Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe continues to push his
country in the direction of war, fascism and poverty.
Senior Ministers and advisors are fuelling the entrenched
xenophobia and racism of reactionary elements within the population.
All of this reflects the playing out of various contradictions
embedded within Japanese capitalism, and the effect of the law of uneven
development which sees the fortunes of the Japanese ruling class waxing and waning
beyond the control of government policy.
External
contradictions
Japan’s territorial disputes with neighbouring countries
are growing at the same time as Abe adopts a more militaristic posture with
plans to revise the US-Japan Defence Cooperation Guidelines and reinterpret the
so-called Peace Constitution adopted after World War 2.
Abe wants to see Japanese forces overseas deployed in
combat roles. Troops sent to assist US
wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq were restricted to non-combat roles
and are meant to be maintained strictly as a Self-Defence Force and placed in
combat only if Japan itself is attacked.
Abe also wants to be able to breathe fresh life into zaibatsu – Japan’s version of the
military-industrial complex – by allowing them to export arms - or in Australia’s
case, to export submarines.
Although the Japanese and the US are strategic partners
in US military domination of the East Pacific, they are economic rivals. The US has lately reasserted some of its
dominance in the world of finance capital, and both sides are finding it
difficult to agree on the terms of the free trade Trans Pacific Partnership.
Japan has become increasingly strident in disputes with China
(Diaoyu Islands), South Korea (Tok Do Islands) and Russia (Kurile
Islands). Although the first two in
particular are pimples on the face of the ocean, there are rich oil and natural
gas fields as well as fishing resources which are being claimed in the seas
around the disputed territories.
Internal
contradictions
The Japanese working class and small farmers face an
implacable foe in Japanese monopoly capitalism.
Abenomics, as the Japanese version of reactionary neo-liberalism, seeks
to smash labour protection laws, limit wage increases to less than the cost of
living, impose restructuring and sackings to force the growth of precarious
employment, and take away social security safeguards for the underprivileged
and the aged. Agricultural workers fear
that the TPP will see their livelihood diminished.
In the ideological field there is conflict between a
progressive and generally pacifist section of the people for a long time
aligned with the Japanese Communist Party, and a reactionary, racist and
militaristic outlook which holds the ruling position and is closely aligned to
the monopoly capitalist class. In recent times there has been a big push for
so-called right-wing “moral” education in schools together with more and more
openly racist discrimination against peoples not part of mainstream Japanese
society. These include the barakumin, a Japanese “untouchable”
caste; the relatively small Ainu minority who are Indigenous to the north of
Japan and the Kurile Islands; several other minority nationalities including
the Ryukyuans and Nivkhs; and nearly a million citizens of Korean descent.
Laws have been passed against discrimination against the
Ainu but the discrimination still occurs.
Korean communities often face open hostility and neo-Nazi groups instigate
violent pogroms calling for the killing of Koreans in Japan.
The historical basis for the view that the Japanese are a superior race was the religious claim that the Emperor is a direct descendent of Ameterasu, the sun goddess. This was the superstition that led to the fanatical behaviour of Japanese soldiers in WW 2, to the code of Bushido (“the way of the warrior”) and kamikaze (“divine wind”).
Although the mythological and superstitious elements of
this are no longer believed, they still inform the reactionary outlook that
clings to “racial purity” and “racial superiority” and against which progressive
opinion faces a daily struggle.
Calls
for an immigrant workforce under apartheid rule
Like many OECD countries, Japan is faced with a declining
birth rate and an ageing population.
Reflecting the uneven path of capitalist development, the once-strong
economic superpower faces the loss of about half of its workforce by 2060 and
with that, its status as an economic giant.
The former head of Tokyo’s Immigration Bureau flew a
significant kite on February 15 when he proposed bringing in 10 million foreign
workers over the next 50 years.
This was supported by a key confidante of, and advisor
to, Shinzo Abe, the 83-year old famous novelist Ayako Sono, who used a column
in the conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper to call for apartheid-like conditions
for the foreign workers.
“Ever since I learned of the situation in South Africa
some 20 or 30 years ago,” she wrote, “I have been convinced that it is best for
the races to live apart from each other, as was the case for whites, Asians and
blacks in that country.”
Her comments led to protests from the South African
ambassador to Japan and from progressive Japanese.
A government proposal for temporary three to five year work
visas was condemned by the United Nations which likened the scheme to slave
labour.
Publicity was also given to the plight of 300,000 Japanese-Brazilians
who were recruited during the expansionary period of the 1980s and 1990s. They were put to work in factories where they
were poorly treated and then sent home when the downturn set in. Some of those who remain say they are
disadvantaged, bullied and disliked by mainstream Japanese.
Neo-Nazi
links
In an attempt to cultivate a more female-friendly face for his government, Abe undertook a Cabinet reshuffle last September elevating five women to senior posts.
Barely a week later he had to deal with a crisis that
erupted when Facebook photos showed two of the women, the internal affairs
minister and the party’s policy chief, on separate occasions in front of a
Japanese flag in the company of Kazunari Yamada, the 52-year old leader of the
National Socialist (Nazi) Workers Party.
Yamada is notorious in Japan for having praised Hitler and the 9/11 attacks
on the US World Trade Centre.
Not long after these photos emerged, the Police minister
was forced to reject claims that she had been in a 15-year relationship with
Yamada.
These are significant and senior posts within the
Japanese government and ruling party held by associates and friends of the
country’s leading neo-Nazi. It shows how
easily, in the current environment, new fascist elements are situating themselves
within mainstream conservative parties.
It is occurring in the Ukraine, the UK and the US and is a tacit acceptance
by a worried bourgeoisie of its need to have fascist elements in reserve in
case of a rising level of people’s struggle.
Japanese
people will rise to the occasion
We have every confidence that the Japanese people will
organise and lift the level of struggle against the reactionary trends in their
society.
There is a broad coalition of opposition to the TPP. There is a gearing up for a spring offensive for higher wages and better job protection. Okinawans are engaging directly with US occupation forces and struggling against US military bases; and progressive opinion is defying the militarisation of the Constitution and of society.
There is a broad range of contact between the Japanese
and Australian peoples – from business relationships to school exchanges.
We must develop our ties with the Japanese working class
and its allies and isolate our own and each other’s reactionary bourgeoisies. ................
Further reading: Kamikaze pilot warns Japan on path to war under Abe:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/628748/japans-kamikaze-pilots-say-war-horrors-lost-on-young#ixzz3Ku8yxA6c
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