Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies
4:1 (2006), 109-111
REVIEW
Mari Yamamoto. Grassroots Pacifism in Post-War Japan: the Rebirth of a
Nation, RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2004, 304pp. ISBN 0-41533581-7.
THE TERM ‘globalisation’ has become so widely accepted that it has almost become a cliché. As the burgeoning literature on this topic illustrates, Japan is no exception to globalisation and merits study. The existing literature on globalization tends to focus on the contemporary affairs at the expense of past experiences. This is why Mari Yamamoto’s book is important. She sheds light on how Japanese civil society groups responded to the critical turning points that Japan faced, namely its re‐entry to the global order under the American hegemony after World War II. Grassroots Pacifism in Post‐War Japan illuminates how Japanese civic movements from 1945 to the early 1960s aimed to harness post‐war pacifism in the service of their own interests. In particular, Yamamoto focuses on two popular civic movements in early post‐war Japanese society: trade unions and women’s rights. She explores how these civic movements came into being, campaigned their pacifist causes and responded to two trying times: the Korean War (1950‐53); and Ampo Tôsô (1959‐1960), the mass protest against the revision of the Japan‐US security treaty. Grassroots Pacifism is structured in two major parts: the first dealing with the activities by trade unions; and the second by women, especially housewives. The picture Yamamoto paints in the first section shows that post‐war Japanese trade union activism was not as democratic, inclusive or ‘grassroots’ as one might expect. The trade unions were fraught with schisms at various levels, constant faction battles among and between the unions, and an ideological gulf between the leadership and the ordinary members. The leaders were well versed in political theories and highly spirited, whereas most of the ordinary members were apolitical and joined the union to seek improvement in their material conditions. Thus the union leaders experienced great difficulties in making politics relevant to the ordinary members’ aspirations and circumstances. This problem became clearer at the outbreak of the Korean War (1950‐53). At Ampo Tôsô Japan faced the choice of either achieving its sovereignty through asserting its own national identity or of securing its future by deliberately embracing American hegemony. The challenge to trade unions was how to make these political questions relevant to the workers. A most telling example is the role of Takano Minoru, a leader of the Sôhyô union federation, who turned from support for the war to firm opposition to the war. In chapters three and four, Yamamoto chronicles how this occurred, and its effects on the unions and their members. The second part analyses the women’s movement in post‐war Japan. Yamamoto finds that as well as the gender difference, the organisational structure of women’s activism made it distinct from the trade unions. The term ‘grassroots’ is more appropriate for the women’s groups than for the trade unions. While the trade unions tended to be large and hierarchical in policy‐making and campaigns, Nishino/Review of Grassroots Pacifism in Post-War Japan
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women’s groups were much smaller and more localised. This enabled them to generate policies through more inclusive and consensus‐based means, and to link their social and political concerns directly to their immediate day‐to‐day living conditions. For women, schools served as the base for pacifist activities. There the groups networked with one of the most powerful unions in Japan at the time, the Japan Teachers’ Union (Nikkyôso). As Yamamoto describes in chapter seven, female teachers helped to connect Nikkyôso and women’s groups. Like trade unions, Yamamoto acknowledges diverse motivations and interests across regional and class lines. Yamamoto’s comparison of the urban middle‐class women’s groups with their rural counterparts is one of her most original contributions. This not only saves the rural women’s groups from vanishing into obscurity, but also sheds light on their difficulties which were quite different from those of urban middle‐class groups1. The picture emerging here is a contrast of fortunes. Trade union pacifism was blunted after Ampo Tôsô and by the economic boom; meanwhile women’s groups campaigned for feminist causes and developed into a genuine grassroots force. Yamamoto contends that these movements generally managed to overcome the ‘feudal remnants of the past that lingered in Japanese society and people’s attitudes after the war’2. She argues that the peace movements not only raised public awareness about political and pacifist issues, but also created a new identity for the activists both as activists, and as Japanese citizens. Yet, this is perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the book. While she acknowledges the flaws and faults of the trade unions and women’s movements, she tends to be long on the descriptions and short on the analysis. This could potentially leave some readers unfulfilled. Her introductory and concluding chapters offer observant discussions on the roles of these movements. However, a few issues could have benefited from a more cautious treatment. First, Yamamoto claims that there was no ideology of pacifism indigenous to Japan. She considers Martin Ceadel’s definitions of pacifism and pacificism. Pacifism refuses war unconditionally. Pacificism, on the other hand, prioritises the prevention of wars although it allows that the use of arms is necessary to achieve this aim3. She negates the utility of these concepts because Japan did not have a nation‐wide peace movement backed by religious traditions as in Europe. While this may be a valid point, Yamamoto misses the opportunity to utilise her data to assess whether the activisms by the two groups would be characterised as pacifism or pacificism. Second, Yamamoto could have refined and raised different notions of peace. Much ambiguity surrounding Japan’s commitment to ‘peace nation’ manifested itself among many women’s groups. Yamamoto implies that for many women ‘peace’ meant ‘domestic bliss’. 4 The inspiration for the pacifist movement derived from the experiences of privation and the desire to forget this experience. Laced with personal experiences and emotion, it could easily be rendered into a discourse portraying the ordinary Japanese as hapless victims of the Japanese military. However, ordinary Japanese did not identify themselves as complicit, directly or indirectly, in inflicting suffering rendered by Japan’s imperial ambition on the world.5 The high point of the book is the discussion of Ampo Tôsô. As an epilogue, Yamamoto suggests that the latent energies of post‐war activisms manifested themselves in full form in the later anti‐Vietnam war campaigns.6 If we agree with Gavan McCormack’s observation of contemporary Japan as dictated by three‐Cs 110
www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/gjaps
(Construction, Consumerism and Control),7 we can ask important questions: whether grassroots or ‘civil society’ organisational movements have become a ‘spent force’ before the amorphous power of the state; where these groups are positioned in today’s Japan; and how they can best act by drawing on the experiences of the earlier struggle. Yamamoto’s data is impressive. She has amassed abundant information from interviews, archives, magazines and newspapers: both popular and widely‐
circulated publications as well as in‐house publications within the movements, and from secondary sources written in Japanese. The chapters carefully reconstruct such histories making great use of these materials, and are, moreover, replete with illustrations. Yamamoto’s language is clear, which allows readers to better appreciate her work. The book is bound to inspire thoughts about the current gestures by the Japanese government to amend Article Nine of Japan’s Constitution. Though Article Nine prohibits Japan from military engagement, successive governments have strategically interpreted it to establish Japan’s ‘self defence force’, and to allow Japan to take ancillary roles in war‐affected areas (such as the Japanese infrastructural workers in Iraq, protected by Australian troops). If Article Nine is altered to allow Japan’s participation in international conflicts, then Japan may teeter towards ‘pacificism’. If it is altered to stress Japan’s resolve to denounce wars, then it may advance the pacifist cause. How Yamamoto’s book is read can either inspire or dishearten present and future activism. This is perhaps the most complex question that readers have to grapple with after reading her book. Ryota NISHINO University of Western Australia NOTES Mari Yamamoto, Grassroots Pacifism in Post‐War Japan: the Rebirth of a Nation, RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2004, pp.175‐81. 2 ibid., p.12. 3 ibid., p.9. 4 Alternatively it is expressed as ikkoku heiwa shugi (being only interested in the peace of one’s nation, similar to the ‘not in my backyard’ mentality) and heiwa boke (being numbed or paralysed by prosperity brought upon by peace). 5 This is a point made by James Orr’s Victim as Hero, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2001, a book that Yamamoto could have benefited from using. 6 Yamamoto, p.219. 7 Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 1996.
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