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Souichiro Tahata
Souichiro Tahata's Taboo challenge!
It's the 3rd of May today, which is a constitution memorial day
So, Mr.Tahara, today we'd like to talk about our constitution
Now, Prime minister Abe wants an amendment of the Article 96 of constitution then...
Actually the aim for amendment of Article 96 of constitution is to lower a hurdle..
their "hurdle" being the requirement of concurring vote of two-thirds of all its members for Amendment (Article 96)
So their aim is to "lower a hurdle"in Article96 to require only more than 1/2 votes instead of requiring more than 2/3 votes to change a constitution,
It has been mentioned that this change will become the political platform for House of Councillors election aswell
According to Asahi Newspaper's public opinion poll on changing Article 96 was 58% oppose and 38% support.
Although the Opposition reached more than half, it's still lower than what I had expected. What is your view in this Mr Tahara?
If you look at Japan's current Constitution, in our Article 9 of Constitution, Japan cannot have an army as such like the other countries have
Which means we wont have military force to exercise the right of the state
When all the other countries have their own military forces except for Japan, some may argue that it's strange and we have debates over it
All the other countries including the US, UK, France and even Germany has their own Army. So does China, North Korea and of course South Korea too
So you might be hearing more people say especially in this time, that Japan should rightfully have it's own army as well.
And recently, I hear being said that "it's to become a normal country" more often
But on the contrary, Since Japan became independent in 1952...
So since Japan became independent, why wasn't there any changes made to the Constitution, to this date?that's what is significant
not even a single change in the Constitution since then
In 1955, the LDP was formed by combining both the Democratic party and the Liberal party, it is a political party formed for Constitutional Change
The party is to bring changes to the Constitution
Yes, that is the political party
So despite having the party's official statement to make changes to the Constitution, why won't they able to amend the Constitution?
That's the important part
Yes, why haven't they especially when the LDP has been running the Governing most of the time
What this means is that Japanese citizens strongly didn't want to change the Constitution
Currently we require support of more than2/3 out of all House of Representatives for any amendment
There were always.. Always throughout this long period of time, more than 1/3 of resisting forces from the Opposition Party.
Like the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party would count for more than 1/3 of the votes
Although they still were unable to make up for more than 2/3 throughout this time
The reason why SDP&Communist Parties were able to take over1/3 of the vote is, because many Japan's citizens were against of Constitutional change
So what is the reason for not wanting this change? That's because....
Well when I was a 5th grader in Primary school, the war ends during the summer school breaks, ok
Although during the first semester during the Pacific war, we were taught that it was a "Crusade", and it is a "rightful war"
And were told that "we are going to fight against the world's invading aggressors such as the US, UK and Holland then make Asia independent from them"
"therefore this is a rightful war and you must die for this cause!" and "die for the Emperor!" - this is what were were taught
However, when the war ended during summer break & second semester had began, that same teacher who taught us before tells us "That war was a wrong war"
Which meant that it actually was a war of aggression
So up until the first semester, the heroic figure was Hideki Tojo but after the war, these heroic figures became war criminals
then we were taught "when you guys realize that you've been lied to go into war, you must lay your life on the line to stop it!"
which means what they were saying had changed completely
so a 180degrees change of it
Ever since then, I thought how a nation cannot be trusted, how they could trick us and we were all tricked, that feeling became strong in me
And how that teacher could teach us it was a crusade in the 1st semester then tell us it was wrong in the 2nd semester,
so I've realize a nation (government) cannot be trusted
To elaborate further, I myself actually don't think that pacific war was a war of aggression
The reason is that it was a war amongst the aggressor countries against other aggressor countries
And the world's first aggressor country begins with the UK, then US, Holland also France and Russia too
They’ve already had many colonies
So it was a war amongst the aggressors, including Japan too
we tried to go into that aggression
Well we pushed into that aggression
It was between aggressor countries, but it was obvious we'd lose from the very beginning,
As if you could win against all those countries, the US, UK, Holland, also China and Russia. It's impossible to win at all
Japan had a foolish war with an absolute chance of not winning. That is the point.
After the war, the generation that went through war, made sure that this country was unable to have foolish war, while they were still alive
If they hadn't made the country unable to have wars and if left it able to have war, we'd make that foolish mistake again.
That's why there were many that opposed the war
However, now the wave towards changing that Constitution is getting stronger.
The reason for this is because that generation of people who know the war are no longer alive.
Actually the very last bunch of that war-time generation is my generation
It was in the 5th grade of primary school that children started being taught military education and including history.
However, people younger than my generation weren't taught that, so they don't know about it.
So, during the time when many of that war-time generation were still alive, opposing forces towards Constitution change were overwhelming
Keeping that Article 9 of Constitution to make a country that cannot have war
However, the people from that generation kept going by the time
All of a sudden, people are saying we need to change this Constitution because there is a confrontation with China, or dealing problem with North Korea
that's an absolute nonsense!
Look at the time during the Cold war, Japan was on the sides of USA, so we were in opposition to the Soviets for a long time.
So the sense of danger at that time was far greater than our current situation
well that generation are gone, so now we are even discussing about changing the Constitution...
We all need to ask ourselves the reason why, this Constitution hadn't changed in all of these years
The fact that our government had lied to us citizens in the past, doesn't change.
This is why we need to take cautions and not to change the Constitution so easily.
Especially in overseas like Germany or any other country, they can't change their constitution without having the vote of more than 2/3
Why on earth would Japan be the only country reducing it to 1/2 vote
Yes, Abe wants to change it to 1/2 vote first, making it easier to change the Constitution
If they want to change the Constitution they can, I'm not protecting all constitution, but decide to do so if they get 2/3 of the vote.
Thank you for watching, Peace:-)