Section 7 | History, Politics and International Relations | Session 7B, Panel
Chair: N.N.
Since an emperor's reign constitutes a period in history for the Japanese, it is interesting to examine how strongly the two are felt to be the same thing. An attempt is made here to determine whether the Emperor was regarded as a symbol of his time during the Shôwa period (1926-1989) and if so, in what way. The problem is approached through an analysis of writings in the leading Japanese newspapers, the Japan Times, Mainichi Daily News, Mainichi Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, in January and February 1989, i mmediately after the Emperor's death. What was the image of the Emperor projected by the press at that time and what things did he symbolize?
Following his death, the question of the Emperor's image and his role as a symbol of his times became focused very clearly on the issue of his responsibility for the war. One side of his dual image that of a constitutional monarch, represented the favourable, democratic connotations that had arisen since the war, while the view that he had been responsible for Japan's involvement in the war represented the post-war critical image that he had acquired. The interpretation of these images and of his symbolic significance is complicated still further by the question of what was meant by responsibility. The Japan Times explained how the foreign media interpreted this predominantly in legal and constitutional terms, while for many Japanese people it was mostly an emotional matter that was quite separate from anything that he as a person might actually have done. It was a question of symbolic authority such as is vested in the head of a family, a company or a nation.
The dichotomous nature of the Shôwa Emperor's image, as possibly responsible for the course of events that led Japan into the war and at the same time as a symbol of unity, representing peace and democracy, would seem in the light of the articles in the press to have been understood as synonymous with the spirit of the times. In this sense he was a symbol of his age: whatever the symbol of the Emperor was, the same could be said of the times in which he reigned. Although there was much discussion of his responsibility for the war, one might still ask whether this was really the most serious problem in practice. Was it not more important to resolve the issue of his responsibility as the head of the nation? As the Emperor was felt to be a symbol of his age, should he not have automatically borne responsibility for the war in the eyes of the majority of Japanese people, or even served in an essential sense as the symbol of the whole nation's guilt with respect to the war?Ernst Lokowandt (Tôyô University)
Up until the end of World War II, the position of the Japanese Emperor was based in Shintô: The Tennô was a direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, he was in possession of the Three Crown Juwels all of which are of mythological origins, and he conducted the most important national (Shintô) ceremonies. Since the war, the Tennô is „deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power" (Japanese Constitution, Art.1). However, on important occasions he still pays visits to Ise, where his ancestor Goddess is worshipped, he still is in possession of the Three Crown Juwels, and he still conducts the most important Shintô ceremonies.
Taking into account that the Constitution provides for a strict separation between state and religion (Art.20), it is not a matter of course when the Tennô, „the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people" (Art.1), conducts religious activities. This leads to the question, whether the relation between Tennô and Shintô is just conventional, or whether it is a necessary, a fundamental one.
After giving a brief sketch of the traditional function of the Tennô of legitimizing the actual rulers, it will be examined whether it would be conceivable for the Tennô, now, that he is deriving his position from the will of the sovereign people, to separate his relationship to Shintô and become a thoroughly secular monarch, whether the Tennô could survive without his Shintô background. At the same time, it will be examined what effect an abolition of the Tennô would have on Shintô, whether Shintô could survive without the Tennô. In order to get an answer, the structure of priestly worship in Shintô will be analyzed and put in relation to the structure of the Japanese political process and of the Japanese state.
It will argued that the „static", coordinating structure of the Japanese state is not unrelated to the static character of the Tennô, and that the latter characteristic is founded in Shintô and can also be found in Shintô ethics. In these interdependent relationships, a change in one part would effect all other parts.
Alistair Swale (Kyôto University)
The Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) is often regarded as a convenient marker for the beginning of, to use Ishida Takeshi's term, "familial statism". Carol Gluck also devotes considerable attention to this time span and appropriately explores the various ideological uses it was appropriated for by the Mombusho, especially in relation to ethical education (the co mmissioning of a co mmentary on the Rescript by Inoue Tetsujiro being one of the more effective tactics within the broader strategy).
At precisely the same time as this process was unfolding in the realm of education, a parallel struggle was emerging amongst historians at the centre of academia at Tôkyô University who were by the late eighties coming under the increasingly strong influence of German positivistic notions of historiography. Ludwig Reiss, (1887-1902) was instrumental in upbraiding his Japanese colleagues for failing to question the mythologizing tendencies of traditional Confucian-oriented historiography which clearly entailed the acceptance of apocryphal material for the sake of a good moralistic tale.
Within this new climate a form of modernized kokushi was established at Tôkyô University in September of 1890 with Shigeno Yasutsugu and Kume Kunitake (of Bei-ô Kairan Jikki fame) the initial instructors. There were initially no takers for the new subject (although the few who did eventually take it up went on to attain later eminence). But as for Shigeno and Kume themselves, they encountered vociferous resistance from hardline traditionalists who regarded their questioning of the veracity of Dai-Nihonshi orthodoxy very negatively indeed.
The aim of Kume and Shigeno was directly concerned with the establishment of a collective memory on an empirical basis. It is, of course, highly debatable how far any collective national consciousness can be established 'empirically' (as the work of Hobsbawm demonstrates, empiricism and factuality were not exactly the hallmarks of the creation of British traditions in the nineteenth century). Nonetheless, their legacy made an important contribution to the possibility of retrieving a collective memory of the past that was free of cant and there influence was to remain even after they themselves were forcibly marginalized. Overall, the conflict between the positivist and traditionalist schools emerges as one that was pivotal in determining the later direction of historiography, and indeed collective memory.