HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/japan.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 11KB | 186 lines

         The occupation of Japan was, from start to finish, an American
    operation.  General Douglans MacArthur, sole supreme commander of the
    Allied Power was in charge.  The Americans had insufficient men to make
    a military government of Japan possible; so t hey decided to act
    through the existing Japanese gobernment.  General Mac Arthur became,
    except in name, dictator of Japan.  He imposed his will on Japan.
    Demilitarization was speedily carried out, demobilization of the former
    imperial forces was complet ed by early 1946.

         Japan was extensively fire bomded during the second world war.
    The stench of sewer gas, rotting garbage, and the acrid smell of ashes
    and scorched debris pervaded the air.  The Japanese people had to live
    in the damp, and col d of the concrete buildings, because they were the
    only ones left.  Little remained of the vulnerable wooden frame, tile
    roof dwelling lived in by most Japanese.  When the first signs of
    winter set in, the occupation forces immediately took over all the s
    team-heated buildings.  The Japanese were out in the cold in the first
    post war winter fuel was very hard to find, a family was considered
    lucky if they had a small barely glowing charcoal brazier to huddle
    around.  That next summer in random spots new ho uses were built, each
    house was standardized at 216 square feet, and required 2400 board feet
    of material in order to be built.  A master plan for a modernistic city
    had been drafted, but it was cast aside because of the lack of time
    before the next winte r.  The thousands of people who lived in railroad
    stations and public parks needed housing.

         All the Japanese heard was democracy from the Americans.  All they
    cared about was food.  General MacAruther asked the government to send
    food, when they refus ed he sent another telegram that said, "Send me
    food, or send me bullets."

         American troops were forbidden to eat local food, as to keep from
    cutting from cutting into the sparse local supply.

         No food was was brought in expressly for the Japanese durning the
    first six months after the American presence there.  Herbert Hoover,
    serving as chairman of a special presidential advisory committee,
    recommended minimum imports to Japan of 870,000 tons of food to be
    distributed in different urban areas.  Fi sh, the source of so much of
    the protein in the Japanese diet, were no longer available in adequate
    quantities because the fishing fleet, particularly the large vessels,
    had been badly decimated by the war and because the U.S.S.R.  closed
    off the fishing g rounds in the north.

         The most important aspect of the democratization policy was the
    adoption of a new constitution and its supporting legislation.  When
    the Japanese government proved too confused or too reluctant to come up
    with a constitutional reform that satisfied MacArthur, he had his own
    staff draft a new constitution in February 1946.  This, with only minor
    changes, was then adopted by the Japanese government in the form of an
    imperial amendment to the 1889 constitution and went into effect on May
    3, 1947.  The new Constitution was a perfection of the British
    parliamentary form of government that the Japanese had been moving
    toward in the 1920s.  Supreme political power was assigned to the Diet.
    Cabinets were made responsible to the Diet by having the prime minister
    elected by the lower house.  The House of Peers was replaced by an
    elected House of Councillors.  The judicial system was made as
    independent of executive interference as possible, and a newly created
    supreme court was given the power to review the constitutionality of
    laws.  Local governments were given greatly increased powers.

         The Emperor was reduced to being a symbol of the unity of the
    nation.  Japanese began to see him in person.  He went to hospitals,
    schools, mines, industrial plants; he broke ground for public buildings
    and snipped tape at the opening of gates and highways.  He was steered
    here and there, shown things, and kept muttering, "Ah so, ah so."
    People started to call him "Ah-so-san." Suddenly the puybli c began to
    take this shy, ill-at-ease man to their hearts.  They saw in him
    something of their own conqured selves, force to do what was alien to
    them.  In 1948, in a newspaper poll, Emperior Hirohito was voted the
    most popular man in Japan.

         Civil li berties were emphasized, women were given full equality
    with men.  Article 13 and 19 in the new Constitution, prohibits
    discrimination in political, economic, and social relations because of
    race, creed, sex, social status, or family origen.  This is one of the
    most explicitly progressive statements on human rights anywhere in law.
    Gerneral Douglas MacArthur emerged as a radical feminist because he was
    "convinced that the place of women in Japan must be brought to a level
    consistent with that of women in the western democracies." So the
    Japanese women got their equal rights amendment long before a concerted
    effort was made to obtain one in America.

         Compulsory education was extened to nine years, efforts were made
    to make education more a traning in thinking than in rote memory, and
    the school system above the six elementary grades was revised to
    conform to the American pattern.  This last mechanical change produced
    great confusion and dissatisfaction but became so entrenched that it
    could not be re vised even after the Americans departed.

         Japan's agriculture was the quickest of national activities to
    recover because of land reform.  The Australians came up with the best
    plan.  It was basis was this: There were to be no absentee landlards.
    A person who actually worked the land could own up to 7.5 arcers.
    Anyone living in a village near by could keep 2.5 acres.  Larger plots
    of land, exceeding these limits, were bought up by the government and
    sold on easy terms to former tenants.  Within two years 2 million
    tenants became landowners.  The American occupation immediately gained
    not only a large constituency, for the new owners had a vested interest
    in preserving the change, but also a psychological momentum for other
    changes they wanted to ini tiate.

         The American labor policy in Japan had a double goal:  to
    encourage the growth of democratic unions while keeping them free of
    communists.  Union organization was used as a balance to the power of
    management.  To the surprise of the American authorties, this movement
    took a decidedly more radical turn.  In the desperate economic
    conditions of early postwar Japan, there was little room for successful
    bargaining over wages, and many labor unions instead made a bid to take
    over industry and o perate it in their own behalf.  Moreover large
    numbers of workers in Japan were government employees, such as railroad
    workers and teachers, whose wages were set not by management but by the
    government.  Direct political action therefore seemed more meani ngful
    to these people than wage bargaining.  The Japanese unions called for a
    general strike on February 1, 1947.  MacArthur warned the union
    leadership that he would not countenace a nationwide strike.  The
    strike leaders yieled to MacArthur's will.  The re after the political
    appeal of radical labor action appeared to wane.

         The Americans wanted to disband the great Zaibatsu trust as a
    means of reducing Japan's war-making potential.  There were about 15
    Zaibatsu families such as - Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Yasuda, and Sumitomo.
    The Zaibatsu controled the industry of Japan.  MacArthur's liaison men
    pressured the Diet into passing the Deconcentration Law in December
    1947.  In the eyes of most Japanese this law was designed to cripple
    Japanese business and i ndustry forever.  The first step in breaking up
    the Zaibatsu was to spread their ownership out among the people and to
    prevent the old owners from ever again exercising control.  The stocks
    of all the key holding companies were to be sold to the public.
    Friends of the old Zaibatsu bought the stock.  In the long run the
    Zaibatsu were not exactly destroyed, but a few were weakened and others
    underwent a considerable shuffle.

         The initial period of the occupation from 1945 to 1948 was marked
    by reform, the second phase was one of stabilization.  Greater
    attention was given to improvement of the economy.  Japan was a heavy
    expense to the United States.  The ordered breakup of the Zaibatsu was
    slowed down.  The union movement continued to grow, to the ult imate
    benefit of the worker.  Unremitting pressure on employers brought
    swelling wages, which meant the steady expansion of Japan domestic
    consumer market.  This market was a major reason for Japan's subsequent
    economic boom.  Another boom to the economy was the Korean War which
    proved to be a blessing in disguise.  Japan became the main staging
    area for military action in Korea and went on a war boom economy with
    out having to fight in or pay for a war.

         The treaty of peace with Japan was signed at San Francisco in
    September 1951 by Japan, the United States, and forty-seven other
    nations.  The Soviet Union refused to sign it.  The treaty went into
    effect in April 1952, officially terminating the United States military
    occupation and restoring full independence.

         What is extraordinary in the Occupation and its aftermath was the
    insignificance of the unpleasant.  For the Japanese, the nobility of
    American ideals and the essential benignity of the American presence
    assuaged much of the bitterness and anguish of defeat.  For the
    Americans, the joys of promoting peace and democracy triumphed over the
    attendant fustrations and grievances.  Consequently, the Occupation
    served to lay down a substantial capital of good will on which both
    America and Jap an would draw in the years ahead.


                                BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Christopher, Robert C.  /The Japanese Mind/.  New York:  Fawcett
  Columbine, 1983

  La Cerda, John.  /The Conqueror Comes to Tea/.  New Brunswick:  R utgers
  University Press, 1946

  Manchester, William.  /American Caesar/.  New York:  Dell Publishing
  Company, Inc., 1978

  Perry, John Curtis.  /Beneath the Eagle's Wings/.  New York:  Dodd, Mead
  And Company, 1980

  Reischauer, Edwin O.  / The Japanese/.  London:  Belknap Press, 1977

  Seth, Ronald.  /Milestones in Japanese History/.  Philadelphia:  Chilton
  Book Company, 1969

  Sheldon, Walt.  /The Honorable Conquerors/.  New York:  The Macmillan
  Company., 1965