Tag: Japan

Imperial Internationalism in Japan: The Bahai Faith Meets the Concordia Movement

The Bahai faith originated in Iran in the mid-19th century led by its living prophet Baha’u’llah. His teachings called for the unification of the world’s religions, viewing all faiths as different manifestations of God.1 The eldest son of Baha’u’llah, Abdu’l-Baha, succeeded his father and led a campaign to spread the teachings of Bahai to the United States and Europe. Agnes Baldwin Alexander, a young American woman from Hawaii, would spread the religion in Japan in the 20th century. The faith’s humanist, internationalist doctrine fit neatly within the nation’s imperial ideology.

In London in 1912, Agnes B. Alexander wrote an account of the meeting between Abdu’l-Baha and Jinzo Naruse, President of Japan’s Women’s College. Naruse was a liberal educator who sought support for Japan’s Concordia Movement, an internationalist project intending to find “Common ground on which all nations could harmonize”.2 Abdu’l voiced his support for Naruse’s movement, positioning the Bahai cause as central to the peace and unity of the human race while stressing the need for a “Divine Power” to put these principles into practice. He signed Naruse’s autograph book with the following prayer:

“O God! The darkness of contention, strife and warfare between the religions, the nations and the people has beclouded the horizon of Reality and hidden the heaven of Truth. The world is in need of the light of Guidance. Therefore, O God, confer Thy favor, so that the Sun of Reality may illumine the East and the West” (December 30, 1912. Translated by Ahmad Sohrab)

Abdu’l’s prayer demonstrates the faith’s capacity to justify Japan’s imperial internationalism. The symbolic power of light for human purification, “The Sun of Reality”, is central to the Bahai teachings. Likewise, the Sun has great symbolic importance in the history of Japan. The Japanese imperial army’s adoption of the ‘Rising Sun Flag’ illustrates the nation’s mission to bring peace, unification, and modernity to Asia. Similarly, the Bahai faith is a humanist religion. Abdu’l-Baha shows his humanist values by denouncing the war and hatred that stems from national differences. In “Bahai World Faith” he argues the spread of Bahai to all nations will birth a unified “heavenly civilization”.3 This utopian vision of world peace and unity aligns with the Concordia Movement. Abdu’l-Baha saw the Japanese as uniquely capable of spreading his faith through its imperial internationalism. However, this reveals an obvious contradiction in the imperial Japanese and Bahai doctrine.

Historians like Mark Linicicome are critical of 20th-century Japanese liberal internationalists like Naruse for the paradox of justifying imperialism on humanist grounds. Lincicome shows how during the Taisho Democracy Era, educators advocated for Japan’s role in promoting world peace through the cultural, political, and economic assimilation (Doka) of weaker Asian nations.4 This internationalism adapted to become hypernationalism after the Manchurian Invasion in 1931. The Concordia Association of Manchuko, originally established to promote left-leaning ideas of Panasiamism and self-determination would become a totalitarian puppet regime after the Japanese Kwantung Army’s occupation in the Second Sino-Japanese War.5 Like Taisho educators, Naruse’s Concordia movement turned away from its liberal values through political pressure and liberal internationalism’s adaptability. Likewise, Abdu’l-Baha viewed Japan as a divine power to bring God’s purifying light for an international utopia. This humanist logic explains Japan’s ability to justify “world war in the name of world peace”.6

Although Jinzo Naruse and Abdu’l-Baha criticize war, nationalism, and militarism, it becomes clear how internationalist rhetoric during Japan’s liberal Taisho Era would quickly be adapted to justify Japan’s hypernationalism, militarism, and imperial expansion in Asia during the Showa Era leading into the Manchrua Invasion and the Second World War.

 

  1. Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Baha’i World Faith’ (1975), pp.254-257  [↩]
  2. Agnes B. Alexander “Abdu’l Baha meets President Naruse of Japan Women’s College.” Bahai Reference Library (1912) p. 113. [↩]
  3.   Abdu’l-Baha, ‘Baha’i World Faith'(1975), pp.254-257 [↩]
  4. Mark Lincicome, “Imperial Subjects As Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and Education in Japan.” Lexington Books (2009) p. 40 [↩]
  5. Young L., “When Facism met empire in Japanese-occupied Manchuria.” Journal of Global History 12, no.2 (2017) pp.282-283 [↩]
  6. Mark Lincicome, “Imperial Subjects As Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism and Education in Japan.” Lexington Books (2009) p. 104 [↩]

Mark Lincicome’s ‘Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens’

Mark Lincicome’s Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens offers an account of the development of the doctrine of international education, spanning a century from the 1880s to the 1980s.1  He presents a radical reunderstanding of Japan’s pre-war education system, which he believes had previously only been written about as one that taught nationalism and militarism. His work seeks to bring to light the nuance and opposition that this system faced throughout the period. Furthermore, he argues that internationalism has been overlooked as a Japanese ideology, and his thorough analysis of the movement’s history certainly does it justice.

To give a brief summary, the movement of international education begins in the 1870s, when reformers such as Tokutomi Soho, Egi Kazuyuki, and Saionji Konmichi argued that teaching of foreign languages and learning of other cultures should be implemented into the education system. However, these campaigns are swiftly condemned by the Meiji government and fail to take off. Only in the period of Taisho Democracy, the ‘high-water mark’ of the philosophy, do prominent writes and reformers set up institutions and physical schools which put this doctrine into effect.2 He pays particular attention to the thinkers of Noguchi Entaro, Sawayanagi Masataro, Shimonaka Yasaburo and Harada Minoru, and their organisations such as the International Education Society of Japan and the All-Japan League for World Federation. As their names suggest, these organisations were focused on encouraging collaboration, integration and familiarity in global education. Noguchi, in particular, wrote that a mutual understanding and point-of-contact between cultures would lead to global peace, the ultimate goal of humanity.

However, as Japan’s invasions and colonisations of parts of Asia grow, the doctrine begins to conform to the propaganda of the military government and espouse nationalist, imperialist and militarist sentiments. Noguchi becomes a ‘chauvinistic ultra-nationalist’ and dedicates his public writings to defending Japan’s imperialism; while Shimonaka writes that educators must reform Japan from within, removing European influence and realising Japan’s goal of conquering the eight corners of the world.3

Following the end of the Second World War the movement had another revival – or, perhaps, a renaissance of the 1920s – and once again becomes a movement advocating for global peace, prosperity and connectedness. Shimonaka, despite being ‘purged’ in 1947, championed world peace, nuclear disarmament and the liberation of colonised peoples in Asia and Africa until his death.4

Lincicome’s book mostly fails to engage with what one might consider the most important part of education; the children. He does not write about the number of children being taught according to the principles of the reformists, nor the impact the textbooks he writes about had on the children who read them. Ultimately, it is an intellectual history of around a dozen thinkers spanning a century. For a study of the ramifications of the Japanese education which has been in use for the past century, perhaps another book is required; but for a deep analysis of one of Japan’s forgotten yet most interesting ideologies, Lincicome’s history of internationalist education should not be missed.

  1. Lincicome, Mark. Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Education in Japan (Lexington Books, 2009). [↩]
  2. Ibid, p. 87. [↩]
  3. Ibid, p. 91. [↩]
  4. Ibid, p. 116. [↩]

Tanaka Chigaku’s ‘The Age of Unification’ and its justification of Japanese militarism

Tanaka Chigaku was born in a staunch Buddhist family in 1868, only a few years before the Meiji Restoration.1 Disillusioned by the Meiji regime’s attack on Buddhism, he abandoned his priestly training to become a lay evangelist, preaching his doctrine of Nichirenism.2 In the 20th century, this doctrine would justify Japan’s militarism, nationalism and imperialism, through his belief that the entire world must be unified around Japan.3 An exert, ‘The Age of Unification’, from his seminal text – Nichirenshugi kyogaku taikan, or ‘An Overview of Nichirenshugi Doctrinal Studies’, originally published between 1904 and 1913 – perfectly describes and explains his desire for unity. While mostly discussing world unity in peaceful, religious terms, the ongoing background of Japan’s militarism and subsequent imperialistic expansion under these terms makes the text an important document of history.

 

Tanaka repeatedly stresses the need for a ‘world unification’ of religion, morality, society and government.4 He stresses that past attempts at world unification – through solely military means, such as those of Alexander or Napoleon, or solely diplomatic means, such as international law and peace conferences – were lacking in religion and morality.

He offers a few steps on how this can be achieved. First, Japan must have a coexistence between religion and government; ‘government must be subsumed within Buddhism, and then Buddhism must be applied to government’.5 Other religious practices, such as Shintoism (which he describes as the ‘barbarous practices’ of worshipping foxes and badgers) must be eliminated.6 As evidence, he recounts prosperous periods in Japanese history in which Buddhism and government were aligned, such as the reign of the Emperor Kanmu; and periods in which the government did not accept Buddhism, such as under Nobunaga, when ‘spiritual poison’ seeped into the nation.7 After the government has accepted the great dharma, Nichiren writes that the emperor must hand down an edict for an ordination platform to be built; Tanaka interprets this that, if Nichiren was writing about the shogunate or military government, then in Tanaka’s era a resolution of the National Diet would do.2

And what of resistance to world unification? Tanaka writes, euphemistically, that ‘debates are ultimately resolved by the power of finance or aggression’; thus Japan must strengthen herself both financially and militarily.8 He writes that, if Japan follows his instructions, during the ‘impending’ Russo-Japanese War the country will be able to deploy fleets in the Japan Sea, the China Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk and send a division to Siberia – specifying for the first time his exact military desires.2 He makes it clear that when a priesthood ‘forgets the two great practical forces of financial power and military might’ it ‘becomes powerless to accomplish anything’.2

 

Thus Tanaka’s doctrine of Nichirenism firmly justifies Japanese military expansion and imperialism around the world. Although it predates the Russo-Japanese war, it predicts the Japanese Empire which in a few decades’ time would span from Alaska to Singapore.

  1. Jacqueline I. Stone, ‘Tanaka Chigaku on “The Age of Unification”, in Georgios T. Halkias and Richard K. Payne (eds), Pure Lands in Asian Texts and Contexts: An Anthology (University of Hawai’i, 2019), p. 632. [↩]
  2. Ibid. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]
  3. Jacqueline I. Stone, ‘By Imperial Edict and Shogunal Decree: Politics and the Issue of Ordination Platform in Modern Lay Nichiren Buddhism’ in Steven Heine and Charles S. Prebish (eds), Buddhism in the Modern World: Adaptations of an Ancient Tradition (Oxford University Press), p. 193. [↩]
  4. Stone, Tanaka Chigaku, p. 650. [↩]
  5. Ibid, p. 640. [↩]
  6. Ibid, p. 646. [↩]
  7. Ibid, p. 644. [↩]
  8. Ibid, p. 647. [↩]

Paradise on earth: Uchiyama Gudō’s imaginations of a (Buddhist) anarcho-communist utopia

The utopian vision of Uchiyama Gudō (1874-1911), a Zen Buddhist priest who was executed for his purported role in the plot to assassinate the Japanese Emperor Meiji in 1910, offers a unique example of the fusion of Buddhist and socialist ideas in early twentieth-century East Asia. Throughout his writings, Gudō repeatedly imagines a vision of tengoku, explicitly evoking the Christian idea of “soteriological and eschatological” paradise rather than the Buddhist jōdo (Pure Land) or gokuraku (land of bliss).1 Although connections between Christianity and the development of socialist revolutionary thought in Meiji Japan by Rambelli help to contextualise the contemporary meanings and connotations of tengoku, it is arguably most significant in the negative sense; that is, the imagination of an earthly, anarcho-communist utopian ‘paradise’ over a Buddhist heavenly bliss.

Gudō’s (Buddhist) anarcho-communism formed part of a broader wave of emerging Radical Buddhism in late Meiji Japan. He was not alone in his focus on earthly paradise; contemporary anarchists like Tanaka Jiroku were similarly advocating ideas of genseshugi (‘this-world-ism’).2 In China, both Taixu (1890-1947) and Lin Qiwu (1903-1934)  developed similar imaginations of a “pure land in this world” where anarchist utopia and Marxism respectively were “one and the same” as the Buddhist Pure Land.3 Yet, not only do Gudō’s ideas predate many of these other anarchists, his utopian imagination also differs in a critical way in its absence of Buddhist spiritualism. Avoiding references to the pure land, Gudō situates his paradise purely in the earthly realm; in a way, he subverts Radical Buddhism, which views socialism and anarchism as paths to an explicitly Buddhist ‘pure land’, and instead proposes an anarcho-communist revolution in which consciousness and freedom is achieved through Buddhism (as Buddhism and socialism are two sides of the same coin) yet paradise itself is defined by its material, social and political conditions rather than ‘heavenly bliss’. For example, during his interrogation for his alleged role in the High Treason Incident of 1910, Gudo describes his intellectual conversion to anarcho-communism as a result of reading about the communal lives of the Buddhist sangha in Chinese monasteries4. However, this is framed from a specifically worldly perspective; it was the communal and egalitarian aspects of the sangha that appealed to Gudō, as opposed to their spirituality and religious practice. Thus, Gudō removes the distinction between Buddhism and anarcho-communism; he is not striving for a spiritual awakening to nirvana or pure land, but for a (Marxian) social revolution through labour unions to achieve “the ideal land of anarchist communism, where all are free and live a comfortable life”.5

As Rambelli emphasises, Gudō was seeking to transform the (earthly) world as a Buddhist anarcho-communist, rather than “striving for a socialist form of Buddhism”6. Paradise would be distinctively and exclusively anarcho-communist. Whilst inherently informed by the semantic, epistemological, and ontological frameworks of Gudo’s Buddhism, paradise on earth in its realised form seems more rooted in classical Marxism. Paradise would thus begin when the capitalist bourgeoisie “reject[s] the old crime of living out of his capital” and “realize[s] that all human beings must secure their clothing and food through their own labor”.7

Consequently, Gudō’s vision for paradise was both inseparable from his conception of Buddhism and yet fundamentally material. This fusion of Buddhism and socialism was the path necessary to achieve individual and collective consciousness to eliminate oppression and achieve freedom. Attaining social consciousness and establishing paradise would be achieved through Buddhism not because he imagined a future land of heavenly bliss, but instead because the worldly anarcho-communist ‘paradise’ envisaged by Gudō would be the true realisation of Buddhism on earth.

  1. Fabio Rambelli, Zen Anarchism: The Egalitarian Dharam of Uchiyama Gudō (Berkeley, 2013), p.31. [↩]
  2. Lajos Brons, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism (Santa Barbara, 2023), p.76. [↩]
  3. Brons, A Buddha Land in This World, pp.92-95. [↩]
  4. Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.20. [↩]
  5. Uchiyama Gudō, Museifu Kyosan kakumei, quoted in and translated by Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.50. [↩]
  6. Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.30. [↩]
  7. Uchiyama Gudō, Heibon no jikaku, quoted in and translated by Rambelli, Zen Anarchism, p.63. [↩]

The Creation of Identity and Community in Print

In his chapter ‘Piety in Print’, DuBois uses the Shengjing Times as a case study to trace the development of religion in print, as controlled by the Japanese, in Manchuria/Manchukuo. He argues that the images of religion presented related to both social trends and political needs, and the images tended to mirror the larger aims of Japan in the region. In his analysis, he refers to the theories of nationalism and community building of Anderson and Weber, which both include the role of print journalism/language in developing identities, ideas, and community. DuBois notes there is a key difference between their two theories however, turning on the question of whether mass media reflects existing identities or creates new ones:

‘In other words, the former [Anderson] shows publications expanding to fit the contours of an existing community, the latter [Weber] shows them creating a new one’.[1]

DuBois concludes that even at its most propagandistic, the paper was never able to simply impose its ideas onto its readership and that its later propagandistic messages probably ‘changed fewer minds than Weber’s example would suggest’.[2] Rather, the paper reflected existing identities, adhering closer to Anderson’s theory, due to newspapers being a product to be consumed and discarded at will and its readership holding the ability to simply disagree with its contents. This is illustrated best in the Shengjing Times’s attitude towards religious practices which promoted superstition; its theme of anti-superstition in its early publications (1906-1924) appealed to an intellectual readership and the iconoclastic May Fourth generation. DuBois argues that it was this image of religion the paper provided that was most successful, because it was a message its readership was keen to hear. Here we see the paper appealing to the pre-established intellectual community of ideas which subscribed to ideas of anti-superstition and anti-religious vision of social progress.

Perhaps Weber’s theory of community and identity building is instead demonstrated in the ‘revolution plus romance’ literary genre of China which appeared in the first half of the twentieth century. In his chapter ‘Revolution of the Heart’, Haiyan Lee provides a critical genealogy of sentiment and highlights the transformations of love as a concept of social and cultural life in twentieth century China. Through this literary genre, we see love used as a discursive technology for constructing individual and collective identities by the KMT and CCP, and literature participating ‘in (re)defining the social order and (re)producing forms of self and sociality’.[3] Love was supplemented to the revolutionary agenda, argued to threaten revolution and diminish revolutionary zeal. The genre therefore was able to use the concept of ‘love’, popular as a symbol of freedom, autonomy, and equality among the May Fourth generation, in order to promote the collective over the individual and further the revolutionary agenda.

Both the Shengjing Times and the Chinese literary genre of ‘revolution plus romance’ serve to illustrate the potential language has in the creation of identities and communities. While the Shengjing Times reflected existing identities and formed a community of readership based upon them, the Chinese literature aimed to form new identities aligned to the revolutionary movements. Overall, both demonstrate the use of language to further political agendas, and as case studies indicate both Anderson and Weber’s theories as feasible.

[1] Thomas David DuBois, Empire and the Meaning of Religion in Northeast Asia: Manchuria 1900-1945 (Cambridge, 2017), p. 87.

[2] Ibid., p. 107.

[3] Haiyan Lee, Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900-1950 (Stanford, 2010), p. 7.

Understanding the rules of the ‘Gender Game’.

‘The study of gender has contributed greatly to our knowledge of history while challenging preconceived notions of sociocultural phenomena and processes in Japan and elsewhere’[1]

Sabine Frühstück’s ‘Recreating Japanese Men’[2]analyses the contrast between sex and gender, while shedding light on how gender has formed masculine and feminine ideals within Japanese history. However, Anne Walthall who has written the first chapter ‘Do Guns Have Gender’ manages to differentiate these gender ideals of masculinity and femininity through Japan’s history of weaponry.

Whether it be a samurai’s sword or a solders gun, there has always been a sense of masculinity attached to the objects. Through this a formation of social hierarchy was created which enabled men to establish their status and class depending on the craftmanship of the gun. Anne Walthall gives a balanced analysis of both men and women and their relationships with weapons, allowing a more in depth understanding of how masculinity affected both genders.

Although swords were considered the soul of a samurai, guns co-existed with the blade as a means of aiding in battle and for hunting. However, for women guns were used as further attempt to isolate them from warfare. Walthall explains further insisting that women within Japanese history were able to learn to wield daggers, but this was used more as a cautionary purpose rather than establishing a fairer groundwork between men and women in warfare. This becomes more evident regarding guns and the lack of involvement of women. They could hold one, but shooting one was considered too masculine for them. This was also attached to gift giving, which men were more likely to receive a weapon as a gift, whereas women would be gifted art and literature.

Wielding of guns was considered a further development to a man’s maturity and masculinity. This, therefore, connects back to the introduction within the text, which is co-authored by Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall in which they highlight the connection between maturity and masculinity, which added to the masculine hierarchy within society. ‘Rural social mechanisms were hierarchically structured to produce men whose superior masculinity was based on their maturity’[3].  By pursuing skills and activities which would better themselves, while boosting this sense of masculinity, this was considered further developing their masculinity. This was applied to all men no matter their status or class. Therefore, not being able to wield a gun was considered a lack of development and their roles could be put into question.

‘Not all shoguns mastered this weapon, proof that their gender identities had to be constructed and remained unstable’[4]

This attachment of masculinity to objects and mannerisms was one of the root causes of excluding women from society and forming a stronger sense of control over feminine roles. This masculine attachment to guns was also added to the functions of family’s, which meant that fathers were likely to hand down their guns to the sons. This perhaps was not the same as a Samurai handing their son the family sword in hopes that they would take on the same route, but to push them further into a masculine role. Walthall draws upon historian Amy Ann Cox analysis on the values of masculinity to better understand why Japanese men associated their masculinity with guns. This was because guns represented the same values such as freedom, independence and liberty.

Therefore, what Walthall is trying to argue is what defines masculinity and how it can be manipulated into society to ensure it’s hierarchy. By attaching masculine values onto weaponry and behaviours that allow them to display power, it creates an unbalanced platform between men and women. Although Walthall highlights her intentions to focus on guns and status within the Tokugawa period, there is more that can be uncovered regarding Japan and its depictions of femininity and masculinity, which therefore, paved the lives of men and women. By just looking at guns Walthall has managed to breakdown the foundations of masculinity because the weapon became ingrained within the masculine etiquette, allowing it to manipulate Confucian teachings and Japanese culture.

Furthermore, although guns provided a variety of new skill to Japanese men and enabled them to use this within battle, what Walthall really does is present an underlying argument which highlights to absence of women in many areas of Japans society during the Tokugawa period. Her focus on guns enabled her to uncover Japans Confucian education, politics and warfare, therefore, Walthall has perhaps unintentionally brought a new understanding of how masculinity had been crafted and branded on to mannerisms and objects to ensure the silence and absence of  Japanese women within important areas of their society.

[1] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011) p.3.

[2] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011).

[3] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011) p.6.

[4] Sabine Fruhstuck, Recreating Japanese Men (University of California Press, 2011) p.21.

 

The Capitalism of Christianity

The opening of Japan in the mid 1800s resulted in an intellectual exchange between Japan and the “Western” world as Western countries vied to establish ties with Japan and to exert their own cultural influence on the country.  While the general model for imposing cultural conventions is through capitalist systems, Christian influences took a different approach.  The prevalence of capitalism in the nineteenth century permeated all aspects of life in the United States and many European countries, including missionary work.  H. B. Cavalcanti uses the case of American missionaries in Latin America to demonstrate that even religion could be commodified and used as a means of exerting capitalist influences on other countries.  He describes the competition between American Christian denominations which “competed openly in the American religious market, vying for ‘shares’ of the country’s faithful (Finke and Stark 2000). Once those churches established foreign-mission programs, it was only natural that they tried to reproduce in host countries similar market conditions to the ones enjoyed at home.”[1]  While the spread of capitalism in the nineteenth century seemed to be an unstoppable force which, among its other political, economic, and social consequences, effectively exported Christianity globally, this was not the case in Japan.

Instead, the diplomatic relations between Japan and Russia led to a transnational exchange of ideas which led to the emergence of a form of religious anarchy.  Sho Konishi argues that this cultural exchange was highly influenced by the popularity of Russian literature translated into Japanese.[2]  Populist Russian literature introduced new, and complemented existing solutions to “social problems” which both countries were facing in the aftermath of their revolutions.  A running theme in translations of Russian literature was that “‘society’ began to be defined in this context as a problem of unfettered capitalism.”[3]  The socialist and anarchist themes in Russian literature built off pre-existing anarchist traditions in Japan, creating an anti-capitalist base among Japanese intellectuals.

This Russian translation culture was not only anarchist in nature, but Christian as well.  Konishi uses the popularity of Leo Tolstoy in particular to illustrate this fact.  Just as “Tolstoy became a dangerous apostate of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was gaining a widespread religious following in Japan, where many regarded him as a prophetic religious thinker and a saint.”[4]  But, the Christian ethic which was popularised by Tolstoy does not conform to either the typical Western Christian theology or the methods of its dissemination.  Instead, “The resulting conversions to what was called ‘Tolstoyan religion’ (Torusutoi no shūkyō) or ‘religious anarchism’ (shūkyōteki anākizumu) in Japan occurred in the total absence of the converter, that is, without a missionary or church institution.”[5]  Unlike the missionary organisations which operated in other countries, Christianity in Japan was not the result of capitalist systems imposing religious doctrines, but a unique religious theory which rejected the very idea of capitalism.  This “religious anarchism” was both a political stance and a utopian dream for a future universal human religion.

 

[1] H. B. Cavalcanti, “The Right Faith at the Right Time? Determinants of Protestant Mission Success in the 19th-Century Brazilian Religious Market,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 41, no. 3 (2002): 423–38, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1387454, 423.

[2] Sho Konishi, Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan, 1st ed. Vol. 356 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1x07vz6, 95.

[3] Ibid., 74.

[4] Ibid., 93.

[5] Ibid., 95.

Were the Ilchinhoe justified in their support of the Japanese, 1909-1910? A look at collaboration in a colonial setting

In December 1909, the Korean organisation the Ilchinhoe proposed a Japanese-Korean ‘merger’ that they believed would instil new life in Korea as a nation with Japan as its saviour.[1] Instead, the merger is attributed to starting the chain of events that led to Korea’s brutal annexation by the Japanese that lasted thirty-five years.

Yumi Moon’s article ‘Immoral Rights: Korean Populist Collaborators and the Japanese Colonisation of Korea, 1904-1910’ explores the idea that the Ilchinhoe, who are remembered in Korean history as ‘notorious collaborators’, need to be considered in a colonial context so that their actions may be explained.[2] This blog post will consider if Moon’s article provides justification to the Ilchinhoe’s support of the Japanese in the lead to up the annexation of Korea in 1910.

To understand why the Ilchinhoe collaborated with the Japanese, Moon urges historians to avoid contemporary moral views as it becomes a ‘major hindrance’.[3] Historians need to consider the setting and conditions of those who are being colonialised so they can grasp why certain groups chose to work with those who are doing the oppressing.

 So, for the context of Korea and the Ilchinhoe, Moon places a great emphasis on the point that the Ilchinhoe movement was populist. She quotes Margaret Canovan, writing, ‘Populists claim legitimacy on the grounds that they speak for the people: that is to say, they claim to represent the democratic sovereign’.[4] Therefore, the Ilchinhoe were doing what they believed was best for the Korean people. They viewed Korea as a ‘backwards’ nation while Japan was a “civilising’ empire’ that could protect Korea’s prosperity.[5]

Looking at the Ilchinhoe’s view with a contemporary mindset will result in a negative judgement of the group. However, using Moon’s argument that the colonial context must be considered allows for one to see that the Ilchinhoe genuinely believed they were doing what was best for Korea. Their logic was ‘Independence through dependence’, and that Korea needed to understand what it was and wasn’t capable of so that Japan could guide them as a ‘friendly ally’.[6] The Ilchinhoe always advocated for the rights of Korean people and did not wish for Korea to lose its independence; what they wanted was for Japan to revitalise their government.

In the end, the Japanese used this to their advantage and were able to annex Korea with ‘relatively little bloodshed’ thanks to the Ilchinhoe’s collaboration efforts.[7] Moon’s final argument urges an understanding that the Ilchinhoe, the colonised, had no agency or control over how the Japanese, the colonisers, acted. Ultimately, the Ilchinhoe may have had good intentions that they believed represented what the Korean population wanted but were misguided in trusting the Japanese. Japan ended up ignoring what was proposed in the merger and used it as proof that Korea was not able to be independent at all which led to the annexation.  So did Moon’s article justify the Ilchinhoe’s actions and shed a more positive light on their organisation? That depends on how naïve one would believe the Ilchinhoe were in thinking the Japanese wouldn’t take complete control over Korea. However, Moon does provide substantial evidence that suggests their collaboration was in the Korean people’s best interest.

[1]Carl Young, ‘Eastern Learning Divided: The Split in the Tonghak Religion and the Japanese Annexation of Korea, 1904-1910’ in Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea ed. Emily Anderson (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), p.93

[2] Yumi Moon, ‘Immoral Rights: Korean Populist Collaborators and the Japanese Colonisation of Korea, 1904-1910‘, The American Historical Review 113:1 (2013), p.20

[3] Ibid. p.22

[4] Ibid. p.27

[5] Ibid. p.33

[6] Ibid. p.32

[7] Ibid. p.42

The creation of modern Japanese science fiction through utopian fiction and the Second World War

 

Today, East Asian, and especially Japanese, science fiction and popular culture is immensely popular in the West. As Bolton, Scicery-Ronay Jr., and Tatsumi point out, this wave of science fiction from Japan was reliant on newer forms of communication, like television, video games, etc., while also being prominent in more traditional forms such as books.1 However, the cultural explosion happening in post-war Japan did not happen in isolation. According to Yoriko Moichi, Japanese utopian (and dystopian) literature is heavily influenced by Western utopian literature introduced after the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent opening up of Japan.2 Moreover, the modernisation and industrialisation happening in Japan both after the Meiji Restoration and after the war also impacted the post-war boom of science fiction. Lastly, the horrors of the Pacific War itself also helped to cement more dystopian and moralising science fiction at the forefront of the post-war movement, which then resulted in the initial popularisation of Japanese science fiction in the West.

 

Yoroki argues that the bleak science fiction created right after the war was dystopian because the war made a utopian society impossible to imagine, and that the futuristic and industrial science fiction literature of this period was ‘a little light weight’.3 This may be so, but the science fiction that was created as a direct result of the war did not only appear in traditional literature but also in the newer ones, thus resulting in a post-war dystopian culture which proved to be immensely influential. The most obvious example of such a post-war work of science fiction is the 1954 film Gojira, or Godzilla, King of Monsters!, which opened the floodgates for the subsequent popularisation of Japanese science fiction in the rest of the world. There is little doubt that Gojira is a representation of the horrors endured by the Japanese towards the end of the war. The monster is even awakened from his sleep by American nuclear testing in the pacific, alluding strongly to wartime America and its nuclear bombs. The film is also a strong critique of U.S.-Japanese post-war relations where Japan is being coerced by, and also collaborating with, the monster from the sea.4

 

The massive popularity of dystopian science fiction in new mediums in the years after the war thus led more of it, and more of it being exported to other parts of the world. With the technological and economic advancement of Japan in the 1970s and 80s the genre evolved into a more futuristic one, but there was still a strong dystopian element to it, as can be seen in famous an influential works such as Akira (1982/1988) and many others.5 Today, the world of Japanese-inspired science fiction is, of course, not always dark and dystopian, but much of it – and maybe the best of it –have strong dystopian elements. Thus, the utopian literature popularised in Japan after the Meiji restoration in conjunction with the horrors of the war and subsequent introspection in Japan created an initially distinctive, and highly influential genre of science fiction which has subsequently been hugely popular across the world on a plethora of different media.

  1. Bolton, Christopher, Csicery-Ronay Jr., Istvan and Tatsumi, Takayuki, Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: Japanese Science Fiction from Origins to Anime (Minneapolis, 2007), p. vii. [↩]
  2. Moichi, Yoriko, ‘Japanese Utopian Literature from the 1870s to the Present and the Influence of Western Utopianism’ Utopian Studies 10, (1999), pp. 90-91. [↩]
  3. Ibid., p. 95. [↩]
  4. Igarashi, Yoshikuni, Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945-1970 (Princeton, 2000), pp. 115-118. [↩]
  5. Bolton, Scicery-Ronay Jr., and Tatsumi, p. ix. [↩]

Music and the 1942 symposium: a Kyoto School microcosm

In July 1942, about half a year since the attack on Pearl Harbor and the advent of total war, there was arranged a symposium titled ‘Overcoming Modernity’ where members of the Kyoto School and other Japanese thinkers of various kinds wrote essays on, and discussed, how Japan was to overcome modernity. The symposium largely failed to come up with many concrete answers to the problem since the discussions largely ended up focusing on the semantics of the problem posed and other details. Indeed, the leader of the two-day roundtable discussions, Kawakami Tetsutaro, began the conference by admitting to the ambiguity of the theme of the symposium.1 One sub-theme discussed in the first day of the conference was the role of Japanese music in overcoming modernity. This sub-theme is perhaps the most unique one discussed at the symposium, but it also encapsulates many of the larger themes of the conference and of the Kyoto School in general.

The symposium at large was in agreement that Japan had a particular ‘spirit’ or ‘nature’ which made it stand out from the rest of the world, and that this spirit had been contaminated by outside cultures over many centuries. The way of overcoming what they saw as a Western-dominated modernity was to restore this Japanese spirit, not by going backwards but by going forwards.2 This somewhat paradoxical way of seeing the historical progression of Japan is furthermore mirrored in a fundamental paradox of the Kyoto School thinking as illustrated by the founder, Nishida’s combination of Eastern philosophical traditions and more modern Western methodological philosophy,3 which ended up creating a school which was both fundamentally critical of Japanese and Western philosophy, ideology and culture.

This is where the discussion on the role of music in the overall Japanese spirit comes in. The most prominent talker on this topic was Moroi Saburo, a ‘composer and music theorist’.4 Like most other participants of the symposium Moroi argued that the impure modernity was a thing that had to be overcome by finding the true Japanese spirit, which was to be done by creating something new for the future, inspired by both the traditional Japanese and by the Western. In terms of music, Moroi sought to create a new style of music which maintained the Japanese spirit and at the same time incorporated certain elements from Western music.5 This was because Moroi saw modern Japanese music as corrupted by Western influences, but he thought that certain elements of Western music would be useful if combined in the right way. What he specifically admired about Western music was the spirituality of it.6 Thus, in order to find the true Japanese music to compliment the true Japanese culture and spirit there had to be created a new kind of music, combining traditional Japanese music (which focus on narrative) and Western music (which mas more focused on feeling), which would then assist Japanese society in general to overcome modernity.

Interestingly, this overall criticism, both in the discussion about music and in the discussions in general, came to support a teleological view of history where Japan was seen as destined to be the next great power. Moroi argues that different European countries have, after the Middle Ages, been the leading countries in terms of music, and also art in general, in different decades. Therefore, based upon a nationalist belief in Japanese superiority, it is now Japan’s turn to be a leading country within music and the arts. This belief is also based on a belief in the degradation of Western culture.7 This sentiment of Western deterioration and Japanese progress was matched by other symposium participants. Such a teleological and nationalistic view was exactly what made the Kyoto School, and the 1942 symposium in particular, come under much criticism for being too supportive of the Japanese wartime ideology after the war.8 Then again, the Kyoto School and also the symposium were criticised at the time for not being nationalistic enough.9

Thus, from a symposium which did not deliver many clear answers about how to overcome modernity and the development of the Japanese spirit, the perhaps most niche point of discussion acted as a microcosm for the entire 1942 symposium itself. Japanese music, much like Japan itself, was, in the eyes of the symposium participants, in need of a revival as both had been corrupted by outside – mainly Western – influences. The way of reviving them was, however, not by going back to the originals, but to incorporate specific Western elements. Where the symposium goes beyond the thinking of Nishida, and flirting with a more nationalistic ideology was the teleological conviction held that both Japanese music, culture and empire was due a place in the sun.

  1. Calichman, Richard F., Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan (New York, 2008), p. 151 [↩]
  2. Ibid., pp. 12-13 [↩]
  3. Davis, Bret W., The Kyoto School, 9 April, 2019, <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kyoto-school/> [13 November 2020] [↩]
  4. Calichman, p. 212 [↩]
  5. Ibid., pp. 173-175 [↩]
  6. Ibid., p. 172 [↩]
  7. Ibid., p. 173 [↩]
  8. Davis, 2015 [↩]
  9. Goto-Jones, Christopher, Political Philosophy in Japan: Nishida, the Kyoto School, and Co-Prosperity (New York, 2005), p. 117 [↩]