February 20, 2018

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo by referring to the Constitution as "narrating the shape and ideal form of a country" accelerates the move to revise the present Constitution of Japan, seeking to insert provisions legitimating the Self-Defense Forces as well as vaguely-defined emergency provisions into a revised constitution. His aim is to impose his ideal "form of the county" on the general public.

Japan's war of aggression during the Pacific War took a toll of more than 20 million lives in Asian nations and more than 3.1 million lives in Japan. Promulgated in 1946, the wording in the Preamble to the existing Constitution expresses remorse over Japan's past mistakes.

However, in May of last year, PM Abe publicly began calling for amendments to this Constitution. He probably wants to wipe out the memory of what crimes Japan committed during the war.

In fact, Abe in his address delivered to the Liberal Democratic Party's New Year assembly said that he will "change the Constitution, created during the occupation, and other various systems to assure a supposedly stable political foundation", implying that the postwar Constitution was "imposed" on Japan by the occupation forces.

Abe is the most prominent follower of the teachings of the imperial shrine "Yasukuni". It is also well known that he in tandem with the extreme rightist group "Nippon Kaigi" promotes rightwing, militaristic constitutional reform.

After he made a comeback to power in 2012, he republished the book "Toward a New Country" and he in the book criticizes the wording in the Constitution's Preamble as too humble and self-deprecating. If the rewriting of the Constitution is allowed under the regime of such a person, it could drag Japan again into a "war-capable country" ready to go to war anywhere at any time.