Almost every adult believes that he or she is rational, because he or she can easily cite many simple but important examples of personal rational behaviour in daily life. Selecting one from several packs of cereal in a store, for example, or making sure that a child is properly dressed and equipped to go to school. Any civilized society in the world rests on the foundation of uncountable such acts of rational behaviour.

But, as we well know, no system of reasoning can be built without underlying premises. The underlying premises in the two examples cited here are self-preservation and nurture, both perfectly valid premises in a civilised society. In a society at peace with itself, the underlying premises – “self-evident truths” – are understood, appreciated and not questioned.

In a time of crisis, of course, the premises of a civilised society begin to crack. Neglect, brutality, deception, mistrust and misery reign. An individual is no longer sure about what he or she should believe – and what strange thoughts the next individual may be carrying in his or her head. This leads to insecure individuals forming smaller clans or groups. Such paranoid clans and groups invariably fear and mistrust each other. Two overlapping groups – “politicians” and “scamsters” – are masters at exploiting mistrust, since “not adding to others’ misery” is not a basic premise in their version of rational behaviour.

[An even sicker, sociopathic group has as its premise “adding consciously to others’ misery”; the author prefers to skirt around the consequences of that sick premise!]

It seems clear that a person is defined by the premises – “self-evident truths” – that he or she lives by. A devoted mother, for example, lives by her self-evident truths of preservation and nurture of the family; similarly a soldier, a teacher … and so on. A scamster has no dictum other than “feeding the insatiable self”, although one does hear, at least in romantic fiction, about some who do care for other individuals.

Given that many different variants of “civilised society” exist around the world, a fascinating topic of interest for any reflective mind becomes the “self-evident truths” binding a society together – or, conversely, the absence of “self-evident truths” leading to disunity.

Let us consider an example.

A certain gentleman once said: “Suffering is a noble truth”. He meant thereby that this particular truth was existential; it holds in any human society. This truth was clearly “self-evident” to the gentleman himself at the time when he asserted it; but of course we must examine it afresh from our own special vantage point.

The name and other historical antecedents of the gentleman do not concern us at all here, since we are considering only this one utterance as a possible premise. Indeed his name and the antecedents may well throw our logical discussion off track.

That suffering is an existential reality should – one would humbly submit – be evident to all but children and the imbecile. If anything, the variants of suffering around the world have grown rather profusely over the last few centuries, as technology has produced almost incredible means to tamper with human life and the planetary ecosystems.

However, in the specific assertion cited, doubt does arise about the word “noble”. How can suffering be called a “noble” truth, given that we so desperately wish to be rid of it?

However, the very fact that we desperately wish to be rid of suffering should give us pause, since we know from experience that desperation leads to irrational behaviour. Desperation to shake off suffering – somehow, anyhow, find a way! – can therefore diminish one’s ability to remain rational and address the real issue.

We agree that, even in the most civilised of societies, one cannot teach philosophy to a hungry man. At least a simple snack, which should not be beyond reach in a civilised society, should be arranged before the philosophy lecture starts. Otherwise, pangs of hunger will interfere adversely in the rational and wholesome process of learning philosophy.

So then how can suffering of any kind – hunger, pain, stress, jealousy, depression … or whatever else! – be called “noble”? Surely that adjective is out of place here? Indeed, at first glance, suffering seems to be a rather “ignoble” aspect of existential reality. The gentleman who made that statement could have made a mistake, after all.

How do we solve this apparent riddle?

Let us agree that “suffering” is any aspect or element of existential reality that we find painful, or at least very unpleasant. A fundamental question then is this: With what attitude do we face and accept this painful or very unpleasant element of existential reality?

Surely a scowl or howl of disgust will not help us in any way. A calm mind might actually come up with a way to lessen the pain. Might “nobility” in this instance be construed to mean that the unpleasant or painful reality compels us to remain calm – to think of a way to deal with it, to alleviate it? “Nobility” in this case would lie in facing the challenge; and any serious challenge does demand a high degree of nobility in facing up to it.

Indeed, the idea of “paradise”, “promised land” or “shining city on the hill”, arises precisely when an individual fails to recognize and face up to this challenge. Such an individual may dream grandly of a “final victory” over suffering – for his or her clan or group, naturally! – and push ahead on that premise, blind to reality. One may even suggest that much of human history has been shaped by a mistaken understanding of the existential reality of suffering, against which there can be no “final victory”, but only a constant struggle.

If suffering is an existential reality, does it really matter whether or not we dub it as “noble”? Of course not! That word, after all, is only an adjective. Use of that word reflects not upon the reality itself but upon our response to it; adjectives are only in our mind.

Consider the worst crimes committed by humans against other humans. When we say suffering is “noble”, we do not imply that the crimes are not ugly, or that the criminals must not be punished. Of course criminals must be punished, and victims must be helped. But we do imply that the reflective person – the philosopher – must examine the whole scene with a clear eye, avoiding both “pie in the sky” non-solutions and political gimmicks.

We may therefore imagine a vantage point from which the question of suffering can be examined with a cool mind, which requires gaining at least some respite from suffering. A doctor must treat patients with a calm, focussed mind – not with pique or desperation.

A discussion about the premises underlying rational behaviour can be compared to two friends sparring at chess. Their aim is not to “win a big prize”, but to explore the various possibilities the game provides to them for creative, logical thinking. While no “prize” is at stake, both players will surely become better at chess as a result of the sparring.

Exactly in that spirit, one can explore the effects on people’s behaviour of the premises they live by – sometimes with happy results, and sometimes with tragic ones.

Two examples:

1. At present, the people and the so-called leaders of a certain “superpower” seem rather at a loss about their fundamental beliefs. Money, sense pleasures and fame seem high on their agenda – but these are the premises one admits to only in private. These must be disguised in fake verbosity, for them to have even a pretence of value. Therefore various self-serving concepts are being tried out, but only to worsen matters. Even those who see themselves as “enlightened” are chasing money, sense pleasures and fame. Insincerity and lack of clarity are running rampant; greed, prejudice and political exigencies are determining actions.

2. In my own country – a large and raucous democracy – debate is intense at present, essentially about which set of premises will determine our political processes in the coming years and decades. Our constitution provides very sound guidelines, but it also comes under the strain of fiercely competing premises. One hopes that our “core values” and democratic processes will eventually resolve matters – in spite of the many so-called “foreign elites” who come hawking their gobbledegook wares.

The key point seems to be this. The premises – “core values”, “self-evident truths” – that a society lives by, or fails to live by, determine its path going forward. Often these core values are bruised or buried by political chicanery and bombast, or by economic pressures; even then, however, the longer term evolution of a society is crucially dependent on them.

If there is truth in this conclusion, then another conclusion also follows. What goes by the fashionable name of “ideology” is only a “smoke and mirror” show of verbosity to disguise the true premises of a clever, vociferous, insistent and insatiable group.

We are a broad and diverse group of Canadian physicians from across Canada who are sending out this urgent declaration to the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of our various Provinces and Territories and to the Public at large, whom we serve.

On April 30, 2021, Ontario’s physician licensing body, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), issued a statement forbidding physicians from questioning or debating any or all of the official measures imposed in response to COVID-19. 1

The CPSO then went on to threaten physicians with punishment – investigations and disciplinary action.

We regard this recent statement of the CPSO to be unethical, anti-science and deeply disturbing.

As physicians, our primary duty of care is not to the CPSO or any other authority, but to our patients.

When we became physicians, we pledged to put our patients first and that our ethical and professional duty is always first toward our patients. The CPSO statement orders us to violate our duty and pledge to our patients in the following ways:

1. Denial of the Scientific Method itself: The CPSO is ordering physicians to put aside the scientific method and to not debate the processes and conclusions of science.

We physicians know and continue to believe that throughout history, opposing views, vigorous debate and openness to new ideas have been the bedrock of scientific progress. Any major advance in science has been arrived at by practitioners vigorously questioning “official” narratives and following a different path in the pursuit of truth.

2. Violation of our Pledge to use Evidence-Based Medicine for our patients: By ordering us not to debate and not to question, the CPSO is also asking us to violate our pledge to our patients that we will always seek the best, evidence-based scientific methods for them and advocate vigorously on their behalf.

The CPSO statement orders physicians for example, not to discuss or communicate with the public about “lockdown” measures. Lockdown measures are the subject of lively debate by world-renown and widely respected experts and there are widely divergent views on this subject. The explicitly anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration (PDF ) was written by experts from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities and more than 40,000 physicians from all over the world have signed this declaration. Several international experts including Martin Kuldorf (Harvard), David Katz (Yale), Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) and Sunetra Gupta (Oxford) continue to strongly oppose lockdowns.

The CPSO is ordering physicians to express only pro-lockdown views, or else face investigation and discipline. This tyrannical, anti-science CPSO directive is regarded by thousands of Canadian physicians and scientists as unsupported by science and as violating the first duty of care to our patients.

3. Violation of Duty of Informed Consent: The CPSO is also ordering physicians to violate the sacred duty of informed consent – which is the process by which the patient/public is fully informed of the risks, benefits and any alternatives to the treatment or intervention, before consent is given.

The Nuremberg Code, drafted in the aftermath of the atrocities perpetrated within the Nazi concentration camps – where horrific medical experiments were performed on inmates without consent – expressly forbids the imposition of any kind of intervention without informed consent.

In the case of the lockdown intervention for example, physicians have a fiduciary duty to point out to the public that lockdowns impose their own costs on society, including in greatly increased depression and suicide rates, delayed investigation and treatment of cancer (including delayed surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy), ballooning surgical waiting lists (with attendant greatly increased patient suffering) and increased rates of child and domestic abuse.

We physicians believe that with the CPSO statement of 30 April 2021, a watershed moment in the assault on free speech and scientific inquiry has been reached.

By ordering physicians to be silent and follow only one narrative, or else face discipline and censure, the CPSO is asking us to violate our conscience, our professional ethics, the Nuremberg code and the scientific pursuit of truth.

We will never comply and will always put our patients first.

The CPSO must immediately withdraw and rescind its statement of 30 April 2021.

We also give notice to other Canadian and international licensing authorities for physicians and allied professions that the stifling of scientific inquiry and any order to violate our conscience and professional pledge to our patients, itself may constitute a crime against humanity.

1 College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario Statement on Public Health Misinformation (4/30/21).
https://twitter.com/cpso_ca/status/1388211577770348544

The College is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations. Physicians hold a unique position of trust with the public and have a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and/or promoting unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19. Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations. Physicians who put the public at risk may face an investigation by the CPSO and disciplinary action, when warranted. When offering opinions, physicians must be guided by the law, regulatory standards, and the code of ethics and professional conduct. The information shared must not be misleading or deceptive and must be supported by available evidence and science.

Ours, to borrow the title of a book by writer Joseph Bottum, is an “anxious age.” COVID-19 certainly did no favors to Americans’ mental health, but the prevalence of mental illness in the United States was increasing well before the pandemic. Almost 10 percent of American youth have severe depression, while almost 20 percent of American adults have a mental illness. Anxiety disorders are the most common forms of mental illness in the country.

The costs of this crisis are not only social and economic, though those costs are significant. Lonely and depressed people need additional medical care, are typically less productive, and will contribute less to their communities and families (if they have them). The problem is also political, though to understand why, recourse to the great Roman statesman Cicero—whose writings so deeply influenced our Founding generation—is required. For it was Marcus Tullius Cicero, or “Tully,” as scholastics such as Thomas Aquinas called him, who labeled anxiety as one of the greatest obstacles to effective citizenship and statesmanship.

The theme of anxiety is central to Cicero’s De Officiis, or “On Obligations.” The attitude of the true statesman, he argues, is manifested in two qualities: “First, regarding as a good only what is honorable, and second, by being free of all mental disturbance.” By honor, Cicero has in mind a more expansive definition than our contemporary understanding of it, one that encompasses the objectively true, good, and beautiful. The practice of being free from mental disturbance is what helps enable us both to perceive and realize those honorable ends.

The relationship between freedom from anxiety and good citizenship is multifaceted. For example, the anxious person is vulnerable to every passing crisis. Threats both foreign and domestic, news that is either alarming or inconsequential, all of these unsettle the anxious citizen. One sees this today in the vast number of Americans who are relentlessly provoked by the constant churn of the news cycle on social media, cable television, and talk radio. Obsessively attentive to these sources, we are manipulated to endlessly shift our gaze from congressional votes on the January 6 riot to the U.S. departure from Afghanistan to mass-shootings to the most recent allegations of police brutality.

Many of these news stories, however important, often have little, if any, relevance to our actual daily experience. We are urged to worry about terrorists, white supremacists, or foreign totalitarian regimes, though, unlike many issues happening in our local communities, there is little we can practically do about any of these threats. This relates to another area of overlap between mental health and citizenship: how anxiety distracts us from our immediate religious, familial, and civic duties.

“Mental tranquility and freedom from anxiety… make for steadfastness of purpose and high dignity,” Cicero wrote. That purpose is to work for the good of our family members and the res publica (Cicero, as the ideal republican Roman, actually prioritized responsibility to the state over that of the family!). Men have both this-worldly and transcendent ends, securing happiness through virtuous activities that bless their families and their communities, and that orient them to the eternal, ultimately to God. The anxious citizen, however, is distracted from these concrete concerns, instead focusing on whatever media, corporations, and the fickle zeitgeist tell him he must care about.

The freneticism manifested in our contemporary culture points to another danger of anxiety: the heightening of the polemical and partisan temperature, so that one’s opponents are not fellow citizens with whom we charitably, if often vehemently, disagree, but rather enemies to be vilified and destroyed. Mental tranquility and freedom from anxiety, says Cicero, are required “to avoid the stresses and strains, and adopt a sober and unswerving course in life.” Yes, this is precisely what anxious citizenship engenders: an apprehensive apocalypticism that perceives everything as tending towards some totalitarian dystopia, be it white supremacist, Marxist, or whatever.

When we allow this to be the default for our political calculations, we become incapable of disinterested, reasonable evaluations of the social and political trends we witness. We become proverbial Chicken Littles. We fall into what Cicero describes as “fits of agitation and panic.” If one has seen videos or read stories of how students on our university and college campuses react to conservative speakers or organizations, one understands what is at stake for American civil society. A generation raised on dictums like “words are violence,” “safe spaces,” and “dismantling cisgender norms” is, to put it bluntly, incapable of assuming the responsibilities of republican citizenship.

Moreover, our addictions to technology—and the attendant anxieties they amplify—make us incapable of being alone and quiet (Blaise Pascal’s oft-quoted observation is relevant here). This is also important for civic responsibility, because the citizen capable of quiet contemplation and true leisure is better able to exhibit self-mastery and engage in disinterested reflection. Noble men, argues Cicero, must “be serene and clear of all mental disturbance, and this will ensure steadfastness and self-restraint will emerge in all their glory.”

The unanxious citizen in his moderation, self-possession, and attention to immediate civic duties is less vulnerable to the ideologue or opportunist. “The man who possesses one virtue possesses them all,” observes Cicero. In this, we can appreciate how Cicero’s vision of the ideal citizen is thoroughly conservative, a foreshadowing of Burke’s “little platoons,” the framers of the Constitution’s separation of powers and political decentralization, and the Catholic Church’s understanding of subsidiarity. All of these serve as necessary curbs against political schemers and extremists.

In sum, the very nature of conservative living and conservative politics acts as a deterrent to our anxious age. The conservative—in his trust in God and development of personal virtue; in his reliance on and commitment to his family and community; and in his disinterested, prudential evaluation of the world around him—is able to resist the disastrous spirals of mental instability. No crisis or sorrow, however terrible, can sway his heart and mind from the objective realities he believes in and to which he orients his life. He is able to prioritize the highest, most perfect goods (or in Cicero’s language, what is most honorable), over other, lesser goods. The conservative knows that to do otherwise is to flirt with disaster. Or, as old Tully asserts: “When men detach the useful from the honorable, they undermine the very foundations of nature.”

Casey Chalk covers religion and other issues for The American Conservative and is a contributing editor for _New Oxford Review_. He has degrees in history and teaching from the University of Virginia, and a master’s in theology from Christendom College.

Dr. Peter McCullough has been the world's most prominent and vocal advocate for early outpatient treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection in order to prevent hospitalization and death. On May 19, 2021, I interviewed him about his efforts as a treating physician and researcher. From his unique vantage point, he has observed and documented a PROFOUNDLY DISTURBING POLICY RESPONSE to the pandemic -- a policy response that may prove to be the greatest malpractice and malfeasance in the history of medicine and public health.

Dr. McCullough is an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist, and Professor of Medicine at Texas A & M College of Medicine, Dallas, TX USA. Since the outset of the pandemic, Dr. McCullough has been a leader in the medical response to the COVID-19 disaster and has published “Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection” the first synthesis of sequenced multidrug treatment of ambulatory patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the American Journal of Medicine and subsequently updated in Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine. He has 40 peer-reviewed publications on the infection and has commented extensively on the medical response to the COVID-19 crisis in TheHill and on FOX NEWS Channel. On November 19, 2020, Dr. McCullough testified in the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and throughout 2021 in the Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services, Colorado General Assembly, and New Hampshire Senate concerning many aspects of the pandemic response.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, FACP, FACC, FAHA, FCRSA, FCCP, FNKF, FNLA
Professor of Medicine, Texas A & M College of Medicine
Board Certified Internist and Cardiologist
President Cardiorenal Society of America
Editor-in-Chief, Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine
Editor-in-Chief, Cardiorenal Medicine
Senior Associate Editor, American Journal of Cardiology
For more information about Dr. McCullough, please visit: https://heartplace.com/dr-peter-a-mccullough

This article is a follow-up to :
"Understanding International Relations (1/2)", by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, August 18, 2020.

The Great Mosque of Damascus is the only place of worship in the world where every day for centuries Jews, Christians and Muslims have prayed to the same one God.

A historical region, artificially divided

Contrary to popular belief, no one really knows what the Levant, the Near East or the Middle East is. These terms have different meanings depending on the times and political situations.

However, today’s Egypt, Israel, the State of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Gulf principalities have several millennia of common history. Yet their political division dates back to the First World War. It is due to the secret agreements negotiated in 1916 between Sir Mark Sykes (British Empire), François Georges-Picot (French Empire) and Sergei Sazonov (Russian Empire). This draft treaty had fixed the division of the world between the three great powers of the time for the post-war period. However, as the Tsar had been overthrown and the war did not go as hoped, the draft treaty was only applied in the Middle East by the British and French alone under the name of the "Sykes-Picot agreements". They were revealed by the Bolsheviks, who opposed the Tsarists, notably by challenging the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) and helping their Turkish ally (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk).

From all this, it emerges that the inhabitants of this region form a single population, composed of a multitude of different peoples, present everywhere and closely intermingled. Each current conflict is a continuation of past battles. It is impossible to understand current events without knowing the previous episodes.

For example, the Lebanese and the Syrians of the coast are Phoenicians. They commercially dominated the ancient Mediterranean and were overtaken by the people of Tyre (Lebanon) who created the greatest power of the time, Carthage (Tunisia). This was completely razed to the ground by Rome (Italy), then General Hannibal Barca took refuge in Tyre (Lebanon), and in Bithynia (Turkey). Even if one is not aware of it, the conflict between the gigantic self-proclaimed coalition of the "Friends of Syria" and Syria continues the destruction of Carthage by Rome and the conflict of the same so-called "Friends of Syria" against Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Resistance, continues the hunt for Hannibal during the fall of Carthage. In fact, it is absurd to limit oneself to a state reading of the events and to ignore the trans-state cleavages of the past.

Or again, by creating the Daesh jihadist army, the United States magnified the revolt against the Franco-British colonial order (The Sykes-Picot agreements). The "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant" claims no more and no less than to decolonize the region. Before trying to disentangle the truth from the propaganda, one must accept to understand how the events are felt emotionally by those who live them.

Perpetual War

Since the beginning of history, this region has been the scene of wars and invasions, sublime civilizations, massacres and more massacres of which almost all the peoples of the region have been victims each in turn. In this context, the first concern of each human group is to survive. That is why the only peace agreements that can last must take into account their consequences for other human groups.

For example, for seventy-two years it has been impossible to reach an agreement between the European settlers in Israel and the Palestinians because the price that other actors in the region would have to pay has been neglected. The only peace attempt that brought all the protagonists together was the Madrid conference convened by the USA (Bush senior) and the USSR (Gorbachev) in 1991. It could have been successful, but the Israeli delegation was still clinging to the British colonial project.

The peoples of the region have learned to protect themselves from this conflicting history by hiding their true leaders.

For example, when the French exfiltrated the Syrian "Prime Minister", Riad Hijab, in 2012, they thought they could rely on a big fish to overthrow the Republic. However, he was not constitutionally the "Prime Minister", but only the Syrian "President of the Council of Ministers". Like the White House chief of staff in the United States, he was just a senior government secretary, not a politician. His defection was of no consequence. Even today, Westerners still wonder who the men around President Bashar al-Assad are.

This system, indispensable for the country’s survival, is incompatible with a democratic regime. Major political options should not be discussed in public. The states of the region are therefore asserting themselves either as republics or as absolute monarchies. The President or Emir embodies the Nation. In the Republic, he is personally accountable to universal suffrage. The large posters of President Assad have nothing to do with the cult of personality that is observed in some authoritarian regimes, they illustrate his office.

All that lasts is slow

Westerners are used to announcing what they’re going to do. Orientals, on the contrary, declare their goals, but hide how they think they will achieve them.

Shaped by the streaming television news channels, Westerners imagine that every action has an immediate effect. They believe that wars can be declared overnight and situations resolved. On the contrary, Orientals know that wars are planned at least a decade in advance and that the only lasting changes are changes in mentality that take one or more generations.

Thus, the "Arab Springs" of 2011 are not spontaneous eruptions of anger to overthrow dictatorships. They are the implementation of a carefully crafted plan by the British Foreign Office in 2004, revealed at the time by a whistleblower, but went unnoticed. This plan was modelled on the "Great Arab Revolt" of 1916-18. The Arabs were convinced that it was an initiative of the Sheriff of Mecca, Hussein ben Ali, against the Ottoman occupation. It was actually a British plot, implemented by Lawrence of Arabia, to seize the oil wells on the Arabian Peninsula and put the Wahhabi sect in power. The Arabs never found freedom there, but the British yoke after the Ottomans. Identically, the "Arab Springs" did not aim to liberate anyone, but to overthrow governments to put the Muslim Brotherhood (secret political brotherhood organized on the model of the United Grand Lodge of England) in power throughout the region.

Religion is both the worst and the best

Religion is not only an attempt to link man to the transcendent, it is also a marker of identity. Religions therefore both produce exemplary men and structure societies.

In the Middle East, every human group identifies with a religion. There are an incredible number of sects in this region and creating a religion is often a political decision.

For example, the first followers of Christ were Jews in Jerusalem, but the first Christians - that is, the first disciples of Christ who did not consider themselves Jews - were in Damascus around St. Paul of Tarsus. Identically, the first disciples of Muhammad were in the Arabian Peninsula, they were considered Christians who had adopted a particular Bedouin rite. But the first disciples of Mohammed to differentiate themselves from Christians and to call themselves Muslims were in Damascus around the Umayyads. Alternatively, Muslims divided into Shiites and Sunnis depending on whether they followed the example of Muhammad or his teachings. But Iran did not become Shia until a Safavid emperor chose to distinguish Persians from Turks by converting them to this sect. Of course, today every religion ignores this aspect of its history.

Some states today, such as Lebanon and Iraq, are based on a distribution of posts according to quotas allocated to each religion. In the worst system, Lebanon, these quotas apply not only to the main functions of the State, but to all levels of the civil service down to the lowest civil servant. Religious leaders are more important than political leaders. As a result, each community places itself under the protection of a foreign power, the Shiites with Iran, the Sunnis with Saudi Arabia (and perhaps soon with Turkey), the Christians with Western powers. In fact, each one tries to protect itself from the others as it can.

"Other states like Syria are based on the idea that only the union of all communities can defend the Nation regardless of the aggressor and their links with any of the communities. Religion is a private matter. Everyone is responsible for the security of all".

The population of the Middle East is divided between secular and religious. But words have a special meaning here. It is not a question of believing or not believing in God, but of placing the religious domain in public or private life. Generally speaking, it is easier for Christians than for Jews and Muslims to see religion as a private matter, because Jesus was not a political leader while Moses and Mohammed were.

Mixing perceptions of God and group identity, religions can provoke irrational and extremely violent reactions, as political Islam has amply demonstrated.

The "Islamic State" (Daesh) is not a crazy fantasy, but is part of a political conception of religion. Its members are mostly normal people with the will to do good. It is a mistake to demonize them or to consider them as part of a sect. Rather, we should ask ourselves what blinds them to reality and makes them insensitive to their crimes.

Conclusion

Before making a judgement about a particular regional actor, it is necessary to know his or her history and trauma in order to understand his or her reactions to an event. Before judging the quality of a peace plan, one should ask not whether it benefits all those who signed it, but whether it will not harm other regional actors.

In this representation of the Battle of Poitiers (8th century), painted in the 19th century by Charles de Steuben, the Muslims are barbarians, both violent and lascivious.

In the course of the many e-mail exchanges, it has become clear that many things I take for granted are not for all my readers. So I would like to return to some ideas, some of which you will find generalities, but others of which will surprise you.

We are all human, but different

It is possible to travel to a faraway country and visit only hotels and sunny beaches. It is good for tanning, but it is humanly a missed opportunity. This country is inhabited by people like us, maybe different in appearance, maybe not, with whom we could have exchanged. Surely we would have befriended some of them.

Generally speaking, the traveller will always make sure that he or she has more resources than the locals he or she is visiting so that he or she can deal with any problems. Perhaps, in this comfortable situation, the traveller will then embark on a journey into the unknown and approach a few people. But who is going to speak freely and entrust his joys and anxieties to a rich traveller?

It is the same in international relations: it is always very difficult to really know what is happening abroad and to understand it.

International relations involve several actors who are foreign to us. That is to say, men who have traumas and ambitions that we don’t know and that we have to share before we can understand them. What is important to them is not necessarily what concerns us. There are good reasons for this that we need to find out if we want to move forward with them.

Each of us considers our values to be qualitatively superior to those of others until we understand why they think differently. The Greeks called foreigners "barbarians". All peoples, no matter how educated they may be, think the same. This has nothing to do with racism, but with ignorance.

It doesn’t mean that all cultures and civilizations are equal and that you would want to live anywhere. There are places where people look dull and there are places where they look bright.

The development of means of transportation has made it possible to get anywhere in a few hours. We are thrown from one moment to the next into another world and we continue to think and act as if we were at home. At best, we read a little bit about these strangers before we go to their homes. But until we meet them, we can’t know which authors understood them and which others missed the point.

To tell the truth, you don’t have to go to a country to understand its people. They too can travel. But we should not get the wrong people to talk to: those who claim to have run away from their relatives and speak badly of them are much more often liars than heroes. They are not necessarily bad people, they can also tell us what they imagine we would like to hear and, when we get to know them better, change their story. However, we must be very wary of political expatriates: do not confuse Ahmed Chalabi in London with Charles De Gaulle. The former had fled Iraq after a swindle and lied about everything; the latter had genuine popular support in France. The former opened the door of his country to the invaders, the latter delivered his country from the invaders.

People change with age. So do people, but they are much slower. What characterizes them is the centuries. Therefore, we must study their history at length to understand them, even if they are unaware of their past, like the Muslims who wrongly consider the periods prior to the revelation of their religion to be obscure. In any case, it is impossible to understand a people without knowing its history, not over the last decade, but over the millennia. You have to be very self-informed to believe that you understand a war by going to the scene without studying the history and motivations of the protagonists at length.

What is good for knowing people is also effective for dominating them. That’s why the British trained their most famous spies and diplomats at the British Museum.

The "bad guys"

What we don’t understand often frightens us.

When, in a human group, an elite, or even a single person, oppresses others, his peers, he can only do so with their own acquiescence. This is what we see in sects. If we want to help these oppressed people, the solution is not to take sanctions against their group or to eliminate their leader, but to give them fresh air, to help them realize that they can live differently.

Sectarian groups represent only a relative danger to the rest of the world because they refuse to communicate with it. Above all, they are a danger to themselves which can lead them to self-destruction.

There is no dictatorship against the will of the majority. It is simply impossible. That is, moreover, the origin of the democratic system: the approval of leaders by a majority prevents any form of dictatorship. The only regime that oppressed the majority of its population and that I have experienced is Gorbachev’s Soviet Union. Gorbachev had nothing to do with it and it was he himself who dissolved it.

This is the principle that the United States used to organize the "colour revolutions": no regime can survive if it refuses to obey it. It collapses instantly. It is therefore enough to manipulate the crowds for a short moment to change any regime. What happens next is obviously unpredictable when the crowd comes to its senses. These so-called revolutions only last a few days. They have nothing to do with a change in society that takes years or even a generation.

In any case, it is always easy to describe a faraway country as an abominable dictatorship and thus justify coming to the rescue of the oppressed population.

All men are reasonable. However, they can fall into madness when they neglect their Reason in the name of an Ideology or a Religion. This has nothing to do with the project of that ideology or with the faith of that religion. The Nazis hoped to build a better world than the Treaty of Versailles, but they were not aware of their crimes. They disappeared and their achievements were forgotten (except for the VolksWagen and the conquest of space by Wernher von Braun). Islamists (I am talking about the political movement, not the Muslim religion) think they are serving the divine will, but they are not aware of their crimes. They will disappear without realizing anything. These two groups have in common their blindness. They could be easily manipulated, the first against the Soviets, the second by the United Kingdom.

No religion is immune whatever its message. In India, Yogi Adityanath (a close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi) called on the mob to destroy the Ayodhya Mosque in 1992, and ten years later his followers massacred Muslims in Gujarat whom they falsely accused of seeking revenge. Or in Myanmar, the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu (who has no connection with the Burmese army and even less with Aung San Suu Kyi) preaches to kill Muslims.

There is no limit to human violence when we disregard our Reason. Those who practice it are artists: they have a style and imagine spectacular ways. Group cruelty is not a solitary sadistic pleasure, but a collective ritual. It frightens us and forces us to submit.

Daesh staged its crimes and filmed them, not hesitating to use special effects to frighten even more.

It is unlikely that the Nazis intended to kill their prisoners by the millions, but rather that they intended to exploit their labour force without regard for their lives, for they committed their crimes in secret, making their victims disappear in "night and fog".

On the contrary, during the war against the white armies, the Bolsheviks decided to wipe out the social classes favorable to tsarism. This probably had nothing to do with their ideology, but with the civil war. So they just shot them.

(To be continued...)

Introduction

At the New Year’s public opening of the Imperial Palace on January 2 1969, a Japanese war veteran by the name of Okuzaki Kenzō (1920–2005) fired three pachinko pinballs from a slingshot aimed at Emperor Hirohito who was standing 26.5 meters away on the veranda greeting about 15,000 visitors. All three hit the bottom of the veranda, missing Hirohito. Not many people seemed to notice that it was Okuzaki who fired them. Okuzaki then shot off one more, calling to the ghost of his war comrade, shouting, “Yamazaki, Shoot the Emperor (Hirohito) with a pistol!” Again he missed. Policemen on guard duty searched frantically for the perpetrator but could not identify him in the crowd. It was not certain whether Hirohito himself noticed the pinballs hitting the bottom of the veranda. Together with Hirohito, his wife Empress Ryōko, his two sons – Princes Akihito and Masahito – as well as their respective wives were also standing on the veranda, but it remains unclear whether any of them were aware of this incident.

Okuzaki approached one of the policemen frantically moving around the crowd and grabbed his arm, telling him, “It is me who shot the pinballs. Let’s go to the police station.” Obviously he did this intentionally, hoping to be arrested on the spot. Later he confessed that yelling “Yamazaki, Shoot the Emperor with a pistol!” was his tactic to attract police attention. He expected that the word “pistol” would immediately alert the police to the possibility of danger and that he would be arrested forthwith. Yet, disappointingly, this did not happen and therefore he had to ask a policeman to arrest him.1

Scene of the Pachinko Ball Attack, Emperor Hirohito at the Imperial Palace, New Year 1969

Okuzaki took this bizarre action in order to be arrested so that he could pursue Hirohito’s war responsibility in the Japanese court system. In his trial, Okuzaki argued that Chapter 1 of Japan’s Constitution (The Emperor), in particular Article 1, is unconstitutional.2 Yet the judges of the Tokyo High Court, and subsequently the Supreme Court, ignored Okuzaki’s argument. As far as I know, Okuzaki is the only person in Japan’s modern history to legally challenge the constitutionality of the emperor system, and indeed to provide a compelling analysis.

This paper investigates how Okuzaki Kenzō, a survivor of the New Guinea Campaign of the Japanese Imperial Army, legally challenged Emperor Hirohito and his constitutional authority by pursuing his war responsibility in court. It particularly examines Okuzaki’s legal claim that Chapter 1 (The Emperor) in Japan’s postwar Constitution is incompatible with the fundamental principle of the Constitution elaborated in the Preamble.

Okuzaki’s Personal Background Prior to the New Guinea Campaign

In order to understand the above-mentioned bizarre incident, it is necessary to look into Okuzaki’s personal background and war experience, as well as his immediate post-war life.

Okuzaki was born on February 1, 1920 in Akashi City of Hyogo Prefecture. In1930, when he was 10 years old, Japan was hit by a severe economic slump triggered by the Great Depression, which began in the U.S. in October 1929. Consequently, in the first half of the 1930s 2.5 million workers in Japan lost their jobs.3 One was Okuzaki’s father. Because of the acute poverty of Kenzo’s family, he had to start work as soon as he finished his 6 years of elementary schooling. Unable to find a permanent job, he did odd jobs, mainly as a shop-boy at different shops in Kobe, Ashiya, and Nishinomiya. He also worked as a trainee seaman for two years.

It seems that he had a strong appetite for knowledge, and when he had some spare time he read many books including the Bible. He also attended church services for a short period.4 His interest in Christianity seemed to have contributed to creating his strong sense of justice and to formulating the unique idea of “god” he developed in the latter part of his life.

In March 1941, he was drafted into the Engineering Corps in Okayama, and as a member of a group of 60 newly conscripted soldiers he was sent to the Engineering Division in Jiujiang in Central China. Here they received training for three months, after which they engaged in construction of bridges and roads in the occupied territories as well as occasional combat fighting against Chinese troops.

At the end of January 1943, twenty soldiers including Okuzaki were transferred to the 36th Independent Engineering Regiment (hereafter the 36th IER), and Okuzaki became one of 350 members of the 2ndCompany of this Regiment. In late February of the same year, the 36th IER left China for Hansa on the north coast of East New Guinea on a convoy of transport ships, via Takao (Kao-hsiung) in Taiwan, Manila in the Philippines and the Palau.5

Historical Background of the New Guinea Campaign

It is necessary to briefly look at the historical background of the Japanese Imperial Forces’ campaign in New Guinea in order to understand Okuzaki’s long and agonizing struggle for survival in this campaign.

Japanese war leaders, feeling exhilarated by an unexpected series of victorious battles in the first four months of the Pacific War after the Pearl Harbor Attack in December 1941, became overconfident. They swiftly expanded their war operation zone far beyond their capability to dominate it, leading eventually to the complete self-destruction of Japanese Imperial Forces.

As soon as Japan seized the entire southwest Pacific, the Navy leaders, who were initially cautious of expanding the war zone, began seriously contemplating invading Australia, believing that occupation of Australia was essential for defending the Pacific war zone. The Army leaders, preferring to save manpower and reinforce their operational capability for the future war against Soviet forces, strongly objected. As a compromise, the Navy and Army agreed to jointly carry out the Operations MO and FS in order to cut off the transportation line between the U.S. and Australia. Operation MO was designed to capture Port Moresby on the southeast coast of New Guinea by May 1942, and Operation FS was intended to seize Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia by July that year.6

However, as a result of Japan’s successive defeats in the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, the Solomon Sea and the southwest Pacific between May and the end of 1942, the Imperial Headquarters called off Operation FS as well as the land attack on Port Moresby.

Yet, the Imperial Headquarters still had not given up on capturing Port Moresby. It drew up a new plan to send a large contingent of troops to Buna on the northeast coast of East New Guinea, and force them to march 360 kilometers to Port Moresby through dense jungle and the Stanley Mountains, which are 4,000 meters above sea level. For this plan, in mid-August 1942, about 15,000 soldiers from the South Seas Army Force (SSAF) and the 41st Infantry Regiment were sent to Buna. The food supply ran out within one month and the plan was a complete failure. When it was finally decided to withdraw the forces in January 1943, only 3,000 were rescued: more than 70 percent of the men had perished from starvation and tropical disease.7

Despite this series of colossal strategic failures of the Japanese military leaders and the resulting heavy casualties, less than a year after the opening of the war no one assumed responsibility. In fact neither the Army nor the Navy ever conducted serious studies designed to find reasons for those failures, and they made no effort to learn from them. On the contrary, Imperial Headquarters continued to provide false information to the nation regarding the state of the war. This total lack of a sense of responsibility on the part of the Japanese Imperial Forces was closely intertwined with the emperor system. Under the Imperial Constitution, the emperor, grand marshal of the Imperial Forces, was completely free from mundane responsibilities, being “sacred and inviolable.” Because the head of state and the military were free from any war responsibility, no one else accepted responsibility either.8

Despite the disastrous failure of the plan to capture Port Moresby, the Imperial Headquarters came up with a new plan, this time to recapture Buna and seize Lae and Salamaua (Salus). Taking these three places would allow the Japanese to advance to Kerema on the south coast of New Guinea, 200 kilometers northeast of Port Moresby. After surrounding and occupying Kerema, the Japanese would then proceed to their final destination, Port Moresby. However, in order to complete even the first half of this expedition, the troops would have to march several hundred kilometers from the northeast coast to Kerema through dense jungle and mountains.

The plan was prepared by staff officers of the Imperial Headquarters in Tokyo who had no knowledge of the topography of New Guinea. They drew it up based on their own experience of warfare conducted in China, i.e., on battlefields of flat, wide and open plains. Many soldiers mobilized for this operation were also sent from Manchuria. They were utterly unfamiliar with combat in the tropical jungle environment.9

To carry out this inept and futile plan, from March 1943, many troops of the 18th Army landed on the northeast coast of New Guinea. Eventually as many as 148,000 soldiers were mobilized for the campaign including 1,200 soldiers of the 36th IER to which Okuzaki belonged. Most of these men wandered aimlessly about in the jungle, constantly pursued by Australian and American troops, while hovering between life and death due to lack of food, water, medicine and ammunition. Many of them even turned to cannibalism in order to survive. Eventually 135,000 men perished, mainly due to starvation and tropical diseases such as malaria and dysentery, and only 13,000 survived – the death rate was 91 percent.10

On the other hand, the Australian and U.S. forces had conducted a close study of the geographical features of New Guinea and decided to fully utilize aircraft and battleships to counterattack the Japanese troops. They avoided as much as possible sending their own troops into dense jungle, being clearly aware of the dangers of jungle fighting. Instead they adopted the strategy called “leapfrog” or “stepping-stones,” by which they captured and occupied only the vital strategic places on the north coast of New Guinea such as Madang, Wewak, Aitape and Hollandia. By doing so, the Australian and U.S. forces chased the Japanese troops towards the northwest coast of New Guinea by continuously conducting aerial bombing and naval bombardment. Many Japanese troops were caught between the Allied troops stationed at these places, and, while hiding in the jungle they starved to death.11

Okuzaki’s Desperate Struggle for Survival in New Guinea

The 36th IER, which landed at Hansa in early April, moved towards the east down to Alexishafen, where they were assigned to build an airfield. Being the rainy season, it took three months to transport all the heavy construction gear on wagons 200 kms along the trackless seacoast. By the time they arrived at Alexishafen, many soldiers were suffering from malaria and could not work. Although they managed to complete the construction of the airfield within the following few months, the Allied forces gained command of the air in this area before the end of 1943 and started bombing the airfield. The 18th Army headquarters’ base on the mountain called Nagata located between Alexishafen and Madang also became the target of Allied bombing. In December 1943, the Japanese forces therefore decided to retreat to the base in Wewak, 400 kms west of Alexishafen.12

A long and desperate struggle for survival by Okuzaki and his fellow soldiers of the 36th IER and other troops of the 18th Army began at this point. When they reached Wewak in January 1944, they were ordered to retreat further west to Hollandia in West (Dutch) New Guinea, 400 kms from Wewak. There was a Japanese base in Aitape, which was located almost half way to Hollandia. Yet, as mentioned above, the Japanese bases in Aitape and Hollandia were attacked and taken over by the Allied forces well before the Japanese troops even reached Aitape.13

A picture drawn by one of the surviving soldiers in New Guinea

While walking in bush near Hollandia, Okuzaki was shot by a small group of Allied soldiers. His right thigh was wounded and the little finger of his right hand was severely injured. Yet, he managed to escape and still kept wandering around Hollandia for a few more days, searching for a passage towards Sarmi, a further 400km west of Hollandia. Eventually he realized that he did not have the strength to keep walking any longer and thus chose to be killed by enemy bullets. He boldly walked into Hollandia and surrendered, but he was taken prisoner and unexpectedly was treated well. From there he was sent to a POW camp in Australia where he remained until the end of the war.15Walking in the jungle and taking the long way around the Allied bases, it took Okuzaki 10 months to reach Hollandia, while most of his fellow soldiers perished in the jungle. Out of 350 members of the 2nd Company of the 36th IER, only Okuzaki and one other man survived – the survival rate was less than 0.006%. The number of survivors out of 1,200 men of the entire 36th IER was a mere six – the chance of survival was 0.005%.14

It seems that there are at least a couple of important reasons why Okuzaki survived. First, it was because he was selected as one of about 20 men on the reconnaissance patrol of the Regiment – i.e., four or five men from each Company. Their primary mission was to locate the Japanese food deposits, most of which were in the territories already occupied by the Allied forces, and to retrieve as many provisions as possible from them.16 It was quite a dangerous assignment, but by undertaking this task Okuzaki was able to gain sufficient food for himself from time to time. As time passed, Okuzaki and other members of this reconnaissance patrol became gradually separated from the rest of the troops as the patrol walked well ahead of them.

Eventually they were completely isolated from the many sick and starving soldiers left behind. As time passed, friction between the members of the reconnaissance patrol from different Companies also developed and eventually the patrols ceased to act in any cordinated fashion. For this reason, Okuzaki was not clearly aware at the time that cannibalism had become a widespread problem among the Japanese solders left behind in the jungle. It was not until 1982-1983, during the production of the documentary film “Yuki Yuki te Shingun (Onward Holy Army),” that he learned what had really happened among those starving fellow soldiers he had left behind.17

Another important factor for his survival was his personal character – a strong sense of justice and deep anger at unfairness. It is well know that, in the Japanese Imperial Forces, ill-treatment of soldiers by their officers and NCOs was endemic. Bentatsu (routine striking and bashing) was regarded by officers as a form of “spiritual training” for the soldiers. Defiance or mutiny by soldiers against their officers was severely punished, often brutally. Yet Okuzaki frequently resisted orders given by his superiors if he found them “unreasonable” or “unfair,” and he did so even by resorting to violence. Surprisingly, his officers and NCOs did not punish Okuzaki for his behavior. It seems that, because officers and NCOs felt ashamed to publicize the fact that they were beaten by a rank-and-file soldier like Okuzaki, they remained silent. Whatever the reason, Okuzaki soon became regarded an eccentric and his “temperamental behavior” went unpunished within his own unit. Okuzaki’s ability to distance himself from ironclad military rules and to maintain his independence was an important factor for his survival in the horrendous conditions of jungle warfare.

In 1969, while waiting for the trial of his “pinball incident” crime, Okuzaki wrote a long statement in preparation for the trial. He was at the time locked up in detention for many months. This statement can be called an “autobiography”; Part I is predominantly the detailed description of his horrific experience in New Guinea, and Part II is about his post-war life up to the “pinball incident” and the reasons for his action against Emperor Hirohito.18

Okuzaki’s depiction of the one and a half years long struggle for survival in New Guinea is strikingly graphic. Despite a 24-year time lag, his memories of what happened in New Guinea were so vivid that he could describe them as if they had happened yesterday. In other words, those memories were so powerful that it was impossible to eliminate them from his mind. He wrote of incidents such as a wild pig biting a sick soldier who could no longer stand up; a fellow soldier who had lost his mind due to an attack by a local villager with a poisoned arrow and could not stop calling Okuzaki’s name for help because of acute pain and deep fear of death; a soldier suffering from malaria and starvation begging Okuzaki to shoot and kill him (Okuzaki had walked away and left him behind); his own sense of shame for having blackmailed members of the reconnaissance patrol from a different Company in order to secure food provisions for the soldiers of his own Company; one of his comrades, Yamazaki, perishing in the jungle despite his strong desire to go home and his humane concern about his fellow soldiers’ fate.

In short, this statement is not a simple historical or intellectual account of the Japanese military campaign in New Guinea. Rather it is an intense and compelling accusation of the victimization of Japanese soldiers by their own military leaders led by the Grand Marshal, Emperor Hirohito. Although Okuzaki did not clearly express it in this statement, he was in fact suggesting that prosecutors and judges at the court, who would examine the “pinball incident,” must take “responsibility for this war victimization,” if they choose to condemn Okuzaki’s conduct against Hirohito. In other words, the heart of his argument was the _absurdity of the war_imposed upon millions of Japanese men by the nation and the ultimate liability that Hirohito had as the head of the state and its military forces.

The Postwar Life of Okuzaki

In Part II of the statement, Okuzaki explains how hard he worked in order to survive in the immediate post-war economy and society. Initially he worked as a coal miner but nearly died because of an accident in the mine. Then he worked as a factory worker, and married a young widow, who was working as a caretaker of the factory’s dormitory. He gradually set up a business selling car batteries.19 Undoubtedly he was diligent, yet it seems that his long and harsh war experience made him deeply distrustful of Japanese society, in particular people who abuse their power and exploit others.

In 1951, he opened a business selling car batteries and second-hand cars in a small shop in Kobe. The business prospered, benefiting from the Korean War special procurement boom of the 1950’s. As he needed larger premises for the shop, in early 1956 he decided to buy a house where he and his wife could live and run the business in the same building. He tried to secure a property through a real estate broker by the name of Nobuhara. However, Nobuhara was an infamous broker closely linked with yakuza gangsters. He made off with Okazaki’s money and Okuzaki was unable to secure the property.20

Infuriated, Okuzaki decided to attack Nobuhara. As he told his wife, he was prepared to go to jail for a short period but he had no intention of killing Nobuhara. In fact he gave his wife some money and asked her to pay for Nobuhara’s medical treatment if necessary. One day, Okuzaki went to see Nobuhara and stabbed him with a knife. Then he immediately took a taxi to a police station and confessed to the crime. About one hour later, while being investigated at the police station, Okuzaki was shocked learn that Nobuhara had died in hospital. Naturally he was immediately arrested.21

It was clearly a case of “bodily injury resulting in death,” in other words “manslaughter,” and according to Article 205 of the Criminal Law of Japan at the time, it was punishable by “more than two years’ imprisonment.” Considering the fact that Okuzaki voluntarily surrendered to the police, the prosecutors and the judge should have been lenient with him. Yet, the prosecutors accused Okuzaki of attacking Nobuhara with a clear intention of homicide. Okuzaki’s lawyer advised him to accept the prosecution’s charges and express his “remorse and repentance.” The solicitor said that such a humble attitude would bring a lenient judgment. In Japanese criminal trials, offenders’ sincere expression of “remorse and repentance” is deemed an important factor, often leading to a lenient judgment.

Yet, Okuzaki not only refused to compromise, but sent a statement to the prosecutors and the judge claiming that “this trial is a farce or a burlesque. Prosecutors should see the real world more clearly.” He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, the maximum punishment for such a crime. It is obvious that his anti-authority behavior did not help him to receive a fair trial. Over the following ten years, Okuzaki submitted a request for a retrial numerous times from prison, but to no avail.22

Development of Okuzaki’s Ideas on Japanese Society and the Emperor System While in Prison

As a result of his defiance of the prison authorities, he spent ten years in solitary confinement in Osaka Prison. He used this state of forced isolation to read numerous books and reflect on his life, as well as to think about various social and political issues. Soon he realized that there are many “enemies of the people” like Nobuhara, yet punishing such people or eliminating them would not solve the problem. He concluded that the real “enemy of the people” is the social structure, which keeps reproducing bad people and social problems including war.23

That social structure is, he believed, hierarchical, with the emperor residing at the top and every corner tainted with emperor ideology. In his eyes, this fundamental nature of Japanese society had not changed after Japan’s defeat in the war. Law, politics and religion still played vital roles in maintaining the inhumane social structure of the nation-state. He concluded that lawyers, politicians and religious leaders were obedient servants of the state and did not protect common people like Okuzaki. Thus he became deeply skeptical of the existing legal and political system.

Not long after he was imprisoned, he tried to gain permission from the head of the prison to send a telegram to the Minister of Justice, asking him to suspend the executions of all prisoners on death row. Following the telegram, he sought to send a statement to the Minister to explain his argument against capital punishment. He received no response to this request. Instead, he was examined by a psychiatrist, who diagnosed Okuzaki with “paranoia.”24

He was convinced that the problem lay with the vicious structure of the Japanese nation-state that mobilized tens of thousands of men for war and sent them to their death. Yet Hirohito, the person most responsible for this national tragedy, was not only free at large but admired by many Japanese. For Okuzaki, the same Japanese social structure constantly produced soial problems inluding crime, industrial pollution, unhappiness. He believed that it was imperative to destroy this venomous social structure based on the emperor system in order to create a new world, in which all could live happily and humanely. The new world should be constructed in accordance with “god’s will,” based on the principle of universality, equality and absolute truth. It is not clear what he really meant by “god,” as he did not elaborate upon this. He rejected state power, represented by the emperor, and claimed that people should be ruled by the principle of universality, equality and absolute truthfulness, not by the state. He did not elaborate upon “the principle of universality, equality and absolute truthfulness” either. However, here we can see a unique mixture of utopian anarchism and a vaguely Christian religious idea.25

It is interesting to note that Okuzaki tried to show continuity between the wartime “Emperor Fascism” and Japan’s so-called “post-war democracy.” He denounced post-war Japanese society, saying that it was not democratic at all. His claim was that “democracy” by nature was not compatible with “the emperor system.” He did not understand why Japanese people failed to realize this fact, which seemed self-evident to him.

The problem was that he could not articulate it lucidly, analytically or theoretically. It must have been extremely difficult to live for ten years without communicating with other people, except for a few prison guards. Although he had ample time to read, think, and write,26 solitary confinement prevented him from discussing his ideas with other people and re-examining his own thoughts from the perspective of others. He had no one to guide his private research towards more intellectual and constructive thinking.

It is therefore not surprising that, as time passed, he became more and more firmly convinced that his own ideas on such issues as society, politics, law, religion and the emperor system were absolutely correct. Based on his uncompromising belief that Japanese society had to be completely changed, he tried to take legal action 93 times from his prison cell, petitioning the Japanese government on numerous issues over ten years. Among those issues were cases involving the abolition of capital punishment, the unconstitutionality of the Self Defense Forces and the abolition of the emperor system. Indeed he submitted six petitions against the emperor system during his prison term.27 Although it was ironic that an anarchist like Okuzaki, who refused to recognize state power, submitted so many petitions to the government, it clearly demonstrates how deeply he felt about “injustice” in society. Sadly, however, the more obstinate his self-belief became, the more eccentric he was seen to be. This became a vicious cycle, particularly in his later life.

After his release from prison in August 1966, Okuzaki quickly re-established his business selling car batteries, working hard together with his wife. However, he was determined to disseminate as widely as possible the ideas that he had developed in prison. In pursuit of this aim, he attached banners to his business truck criticizing Hirohito as a war criminal and political statements such as “The real nature of the military and police force is violence! Nothing can be protected by violence!” Surprisingly many people expressed moral support for Okuzaki’s action. Encouraged by this, he contemplated taking some kind of “non-violent” action against Hirohito in order to publicize his idea of abolishing the emperor system and establishing a new society. At the end of December 1968, two years four months after his release from prison, he told only his wife of his plan, saying that there was no need to worry, as he had no intention to harm Hirohito.28

Okuzaki’s Solitary Battle Against Hirohito and the Emperor System

Okuzaki reasoned, however, that “because the emperor is the symbol of evil in modern society . . . , killing Hirohito per se would not solve the problem unless the current form of society, which keeps producing new emperors as well as imperial features in various places in society, would be fundamentally reformed.” Therefore he was not prepared to sacrifice his own life for such a futile act as killing Hirohito. His goal was to be arrested and have a chance to let the Japanese people know about his “idea of a new world without the emperor system.”29He knew that there was little likelihood that the pinballs aimed at Hirohito from a distance were likely to hit him. Even if they hit him, he thought it unlikely that Hirohito would be seriously injured. He nevertheless believed that “Hirohito deserves capital punishment for his crime of driving hundreds of thousands of Japanese men to their death in war.” He wrote that he would not mind killing Hirohito and even consequently receiving capital punishment himself “if that would bring truly eternal peace, freedom, and happiness to us.”

He succeeded in being arrested, yet, as mentioned above, few people around him noticed what Okuzaki had done while they were happily greeting the emperor and his family. Moreover, not even many among the 2,000 policemen standing guard became aware of what was happening at the time. The following day, all major national newspapers reported the incident, but all claimed that it was an act committed by a man suffering from paranoid personality disorder and amnesia, who had a criminal record of murdering a real estate broker. The Mainichi Newspaper was the only one to mention that Okuzaki was a survivor of the New Guinea Campaign in the Asia-Pacific War and that he had submitted six petitions holding the emperor responsible for the deaths of Japanese soldiers and calling for the abolition of the emperor system.30 Therefore, Okuzaki’s intention of politicizing his action against Hirohito and propagating his idea of establishing a new society miserably failed. In this sense, it was not Okuzaki but the majority of the Japanese population who were suffering from amnesia – i.e., remaining oblivious to the wartime suffering and the responsibility for it.

Shortly after Okuzaki’s arrest, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital for about two months. It seems that the prosecutors were trying to dismiss the case by handling it as “an act committed by a person suffering from paranoia and amnesia” in order to avoid a trial. The prosecutors may have realized that the trial of Okuzaki could become politically sensitive because it directly involved the person of Emperor Hirohito. Yet, since medical specialists did not diagnose Okuzaki as “psychopathic,” he was deemed capable of standing trial and so the trial had to be conducted.

The trial began in mid January 1970. In a minor assault case in which no injury occurs, the accused is usually released on bail prior to the trial. In fact, the Tokyo District Court accepted Okuzaki’s application for bail on January 24 1971, more than a year after he was arrested. However, the Tokyo High Court overruled it and therefore Okuzaki was not released until his second trial was completed on October 7, 1971. He was therefore detained for one year and ten months including two months in a psychiatric hospital.

Okuzaki’s Court Battle Against Hirohito

It seems that such harsh treatment of Okuzaki was due to the fact that the target of Okuzaki’s act of violence was not a common citizen but the emperor. If so, this was a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan, which guarantees the equality of all Japanese citizens under the law and forbids discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin. In other words, even the emperor must be treated equally as a Japanese citizen, otherwise Japanese citizens would be discriminated against on the grounds of “social status and family origin.” It seems that prosecutors and judges in the late 1960th were still under the influence of the old-fashioned concept of lese majesty (fukeizai, the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign) of the former Meiji Constitution.31 It can be said that, even before the trial actually started, the Okuzaki case clearly reflected an idea expressed by George Orwell’s phrase in Anima Farm, “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

This trial is apparently the first and thus far the only case to involve the emperor personally under the new Constitution and after abolition of lese majesty in 1946. The prosecutors accused Okuzaki of committing a crime of assault against the emperor. A crime of assault is legally defined as a crime committed against “a natural person,” and therefore the emperor should also be regarded as a natural person, i.e., an individual, equal to all other Japanese citizens. Otherwise, as mentioned above, it would be a violation of Article 14 of Japan’s Constitution. Yet, in the indictment, the emperor’s personal name “Hirohito” was never mentioned, and only the term “Emperor” was used. In other words, the emperor was considered as some kind of “divine creature” and not as “a natural person.” It was and still is a custom in Japan not to mention the emperor’s personal name in public including newspapers and magazines because calling the emperor by his personal name is regarded discourteous.

Okuzaki and his lawyer strongly argued that “the crime victim” must be clearly identified as an individual in order to clarify the nature of the crime. Judge Nishimura Nori was sympathetic with this argument and advised the prosecutors to use the emperor’s individual name. The prosecutors refused to accept the judge’s advice. They appeared to see it as taboo to use the emperor’s personal name. Indeed, they claimed that the crime victim was “the emperor as a natural person, who is in the position of emperor,” and “there is no need to clarify his name as everyone knows who he is.”32 If that logic were followed it would mean that personal names of all the public figures such as Prime Minister, the Governor of Tokyo, and Vice Chancellor of Tokyo University would not be required in court cases. Clearly, the intention of the prosecutors was to preserve the special position of the emperor as opposed to Japanese citizens.

It was also extraordinary that the prosecutors presented no testimony of the crime victim, indeed, no evidence at all. It was and still is unimaginable to conduct the trial of a crime of assault without the victim’s testimony concerning the crime as well as his/her personal feeling as a victim. A crime of assault may provoke in a victim fear, anxiety or anger toward the perpetrator, even when no injury occurs. Thus it is essential to examine the experience and the feelings of the target of the assault. Without examining such essential matters, it cannot be proved that a crime of assault actually took place, and the court cannot assess the seriousness of the crime or the appropriate penalty. Nevertheless, the court heard only a limited number of eyewitnesses – several people from the crowd and a policeman whom Okuzaki approached after he shot the pinballs. No one testified against Okuzaki identifying him as the perpetrator of the assault and not a single affidavit was submitted. Indeed, the prosecutors did not even try to obtain Hirohito’s affidavit.33

Okuzaki requested that Hirohito appear as a witness, claiming that he had a right to a fair trial and to summon all the witnesses he required. He also submitted the following questions he wished to ask Hirohito during cross-examination.34

1. Name, Position and Career of the witness.
2. Do you know the accused Okuzaki Kenzo?
3. Did you notice that the accused shot pinballs towards the right-hand side of the veranda of the Imperial Palace, where you and your family members were standing at the New Year’s public opening of the Imperial Palace on January 2, 1969?
4. Did you know who on the veranda the pinballs were aimed at? Did you think that they were aimed at you?
5. After this incident, did you read any press reports or watched TV news concerning the accused action? Have you received any account of this incident from your chamberlains? Have you ever discussed this incident with your family members? Have you ever seriously thought over this incident?
6. Do you know that the accused is one of the surviving rank-and-file soldiers of the Imperial Army, who were drafted into the Pacific War conducted under the name of “the Holy War,” fought in New Guinea, wounded and narrowly escaped death?
7. As a fellow human being, how do you explain the fact that you were the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces (the so-called “Holy Army”) in which the accused was drafted, and that the above-mentioned war was conducted under your authority, and that the accused was one of the victims of the above-mentioned war?
8. How do you respond to the fact that the action by the accused was carried out to console the spirits of tens of thousands of his comrades who died as a result of starvation and injuries in New Guinea, and as a memorial service for them?
9. You are regarded as the victim of this incident. How do you assess the action carried out by the accused? Do you wish for clemency for the accused or punishment of the accused? How do your family members, who were together with you on the veranda, feel about this incident?
10. Other relevant questions.

The prosecutors opposed Okuzaki’s request to cross-examine Hirohito without explanation. Judge Nishimura also rejected the request, simply claiming “there is no necessity to do that.” When his request for summoning Hirohito was rejected, Okuzaki dismissed his lawyer and from this point the trial continued without a lawyer for the defense. By dismissing his lawyer, Okuzaki probably wanted to show his strong disapproval of the exercise of state power and the legal authority of the state. He might have thought that even his lawyer was part of the legal authority and thus of the state apparatus.35

As a result of this unexpected action by Okuzaki cross-examinations of witnesses including Hirohito – scholars, writers, war veterans, and relatives of the soldiers killed in action – were not conducted at all. It seems that Okuzaki could not organize those witnesses without his lawyer’s assistance. Thus the trial was concluded without identifying the name of the crime victim, without presenting the testimony of the victim, and without cross-examining the witnesses the accused requested. In other words, this was an extraordinary trial case, which can be called a quasi-trial of lese majesty. Strictly speaking, it appears to have been an unconstitutional trial, in which prosecutors tried to punish Okuzaki by applying lese majesty, despite the fact that such crime had been abolished in 1946.

It was also extraordinary that the prosecutors demanded three years imprisonment for the accused when the maximum punishment for a crime of assault at that time was two years imprisonment. Although, in the judgment handed down on June 8 1971, Judge Nishimura acknowledged that Okuzaki’s motivation for his action against Hirohito was to condemn Hirohito’s war responsibility, he did not discuss whether Hirohito himself was partly accountable for inducing Okuzaki’s crime. Judge Nishimura claimed “considering relevant matters directly related to the case in question such as the motivation of the accused, circumstances, behavior as well as the purpose of Article 14 of the Constitution, it is improper to impose a sentence that exceeds the punishment stipulated by Article 208 of the Criminal Law, which the prosecutors demand ……”36

Thus Okuzaki was sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment with credit for the 180 days spent in detention, although he had already spent more than one year in detention by then. This gave the impression that Judge Nishimura paid attention to Article 14 of the Constitution and thus treated Okuzaki and Hirohito equally as “natural persons.” Yet in the same judgment he discriminated against Okuzaki by treating Hirohito preferentially, stating that it was “a well prepared and planned crime carried out against the Emperor, ….. therefore the criminal liability of the accused is serious.”37 Moreover, as already noted, the way that the trial was conducted as a whole appears to have been unconstitutional.

On June 8, 1970, i.e., the same day the judgment was handed down, both Okuzaki and the prosecutors’ office appealed to the Tokyo High Court. This second trial, which was conducted by three judges – Chief Justice Kurimoto Kazuo, Judge Ogawa Izumi and Judge Fujii Kazuo, concluded on October 7, 1970. Okuzaki was found guilty again, and in the final judgment the judges strongly agreed with the prosecutors’ opinion that “the case in question is a crime committed against the Emperor, who is the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people as defined in the Constitution of Japan, and therefore it is a crime of a vicious nature with serious impact on society.”38

In other words, the judges condemned Okuzaki’s act a crime violating Article 1 of the Constitution. Yet, there is no such “crime against the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people” defined by present Japanese criminal law. As lese majesty was abolished in 1946, Okuzaki’s act could not be regarded as a criminal act except as a “crime of assault” under the current law. Therefore, as noted above, it is undoubtedly a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution to regard an act of assault against the emperor as particularly grave and serious in comparison with the same act committed against an ordinary Japanese citizen. Indeed, in this final judgment, unlike the judgment of the first trial, there was no reference at all to Article 14 of the Constitution. This judgment thus appeared a stronger application of lese majesty in comparison with the judgment of the first trial, and thus unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, as far as the actual penalty imposed upon Okuzaki was concerned, the final judgment supported the judgment of the first trial, i.e., one and a half years imprisonment, and rejected the prosecutors’ demand for three years imprisonment as an excess over the legally specified maximum punishment. Furthermore, it gave credit for one and a half years spent in detention instead of 180 days. That allowed Okuzaki to be released immediately.39 In this way, the reaction of the judges of the Tokyo High Court to this first criminal case committed against the emperor after the war was a strange mixture of the old fashioned idea of lese majesty and respect for the Criminal Law formulated under the new post-war Constitution promulgated in 1946.

Okuzaki’s Denunciation of Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan defining the position of the Emperor

Interestingly, Okuzaki’s struggle against Hirohito and the emperor system did not stop here. Soon he appealed to the Supreme Court. In his appeal, he stated:

Both the prosecutors and judges, who indicted or sentenced me at the first and second trials, respect the person, whom they regard as a victim of the case in question, as the Emperor. However, according to the Preamble of the Constitution, “we reject and revoke all constitutions, laws, ordinances, and rescripts in conflict” with the “universal principle of mankind.” It is our clear common understanding that the existence of the emperor is in conflict with the “universal principle of mankind.” The emperor’s authority, value, legitimacy and life are only temporary, partial, relative and subjective.Therefore, the fundamental nature of the emperor is absolutely, objectively, entirely and permanently depraved. Hence, Articles 1 to 8 of the current Constitution, which endorse the existence of the emperor, are definitely invalid. For a person with normal discernment and mind, those Articles are nonsensical, obsolete and foolish …… (emphasis added)40

This is an extremely powerful and logical argument, and as far as I know, so far no one has ever deliberated such a compelling denunciation of Chapter 1 (Articles 1 – 8) “The Emperor” of the Constitution of Japan. In the same appeal, Okuzaki also stated that both of his previous trials were violations of Article 14 and Article 37. Article 37 guarantees Japanese citizens’ right to a fair trial.41

On April 1 1971, the Supreme Court (Chief Judge Ōsumi Kenichirō, Judge Iwata Makoto, Judge Fujibayashi Masuzō, and Judge Shimoda Takezō) dismissed Okuzaki’s appeal in a very short statement (five lines). It claimed that Okuzaki’s argument on the invalidity of Articles 1 to 8 of the Constitution was “irrelevant to his case pertaining to Article 405 of the Criminal Law,” and that his condemnation of the violation of Articles 14 and 37 is simply due to his “misunderstanding of fact.” It gave no explanation whatsoever as to why Okuzaki’s argument was irrelevant, or what he had misunderstood.42

Such an abrupt statement by the judges gives an impression that they did not take Okuzaki’s case as a serious legal challenge to the Constitution. Or it could be speculated that Okuzaki’s argument was so forceful and compelling that they were incapable of refuting it. In fact, during the second trial, Okuzaki presented a similar argument on the denunciation of Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan, but the judges of the Tokyo High Court claimed that Article 1 explains that the emperor’s position derives “from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power” and therefore it does not contradict the Preamble.43 It is obvious, however, that the judges of the Tokyo High Court also avoided discussing the crucial issue, i.e., the contradiction between the universal principle of mankind and the emperor system that Okuzaki had sharply pointed out.

In order to truly understand Okuzaki’s discussion of the relationship between the universal principle of mankind and the fundamental nature of the emperor system, we need to read the entire first paragraph of the Preamble including the part Okuzaki used in his appeal to the Supreme Court.

“We, the Japanese people, acting through our duly elected representatives in the National Diet, determined that we shall secure for ourselves and our posterity the fruits of peaceful cooperation with all nations and the blessings of liberty throughout this land, and resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government, do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution. Government is a sacred trust of the people, the authority for which is derived from the people, the powers of which are exercised by the representatives of the people, and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people. This is a universal principle of mankind upon which this Constitution is founded. We reject and revoke all constitutions, laws, ordinances, and rescripts in conflict herewith”. (emphasis added)

As elaborated in the second paragraph of the Preamble, this universal principle of mankind also includes “the preservation of peace; the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth; and the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.” In Okuzaki’s mind, if we have truly “resolved that never again shall we be visited with the horrors of war through the action of government,” why is the person most responsible for causing “horrors of war” still free from punishment for his role as commander in chief in the Asia-Pacific War? If we have decided that we abide by the principle of mankind, why does such an irresponsible person, who destroyed peace, created tyranny, slavery, oppression and intolerance, and violated the right of many Japanese and Asian people to live in peace, free from fear and want, still enjoy the prestige defined by the Constitution supposedly established upon the universal principle of mankind?

In other words, Okuzaki was clearly pointing out the inherent contradiction between the basic philosophy of the Constitution and its Article 1 “The Emperor.” Although Okuzaki did not discuss the source of this contradiction, it was undeniably created by the GHQ of the US Occupation Forces of Japan which decided to acquit Hirohito of his war crimes in order to politically exploit his majesty for the smooth control of post-war Japan, and to present him as a symbol of “peaceful post-war Japan” for the purpose of American benefit.44

As mentioned above, no one except Okuzaki has challenged the constitutionality of the emperor so vigorously and persistently. Post-war Japan produced many eminent writers, who produced novels and semi-autobiographies based on their own experiences as Imperial soldiers. Among them are Ōoka Shōhei, Noma Hiroshi, Gomikawa Jumpei, and Shiroyama Saburō, who conveyed strong anti-war sentiment thorough their moving stories. Some former soldiers, in particular those returned from China several years after the war, having been re-educated by the Chinese communist government, published honest and critical accounts of atrocities they themselves committed.45 Yet, they hardly discussed Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility, and virtually none of them questioned the post-war constitutionality of the emperor.

Watanabe Kiyoshi, a survivor of the battleship Musashi destroyed and sunk by the U.S. forces in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, wrote excellent essays for many years after the war, criticizing Hirohito’s performance during and after the war. As far as I know he was the only former soldier, who sent a long open letter to Hirohito in 1961, harshly questioning him about his involvement in decision-making in various stages of the Asia-Pacific War. It is an excellent historical analysis of Hirohito’s war responsibility based on Watanabe’s thorough research of military and other official records. At the end of this open letter, however, Watanabe demanded that Hirohito abdicate the throne in order to show sincerity for his war responsibility, but did not question the constitutionality of Hirohito’s status as the emperor.46

Furthermore, as far as I know, no constitutional scholar in Japan has ever discussed the issue of the constitutionality of the emperor. We Japanese need to ask ourselves why we have failed to question such a crucial matter. It surely has to be faced if we are to establish a democratic society based upon a genuinely democratic constitution.

Conclusion: Who is Responsible for Creating an “Eccentric Person” like Okuzaki?

It is sad to see that Okuzaki, who had such a sharp mind, strong will and fervent sense of justice, broke down as a human being after the failure of this legal battle, which was fought for the purpose of promoting his bold idea of establishing “a happy and peaceful society without the emperor system.” The more people viewed Okuzaki as eccentric with extreme ideas, the more self-righteous and anti-authority he became, in particular toward lawyers and politicians. Okuzaki not only verbally condemned all who disagreed with him, but often resorted to violence in order to compel others to accept his ideas.

This is clear when we view his performance in the documentary film “Yuki Yuki te Shingun” produced between 1982 and 83. The dilemma and irony for viewers of this documentary film is that, without using violence to make former officers confess, Okuzaki probably could not reveal the fact that two of his comrades were executed by their officers 23 days after Japan officially surrendered to the Allied forces. Although they were executed on the excuse of “desertion in the face of the enemy,” the real reason was that they had refused to participate in group-cannibalism in New Guinea during the war. Officers wanted to silence them to cover up this dreadful fact.

Okuzaki believed that his idea was absolutely and always right, and eventually he saw himself as a martyr, who had a duty to follow a sacred calling from his “god” – a calling to establish a free, egalitarian and happy society like the utopia that Thomas More described, in which no one is controlled or exploited by anyone else. In December 1983, he committed manslaughter again – killing a son of former officer Muramoto Masao, who gave an order to execute the above-mentioned two soldiers. For this crime he was imprisoned again for 12 years.

Undoubtedly war, in particular, war of aggression, is an act of madness. Regardless of the official reason for the war, one cannot kill so many people without deadening the conscience of society. At the same time, one cannot be prepared to be killed unless one is prepared to kill others. For Okuzaki, who was forced to experience the madness of war and saw many people dying in front of his eyes, it was unimaginable that the person, who was most responsible for creating such madness and driving hundreds of thousands of fellow human beings to their deaths, seemed to have no conscience and no sense of accountability at all. Equally unimaginable to Okuzaki was the fact that society shielded the emperor from responsibility for the deaths of millions.

Indeed, while Okuzaki’s acts of violence against a few individuals bore opprobrium in postwar Japan, the person who created the madness of war that took the lives of millions continued to be venerated by the people as the symbol of a peaceful nation. For Okuzaki, this situation itself was mad. It must have been extremely difficult for him to encounter this madness, particularly to accept the fact that the large majority of his fellow citizens, including many former soldiers who had experienced that madness and saw their comrades die in vast numbers even as they barely survived themselves, saw this as neither “mad” nor “absurd.”

For Okuzaki, people who considered him eccentric and appalling had failed to understand the madness of war. “How could you forget this madness?” We can vividly feel Okuzaki’s intense anger when we read his appeal to the Supreme Court, or see the documentary film “Yuki Yuki te Shingun.”

“How could you forget this madness?” Okuzaki’s anger is palpable. But so engrossed did he become in pursuing Hirohito’s war responsibility that he lost the ability to remember his own responsibility to respect the lives and basic human rights of others.

The problem was, however, because he was so engrossed in pursuing the war responsibility of Hirohito and others that he lost the sanity of remembering his own responsibility to respect the lives and basic human rights of others. Indeed, he paid little attention to the fact that the war victims were not only Japanese soldiers but also many civilians, in particular those killed by indiscriminate bombings conducted by the US forces in the final stage of the war. Similarly, he hardly commented on the deaths of millions of Asian people, i.e., the victims of Japan’s atrocious war conduct. In other words, he was not really capable of internalizing the pain of war victims other than his own fellow soldiers.

Therefore, we need to remember that we Japanese including Hirohito, who have failed to internalize the pain of war victims as our own and to carefully pursue Japan’s war responsibility, are indeed responsible for creating a contradictory, complex and difficult person like Okuzaki Kenzō.

We may need to learn from Okuzaki’s life that we should not forget that the madness of war actually paralyzes our sanity to understand how mad and absurd all wars are.

What has the ‘international style of architecture’ – now going out of fashion – but which arose as a universalist aesthetic intended as a weapon to counter the nationalist upheavals at the turn of the 20th century, got to do with today’s geo-politics?

Well – more than might be imagined.

We all can be only too aware of the so-called ‘culture wars’, which are rending Britain, the US and Europe apart. We can see plainly this fracture, around which are arranged the two warring armies: On one side fly the banners of the Enlightenment ideal of ‘incontrovertible’ reason, from which the leap the idols of technology, of cosmopolitan homogeneity – and too, the ‘progressive agenda’: i.e. the embrace of human rights, rights of immigration, diversity, ecology and gender politics. And on the other front, those like Philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, who considered the great imperialists such as Charlemagne — the “villains of history” who “stomped out native cultures.” Herder believed every culture possessed a unique Volksgeist, or way of life, incommensurate with others.

In the end however, the internationalist values have been pursued overwhelmingly (and purposefully) to the cost of ‘belonging’.

The lesson of the ongoing backlash against globalization is that political and cultural logic – rooted in an emotional attachment to our own roots, and to a distinctive cultural way of life, cultivated among one’s own kind – belongs to a wholly different pole (and dimension) to that of a ‘rational’ and universalizing ethos of economics and technology.

Far from moving forward in lock-step progress, these two ‘poles’ of consciousness, when they meet, they clash. And clash bitterly (as recent events in Britain’s parliament exemplify). Is there a possibility for synthesis, for compromise? Possibly not. It is an ancient rift between global utopia and local sovereignty. The strength of the globalists lately has been waning, and the other pole notably strengthening.

Philosopher Roger Scruton explains this shift towards the ‘sovereignty-ists’: “We are, as the Germans put it, heimatlich creatures — we have an inherent need to belong, and to belong somewhere, in a place to which we commit ourselves as we commit ourselves to the others who also belong there. This thought is disparaged by those who see only its negative side — the side that leads to belligerent nationalism and xenophobia. But those are the negative by-products of something positive, just as the international style was the negative by-product of a laudable desire to soften the barriers and smooth out the suspicions that had been brought into prominence by World War I.”

A European or global ‘melting pot of identities’, in other words, is possible only at the cost of shedding community roots and particularities. But Scruton’s point about the internationalist style of architecture (those “glass boxes and concrete plazas” to which nobody could belong – a “nowhere” style), goes further.

His architectural metaphor extends to the globalist zeitgeist as a whole: “The evidence is overwhelming that ugly and impersonal environments lead to depression, anxiety and a sense of isolation and that these are not cured; but only amplified, by joining some global network in cyberspace. We have a need for friends, family and physical contact; we have a need to pass people peacefully in the street, to greet each other and to sense the safety of a cared-for environment, that is also ours. A sense of beauty is rooted in these feelings.”

Here is the point: Isaiah Berlin argued that cosmopolitanism was an empty vessel. “[I]f the streams dried up … where men and women are not products of a culture, where they don’t have kith and kin and feel closer to some people than to others, where there is no native language — that would lead to a tremendous desiccation of everything that is human.”

That ‘other’ political and cultural logic, rooted in an emotional attachment to our own roots, and distinctive ways of living life, cultivated among one’s own kind’, is of course the very rootstock for possessing the quality of empathy – of being capable to embrace ‘otherness’. Having a sense of one’s own roots, brings recognition that every culture possesses a unique Volksgeist, or way of life, incommensurate with others.

Washington today does not ‘understand’ otherness. It does not even try very hard. It cannot fathom Iran (or China, or Russia). These latter states seem to DC to reject the ‘incontrovertible rationality’ that the European Enlightenment bequeathed to the world. They too, are seemingly ‘irrationally opposed’ to the ‘progressive moral outlook’ that has, in past years, informed European and American foreign policy.

This lack of empathy precisely defines the multiple policy failures. ‘Internationalist foreign policy’, which like its namesake architecture – is a style, detached from any empathy with place or people. It is also a nowhere style (one size policy fits all), demanding global homogeneity and compliance.

Its root in an abstract, ‘irrefutable rationality’ clashes utterly with President Trump’s mercantilist foreign policy style. As a consequence, no one sees any point to negotiating with such a conflicted entity (as the US is), oscillating uncertainly between these two oppositional poles. No one knows where stands the policy, from day-to-day.

Let us illustrate with an example: President Trump – the mercantilist – wants to exit Syria. His Syria Envoy, James Jeffery, however, is explicitly ‘internationalist’. These two approaches do not march together in any complementary way — where they meet, they clash, and trip each other up.

Jeffrey, on Trump’s compromise of drawdown in Syria, rather than full withdrawal:

“There is some reduction in forces in Syria. [But] we are making up for that [the President’s drawdown order], by keeping a very strong presence in Iraq. We’re making up for that with very strong air components. We’re making up for that with more Coalition forces on the ground. So we’re finding ways to compensate for it.”

Interviewer: “I want to move on to the U.S. presence at al-Tanf. There are some 10,000 Syrians living in a remote settlement, living in squalor [on US militarily occupied Syrian territory]. There are reports of some having starved. And yet there’s a U.S. military base some 10 miles away. Why hasn’t the U.S. simply stepped in, and helped provide food?”

“Well, first of all because we’re not actually responsible for these people. The government of Syria is responsible for them. International agencies are responsible…”

Interviewer: I think critics of the U.S. approach to Rukban would say that in exercising military control over the area, the U.S. has certain responsibilities, certain legal ones, as laid out under the Fourth Geneva Convention. But I take it you don’t see it that way?

“First of all, on the Fourth Geneva Convention, I would check with that. I do not believe the Pentagon would claim that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the refugees in al-Tanf. That’s the first thing …”.

Interviewer: [US pressures on Assad?]

“… we’re doing a great deal. We’ve got a very broad sanctions program that Treasury runs. We have very close coordination with the E.U., which runs its own sanctions program. We have blocked all reconstruction assistance from anywhere including UNDP [U.N. Development Programme], World Bank, any place, anywhere, inside Assad’s part of Syria. We are pursuing aggressively a ‘no diplomatic recognition’ policy throughout the world. For example, the Syrians were not invited back into the Arab League. So we’re putting as much pressure on the regime, and on its supporters, Russia and Iran, as possible.

But also, although it’s not our purpose in being in northeastern Syria, we are in northeastern Syria. And that, by its nature, keeps the regime out. The Turks are in northwest Syria for their own reasons, but that keeps the regime out. The Israelis are going after Syria’s ally Iran for its long-range systems that it’s introduced into Syria. So there’s a great pressure we’re putting the regime under.

Interviewer: [Is the US fighting ISIS in Syria?]

“I’m concerned about, first of all, are they [ISIS] setting up another caliphate? Are they holding more territory? No. Are the incidents extraordinarily low by every measure we’ve made in Afghanistan and Iraq? Absolutely, yes. Do we have areas where they seem to be persistent, pervasive, resilient, especially in Iraq, yes? In certain areas. And that’s the thing that has concern.

“This, (an USAF attack on a base on the Tigris), is the only case I can think of in either country where we’ve actually had a little tiny military operation, or several military operations, to clean these guys up. Most of the time, they’re on the move. I know in the Badia desert, south of the Euphrates, and we’re very worried about that. We’ve taken certain actions that I can’t get into, against them. They float around like desert nomads. They strike the Russians. They strike the regime. They strike the Iranians. They stay away from us because they know what’s going to happen.”

A ‘progressive’ Israeli commentator, in a separate article, The progressive case for staying in Syria, for now, lauds how the “Pentagon and State Department have since been able to slow the pace of withdrawal of U.S. troops [that Trump wanted], and are looking for replacements from Coalition nations … Most importantly, perhaps, to progressives, this protection would prevent the grave human rights abuses that would otherwise await the millions of Syrians … [and additionally] Retreating from the northeast, would mean forfeiting U.S.-backed forces’ control of a third of Syria’s territory and 80% of its natural resources, eliminating what little leverage America has left in shaping the post-war landscape. The Assad regime, even at its weakest point, was unwilling to seriously negotiate with the opposition. Now that it feels confident and victorious, it is much less likely to accede to any Western demands to reform; or step down.” [Emphasis through-out has been added].

Scruton’s points about the ‘internationalists’ contingent loss of any sense of empathy and beauty – amidst the ugliness, and the de-cultured, drabness of our physical (and intellectual) environment – are evident in these excerpts on US policy: We are indeed living a strange de-humanised time, when it is desirable, according to Enlightenment rationality, to discard any attempt at (‘irrational’) empathy, or understanding, for the Syrian circumstance. And to consider the policy solution simply to be either technical (more, or different firepower); or mechanics: how and where, to move the levers of pressure.

And, secondly, to consider it ‘progressive’ to deny a stricken people (ordinary Syrians) the ability to go home, or to re-build their lives – and to deprive them of the chance still to think that there is something left to live for (unless they concede to submit to the Washington Consensus). And yet, still to regard this abstract ideological approach as somehow representing Europe holding the moral high ground? No wonder ‘otherness’ is tired of the Enlightenment’s ‘rational’ ‘order’.

To compensate for these lacunae associated with its attenuated style of consciousness, the US is resorting to technology and Artificial Intelligence to make good the gaps. It imagines that mining ‘big data’ – as is done in western elections, when 25 ‘likes’ on Facebook is said to be sufficient, to strip an individual politically ‘naked’ – might somehow compensate for the absence of empathy — providing the answers that this style of ‘reasoning’ can’t.

It is wishful thinking. Empathy is not machine generated. As Scruton points out, it derives from the aggregate course of individual lives pursued within the matrix of archetypal moral narratives that are the ancient skeleton to a community – which both bind it, and give ethos to that community. And which precisely are incommensurate with others.

It is tacitly assumed that that the American information industry produces notices and descriptions of actual events. Whereas it routinely delivers a narrative of adulterated facts and improbable fiction – the whole blended with a top-down imposition of Zionist ideology masquerading as national interest. I say ‘Zionist’ because a country in which the word of command comes from elsewhere is nothing more than a province. Which may explain many events unequivocally alien to American interest.

All this the world well knows – at least the unknown percentage of those who like to think. However, especially with Venezuela, there has been, among media outlets and pundits, a remarkable recrudescence of the presumption of imbecility in the American public.

But it is unjust and unrealistic to blame large social groups for their assumed gullibility. No one can indict a people. Individuals are caught up in the workings of a mechanism that forces them into its own pattern. Only heroes can resist, and while it may be hoped that everybody will be one, it cannot be demanded or expected.

Nor the trend is limited to America. Western European media figures and sundry politicians, having been taught the art of the ridicule – often in ‘prestigious’ States-side universities – seldom fail to signalize themselves by zealous imitation.

Were we not dealing with the suffering of a people and the economic strangling of a nation to steal her resources, the sallies and patent ridicule of the puppets and puppet-masters involved would be a recurrent fund of merriment.

Nevertheless, it commonly happens to him who endeavors to obtain distinction by ridicule or censure, that he teaches others to practice his own arts against himself.

Trump and his cabal or cartel have tried inventive ways to revile the Venezuelan government. So far they have only succeeded in ridiculing themselves. And their narrative has reached peaks of paradox and parody, in the comical effort to give their news a semblance of credibility.

I will mention but a few instances later, so as not to leave a statement unproven, though most readers may already know some.

Still, for the contemporary Pangloss there may be a measure of consolation in the Trumpian Cabal’s orgy of ridicule. For the domineering powers are literally terrorized by the alternative narratives, official and unofficial, reaching the discerning public through social media, directly from Venezuela.

Therefore they wage a grotesque battle, a Waterloo of fake-news, attempting to choke the liberty of expression – which, in the instance, amounts to curbing the liberty of intelligence.

Given that the flux of alternative news is still relatively marginal, this censorious obsession shows that, even in the secret enclaves of power, some believe that we are nearing a turning point in collective perception, a consummation devoutly to be wished by us, and unwished by them.

It is historically interesting that in the 1960s the Jewish political-ideological machine was clamoring for freedom of expression, and succeeded in having the US Supreme Court declare that pornography is free-speech.

In turn, this opened the flood to a Weimar-Republic-style mass acculturation whose consequences do not need description – see Weinstein as emblem of Jewish Hollywood, and Epstein as emblem of Jewish pornography and pornomania.

But sixty years later, and in total control of all media channels – the same forces find free-speech hateful, and want their adversaries insulted without self-defense and censored without apologists. Witness the erasure of hundreds of alternative information channels from the web.

Meanwhile, that just about all Western European countries have joined in pretending to believe Trump’s charade, is no support for his credibility.

For “Western European countries” means their politicians. And all know well that avarice is an insatiate and universal passion – since the enjoyment of almost every object that can afford a pleasure to the different tastes and tempers of mankind, may be procured by the possession of wealth. Consequently, politicians at large rarely cease to follow the easiest path to keep, maintain and increase their wealth and emoluments. And shameless servility to the moment’s master is the commonest formula.

For one thing, the Trump cartel assumed that any populace worldwide, with its immemorial and traditional levity, would applaud any change of masters, if accompanied by suitable fanfare and the promise or prospects of bread and circuses.

Hence they believed that the Venezuelans would promptly switch their allegiance to the service of a US appointed puppet. While the fanfare could adequately dissemble the plotters’ appetite for plunder.

In one of his often-quoted related pronouncements, Trump said that, “The problem with Venezuela is not that socialism was poorly implemented, but that socialism was faithfully implemented.”

Far from me to oppose an “ism” with another. The various ‘isms’, as used, are not fruitful principles, nor even explanatory formulae. They are rather names of diseases, for they express some element in excess, some dangerous and abusing exaggeration.

Consider ‘globalism’, ‘neo-liberalism,’ ‘fascism’, ‘communism’, ‘socialism,’ ‘radicalism’, etc. If there may be something positive in them (and there is some good sometimes in sundry “isms”) it slips through these categories.

To compare, traditional medicine classified men according to whether they were ‘sanguineous’, ‘bilious’ or ‘nervous’. But someone in good health is none of the above. Equally, a state contains (or should contain) opposing points of view, holding them as in a chemical combination, much as all colors are contained in a beam of light.

But for Trump and the deep state behind him – though it has been the same since Reagan – neo-liberal capitalism is a dogma, which to dispute is heresy, and to doubt infamy.

The recurrent self-praising claim by media pundits and politicians about America being a democracy is either misleading and cretinous information or bold and imaginative fiction. Whereas actually, in some ways, the United States is a socialist state.

For example, government statistics, easily verifiable online, show that in 2018 there were 40 million people on food stamps (read ‘very poor’). And social programs with different names but similar scope exist in every state, to provide healthcare for those on food stamps and others. Furthermore, the very ‘social security’ system has socialism imprinted in its name.

Applying the same broad analysis to the economy at large, let’s say that in one case a state-owned enterprise produces something needed. In another case a private company lobbies the state to receive the same money that the state company would have spent to manufacture the same product.

Given that both instances involve human beings, is one state ‘socialist’ because it produces directly what it needs, and another ‘capitalist’ because it lets a non-state-owned company produce the same thing?

This is not advocating one method versus another – but only to suggest that a state-owned enterprise does not imply that the state itself is ‘socialist’. In fact in many countries, including the US, the state owns many enterprises, partially or completely.

The argument is purely theoretical, and it excludes many related insoluble dilemmas and controversial questions. For example whether a state or a privately owned enterprise is more subject to corruption, etc.

Nevertheless, I do not think that Venezuela’s ‘socialism’ is the cause of Trump’s uncouth bullying, contempt and coarse insults. For, as much as it is concealed, Venezuela is actually a mixed economy.

Now, cause and effect in history can be more-or-less arbitrary patterns into which we can weave events to render them significant. Nevertheless, in the instance, greed for Venezuela’s resources cannot be, in my view, the sole explanation.

Behind Trump’s contempt and insults there is a psychological engine and the whole weight of the historical-cultural machine that actually keeps America running.

Especially the Americans (and the fever began with the industrial revolution), know very little of a state of feeling that involves a sense of rest, of deep quiet, silence within and without, a quietly burning fire, a sense of comfort, existence in its simplest form. And I apologize for the generalization that always excludes the many exceptions.

For them life is devouring and incessant activity. They are eager for gold, for power, for dominion; the aim is to crush men and to enslave nature. They show an obstinate interest in means, but little thought for the end. They confound being with individual being, and the expansion of the self with happiness — while tending to ignore the unchangeable and the eternal.

It could be described as living at the periphery of our own essence for being unable to penetrate to its core. They are excited, ardent, positive, because they are also superficial. ‘Superficial’ may suggest less intelligent but the opposite is true. Superficiality and intelligence are anything but incompatible.
Why so much effort, noise, struggle and greed? It seems a mere stunning and deafening of the self.

When death comes they recognize that it is so. — why not then admit it sooner?

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University of Toronto professor and clinical psychologist, Jordan Peterson, delivers the 2010 Hancock Lecture entitled The Necessity of Virtue. He discusses virtue from a contemporary perspective that both encompasses and extends beyond moral and religious contexts. Through compelling stories and research, Dr. Peterson illustrates the necessity of virtue both for the individual and for society at large.

This article was written by Anne Ramberg, who happens to be the Secretary General of the Swedish Bar Association, the professional body of lawyers in that country. The article has been translated by Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Swedish professor emeritus of epidemiology and doctor of psychiatry. Anne Ramberg reveals her concern over the breech of legal principles, the treatment of Assange in general and the moral obligation to reveal wrongdoing, just as Julian Assange has done.

My knowledge about this matter, now an almost unique one, is not entirely in-depth. It is a matter featured by everything from prodigal conspiracy theories deprived of any reality support, to a deplorable legal handling from both Swedish and British side.

The right to a fair trial within a reasonable time is established both in the Swedish legal system [Regeringsformen, 2 kap. 11 § andra stycket 1) and in the European Convention (Article 6). This legal right also applies during the preliminary investigation stage.

To this has to be added the so-labelled presumption of innocence.

It may well be questioned whether the result of the Swedish managing [of the case] was done in accordance with the principle of proportionality. I have previously stated that I find it remarkable that the Prosecutor did not implement the preliminary investigation forward at the pace and with the care one could have demanded.

In this context, the courts have a very great responsibility. They could have put tougher demands on the prosecutor, to move the preliminary investigation forward. The conclusions that the prosecutor had as ground to dismiss the case [the pre-investigation], should also have been communicated considerably earlier than what happened. This leads to the conclusion that Sweden has a great responsibility for the situation that has arisen.

Now the question is whether Sweden should resume the preliminary investigation that prompted Assange’s asylum request to Ecuador –and his subsequent involuntary lock-in and demand his extradition to Sweden.

I fear that the treatment of Assange has damaged the reputation of the Swedish judicial system, even though Assange did not actively contribute to participate to any significant extent.

That being said, I have sympathy for Assange’s concern that Sweden would acquiesce with the United States in the event of a request for his extradition. One can only speculate on this. I am of the personal opinion that the Supreme Court would not extradite Assange to the United States. If my assumption is correct, a Supreme Court review [of the extradition case] would result in that Assange could not be extradited, even if the government so wished.

Let us not forget that whatever we may think of Assange or the deeds he is suspected of, this is about much more. It is about freedom of speech and the rule of law principles.

It is ultimately about the right and the moral obligation to expose war crimes. Assange and Wikileaks did it. The revelations about US abuse were necessary and particularly important.

Should we extradite to Germany’s Hitler someone who has revealed the existence of concentration camps and genocide, regardless to how that information was obtained? I don’t think so.”

While on stage recently, I had an interaction with a heckler which ended with him being thrown out of the venue. At comedy clubs, this is not a particularly unusual occurrence. But the heckler wasn’t noticeably drunk, nor had the joke to which he’d taken exception been especially offensive. So this incident stopped me in my tracks and made me think a little bit.

Here’s what happened: I was halfway through a ten minute bit about the #MeToo movement and I was pointing out that some of us are better at managing our creepiness than others. “Matt Lauer,” I went on, “pulled his dick out at work and that cost him a 26 million dollar job. Some people do the same thing on the subway and it only costs them 2.75.” Before I could go any further, a voice in the audience cried out, “Are you saying that’s okay?” “Is that what you heard?” I replied. “It sounds like you’re saying sexual assault on the subway is okay,” he retorted. “You’re validating sexual abuse.” We exchanged a few more unproductive words, he got belligerent, and then security arrived and bounced him out of the door so the show could continue.

Situations like this one are by no means unique to comedy. Spend some time on Twitter, and you’ll discover an environment ideally suited to callout culture. Sifting through the righteous anger, two related and recurring trends become apparent: First, the practice of holding others to an impossible standard of ideological purity and, second, the practice of advertising one’s own moral superiority. Neither of these practices has any basis in reality, because we all have flaws we strive to keep hidden and, no matter how ferociously we denounce our neighbor, we are all only one unguarded remark from a public shaming.

...

Bacha bazi is a traditional practice in Afghanistan and some other central Asian cultures, in which boys and adolescent males are compelled to dance for older men, usually as a prelude to pederastic sex. PBS’s Frontline did a documentary on The Dancing Boys Of Afghanistan. Warning: it’s not safe for work.

I bring all that up as background to something disgusting that just happened in New York City. The 11-year-old drag superstar who goes by the name “Desmond Is Amazing” performed onstage at a Brooklyn gay bar, vamping and receiving money like a stripper. Here’s the full-length version of the image at the very top. Note the cash in Desmond’s hands. I’ve seen a clip of this little boy onstage at the gay bar, 3 Dollar Bill, which funnily enough, does not mention the December 3 performance on its racy Facebook page. You can see a clip of it from Instagram, starting at around the 1:50 mark on this YouTube commentary. 

This is a manifestation of pedophilia, straight up. No, I’m NOT saying that anyone sexually abused this kid, or laid his hands on him in any way. I am saying that sexualizing an 11-year-old, and having him prance around stage performing a sexually suggestive dance in a bar, for grown men to throw money at him, as if he were a stripper — well, look, if that’s not pedophilic grooming, what the hell is?

Believe it or not, 3 Dollar Bill is not likely to lose its liquor license over this. Under New York State law, a minor can be in a bar if accompanied by parent or guardian. Desmond’s parents were probably there with him, allowing their little boy to perform in a bar for men who desire men. Andrew and Wendy Napoles have been full partners in exploiting their child — and have received lots of media praise for their progressive attitudes.

Desmond has been celebrated on Good Morning America — not reported on, but actually celebrated: NBC’s Today show has also celebrated Desmond as “inspiring”. And so on. There is almost nothing that our mainstream media will not celebrate if it is labeled pro-LGBT. Is it going to take us 30 years or so to look back on this with disgust, as we now do to Woody Allen’s exploitation of Mariel Hemingway, which was celebrated in its day?

Let’s remember Mariel Hemingway’s words of reproach about her parents: I wanted them to put their foot down. They didn’t. They kept lightly encouraging me. Desmond’s parents, the gay bar owners, the television producers and celebrities who praise him — they are heavily encouraging this child to destroy himself. Weimar America is a hell of a place, ain’t it?