The Yasukuni Shrine Issue
Before I digress into the issue itself, a look into the relationship between the Japanese state and the institution of religion is in order. During the Meiji era, the state took an extremely involved position on the role of religion.1 In 1870, the Meji government declared that the nation was to be directed by the “way of the kami,” or Shinto deities.2 The following year, the government began to designate Shinto shrines as official government institutions to be used as means of socializing the masses into emperor worship ideology. Ironically, the Meiji Constitution of 1889 had proclaimed religious freedom; however, it was limited to those religious practices that were not seen as any direct threat to the Japanese way of life.3 The distinction between where the state ended and religion began was further blurred by the active participation of many state officials in religious rites and practices. This inclusion climaxed in 1900 when the Home Ministry created a Shrine Office, as well as a nationally recognized and certified priesthood.4 This culmination of State Shinto rose to the level of becoming a national ideology, and resulted in dire consequences for followers and members of various other practices.
The Yatsukuni Shrine had been originally constructed in 1869 to commemorate those lives lost during the transition from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan. It was constructed in a time where religion and state were becoming inseparable; in contrast to the post-war years where the new Constitution explicitly stated that religion and state were to be separated-outlined in Article 89.5 This article subsequently ended Japanese government control and officiating over religious activities. This article would formulate a future Japanese state that would no longer allow the government to amass private citizens to carry out state interests.6 Article 20 of the Constitution granted freedom of religion “to all,” thus reinforcing this new attitude of religious existence outside the state.7
The new reforms that were put in place by the American occupiers also included the termination of the Home Ministry, thus emasculating any future attempts of Japanese socialization towards militarism and expansionism. This ended the reign of power the Japanese government had held over a variety of social institutions, including Shinto Shrines and the monopoly held over various other religions. Other reform laws that greatly changed the atmosphere of religion was the Religious Corporation Law of 1951 that guaranteed religions from state interference, and allowed them to conduct business and grow within society.8
As for the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine, it revolves around several key issues which play into creating such controversy and fervor. Much of this is focused around state interests in the Yasukuni Shrine, such as the conservatives’ attempts to reclaim it as a site of public property in which Japanese citizens may grieve and remember their dead comrades of the past. Conservatives, both in the government and private citizen groups, have spoken in favor of implementing government support for the Shrine, and thus acting in contrast to the fundamental Article 89 of the new Constitution. 9
The politicization of the Yasukuni Shrine continued on years after the Occupation. Hirohito, despite no longer making public visits to the shrine, had not explicitly objected to public officials worshipping there.10 Conservatives trying to pass the “Yasukuni Shrine Protection Bill,” were defeated on all five occasions between 1969 and 1974. Controversies rose to an even greater extent when in 1978 it became apparent that Class A war criminals, whom had been executed for their involvement in the Asia-Pacific War, were enshrined at Yasukuni. Now, more than ever before, the Yasukuni Shrine came to symbolize militarism, devastation, and hegemony.11
The issue continued to amass controversy as time went on, proving the Japanese people were not interested in seeing a reincarnation of state sponsorship to vestiges of the past. This was clearly the case in 1985, when Prime Minister Nakasone made the last official visit to worship at Yasukuni-as a means of fostering support amongst the reactionaries in Japan.12 The event sparked international criticism, especially from China and South Korea. Their concerns focused on the aspect of the shrine that seemed to neglect the role played by Japanese war criminals in the destruction and devastation of these lands (China and South Korea). Indeed, artifacts at the Yasukuni War Museum revised history in such a way that diminished the role the emperor and the imperialist intentions in the Asia-Pacific War.13
To put this issue in context has as much to do with domestic affairs within Japan, as it does with international relations. China, South Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and other nations that suffered at the hands of Japanese militarism and aggression find attempts to reinvigorate Yasukuni utterly repugnant. The Shrine represents the bastion of formerly practiced State Shinto, which accorded all wars as legitimate and just when fought in the name of the emperor. Such revisionist displays of denial of the Nanking Massacre will not be tolerated by the peoples demoralized by such events. Many lives were taken by way of such justifications, and they represent a legitimate concern for the peoples of the nations who suffered the last time such idealistic tendencies were held.14
This is also an issue that must be addressed by the Japanese people themselves. Debates continue amongst reactionary nationalist circles attempting to urge the Emperor and the government to officially recognize the Shrine. The issue at hand deals not only with the past, but the future of Japan as well. Since its conception, the Japanese Constitution has outlined a new rhetoric of policy dictating the relationship between the state and the people. Those who are concerned with a renewal in the path towards militarism question whether or not such acts are constitutional. Article 89 in the Japanese constitution, as stated previously, explicitly separates the state from any institution of religion. As this debate continues on today (with Koizumi continuing to visit the Shrine), those opposed to such visits see this as an act contrary to what the new Japanese state is supposed to uphold; further, in contrast to the ideals of the Constitution. Nationalists and right-wing forces look to capitalize on the Yasukuni Shrine as a means of reinvigorating the past; while the rest of the world sees it as a staunch act of reprieving a militaristic tradition and forsaking the valued tenets of the Japanese Constitution.
NOTES
1.Gordon, Andrew, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p.110
2.Ibid.
3.Sheldon Garon, Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p.208
4.Gordon p.110
5.Garon p.151
6.Ibid.
7.Garon p.208
8.Ibid.
9.Garon p.210
10.Bix, Herbert P., Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), p.682
11.Ibid.
12.Bix p.683
13.Ibid.
14.Ibid.
