Dogs and Demons_ Tales From the Dark Side of Japan - Kerr [162]
After the nation's defeat in World War II, a second revolution took place, under the guidance of General Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. Occupation. MacArthur dismantled the army and broke the power of the prewar capitalists – and in their place the bureaucracy took over, creating the Japan we see today.
It's now time, many believe, for a third revolution, which will differ from the previous two in one important way: pressure from foreign powers sparked both of the earlier revolutions; they did not spring from among the Japanese themselves. This time around, however, there is no foreign pressure. Nobody outside Japan is concerned about the fate of its mountains and rivers; nobody will arrive in a warship and demand that Japan produce better movies, rescue bankrupt pension funds, educate its children to be creative, or house its families in livable homes. The revolution will have to come from within.
It could. Dissatisfaction is rife, as may be gleaned from the many angry and frustrated people who are quoted in this book. Some readers might wonder how I can say such harsh things about Japan. But it is not I who say these things. Fukuda Kiichiro calls Japan a Kindergarten State, and Fukuda Kazuya asks, «Why have the Japanese become such infants?» Kurosawa proclaimed that Japanese film companies are so hopeless they should be destroyed. Asai Takashi titled his book Go to Hell, Bureaucrats! Nakano Kiyotsugu complains, «I don't know why, but invisible rules have grown up everywhere,» and Professor Kawai carries this much further in his report to the prime minister, declaring that Japan's society is «ossified,» and that conformity has «leached Japan's vitality.» Dr. Miyamoto Masao describes Japanese education as «castration»; Inose Naoki compares Japan's environmental ills and bad-debt crisis with the unstoppable march to war in the 1930s. The people of Kyoto rose up and fought the construction of the Pont des Arts. In short, there is a strong and vocal body of opinion within Japan that recognizes its troubles and is increasingly prepared to fight for change. In this lies great hope. The question is whether the mood of dissatisfaction will ever gain enough momentum to seriously affect Japan's forward course. One can make good arguments for revolution, and – sadly – even better ones for another decade or two of stagnation.
In the realm of politics, the early 1990s saw unprecedented anger within an electorate that was among the world's most docile. In 1993, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost its majority for the first time in forty years, and an opposition coalition, led by Prime Minister Hosokawa, took over briefly. The opposition, however, was no match for the bureaucrats. When Hosokawa sought financial information from the Ministry of Finance, the bureaucrats stalled, and there was nothing that the prime minister's office could do. Within six months, Hosokawa was out, and former members of the LDP, now scattered into a number of splinter parties, took over again. The electorate settled back into apathy, and at present the old LDP stalwarts are firmly back in power, beholden as before to bureaucrats and large businesses. In the political sphere, the score is Status Quo 1, Revolution 0.
One of the sharpest observations made by Karel van Wolferen is that the Japanese bureaucratic system has never relied on public approval for its legitimacy and power; it works in a separate dimension, far above and removed from the democratic process. As we have seen, even when voters do oppose ruinous construction projects and sign petitions requesting referendums, local assemblies are free to ignore them, and usually do. Outside observers see criticism