Maintain the Constitution as Japan's apology

Hiroyuki Sakai, The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

For most of my 41-year career served in companies, I was assigned to various parts of Southeast Asia where I started and ran several local businesses. Working with local residents, I was often exposed to the vestiges of the "Greater East Asia War."

In the Philippines, a local mayor bitterly recounted to me during a New Year's party that thousands of Filipinos were accused of espionage, slaughtered and thrown into a ravine near my factory by the Japanese army.

All I could do was to mutter an apology for an act of atrocity committed by my parents' generation.

I was relieved when the mayor expressed appreciation for the way my factory was hiring thousands of citizens and treating them well and said he would not hold a grudge against something that happened a long time ago.

Still, I remember how he seemed to imply that local residents do not easily forget history.

In Singapore, I also came across a resident who begrudgingly told me how one of his parents was beheaded by a Japanese soldier.

In Taiwan, one person reproachfully said his parent was dragged into war and his house was burned down in an air raid. Even in Thailand, which was a Japanese ally, a resident criticized the Japanese army for landing at Singora in southern Thailand without giving advance notice to the Thais. These are just a few of the countless occasions on which I had to resign myself into listening to similar accounts.

On a television program aired on the evening of Oct. 11, a Myanmar man who helped the Japanese army during the war said his father was executed for working for the Japanese army. He showed a wad of military scrip issued by the Japanese government that could not be converted into real money.

I recently read Senso Sekinin-ron (A view on war responsibility) written by Shinichi Arai and published by Iwanami Shoten in June. In the book, the author points out that postwar Japan has not reflected on its wartime deeds and goes on to say that the Japanese people have yet to specify war criminals and punish by themselves as the aggressor and apologize to the peoples of Asian countries for causing them damage.

Having personally undergone the above mentioned experiences, I was taken aback at his observation. The first part about Japan failing to reflect on its wartime aggression is commonly debated among intellectuals.

But it struck me that the second point tends to escape our attention. It is our obligation as a nation to apologize to the peoples of Asia. For that, we must achieve peaceful coexistence with them. And the process to attain that goal starts from denying all possibilities of war and much more aggression to other countries.

In that sense, constitutional revision, in particular revising war-renouncing Article 9, is a serious problem. Having scored a landslide victory in the September Lower House election under the banner of postal privatization, the Liberal Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi drafted its constitutional revision proposals.

They ratify the Self-Defense Forces as a national army and spell out patriotism and national defense. They appear that in order to protect "independence," they call for an "effort by the people who love their country." But I think "effort" anticipates the draft system and overseas dispatch of Japanese troops.

I belong to the last generation of Japanese who personally experienced World War II. Also, as a person who worked with Asian people and shared their joys and sorrows, I wish to call on fellow Japanese never to cause misery and damage to our Asian neighbors.

We must not cause them to harbor fear and wariness toward Japan. For that, we must safeguard our peace Constitution, which is unique in the world. I believe maintaining the Constitution serves as the rigid backbone of our apology to the Asian people who suffered from Japan.

The writer is a former business executive in Southeast Asia.