母国という言葉The Word Motherland

Motherland. A word that once housed a strength akin to iron. The twentieth century was an era that, while swallowing every definition of good and evil, cast with intense heat the contours of the "nation"—a vessel in which people could dwell in peace, or for which they would wager their very lives to defend. Yet now, having passed the threshold of the twenty-first century by a quarter and stepping ever further into the abyss, this concept of the motherland seems to have become unprecedentedly dilute. More than that, it appears to be transmuting into a grave interrogation that eats away at our spirit.

Looking back at the twentieth century, for better or worse, the motherland was constructed upon a robust narrative. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say it was the narrative itself. Yet, though I call it a narrative, it was not a mere illusion; it contained the specific quality of materialized fantasy. That is to say, the narrative possessed a tangible texture. Because people could substantially share this story and feel that their identities were deeply rooted in its soil, they were able to secure tranquility, pride, and at times, even madness. Quite literally, a life lived in one flesh with the state certainly existed there. However, as the hands of the era have turned, the concept of the motherland, which should have been solid, has begun to undergo rapid dilution.

We now stand in a place that is utterly inexplicable, suspended in mid-air. While I can only describe this as a mysterious sensation within myself, I am writing this article today with the thought that surely many others harbor a similar feeling toward their own motherlands. I believe that by earnestly voicing these complex emotions regarding the motherland, some resonance might be found with readers born and raised in different lands. If that is so, perhaps there is a common source to this thing we call the motherland. I do not trust empathy, but I believe in the resonance of the heart. To discuss the motherland is indeed difficult. It is inevitable that ideology will intervene; but if that is the case, one need only change one’s mindset and write while accepting the burden of it all.

The frameworks of "world" and "nation," which once enveloped people and served as the premise for a rich existence, have now become, for the most part, actual impediments to living—sources of pain that seem to tear at our skin from the inside. Or perhaps it could be rephrased that the world and the nation themselves have been posited as the source of pain, as evil itself. Consequently, holding attachment to one’s motherland is forcibly denied and shut down as paranoid nationalism, falling into a state where love for one’s country is equated with radical thought, causing people to fall into a cessation of thinking. However, even if such rejection seems valid as an external statement, when one looks earnestly inward, the reality is vastly different. Rather, the stronger the sense of belonging to the soil, the deeper the wound of being torn apart becomes, and the agony felt in reaction increases year by year. Even gazing into my own interiority, I am forced to admit that such a fractured state certainly exists.

This issue will likely increase in radicalism, standing before all people in a more sharpened form. That is precisely why I feel strongly that we must now, from various angles, gaze once again at the phantom called the motherland. To that end, I proceed upon the foundational premise that love for the motherland should neither be denied nor rejected. No matter what motherland that may be.

Why does this attachment to the motherland surge up so quietly, yet so surely and deeply, as a kind of reaction? When I ruminate on such questions daily, I arrive at one symbolic event. It is the fact that the extreme decline of the country that is my motherland, Japan—or perhaps a tragic transfiguration for which "decline" is too tepid a word, a devastation—lies before me as a grim fact in the real, and in the everyday.

To be honest, the act of frivolously trumpeting "Japan is beautiful" in a cultural context at this juncture is nothing more than a selfish re-emphasis of Orientalism that ignores the real. Countless Japanese people, or foreigners residing in Japan, are colluding to express this while still conjuring a false image of Japan; but from my perspective, this is precisely the nationalism (the degraded type) serving as modern ideology. First of all, there is no contemplation among these speakers. It is highly doubtful whether they are truly looking at the real Japan or the Japanese people. From their perspective, fortunately, Japan remains, now as in the past, merely a country at the far eastern edge, distant from the majority of the world. Thus, even in the 2020s, due to physical distance and the language barrier, there is a reality that most things remain unknown. Taking advantage of this, people spreading the "Japan is beautiful" ideology are rampant these days, but they do not realize that this is the very dynamic driving Japan to ruin. In other words, the true identity of what is damaging Japan and driving it into a corner is not limited to the external; rather, it lies within the hotbed of this facile, degraded internal ideology.

This inexplicable attachment to the motherland, or perhaps an emotion too complex to be easily put into words—worthy of being called grief for one's country—is surely not a matter unconcern to many readers. Whether it is the United States, the United Kingdom, or anywhere else, if one surveys the current world, it is clear to anyone’s eyes that every nation is pregnant with some form of collapse and suffering from great anomalies. And at the center of that anomaly lies the pain of the concept of the "20th-century motherland," which was once the axis of a rigid identity, being torn up by the roots. There is also the anxiety that declaring love for one’s motherland openly will be canceled as the expression of an anachronistic attitude. The motherland we know no longer exists as a substantial image. The fact of that loss is the greatest divergence, the severance we face.

Why, then, do we hold onto the real image that has ceased to exist, carrying it as a shadow? Conversely, why is the human being capable of holding onto an afterimage?

By now, grieving for one's motherland while simultaneously remaining there has become synonymous with increasing the risk of actual harm to one’s own life. Many people are considering the choice of leaving their motherland from every perspective—economic rationality, safety of life—and are putting it into action. This is reflected in the real as a rapid increase in global digital nomads; indeed, the greatest ethnic migration of the twenty-first century implies this new tribe called the digital nomad. Whatever the reason, we are living in a transitional period where we are compelled to leave the land where we were born and raised and live in foreign lands. In that flux and instability, how each individual maintains mental equilibrium is likely the characteristic struggle of the modern era.

Unlike the historical dynamism of tribal or ethnic group migrations of the past, the modern iteration occurs at the individual level, rooted in a more solitary and earnest circumstance where the individual soul is forced to peel away from the motherland. Of course, there are those who detest the country of their birth, but the majority likely do not feel so in their true hearts. Currently, a perspective in advanced nations that deems hatred of one's motherland as justice is spreading, particularly among the youth. As to why this is happening, honestly, it seems no one has yet been able to provide an answer.

However, even if one voices concern about the motherland on the surface, do they not feel, in the depths of their heart, an inexplicable attachment, a passion difficult to sever, as I am writing now? And is this concept of the motherland something that can be debated in a monolithic manner? If we do not gaze seriously at this point, we will see no breakthrough in this problem. While acknowledging that the issue of the motherland is highly sensitive in the modern age because it directly involves history, if we do nothing out of fear of that sensitivity, the situation will only worsen, and the responsibility will invariably be postponed to future generations.

First, the attachment I hold for my motherland is unrelated to so-called political nationalism. Yet, simultaneously, the motherland as political nationalism certainly exists within myself. To deny this would be a lie. However, while patriotism in a political context has an aspect of being fermented as a tool for consensus-building, the love for the motherland in the individual soul is not such an institutional thing. Where lies the key to unraveling this stratification? And how does one distinguish it within the inner self?

I constantly think that eras possess their own specific winds and scents. I harbor an intense thirst to understand this country called Japan deeper than anyone else, and I continue to delve into it from various angles—history, culture, remaining paintings, ruins. This is completely unique and unrelated to academic methods, for my interest lies not in the joy of discovering relics, but in exploring the historically transitioning "Japanese heart." If I dare say, I am investigating the historical movement of the Japanese heart. Because the heart moves, culture is born, and history is born. And I believe that this movement of the heart is not driven by the subject, but by the era itself.

How should we understand this era? Certainly, referencing tangible objects like books is important, but if asked what the most suitable medium is to understand the essence, the deep layers of a country, the answer must be the moving image. Much can be learned from text and still images, but as the ancient wisdom "seeing is believing" suggests, touching that atmosphere once as a moving image allows one to intuitively grasp many truths. Fortunately, after the revolutionary technology of cinema was born in the West, Japan was blessed with the opportunity to import it shortly thereafter, and through its own trial and error, built a visual culture as one of the world's leading film nations. Regrettably, many films from the pre-war and wartime periods were lost to the fires of war or went missing, never to be seen again; yet, the surviving footage possesses a richness worthy of being called a treasure trove.

Through this cinema, I have taken a strong interest in the hearts of Japanese youth, particularly in the late 1930s and the late 1960s. What they thought and how they attempted to live is, if the perspective is shifted, equal to the question of what future they envisioned or deeply despaired of. I have desperately attempted to understand such questions through the time-transcending medium of cinema, because our current existence itself is the very future they envisioned.

Have we reached the future they painted in their hearts? Or is this miserable reality the result of some internal misalignment distinct from their prayers and screams? To discern this comprehensively, I feel that earnestly gazing at the "tremors of the heart" of the youth imprinted in the films of those times is the most effective shortcut.

Looking back, the late 1930s in Japan was a turning point, tumbling from the Taisho era (1912-1926)—a liberal and culturally ripe period—into the Showa era (1926-1989), a time of turbulence and the dark shadow of militarism. In the era known as Taisho Democracy, along with the rise of the universal suffrage movement, freedom of speech was loudly proclaimed, and movements for women's rights, as well as anarchism and socialism which did not fit into the traditional left-right axis, carried an intense heat. People of that time worked diligently in speech and expression to cast off the old Japan and establish a new spiritual pillar. However, amidst the aftershocks of the 1929 Great Depression and the formation of economic blocs, the atmosphere changed completely upon entering the Showa era.

In 1931, when the Kwantung Army, a major unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, ignored the intentions of the Japanese government and arbitrarily ignited the Manchurian Incident, forcefully insisting on the founding of Manchukuo, the runaway nature of the army became decisive. The power of the military transcended all statesmen, acquiring the power of effective control with military force as a shield. Eventually, in 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations, deepening its isolation from the world. As a result, the logistics networks on all sides were cut off, and the nation steadily thrust forward onto the path of "Asura"—external expansion through the invasion of other countries. Initially, the philosophy of Pan-Asianism held the purpose of repelling the Western powers occupying Asian nations, but it was reinterpreted by the military to become a skeleton justifying the expansion of occupied territories, turning into a movement that merely swapped the occupier from the West to Japan. Proportionate to the state of occupation abroad, the era welcomed excessive domestic suppression. In this extreme state, where state power was used as a shield for the suppression and surveillance of speech, and where the Kenpeitai (military police) threatened the lives of citizens, film directors, actors, and staff were making movies literally at the risk of their lives.

After all, it was an era where a single mistake in expression meant being cut to pieces by censorship, or in the worst case, endangering one’s own life. In such borderline tension, while outwardly feigning a certain social conformity, artists began a process of trial and error on how to burn the "movements of the heart"—which cannot be carved into the physical film—into the imagery. I view that fierce internal struggle as the greatest act of defiance in film production of that time, a truly radical expression. It is because they were created through such an extreme process that I recognize the films of the late 1930s as carrying the most vital force in Japanese film history, shining with a golden, beautiful brilliance. Even viewed now, the expressive power of that time stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Then came the era of defeat and occupation following those times. Due to the Second World War, many film professionals died, but those who survived returned from the battlefields and began making movies once again. Having lost everything, they literally had nothing but cinema. However, in an era where the land was scorched earth, multitudes struggled to eat, and war orphans overflowed, people were hardly in a state to watch movies. Furthermore, the victorious GHQ (General Headquarters) began censorship in place of the wartime military, issuing detailed instructions on all film production, ushering in an era where media strategy was conducted under thorough management by GHQ. Looking through Japanese cinema, the late 1930s marked the first golden age; the 1940s saw quality plummet for a decade due to military censorship in the first half and GHQ censorship in the latter. To put it bluntly, one’s heart is not moved at all. However, when the opportunity for GHQ censorship to relax arrived with the outbreak of the Korean War, the creativity of filmmakers who had been suppressed exploded. Japanese cinema welcomed its second golden age in the early 1950s.

This movement is not unrelated to the fact that post-war Japan was forced to regenerate within a distorted structure. The nation headed toward an era of regaining its form as a state on scorched earth, an attempt that could be called the reconstruction of the motherland. The man who steered this difficult regeneration of Japan was Yoshida Shigeru (1878-1967).

When he returned to power as Prime Minister for the second time in October 1948 (having served previously until December 1945), he chose a path that was extremely pragmatic, yet laden with irony, within the absolute constraints of the occupation. Though forgotten now, the issue of Japan's rearmament, currently viewed with international caution, originated from the US promoting it as their will during this era. The reason was the outbreak of the Korean War; the US sought a military role for Japan as a final breakwater against the communist bloc. Simultaneously, thorough suppression of communists and their sympathizers within Japan was carried out at the behest of the US. The aftershocks reached film professionals. The Red Purge, which excluded over 30,000 communists and supporters from workplaces and society, was a social purge so radical it left a deep grudge in subsequent Japanese history. Naturally, the US at the time was desperate not to let the Soviet Union acquire East Asia.

Using the Korean War as an opportunity, the US, which had previously forced military dismantlement upon Japan after WWII, completely reversed course and pressed for rearmament. The man who directed this was John Foster Dulles, advisor to the Secretary of State. However, against this demand for rearmament, Yoshida unexpectedly resisted stubbornly. This was not because he feared Japan returning to militarism, but because he prioritized economic recovery first, aiming to connect Japan's economic self-reliance to national independence. In other words, Yoshida's thinking was a rationalism typical of a bureaucrat: international independence is impossible without economic recovery.

In practice, Prime Minister Yoshida prioritized the recovery of the exhausted economy. He turned the tables on the US by using Article 9 of the Constitution—which renounced war and was drafted by GHQ—to reject Dulles's assertions. He chose the path of light armament to minimize the burden of military expenditure, agreeing to a significant increase in the police force (established for the purpose of future military use), while maneuvering secretly, such as dispatching subordinates to the US. Behind this lay the reaction of domestic politics against the fact that while Japanese public opinion could change nothing under occupation (since the Prime Minister was decided by GHQ), certain sections of GHQ were arbitrarily directing the Japanese Prime Minister.

Incidentally, the entity deciding Japan's Prime Minister even now is not the Japanese people, but certain personnel within the US Forces in Japan (affiliated with Yokota Air Base). It is often misunderstood that this is the will of the US government. However, while the US government's intentions change with each administration, the military's intentions remain basically unchanged: to promote occupation policy unobtrusively and secure rights and interests. In short, the Prime Minister of Japan has not been decided by Japanese people even once since the war. The organization that resolves this is the Japan-US Joint Committee. Astonishingly, Japanese politicians cannot attend this committee. The true meaning of Japanese politicians being nothing but puppets is suggested here.

The Japan-US Joint Committee meets twice a month. It is the resolution body for Japan's future, deciding major laws and regulations. However, the representative on the US side is not a US government official, but the Deputy Commander of US Forces Japan; the representative on the Japanese side is the Director-General of the North American Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Though only in Japanese, the organizational chart is clearly published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In other words, all of Japan's guidelines are decided through consultation between Japanese bureaucrats and US military personnel stationed in Japan. While parts of the agreements may be published, the content of the discussions here has never once been revealed.

If one understands this minimum fact, the whereabouts of who desires the recent deterioration of Japan-China relations becomes clearly visible. The reason nothing changes regardless of who becomes Prime Minister lies chiefly in the fact that we are still dragging these post-war circumstances along.

At the time, the arbitrary decisions of certain GHQ sections were perceived as the fact that the occupation of Japan was occurring in places unrecognized by the US government. Thus, Yoshida executed a strategy against the US government, turning the runaway actions of these GHQ officials to his advantage. It was to make the US citizens—not the Japanese citizens—recognize that "Japanese rearmament is dangerous." Naturally, since many US citizens at the time had fought directly against Japan in WWII, this strategy was successful. As a result, the Treaty of San Francisco was signed in 1951, but the simultaneous signing of the old Japan-US Security Treaty became a problem for later years.

Through this, Japan gained the opportunity to restore international sovereignty. However, at the same time, it permitted the permanent stationing of US forces in Japan, creating a subordinate independence entirely dependent on another country for its own defense—an extremely incomplete state for a sovereign nation. This subordinate independence has become the greatest pathology of modern Japan, and as mentioned, this very state continues to this day. The figure of a subordinate nation masquerading as a sovereign and independent one; herein lies the nuclear core of the motherland, lurking intensely. To look at the motherland is, from various perspectives, a painful thing.

In a sense, a bureaucratic measure was taken to shelve national spiritual independence in exchange for economic growth. This choice, known as the "Yoshida Doctrine," became the foundation of post-war Japan's prosperity, but simultaneously became the source of spiritual hollowing, leaving a serious legacy to this day. The "heat" carried by the films of the late 1960s—the other era I focus on—is the result of this distortion reaching its limit and erupting.

Prime Minister Yoshida’s intention was that this measure was the limit during his tenure, but that in three, five, or ten years, succeeding generations would realize international cooperation befitting the times. He essentially wished for the gradual lifting of the occupation state and Japan's complete independence. However, those who would dash this dream of independence appeared one after another from both home and abroad. After all, the rights and interests from this Security Treaty were aimed at promoting occupation policy unobtrusively and securing privileges, meaning there were people who benefited considerably from it.

In fact, even after GHQ withdrew, its functions were effectively transferred directly to Yokota Air Base. To put it differently, the occupation interests held by GHQ flowed straight into Yokota. It is not well known, but even now, information in Japanese mass media like television and newspapers is released to the Japanese public only after undergoing censorship by Yokota Air Base. Or rather, all information the Japanese public knows through mass media is decided by Yokota Air Base. The entity that strangles the Japanese mass media is not the capitalist class, but the vested interests of occupation residing within Yokota Air Base. Therefore, the old method of moving public opinion by manipulating the tone of mass media continues today. Fortunately for them, Japan is a hyper-aged society. The majority is the generation raised watching TV and newspapers, possessing extremely high trust in mass media. Thus, the majority can be easily moved by information manipulation, allowing occupation interests to be protected without them lifting a finger. What they are doing is surprisingly simple, but this simple method is effective in Japan.

Triggered by the Yoshida Doctrine, a major turning point arrived in 1960. Kishi Nobusuke, who was once imprisoned in Sugamo Prison as a Class-A war criminal suspect but released by becoming an agent of the CIA, became Prime Minister and faced the revision of the Japan-US Security Treaty. Politically, Kishi advocated for a departure from the Yoshida line—meaning independence from subordination to the US and an equal Japan-US relationship—but behind the scenes, he was firmly shaking hands with the US side. Furthermore, to the eyes of the people, it looked like a return to war. In short, he spoke with a forked tongue. This duplicity was inherited by Kishi Nobusuke’s grandson, Abe Shinzo, who directly realized the form of modern Japan.

As a result, demonstrators surrounding the Diet and continuous protests intensified, leading to the massive movement known as the Anpo Struggle (Security Treaty Struggle). The youth of that time did not merely scream opposition to the treaty. They questioned the deception embraced by post-war Japan, the structure of subordination behind peace and prosperity, and human dignity itself, screaming on the streets and confronting power. However, the Security Treaty was revised all too easily. The youth of this time were beaten down by the impossibility of changing the real, learned their own powerlessness, and gave up on everything. Also, since the Anpo Struggle was quite intense and the revision was actually precarious, the US, fearing that Japan would lean toward the Soviet side if pushed, utilized Kodama Yoshio—a right-wing leader released for becoming a CIA agent like Kishi—to mobilize right-wing groups and Yakuza organizations to suppress the movement with violence.

Against this generation of the first Anpo Struggle, the youth of the late 1960s—the so-called second Anpo Struggle—rose up in a fierce reaction. This generation represented the largest demographic of youth in Japan, and they simply could not stomach the fact that their elders, defeated in the 1960 struggle, had so easily abandoned the fight and were working nonchalantly in society. In other words, the youth expressed intense dissatisfaction with the elders who had achieved self-domestication into a system where everything was swept under the rug if money was provided. Yet simultaneously, as 1970 and the next Security Treaty revision approached, they were sandwiched by extreme anxiety that they might suffer the same fate. This complex, dual anxiety is very well expressed in the films of that time.

The films of the late 60s are filled with this "heat." It is a complex heat where the scream of a human trying to live as a human, unspeakable radical anger against oppression, and decisive frustration are stratified beyond logic or ideology. At the same time, anti-establishment movements were occurring in the US in the context of counter-culture like the Summer of Love; but in Japan’s case, there was almost no such gentle cultural context. It was characterized by an intense ideological struggle.

In this turbulent era, filmmakers whittled away their lives trying to fix the atmosphere of the times onto film while fighting censorship and industry conventions. However, this season of frenzy was eventually swallowed by the massive wave of economic growth known as the High Growth period, transformed, and before anyone noticed, became just one of the memories of the past. When one realized it, the losers of the second Anpo Struggle walked the same path as the losers of the first, and ironically, a future where they became the leading actors of high economic growth was realized. At the time, the attractive slogan of "Income Doubling" was chanted to the people, successfully swapping political interest for the desire for consumption. From there, people gradually buried themselves in affluence.

Briefly put, there was a background of an era where the dignity of living as a human was sacrificed for money. Regrettably, no matter how much I feel I understand the movements of the youth's hearts from the films of that time, a decisively unreachable, hollow core remains. I have been thinking about the true nature of this discomfort for several years—what is it? Pinpointing the identity of this discomfort is a crucial key to exploring the mystery of love for the motherland.

I stated that eras have specific winds and scents, but to be more precise, they are winds, scents, and heat that cannot be felt unless one is actually standing in that place. We absolutely cannot experience this heat. This limitation runs through history. Therefore, no matter how much I try to understand the heat of the youth of the late 1930s or late 1960s, I can never touch the core. This is likely the limit of history. Thus, based on this, we must ponder and act on what we, living now, should do. The only thing derivable from this is that we cannot know anything other than the heat of the era in which we ourselves were born and raised. Though we can learn much from history, history can absolutely never be experienced.

Was the motherland not nurtured into intense life by such heat? If so, how should we, who have lost the heat, confront the motherland in the twenty-first century? The hint lies in the point that it cannot be felt unless one actually stands in that place. In other words, to discern the true nature of love for the motherland individually, there is no other way but to comprehensively see through history, culture, and the heat one has felt by actually standing in that place oneself—without leaning into ideology, with eyes as calm as possible—and expose it.

Next time, I will write about the heat of the era for me.