\u201cFirmly oppose arbitrary revision of the Constitution!\u201d \u201cNo to war!\u201d \u201cSafeguard the pacifist Constitution!\u201d On Sunday, around 50,000 people gathered at Tokyo Rinkai Disaster Prevention Park, chanting slogans and holding banners against the government\u2019s push for constitutional revision and military expansion, the largest turnout in recent years.<\/p>\n
Sunday marked Japan\u2019s Constitution Memorial Day, commemorating the day the country\u2019s current Constitution took effect in 1947.<\/p>\n
Widely known as the pacifist Constitution, the supreme law\u2019s Article 9 renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. It also stipulates that Japan will never maintain land, sea, and air forces or other war potential, and that the right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised.<\/p>\n
At this year\u2019s rally, held as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi accelerates efforts to revise the Constitution, public unease was more visible than ever.<\/p>\n
Tomoko Tamura, chair of the Japanese Communist Party, said in her speech that the Takaichi administration\u2019s push to revise the Constitution and attempts to add the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) into it could fundamentally weaken restrictions on overseas dispatches of SDF.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Constitution is a constraint imposed by the people to prevent the state from waging war again,\u201d she said. \u201cYet the authorities are now stoking crises and promoting military expansion, which is absolutely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mizuho Fukushima, leader of Japan\u2019s Social Democratic Party, also pointed out that the Takaichi administration is \u201chollowing out the pacifist Constitution bit by bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noting that the government has already relaxed restrictions on arms exports by cabinet decisions alone, even allowing the export of lethal weapons, while the bill to establish a new national intelligence committee has cleared the House of Representatives, she said: \u201cThis is a path to war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The atmosphere on the stage was sombre, while the mass crowd below held up placards calling for the protection of the Constitution and at times chanted along with the speakers.<\/p>\n
Many parents attended with their children. The younger ones, perhaps too young to grasp what a constitution even means, ran about laughing and playing in small groups, while the worry on their parents\u2019 faces was hard to miss.<\/p>\n
A participant identified as Kagawa, who attended the rally with his three children, told reporters that he found it hard to accept that Takaichi, who had not made such sweeping security policy changes a central part of her campaign during the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership race or the general election, is now pushing the agenda forward at such a rapid pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese security policies are decided by adults, but it is the children of today who will bear the consequences. They will grow up in an increasingly tense international environment. This is something we adults must think about seriously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With 81 years having passed since the end of World War II (WWII), Kagawa warned that the collective memory of the war is fading. \u201cUnder such circumstances, society may be more prone to drift toward constitutional revision, and that is something I am deeply wary of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kagawa also expressed concern about what he described as \u201cpatriotic education\u201d in Japanese schools. He warned that if such education places too much emphasis on \u201cwhat must be defended in the name of patriotism,\u201d it risks leading students to the misguided view that war, or even the possession of nuclear weapons, is an unavoidable choice. \u201cThat also deeply worries me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Yoneyama, a mother who attended the rally with her nine-year-old child, told reporters that Japan has adhered to the current Constitution for nearly 80 years, yet the government is now in such a rush to revise it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t help but wonder whether they are trying to build a society more prone to waging war,\u201d she said. Glancing at her little one, she added, \u201cI absolutely do not want him to go to war someday. I just want Japan to remain a peaceful nation forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the same day, however, a pro-revision rally was held elsewhere in Tokyo. The dominant message there was that \u201cJapan is facing the most severe and complex security environment since the end of WWII, and urgently needs to revise Article 9.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a video message to the gathering, Takaichi said that the Constitution \u201cshould be periodically updated in accordance with the demands of the times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just weeks ago, at an LDP convention on April 12, she declared that \u201can independent constitutional amendment by the hands of the Japanese people is our party\u2019s long-cherished goal\u201d and that \u201cthe time has come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Masakatsu Adachi, emeritus professor at Japan\u2019s Kanto Gakuin University, warned that politicians must place Article 9 at the very core of any discussion on security policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Japan assesses the global situation without grounding itself in Article 9, it could gradually slide back to its prewar state,\u201d he cautioned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFirmly oppose arbitrary revision of the Constitution!\u201d \u201cNo to war!\u201d \u201cSafeguard the pacifist Constitution!\u201d On Sunday, around 50,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-17335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tokyo","8":"tag-japan","9":"tag-tokyo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}