Fighting for the Future of the Rising Sons

A bitter dispute is building between Japanese teachers and the authorities over symbols of the country's past, writes David McNeill…

A bitter dispute is building between Japanese teachers and the authorities over symbols of the country's past, writes David McNeill

In Ireland, standing for the national anthem is a source of pride for most, but in Japan the anthem is the Kimigayo (His Majesty's Reign), the same dirge that rang in the ears of millions of Imperial troops who killed in the name of the Emperor in Asia during the second World War. Since 1999, the playing of the anthem and the flying of the Hinomaru (Rising Sun) flag have been compulsory at Japanese school ceremonies, but some teachers are refusing to toe the line.

"It's as though Germany brought back the Nazi Swastika and forced teachers to stand for it," says Suzuki Kazuhisa, who teaches civics at a high school in Kanagawa Prefecture. "If teachers don't fight it, who will?" For the last five years, Suzuki has demonstrated at his school's graduation ceremonies against the anthem and flag by wearing a white rose and raising his clenched fist in the air, a protest that has almost cost him his job.

Suzuki is not alone. Hundreds of teachers have been officially cautioned or disciplined for similar offences, with pressure to follow the new directive widely blamed for the suicide of Ishikawa Toshihiro, a Hiroshima high school head teacher who found himself sandwiched between the demands of the local education board and his overwhelmingly anti-anthem staff.

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Over 130 public teachers disciplined for not singing the anthem during school ceremonies earlier this year are now seeking a court injunction to stop the Tokyo Board of Education from forcing them to attend a "re-education programme" designed to prevent them from repeating the offence. A separate group of 228 teachers filed a lawsuit against the board in March seeking nominal damages for the psychological suffering caused by the 1999 directive.

The fight over what were once the dividing symbols of left and right is one indicator of subtle but momentous political changes playing out in Japan that could have enormous implications for the rest of the world. After half a century of living uneasily with the legacy of the no-war constitution and shunning the politics of nationalism, many observers say that under Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, Japan is drifting steadily to the right.

Koizumi himself has led the charge with a sustained effort to rehabilitate another taboo symbol of Japan's militarist past, Yasukuni Shrine, which honours millions of Japanese war dead, including convicted second World War criminals. Despite angry protests from Imperial Japan's wartime victims China and South Korea, Koizumi has made four visits while in office to the shrine, and he says he intends to keep going.

"There's no question that there has been a resurgence in nationalism over the last couple of years," says Kato Tetsuro, a political scientist at Hitotsubashi University. "You can see it in the attempt to introduce more patriotism into the schools, but also in the increasingly tough talk against North Korea and the dispatch of Japanese Self-Defence Forces to Iraq. It's led by a large section of the (main ruling) Liberal Democrat Party under Koizumi Junichiro. They will now try to change the constitution." Critics of the controversial SDF dispatch, which has put Japanese troops in a combat zone for the first time since the second World War, say the move is illegal under Article nine of the constitution, which prohibits offensive capability. Written during the post-war US occupation, the clause has long been a target of the nationalist right and steadfastly defended by the left. But the social democrats and communists were decimated in last November's general election and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan supports constitutional revision, making it only a matter of time before Article nine disappears.

ALL THIS IS deeply disturbing to Japan's dwindling band of pacifists, many of whom can be found teaching in public schools across the country. Because of the key role of wartime educators in forging a nation of Emperor-worshipping militarists, many teachers believe they have to hold the line against the state's more regressive moves. "Not long ago everyone thought the same as me but times have changed," says Eishun Nagai, the 56-year-old teacher who leads the second lawsuit. "We have to fight. Educational freedom in Japan depends on it." The choice of Tokyo as the venue for the final showdown over the anthem and flag is no coincidence. Under nationalist Governor Shintaro Ishihara, the city has taken an especially hard line against recalcitrant teachers. Last October, Tokyo upped the ante in the flag/anthem dispute by ordering schools across the city to drape the flag prominently across the front stage at enrolment and graduation ceremonies (some schools had merely hung it off-stage), and by changing the wording of a directive referring to protesting teachers from "may be punished" to "will be punished" for not singing the anthem. Needless to say, there is no love lost between Governor Ishihara and the teachers.

"In my view, Japan is drifting back toward fascism and Ishihara is one of the main reasons why," says Nagai. "How can he just order people to stand and sing for these symbols when he knows what they stand for? It's absolutely unforgivable."

The decision to take their battle to court is likely to cost the teachers dearly. Most are already millions of yen poorer thanks to the decision by their union not to support them and, with the litigation likely to take years to work its way through the courts, the costs will mount. Some have been told, in sometimes less than subtle ways, that the court case is a bad move.

"I've had calls from ultra-nationalists threatening to kill me, and violence is a real possibility," says Nagai "I'm personally against the directive, but more important, I'm against forcing children to sing the anthem and stand for the flag. That's brainwashing. Schools change first, then society so our responsibility as educators is clear if we see something bad happening. In my heart, I believe this is bad."