Sign of the Times
Lower House election a battle of vision, or petty scrabbling in the dirt?
With the Lower House election just a short time away, my mind keeps coming back to a passage from the Book of Joel, one of the prophetic books of the Old Testament: "Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions."
I can't help but feel slightly guilty dragging the Bible into the mundane goings-in of this world. Bear with me, however, and replace "old men" with "ruling party" and "young men" with "the opposition," and see how that makes Japan circa summer 2009 look.
The ruling party, having monopolized the government for ages, no longer has the energy even to dream dreams. They're a directionless herd idling their time away -- or rather, an exhausted bunch with more sleepless nights than dreams.
What of the opposition, the "young men" who are actually not-so-young and not-so-new themselves either? Do they have vision? It appears that the more realistic their takeover of the government becomes, the less vision they seem to have. There's a sense that they're trying to do away with the spirit and determination to press on with a new vision, under the pretext of upholding "a realistic political course of action."
As a result of the ruling and opposition parties' mutual critical bombardment of "financial resources" and "road maps," they have crushed each other's dreams and visions, and the election is now a battle of trivial nitpicking. Of course, a national political schedule and clearly identified financial resources are important; but they mean nothing without principles and philosophy. A manifesto without dreams or visions is not a manifesto at all. It's merely a manual.
So it appears that the upcoming election is being fought over manuals. Meanwhile, there is a historical weight to its developments.
I spent the majority of the 90s in Britain, during which time the country underwent a major change of government. In 1997, the Conservative Party, which had been in power since 1979, was pushed out of government by the Labour Party's landslide victory, signaling an end to the conservative kingdom built by Margaret Thatcher.
A common sentiment among British voters at the time was their disgust towards tired conservative politics. People had no idea what the government was thinking. Anything it did was less than perfect, and it was as if it no longer had the steam to keep going. Prime Minister John Major's mild, clean image was the ruling party's saving grace; from behind his politician's mask, the public captured glimpses of a good-natured ordinary citizen.
It was this ordinary decency most lacking among Japanese politicians that Major had in abundance. As a result, people found him likeable. But even Major's character could not save the Conservatives -- which had fallen into a deep political rut -- from defeat.
Interestingly -- or rather, embarrassingly -- another distinguishing sentiment among British voters at the time was the fear that the country would "turn out like Japan." In other words, voters felt that a regime change was imperative to prevent Britain from becoming another Japan.
An 18-year Tory rule is nothing compared to the situation in Japan, where the Liberal Democratic Party has been in power since 1955, with the exception of a brief period in the 1990s. Still, pub discussions in Britain in 1997 betrayed a sense of panic among voters.
As a matter of fact, Britain is confronting the same challenge today that it faced then. Tony Blair, who took over the government from the Conservative Party, led the Labour Party to two more victories. Today, the Labour Party continues to be in government, with Tony Blair's successor Gordon Brown at the helm. There is no doubt that voters are alarmed that Britain may very well be headed towards "Japanization" once again.
Isn't it about time Japan stops being an example of how not to be?
With eyes on whether this election will be Japan's way out of teaching by negative example, it is sad to see the parties leading manual-based campaigns. We'd like to see a battle in which dreams are shared and visions are held high. But where can we find anyone with both dreams and visions?
One only needs to look to knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha, the protagonist of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes' novel "Don Quixote," for such an example. Don Quixote is an old man. But he dreams big, and his heart is filled with youthful vision. What ties his dreams and vision together is the knightly spirit of crushing the powerful and helping the weak.
"To fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow ... to right the unrightable wrong ... to be willing to march into hell, for a heavenly cause ... this is my quest."
So sings Don Quixote in the hit song "Impossible Dream" from the musical "The Man of La Mancha." This song is nothing if not Don Quixote's manifesto. A manifesto is not a manifesto if it does not reveal the author's belief, principles and sentiments.
What we are looking for is a Don Quixote-style battle in the modern global age, a contest over dreams and visions and a face-off of real manifestos, with only those who emerge victorious being permitted to take over the reins of government. Only by staging such an election can we prove to Britain, the birthplace of parliamentary democracy, that Japan is a nation worth emulating. (By Noriko Hama, professor at Doshisha University)
(Mainichi Japan) August 23, 2009