailed instructions on the mandated use of the flag and
anthem at school ceremonies such as entrance and graduation events, and since
then it has punished about 250 public-school teachers for not obeying them.
Across the country, not a few teachers, as in Hiroshima and Kyushu prefectures,
are even suing their local governments regarding their punishments. Many of
them were reprimanded by their local education boards, and some were even
denied renewal of their part-time contracts. Some protesting teachers and
others remained seated when the national anthem was sung and Hinomaru was
hoisted - not complying with instructions about reverence.
This issue even cost a person of his life. As you surely remember, in February
1999, a public-high-school principal in Hiroshima, 58-year-old Toshihiro
Ishikawa, head of Sera High School in Hiroshima prefecture, hanged himself in a
back shed at his home just one day before his school's graduation. He was on
the horns of a dilemma about how to handle "instruction" from his local
education board about flying the flag and singing the anthem, and at the same
time to honor "requests" by teachers and students not to follow the
instruction. It was a deplorable occurrence, indeed.
Cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Koizumi and other high-ranking
officials, are scrambling to quell this stir brought about by your
autumn-garden-party comments; they are defending you by emphasizing that your
remarks were in accordance with the official central government view that the
efforts to force teachers and students to hoist the flag and face the banner
Hinomaru and to sing Kimigayo should not be made at schools.
On the day after your remarks, Koizumi told reporters, "I don't think we should
take [the Emperor's remarks] in a political context." Asked about the Tokyo
metropolitan government's policy of punishing teachers who disobey the
education board's orders - to pledge allegiance and sing the anthem at special
ceremonies - he only said, "It was a decision that the Tokyo metropolitan
government made." He intentionally distanced himself from Ishihara despite the
fact that they are connected by marriage.
Hawks want to wave the flag and sing the anthem
Meanwhile, Ishihara on the same day defended the Tokyo Metropolitan Education
Board's order requiring schools to display the national flag and requiring
students to sing the national anthem at ceremonies, referring to Emperor
Akihito's comments against forcing schools to do so. Ishihara, who had said he
would like you to visit Yasukuni Shrine to Japan's war dead (including war
criminals), told a news conference, "It's a matter of whether public servants
do or do not comply with it as an obligation that the state has decided on. It
is different from whether it is forcing things in general. I don't want those
matters to be mixed up," the Kyodo News service reported.
As you know, Your Majesty, the pledge means His Majesty's Reign, and some key
excerpts are: "May thy peaceful reign last long,
May it last for thousands of years,
Until this tiny stone will grow into a massive rock
And the moss will cover it all deep and thick."
As you have already noticed, the tricky thing is that while most media gave
extensive coverage to this issue, conservative media such as the Yomiuri
Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun were virtually silent. The Yomiuri briefly
reported your words as spot news, and the Sankei only reported Koizumi's
comments on your remarks. The conservative weekly magazine Shukan Shincho
published on Thursday criticized the Asahi's editorial and article on this
issue, by saying, "The Asahi has strained to turn your words into a political
issue in favor of its editorial stance of the anti-enforcement of Kimigayo and
Hinomaru." The magazine's article basically says Asahi intended to blame
Yonenaga as a bad guy for bringing this issue to the party and creating the
stir this time around.
South Korean media, however, welcomed your comments. A Tokyo correspondent at
one of the country's major newspapers, Chosun Ilbo, wrote in his recent
reporter's note that the Japanese Emperor is a personage who speaks precious
words, and the correspondent said he heard common sense in your comments and a
capacity for initiative to check an extreme and harmful right-wing social
movement in Japan.
Despite the controversy mentioned above, I also welcomed your words and was
reminded anew of your fully developed character, rich in humanity. I believe
you simply expressed the views held by the majority of Japanese citizens on the
issue of the Hinomaru rising-sun flag and the Kimigayo national anthem. We must
cherish the Japanese people's natural feelings to honor their flag and anthem.
This must be voluntary, however, and not coerced, just as we can see young
sports fans carry the flag in sporting events. Older generations must be
reminded by this issue of Hinomaru and Kimigayo of the Maintenance of Public
Order Law enacted in 1925, which strictly limited freedom of speech and strived
to protect Kokutai, or the National Entity of Japan, which was commonly used to
refer to the Japanese polity before and during World War II. Many historians
have pointed out that this law made a foundation of militarism for making Japan
plunge into the devastating Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
I know you have been making tremendous efforts to reconcile with the Okinawa
people since you were still prince, by regularly visiting there. As everybody
knows, at the end of World War II, Okinawa became the biggest and most crucial
battlefield between the United States and Japan and the Okinawans were deserted
by Tokyo right after the World War II. It is said that one out of four
Okinawans became a victim in the battles at that time. More than 700 Okinawans
are said to have been forced by the Japanese army to commit collective suicide
in the name of your father, the last emperor Hirohito. To Okinawans, the last
emperor seemed the perpetrator of terrible suffering, not a benefactor.
As a result, unlike you, the last emperor, who died in 1989, could not have
visited Okinawa at all during his lifetime. But you have succeeded in dealing
with this Okinawa issue head-on and receive the people's trust not only from
Okinawa but also from elsewhere in Japan. You have visited many monuments, such
as Himeyuri no Tou, a monumental tower over 200 students aged 12-18, mostly war
nurses and aides, who lost their lives. They were killed by the US gas
canisters.
Your Majesty, I, hereby, would like to make an entreaty, perhaps an imposition,
but in a just cause:
I beseech you to admit your father's war responsibility, at least his moral
responsibility, and to finish off any issues related to past wrongs, which have
been overshadowing Japan for decades. I am 36 and do not want to leave any kind
of historical issues regarding Japan's past wrongs to the next generation. I do
not want to pass any kind of historical issues to your granddaughter Princess
Aiko's generation. I sometimes wonder why my generation still has to face up so
many times to the nation's past wrongs. I think this is because my
grandparents' and parents' generations have failed to overcome the wrongs by
not grappling with the nation's past. And it's quite unnatural and sad to see
that we Japanese still do not have any revered national flag and anthem,
despite the 1998 designation of Hinomaru and Kimigayo as national emblems.
Still, they are not emblems of enlightenment.
Some liken Japan's flag to the Swastika
And we still are plagued by this Hinomaru and Kimigayo issue. To some Japanese,
especially older generations and liberals, Hinomaru and Kimigayo unfortunately
seems the same as Nazis' Swastika. But younger generations do no care about
this kind of history and naturally are encouraged to see Japanese sports teams
by waiving mini-Hinomaru flags. So, I rather envied the Americans' ability to
love the Stars and Stripes flag and The Star Spangled Banner anthem when I
first went to Baltimore in 1988.
I believe this entreaty of mine is politically feasible in the near future, as
your father and you already have apologized on many occasions, especially when
China's and South Korea's presidents visited Tokyo, and since you have recently
made courageous comments at the autumn reception. As you know, the pope has
apologized for actions committed by Roman Catholics toward the Jewish people
and others during World War II and has admitted that Catholic missionaries in
China in the 19th century, protected by Western powers, also did not always
behave in an unselfish, Christian manner in their missionary works.
I am sure that you, known to be compassionate by the majority of the Japanese,
can do the same thing - admit wrongs committed in the past. I am not saying
this simply because we Japanese are still accused by foreign countries such as
China regarding the wartime issues, but mainly because I feel some
responsibility to offer our sincere condolences to the victims of our
ancestors, including victims of the war, and to clear the record, if at all
possible, for our next generation.
If you admit the last emperor's sins, I believe today's right-wingers,
especially in political circles, would refrain from undertaking provocative
actions, exemplified by the latest history-textbook issue.
Moreover, such farsighted, noble and statesmanlike actions on your part will
surely and drastically improve the current political relations among Japan,
China and the Koreas. I believe Japan can no longer heavily depend on the US
militarily, politically and economically. The US is not the nation it used to
be. It is losing the merit of being a generous, diverse and tolerant society,
domestically and internationally. The re-election of President George W Bush
demonstrates this. It will continue to run its unilateralist course, putting
its overweaning national interest ahead of international collaboration.
Probably we will have to wait another four years for a progressive, galvanizing
figure to show up in the presidential election.
By admitting the last emperor's sins and reconciling with our neighboring
countries in Asia, however, Japan would surely reduce its current huge
dependence on US strategic aims and arms and would have a freer hand to seek
Japan's enlightened national self-interest.
I am sure that in saying these heartfelt things, I will be criticized and
assailed not only by right-wingers but also by some liberals, because they
would think I am closely linking your position and power to politics. But if we
look over Japanese history, the Japanese emperor system has always actually
been used for political purposes. Especially military governments before and
around the World War II politically exploited the last emperor.
As I look across and within our nation now, there is no one, no leader, who
actually has the veneration and the power to solve - or to take a
transformative step toward resolving - Japan's troubled past, except for you.
Your Excellency, the Emperor, I wish we could finish off those issues once and
for all, through an act of your courage and compassion, and then bring real
peace to Japan, to our next generations and to all of our neighbors.
I deeply hope you will consider this appeal.
Your sincerely devoted subject,
Kosuke Takahashi
Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is
currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be contacted atKosuke_everonward@ybb.ne.jp.
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