Section 7 | History, Politics and International Relations | Session 1A, Panel
Chair and Organiser: Dick Stegewerns (Ôsaka Sangyô University)
Discussant: Rikki Kersten (Leiden University)
The act of rewriting history is as old as the trade of history writing itself, and in the case of Japan there is also no doubt that a fair amount of the historical works and compilations, starting with the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki of the early 8th century, were nothing but attempts by certain factions within society to (re)claim national history with the aim of justifying and/or enhancing their position. This panel tries to break new ground by focusing on the postwar and post-occupation years of the 1950s and 1960s, a timeframe which has received very little attention from the point of view of 'rewriting history'. During this comparatively hot part of the Cold War, Japan had recovered its independence and was gradually returning on the international stage. Especially after the coming about of the so-called '1955 system' the country regained its equilibrium and it was increasingly gaining confidence as a result of the 'miracle' of prolonged high-speed economic growth. All these developments stimulated representatives on various sides of the political spectrum to take a fresh look at their national history (Nihonshi or kokushi), some in order to break away from the interpretation of the country's recent history as imposed by the occupation forces, others in order to bring Japan's history more in line with Western history (Seiyôshi) or world history (sekaishi). This panel will address both the popular debate and the academic debate in the post-occupation battle for the domination of the collective memory of the Japanese people.
This paper aims to examine Maruyama Masao's project of rewriting 'national' history through a reappraisal of revolutionary elements in pre-modern Japan.
In his lectures at Tôkyô University after the war, Maruyama focused on what he called 'the static structure of Japanese thought from ancient to modern times'. He considered Japanese thought to be overly dependent on 'ikioi' (the unalterable current of things?)'. In ikioi Maruyama found a tendency to over-acclimatize to political and social circumstances which undermined such crucial elements as individualism and autonomy.
Nonetheless, in his analysis of 'Kamakura Neo-Buddhism' (i.e. Hônen, Shinran, Nichiren) he stressed the existence of revolutionary elements that rebelled against the established religious order by aiming at the individualization and internalization of transcendental values. Moreover, Maruyama also detected an individualist ethos in the 'mononofu' or 'bushi' stories that appeared in the Kamakura and early Muromachi periods. His quest was to find Weberian elements of moral individualism and Kantian intrinsic values in the traditions of Japanese religious thought and warrior ethos. In his well-known essay 'Loyalty and Rebellion' (Chûsei to hangyaku)' from 1960, he extended this approach to the samurai ethics of the Tokugawa period and simultaneously criticized the modernization of Japan as a process of losing the ethical tension between this warrior ethos and the deep-seated reliance on ikioi.
Why was Maruyama preoccupied with integrating Kantian and Weberian values into Japan's 'national' tradition? What was his aim in rewriting 'national' history in this way? Didn't it contradict with his other project of criticizing the persistent power of the Japanese tradition of emasculating universal values? Moreover, why did he attempt to discover contradicting elements in the 'national' tradition?
Mainly on the basis of his recently published lecture notes, I will analyze Maruyama's efforts to reconstruct Japan's 'national' intellectual history.
Dick Stegewerns (Ôsaka Sangyô University)
During the allied occupation of Japan there was a strong regime of censure in force which very strictly decided what was to be shown or taught and what was not. Especially in the case of the war that had just ended in the Asian theatre, SCAP regulations were very strict and dictated that all wartime vocabulary was taboo and enforced all public media to speak of the war in the American term of 'The Pacific War'. Moreover, the Japanese film world was directed to make films dealing with the wartime period or the aftermath of the war in a way that was in line with the verdict of the Tôkyô Tribunal. The same directors, scriptwriters and actors who had diligently supported Japan's war effort with propaganda films of a hitherto unknown subtlety, now had to deliver a completely different message of evil military and political leaders and an oppressed and innocent population, some of whom even turned to courageous but unavailing resistance. However, no sooner had the occupation forces left the country or the battle for the collective war memory of the Japanese people flared up. Films by leftist directors focusing on the grimness and cruelty of the war continued to be made, but they found a formidable foe in production companies such as Shin Tôhô who started to portray the war in a way that was sometimes hardly different from both wartime propaganda and such recent controversial films as Pride and Merdeka. The focus was on the heroic bravery, self-sacrificing devotion and comradely team-spirit of the Japanese soldiers, not seldom kamikaze pilots. In short, Japan and its military were once again portrayed in a positive and affirmative light. In disrespect of all former SCAP regulations the hinomaru flag was flown proudly, military songs were sung lustily, Yamamoto Isoroku and even Tôjô Hideki were deified, and the film titles brazenly spoke of a 'Greater East Asian War' long before Hayashi Fusao published his Dai Tô-A sensô kôtei-ron in 1963. This paper will analyze the main themes and settings, the historical and institutional background, and the impact of this body of post-occupation Japanese re-enactments of the Second World War.