A Japanese Jacques Delors?
Aug. 30th, 2009 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus1. Two minutes and forty seconds into this video interview, architect Ryue Nishizawa gives his view on politics in Japan.
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"Now there is no politics in Japan," Nishizawa says. "There is no politician in Japan, I think. Everything became, really, subculture. The politician people, they don't look like politicians."
2. Perhaps the problem is that the politicians in Japan look too like politicians-in-Japan; grey, boring, ineffectual, and sometimes dozy and drunk.
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3. But all that seems about to change. If polls and projections are to be believed, today's Lower House elections will see as many as 300 of the 480 seats go to the opposition party, bringing this man, Yukio Hatoyama, to power as Japan's new prime minister.
4. Of course, that still might not make a huge difference. Some say it's not politicians but bureaucrats who have ruled Japan for the last six decades; cabinet meetings are seen as a rubber-stamping ceremony for agendas decided by permanent secretaries, the mandarin-like bureaucrats. Now, the DPJ claims they'll stop that, but the LDP counters that the DPJ is supported by the bureaucrats' labour unions, and is therefore unlikely to diminish their power (see this Al Jazeera discussion).
5. The two main things the DPJ have going for them are the deep unpopularity of Aso's LDP government and a pledge to give people cash payments for having children. They also plan to make high schools and highways free, and guarantee minimum pensions. They aren't too clear on where the money will come from. The main thing Aso has going for him is that there have been slight green shoots in the economy recently; it grew at an annualized rate of 3.7% in the three months ended June 30, the first growth in five quarters.
6. My household is currently divided; Hisae is a staunch Aso supporter. She says -- echoing my "intentional fallacy" thought of the other day -- that the more the DPJ wants to change basic structural things, the more they're likely to fuck up. Other friends here -- as well as idol group SMAP -- turn out to be LDP supporters.
7. So why am I at odds with the Japanese around me about this election? What makes me welcome today's likely DPJ win? Firstly, I felt strongly that Japan shouldn't be refuelling the US fleet in the Indian Ocean. That puts me on the DPJ side. Secondly, I really like a lot of the things Hatoyama says in this editorial, originally printed in Japanese magazine Voice and re-run in The New York Times on Thursday.
8. Let's quote a few things Hatoyama says there: "The recent economic crisis resulted from a way of thinking based on the idea that American-style free-market economics represents a universal and ideal economic order, and that all countries should modify the traditions and regulations governing their economies in line with global (or rather American) standards." But "the global economy has damaged traditional economic activities and destroyed local communities...we would not implement policies that leave areas relating to human lives and safety — such as agriculture, the environment and medicine — to the mercy of globalism." "Fraternity as I mean it can be described as a principle that aims to adjust to the excesses of the current globalized brand of capitalism and accommodate the local economic practices that have been fostered through our traditions."
9. Most important, though, is Hatoyama's awareness that Japan must orient itself to its neighbours in Asia now more than to the US: "The East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being."
10. And most exciting for me is Hatoyama's vision of these Asian nations developing an EU-like single currency bloc, leading to political integration. He admits it will take more than 10 years, because "unlike Europe, the countries of this region differ in size, development stage and political system, so economic integration cannot be achieved over the short term. However, we should nonetheless aspire to move toward regional currency integration as a natural extension of the rapid economic growth begun by Japan, followed by South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then achieved by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China. We must spare no effort to build the permanent security frameworks essential to underpinning currency integration." This vision makes Hatoyama a kind of Japanese Jacques Delors.
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11. At this stage, however -- like the designers of this weird Flash animation featured on the DPJ's website -- we may all be projecting our own particular hopes onto Hatoyama and his party. A recent podcast on Neojaponisme, for instance, saw two Americans (Marxy and Tobias Harris of Observing Japan) compare the DPJ to the American Democratic party and say it represents Japan's "best hope for becoming a liberal democracy". When you strain to make out what they're saying in the noisy restaurant they've seen fit to record their thoughts in, it turns out that this involves freeing up the labour market, stopping "distributing pork", fostering "reform" and "individual human rights" and "genuine equality of opportunity", and "creating Japanese who don't look to the state when things go wrong". Neither seems terribly confident that the DPJ will deliver this, though. Harris was later appalled by Hatoyama's Voice article.
12. Despite my excitement about the appearance of "a Japanese Jacques Delors", and the emergence of an actual political choice for the first time in decades in Japan, my general feeling is that almost nothing will change in Japan. Partly because Nishizawa is right; there really is no politics in Japan. And partly because, whatever they stand for, both potential PMs are scions of ancient political families, dynasties who make the Kennedys and the Bushes look like amateurs; Hatoyama's grandfather was the LDP's first premier, unseating Aso's grandfather, Shigeru Yoshida. Whichever stuffed shirt wins today, the real action will continue to be elsewhere.
[Error: unknown template video]
"Now there is no politics in Japan," Nishizawa says. "There is no politician in Japan, I think. Everything became, really, subculture. The politician people, they don't look like politicians."
2. Perhaps the problem is that the politicians in Japan look too like politicians-in-Japan; grey, boring, ineffectual, and sometimes dozy and drunk.
[Error: unknown template video]
3. But all that seems about to change. If polls and projections are to be believed, today's Lower House elections will see as many as 300 of the 480 seats go to the opposition party, bringing this man, Yukio Hatoyama, to power as Japan's new prime minister.4. Of course, that still might not make a huge difference. Some say it's not politicians but bureaucrats who have ruled Japan for the last six decades; cabinet meetings are seen as a rubber-stamping ceremony for agendas decided by permanent secretaries, the mandarin-like bureaucrats. Now, the DPJ claims they'll stop that, but the LDP counters that the DPJ is supported by the bureaucrats' labour unions, and is therefore unlikely to diminish their power (see this Al Jazeera discussion).
5. The two main things the DPJ have going for them are the deep unpopularity of Aso's LDP government and a pledge to give people cash payments for having children. They also plan to make high schools and highways free, and guarantee minimum pensions. They aren't too clear on where the money will come from. The main thing Aso has going for him is that there have been slight green shoots in the economy recently; it grew at an annualized rate of 3.7% in the three months ended June 30, the first growth in five quarters.
6. My household is currently divided; Hisae is a staunch Aso supporter. She says -- echoing my "intentional fallacy" thought of the other day -- that the more the DPJ wants to change basic structural things, the more they're likely to fuck up. Other friends here -- as well as idol group SMAP -- turn out to be LDP supporters.
7. So why am I at odds with the Japanese around me about this election? What makes me welcome today's likely DPJ win? Firstly, I felt strongly that Japan shouldn't be refuelling the US fleet in the Indian Ocean. That puts me on the DPJ side. Secondly, I really like a lot of the things Hatoyama says in this editorial, originally printed in Japanese magazine Voice and re-run in The New York Times on Thursday.
8. Let's quote a few things Hatoyama says there: "The recent economic crisis resulted from a way of thinking based on the idea that American-style free-market economics represents a universal and ideal economic order, and that all countries should modify the traditions and regulations governing their economies in line with global (or rather American) standards." But "the global economy has damaged traditional economic activities and destroyed local communities...we would not implement policies that leave areas relating to human lives and safety — such as agriculture, the environment and medicine — to the mercy of globalism." "Fraternity as I mean it can be described as a principle that aims to adjust to the excesses of the current globalized brand of capitalism and accommodate the local economic practices that have been fostered through our traditions."
9. Most important, though, is Hatoyama's awareness that Japan must orient itself to its neighbours in Asia now more than to the US: "The East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being."
10. And most exciting for me is Hatoyama's vision of these Asian nations developing an EU-like single currency bloc, leading to political integration. He admits it will take more than 10 years, because "unlike Europe, the countries of this region differ in size, development stage and political system, so economic integration cannot be achieved over the short term. However, we should nonetheless aspire to move toward regional currency integration as a natural extension of the rapid economic growth begun by Japan, followed by South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and then achieved by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China. We must spare no effort to build the permanent security frameworks essential to underpinning currency integration." This vision makes Hatoyama a kind of Japanese Jacques Delors.
[Error: unknown template video]
11. At this stage, however -- like the designers of this weird Flash animation featured on the DPJ's website -- we may all be projecting our own particular hopes onto Hatoyama and his party. A recent podcast on Neojaponisme, for instance, saw two Americans (Marxy and Tobias Harris of Observing Japan) compare the DPJ to the American Democratic party and say it represents Japan's "best hope for becoming a liberal democracy". When you strain to make out what they're saying in the noisy restaurant they've seen fit to record their thoughts in, it turns out that this involves freeing up the labour market, stopping "distributing pork", fostering "reform" and "individual human rights" and "genuine equality of opportunity", and "creating Japanese who don't look to the state when things go wrong". Neither seems terribly confident that the DPJ will deliver this, though. Harris was later appalled by Hatoyama's Voice article.
12. Despite my excitement about the appearance of "a Japanese Jacques Delors", and the emergence of an actual political choice for the first time in decades in Japan, my general feeling is that almost nothing will change in Japan. Partly because Nishizawa is right; there really is no politics in Japan. And partly because, whatever they stand for, both potential PMs are scions of ancient political families, dynasties who make the Kennedys and the Bushes look like amateurs; Hatoyama's grandfather was the LDP's first premier, unseating Aso's grandfather, Shigeru Yoshida. Whichever stuffed shirt wins today, the real action will continue to be elsewhere.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 10:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-29 11:07 pm (UTC)Follow the link and you'll find that the "father of the European Union... aristocratic in his origins and elitist in his ideas" actually had a Japanese mother of samurai descent, which means that if Hatoyama succeeds in his aim to create an Asian EU, things will in some sense just be coming full circle.
Non-Japan
Date: 2009-08-29 11:34 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauban,_Freiburg
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5b6rl_freiburg_webcam
It may just be the perfect place to live, except perhaps for the fact that all the food is apparently organic, which, as has been established by science, is nonsensical. Also, I'd imagine the hipsterism quotient might not be the highest--but, then, you must remember that, more and more, that is a good thing.
Okay, you may go back to talking about Japan now.
Hisae the conservative?
Date: 2009-08-30 12:57 am (UTC)This is an historic election, it's true. And all the japanese I know (mostly chuzai-in) do want to see the LDP reich end. That said, I'm afraid Jiminto and Minshuto are about as different Repubs and Dems in the states.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 01:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 01:57 am (UTC)Re: Non-Japan
Date: 2009-08-30 02:43 am (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan
I don't think a year or so really cuts it...
We might then get something a bit more informed than the 'first-year Japanese Studies' kind of essay that typifies momus' recent writing on the country.
And who would have thought that momus would have surrounded himself with those Japanese with LDP allegiances? Happy to say it's mostly 共産党 round my way...
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 02:53 am (UTC)I am your biggest fan. I have a request for your next album. Will you please do 4 or 5 Aerosmith covers?
Thanks!
Tanya
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 06:00 am (UTC)for the record, why ? Is it the slave labour supported coal mining riches that appeals ?
perhaps the blue-blood, former olympic rifle shooting champion appeal ?
or maybe the constant stream of wisdom (only rich people should marry, old people are talentless) ? Could it be that she too is an unironic fan of the eurotrash-shagging, eagle-eye cartoon sniper Golgo 13 ?
Or just a desire for arrogant morons who genuinely despise ordinary japanese people to continue running the country ?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 06:47 am (UTC)Out of the views represented in the BBC report Japan Election: Voters' Views (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8223982.stm), Hisae's views overlap most with those of Kikuchi Daijiro, a 20 year-old college student from Oita, who says:
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 06:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 07:06 am (UTC)What Hisae and I -- despite backing different parties at this election -- have in common is a strong dislike of the Koizumite tendency: the failed project of Japanese neo-liberalism, privatisation, incentivisation, market "reform", and so on. "Thatcherism 20 years late" is not what Japan needed, and the 2005 election, with its "parachuted celebrity assassins" and its obsession with privatising the post office, was a disgusting spectacle.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 07:07 am (UTC)but to continue voting for the LDP because of "aso's great performance during the G20" is either insane or insanely ill-informed.
mizuho fukushima is actually the person i'd most want running japan, but that is just not going to happen..
arms-length
Date: 2009-08-30 07:17 am (UTC)<b>HISAE IS A TORY?</b>
Date: 2009-08-30 07:26 am (UTC)Re: <b>HISAE IS A TORY?</b>
Date: 2009-08-30 07:49 am (UTC)Re: <b>HISAE IS A TORY?</b>
Date: 2009-08-30 07:54 am (UTC)"An elephant is very like Gordon Brown."
"No, an elephant is rather like Barack Obama."
Re: <b>HISAE IS A TORY?</b>
Date: 2009-08-30 08:18 am (UTC)The Book of Jokes, Chapter 18
Date: 2009-08-30 08:50 am (UTC)Inner Forest was the wood next to the glass house. I knew that it contained a family of Greater Crested Grebes. I knew this because in prison I had subscribed to a birdwatching newsletter which reported that hatchlings had been spotted riding on their mother's back as she scrabbled across the gravel pit in the forest clearing. This was a notable event indeed; Greater Crested Grebes hadn't been seen at Inner Forest in over a century.
A pathological Grebe-killing individual had executed the last known local community of the fowl in 1889. What's worse, he had done it whilst they were in their breeding plumage. He had used his bare hands. The few remaining individuals, traumatized by the ordeal of watching the event, had taken wing.
We were pushing our way through tough, spiky pine branches as I told the men this. The Murderer and the Molester shook their heads.
"How could a human being hurt a flock of innocent birds like that?" demanded the Molester.
"Because humans are scum, that's why," said the Murderer. "They should all be hacked to the ground with a blunt machete and left to rot, swarming with flies. Filthy scum."
"I dunno," said the Molester, "birds can be disappointing too."
"Why?" asked the Murderer.
"Corruption," said the Molester. "They line their nests, if you know what I mean."
"No, I don't know what you mean. Of course they line their nests. That's natural."
"They line them with feathers, straw, paper clips, scraps of blanket, pom poms, jewelry, insulation wire, pornography, shoe laces in all colours, Scotch tape, kid gloves, banknotes..."
"What are you trying to say."
"They're common criminals, birds, no better than you or me. That's all I'm saying. They should all be locked up."
"Well, they are locked up," said the Murderer. "Half the birds you see are in cages."
"That's what I mean," said the Molester, as if the Murderer had proved his point.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 09:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 09:38 am (UTC)Re: <b>HISAE IS A TORY?</b>
Date: 2009-08-30 09:59 am (UTC)Re: Non-Japan
Date: 2009-08-30 10:13 am (UTC)What do you mean by "nonsensical"? Is organic food not actually organic? Or is it not as good for the environment as its proponents say?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 11:11 am (UTC)