Drawing on a column by Ruri Abiru, this essay shows how the pacifist ideals imposed by GHQ ultimately gave way to the law of self-preservation as global realities shifted.
It argues that rejecting constitutional revision today ignores the historical contradictions embedded in Japan’s postwar constitution.

2016-02-03

The following is from the column Gokugen Gomen by Ruri Abiru, published in the January 18 issue of the Sankei Shimbun.

Democratic Party leader Katsuya Okada has repeatedly argued that debating constitutional revision under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would destroy the constitution itself.
He claims that the constitution has been nurtured by the people over seventy years and that revision under the current administration would be extremely dangerous.

Okada also points out that the constitution was drafted in just eight days by amateurs at GHQ, but this argument feels out of date and unconvincing.

He seems to want to portray the current constitution as something cherished and cultivated by the Japanese people after the war.
But is that really true.

For example, on New Year’s Day of 1951, General Douglas MacArthur delivered a message to the Japanese people in which he stated that Japan’s constitution renounced war as a means of national policy.
However, he added that if lawlessness in the international community continued to threaten peace and human life, then it was obvious that this ideal would have to yield to the entirely natural law of self-preservation.

Despite having clearly declared in the MacArthur Notes that Japan would renounce war even as a means of self-defense and entrust its security to lofty global ideals, MacArthur later authorized the creation of the National Police Reserve.
This force eventually became the Self-Defense Forces.

In other words, although the renunciation of war was imposed at America’s convenience, once international conditions changed and the ideal became inconvenient, Japan was told to focus on self-preservation.
Even for the United States, the founding parent of the constitution, its principles were only upheld to that extent.

Former U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon later admitted in 1958 that the decision to disarm Japan under the constitution had been a mistake.

As LDP policy chief Tomomi Inada has noted, the constitution no longer matches reality, with Article 9, Paragraph 2 being particularly hollowed out.

Rather than being nurtured by the people, the constitution remained American-made throughout the postwar period, untouched by the Japanese public.

Prime Minister Abe emphasized that constitutional revision would give the people their first opportunity to create a new constitution with their own hands.
This vision is far more exciting than Okada’s backward-looking stance.