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Activist Post
September 18, 2015
Over the past few weeks, Japan has been the scene of massive protests taking place all across the country. The impetus for the protests is a new policy being promoted by the Japanese government that would effectively allow for the use of Japan’s military abroad and in the service of what many would describe as imperialist agendas.
The new “security bills” being promoted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are at the heart of the recent protests due to the fact that many Japanese see their ultimate passage as a major step toward the return of an imperialist Japan and a country that will soon be using its military in conflicts abroad.
The bills would allow for the use of the Japanese military outside of its national borders in order to “protect Japan’s national interests,” an extremely broad term that may allow for aggressive military actions and imperialism. It may very well allow the military to act as a willing participant in the imperialism of other nations as well, most notably the United States. Indeed, Americans should know well how allowing terms like “protecting national interests” can be used to justify wars of aggression, the slaughter of innocent people abroad, and the destruction of sovereign nations across the globe.
Japan’s Constitution, as codified after the Japanese defeat in World War 2, specifies that its army can only operate for the purposes of self-defense. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Japanese Constitutional scholars agree that the new laws are unconstitutional. Article 9, which provides much of the basis of the prohibition on aggressive military force reads, “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.”
