Conservative party prime minister Shinzo Abe want's to re-write or at least re-interpret what their constitution has stood for since the end of the second world war despite being heralded for it's diplomacy and pacifism He feels it instead speaks of Japan's humiliating loss to the allies.
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Drafted by U.S. officials during a frantic week in February 1946 and based on principles set out by General Douglas MacArthur, supreme allied commander in Japan, the constitution renounced the right to wage war or maintain armed forces and enshrined democracy and human rights.
It has been stretched to allow Japan a military equal to Britain's but still constrained compared with other countries' armed forces.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/14/us-japan-constitution-idUSKCN0PO08F20150714Members of his party have been quick to applaud his Nationalism and desire to protect both the economic and physical future of Japan. His detractors see his move as a way to build a legacy and fear that to move their government from a constitutionalists to a military like government will be a big step backward.
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Many of Abe's conservative backers, who have long wanted to rewrite the constitution but lacked the political means, view it as a shoddy document written, in the words of one commentary, "with malice and vengeance" to keep Japan forever subdued.
"If we keep the constitution GHQ (U.S. Occupation headquarters) gave to a defeated Japan, Japan will always remain a defeated country," says a great-grandfather in a cartoon published recently by Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to explain why the charter should be revised.
That view is fanning suspicion among Abe's critics that the proposed legislation to ease limits on the military is a step toward gutting not only the charter's pacifist Article 9, but basic principles such as respect for human rights.
"I think he hates the concept of modern constitutionalism, the concept that the powers of the government should be restricted by the constitution," Yasuo Hasebe, a constitutional scholar at Waseda University, told Reuters.
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Tokyo (CNN)As Japanese lawmakers debate a controversial security bill, one of the country's leading artists has characterized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's desire to reinterpret the constitution as vainglorious and "despicable."
The controversial bill would allow Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF) personnel to play a greater military role overseas -- something it has eschewed since the end of World War II.
"I presume that PM Abe wants to leave his name in history as a great man who changed the interpretation the constitution. But I think it's despicable," animator and director Hayao Miyazaki told a press conference held at his studio in western Tokyo Monday.
The bill is poised to be voted on by Japan's parliament later this week.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/14/asia/japan-miyazaki-slams-abe-security-bill/index.htmlI thought about this story when the social conservative question came up, but for the Japanese the role is reversed. The constitutionalists who want things to remain the same are at odds with the PM. who is considered a conservative who want's to change the whole constitution which has been the same for nearly 70 years.
If you've followed the conflict that has been taking place in the South China Sea, It's easy to see where the desire for a more pro-active military could be re-assuring but on the same hand nearly seven decades of internationally heralded pacifism is nothing to sneeze at. Especially given Japan's tendency or history to overcompensate in the war crimes department.
do you think Abe is justified or "right" in wanting a re-write ?