MIKADO’S ROLE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23278, 14 August 1945, Page 6

MIKADO’S ROLE

If Japan Surrenders

Potsdam Ultimatum A Significant Omission The tripartite declaration of Britain, the United States and China defining the terms on which the Japanese can accept "unconditional surrender.” appears to be more precise on conditions of Allied military security than with regard to the internal future of Japan, writes Stephen H. Roberts. Challis Professor of Modem History. Sydney University. The absence of any clearcut programme regarding the Emperor and the Japanese form of government clearly reflects the difficulty of reaching a dogmatic solution. The conventional view is that the Japanese, past and present, are to be interpreted in terms of Emperorworship. Shintoism and a divine mission of expansionism. According to such a view these elements form "the cement of society," and so influence the way of life and thought as to make the Japanese problem sui generis. A “Biological Divinity” A foreign observer, summing up the whole trend of official propaganda since the institution of the Meiji, or Enlightened Rule, in 1867. states that "the Emperor is a biological and historical divinity, a sacredness preserved in the germ-plasm. The Emperor is divine because he is the living extension in time of the very bodies and souls of the great divine ancestors of the past, and, in particular, of the physical and spiritual attributes of the Sun Goddess, by whose will the State was founded.” If this is so, Japanese life has started and ended with Emperor-w’orship. Where the story of Japanese origins is a fanciful myth to us, it has remained a direct reality to them. After Isanagi, the Father of the Gods, created Japan as "soil of the sun." a complicated arrangement produced the god Ninigi as ruler of Nippon. “And Ninigi rei nounced the eternal throne of heaven j and descended to earth from the high j plains of heaven," and his descendant was Jimmu. Japan's first Emperor, i From him 124 descendants have mainI tained an unbroken line for 2605 years.

The Divine Soldier The Emperors might be mad or dissolute. or even prisoner puppets, but their sacredness continued. The political philosophy remained Kcdo or "the Imperial Way," and the State religion of Shintoism interpreted all life in terms of the godhgad Shintoism was not a theology or creed in our sense of the word; it was rather an allembracing code of manners and outlook. With the Meiji ‘ was revived as the official faith, and chief deity in its pantheon of 1.000 gods was the Sun Gcddess, wh rounded the Imperial House. It was believed that when a man took the oath as a soldier he became “the four limbs" of the God-Emperor. As a Divine Soldier he himself became a gcd. Having partaken of the Yamatodamashi. or "the spirit of Japan." he scoffed at death, and in his last words gasped the Tenno toast, “May the Emperor reign 10,000 years.” The institution of the Emperor thus symbolised the continuity of Japanese exisI tence and outlook, and opened to the lowliest countryman the passage to deification at the Yasukuni shrine. Two Rival Concepts Militarism was indissolubly associated with this attitude The Japanese, believing in their obsolute superiority over all other human beings, were taught that this had to lead the worldcontrol. The official statement of war aims, published in July, 1944. promised "the establishment of a New World Order." This was to be achieved by war. because it had been officially laid down that "war is the father of creation and the mother of culture. The ancestor-worship of Shintoism found in war the justification of man in life, and his hope in death, and "the Mikado himself was the very essence of expansionism.” All the paraphernalia of Bushido, or “the Way of the Warrior.” all the legends of the bloodthirsty and pervertedly loyal "Fortyseven' Ronin," pointed in the same direction; and the military caste obtained their pre-eminence by exploiting such spiritually-held beliefs. But there was another interpretation. Many writers believe that the present concept of the Emperor dates mainly from the institution of the Meiji. They point out that, even since the emergence of the Emperors from the Shogunate tyranny, attempts have been made to assassinate or imprison the State ruler, while the people have repeatedly resorted to rice riots or to such street risings as those over the naval scandals of 1912.

Only a Beginning They further insist that Shinto was almost entirely replaced by Buddhism before the Restoration and that, even since its revival as the official faith, it has been deliberately perverted to military ends. According to this view only ruthless repression of reform movements and "dangerous ideas’ prevented the emergence of political changes to accompany industrialisation and the impact of the West. In any event the discrediting of the military caste and the eradication of economic war potentials are only a beginning. The real problem remains after the elimination of Great East Asia and after the fall of the warlords.. The Japanese people, whether the victims of an unparalleled way of thought inculcated over centuries or w nether thev merelv reflect, official propaganda since the Meiji. must be made to realise that they have no divuie mission and no divine rights. Their bankruptcy must be shown as one of the spirit and not merely of the swavlng fortunes of the battlefield, and »he "besetting danger is that they may nroiect into their future national existence that attitude of which military expansion was only one outward SJ®* hol The defeat, must not be viewed as a passing check, attributable to misguided Advice given to the Emperor by a particular group of militarists for then the permanent ‘lmperial Way would remain unsullied. With or Without the Emperor? The Potsdam declaration implies that a Japanese Government will remain and that a new culture will slow ly emerge from within. Whether the feeling of the people for the Imperial House will be utilised or smashed is bv no means clear. Those foreigners who want to keep the Emperor argue that this is the only way of social cohesion to a mass of 70.000.000 Japanese, and that the Shintoist edict, "Follow’ vour natural impulses in loyalty and" obedience to the ImP® na * House.” may under Allied direction be turned toward a peaceful development. Thev sav that, while there was a rult of Bushido for the aristocrats, there was also a spirit of Kikotsu. revolt against oppression, deeply rooted n the mind of the ordinary man. , .. The issue is whether anti-mihtan.t . liberalism will arise w-ithin or without the institution of the Emperor a ‘ wav for either development appears to be left open The one clear P°m’ is that the long-standing association be tween Emperor-worship and militarism must be broken.