Robert --
That's a frightening post and I have no doubt whatsoever it's true. Where's General MacArthur when we need him?
William Manchester writes of post-war Japan in his biography of the general, American Caesar:
Speaking of the emperor's palace, he says, "Among [Hirohito's] relatives on the premises that September was a bandy-legged, hard-drinking, sybaritic uncle who had condemned captured American airmen to death by beheading, and who now expected to be indicted as a war criminal. Actually he was quite safe. MacArthur had concluded that bringing him to justice would lead to Hirohito's abdication, which, in turn, would bring anarchy, chaos, and guerrilla warfare. That was wise of the new Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. SCAP's critics often mocked his claims that he could fathom the Asian mind, and he himself later said that "even after fifty years of living among these people I still do not understand them." He had studied Nipponese folklore, politics, and economy; most of all he had pondered how Hirohito's people lived, worked, and thought. He sensed their stupendous energy and vast potential, knew that although most people think of Japan as small, it is, in Edwin O. Reischauer's words, 'considerably larger than Italy and half again the size of the United Kingdom' with 'roughly twice the population of each of the Western European big four --- West Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France.' Tthe general perceived that, like England, the country had been shaped by its island outlook and vigorous climate, which stretches, in latitude, from that of Montreal to that of Florida. He was not deceived by its 90 percent literacy, for he was aware that the sensei, the quaint teachers with yellow buckteeth and baggy pants, merely taught rote memorization of the language's complicated kanji, characters derived from Chinese ideograms. The meaning behind the words eluded their pupils and, indeed, the sensei themselves. Every textbook in geography, history, martial sports, "ethics," and even mathematics, was used to disseminate superstitions. The Japanese lived, quite simply, in a world of make-believe."
To better understand Hashimoto, Manchester writes:
"The world may be explained in sociological terms. David Riesman describes three basic social personalities in The Lonely Crowd. 'Other-directed' people pattern their behavior on what their peers expect of them. Suburban America's men in gray-flannel suits are other-directed. 'Inner-directed' people are guided by what they have been trained to expect of themselves. MacArthur was inner-directed. The third type, the 'tradition-directed,' has not been seen in the West since the Middle Ages. Tradition-directed people hardly think of themselves as individuals; their conduct is determined by folk rituals handed down from the past. . . ."
Manchester takes several pages to outline the history of the emperor's divine lineage and many of the proud traditions, like those of the Samurai, that have been followed from Medieval Times down to the present. He continues:
". . . MacArthur had been determined from the beginning to be conciliatory. As Prime Minister Higashikuni had followed the emperor to the podium, explaining the decision to capitulate, Eichelberger's Eighth Army had been following the 4th Marines ashore. His soldiers had expected that they would be told to disarm the 250,000 enemy soldiers still entrenched on the Kanto Plain. Instead SCAP's General Order No. 1 directed the enemy's own commanders to do it.
It was, MacArthur explained to his troubled staff, a matter of face."
Unfortunately Hashimoto doesn't have an outsider who understands the script. Perhaps being voted out is the only way.
But, then what. . .
Pat |
