JAPAN'S PM DEFIES A TABOO
He upsets Tokyo's former victims by visiting a shrine to the Japanese war dead. John Casey says why
LAST WEEK the Japanese Prime Minis- ter, Ryutaro Hashimoto, officially visited the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. He was immediately condemned by Korea and China.
The Yasukuni shrine was founded 125 years ago to house the spirits of all the dead who have fallen in war for Japan. It is the Cenotaph and Westminster Abbey rolled into one. The Japanese think of the spirits as actually living in the shrine, and offerings of food are set out for them twice a day.
Emperors and prime ministers regularly made pilgrimages there to commune with the dead. Now they dare not do so official- ly for fear of protests from countries which suffered from Japan's invasion of Asia. I am not surprised that Ryutaro Hashimoto defied the taboo. I once interviewed him, and formed the impression that he is a convinced Japanese nationalist. I remind- ed him of the words of Helmut Schmidt, the former German Chancellor: 'Japan has no friends in Asia.' That is wrong,' he said scornfully, 'we are very good friends with Australia and Formosa.'
The Yasukuni is by far the greatest cen- tre of nationalist sentiment in Japan. At any time you can see tough-looking, straight-backed veterans greeting old com- rades with bows perfectly adjusted to the rank of each man. Last year — the 50th anniversary of the end of the second world war — saw the shrine especially crowded with men, their faces working with emo- tion, in services to appease the spirits of the war-time dead. Among the Japanese Left the Yasukuni arouses memories of militarism sanctified by the state religion of Shinto, and of all the madness which led to the disasters of the war.
The Yasukuni also boasts a small military museum — very rare in Japan. It is the only place — the other being the War Memorial in Canberra — where you can see a midget submarine of the sort the Japanese used to penetrate Sidney harbour.
I wanted to see the shrine from the inside — from the Japanese point of view. I was able to do this when I was accorded the rare privilege of being received by the High Priest, Mr Matsudaira. A tall, thin aristocrat, Mr Matsudaira wore full tradi- tional Japanese dress. His family were retainers and nearest kin of the Tokugawa shoguns, who ruled Japan for 250 years, up until 1868.
Mr Matsudaira showed me photographs of his father at the coronation of George VI, and photographs of himself as a dash- ing young army officer, and then as naval officer. He apologised for bowing rather than shaking hands: 'Here we are in a cen- tre of Japanese tradition.'
Shrines are at the heart of Japanese tra- dition. Mr Matsudaira talked about how his own spirit would fare after death: 'In my shrine there is a box which must never be opened before I die. In the box is a holy mirror, which will contain my soul after death. Before I am cremated there will be a ritual to transplant my spirit into a small white wooden plate. The plate will be kept in my house for 100 days. On the 100th day my spirit will be transplanted to the shrine and the plate will be burned.'
Mr Matsudaira must be one of the very last Japanese to be brought up in the household of a traditional Daimyo (feudal lord). He regrets not only the Americani- sation of Japan after the war, but even the vulgarisation (as he sees it) that took place after 1868 — when Japan Westernised itself, developed heavy industry and a mod- ern army, and toppled the Tokugawas from power in favour of a supreme emperor.
Among the vulgarities he deplores are competitive games — including tennis as played by the present Crown Prince: `It is bad for nobility to play tennis. You should not go in for sports which involve personal enmity. Riding, shooting, sailing — they are all right because they are impersonal. You set yourself against the sea or a strong animal, not other people. Your English noblemen understand that. I wish the Crown Prince did.'
Mr Matsudaira remains proud of the Japanese empire: 'I wish we still had it. I wish you still had yours. We have many similarities. My family have always had good relations with the British royal fami- ly,' He is proud, too, of the service his fam- ily gives to the emperors of Japan. His father had served the Emperor Taisho (who unfortunately went mad). He then served the late Emperor Shown (`Hirohito' to us): 'Immediately after the war my father accompanied the Emperor all around Japan. We feared he would be attacked because of the people's terrible sufferings in the war. But he never was. You see, there was still the pre-war spirit. The pre- and post-war Japanese are two completely different nations.'
Mr Matsudaira was proud of having fought in the war, serving in the Imperial Navy ('I understand your navy consists mainly of noblemen — just as ours did.'). He has written a pamphlet describing his war experiences: 'It is for our grandsons, so that they will know that their grandsires did not die like dogs, but proudly, for their country. It is natural that the British should have hostile feelings towards us, their for- mer enemies. I do not resent that. What pains me is to hear Japanese criticising their Emperor after the event, when before they followed him blindly.'
Mr Matsudaira showed me an exercise book in which he had copied out, in English, Churchill's remark that when war came, he knew that Hitler's and Mussolini's fates would be sealed; and that as for the Japanese, 'they will be ground to powder'. 'And it is right,' said Mr Matsudaira, 'right that they should be ground to powder rather than criticise their Emperor.'
He then invited me to visit the inner recesses of the shrine, where the spirits of the dead are thought to reside. We were preceded by attendants and female shamans in Shinto robes. I was asked to purify my hands with water. We drank some ritual sake. We inspected the rooms where the late Hirohito and the Empress used to rest when they visited the shrine. Finally, we were before the altar itself, with its sacred mirror. 'Will you kindly bow once?' It was a delicate moment. I well knew that among the 'enshrined' were General Tojo and other leading politicians, executed in 1948 as war criminals. It was not a difficult decision. I bowed before the 2,460,000 spirits, including that of General Tojo, and before those also of the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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