Iraq 2004 is not Japan 1945

The point of all this historical comparison is not to suggest that Iraq is hopelessly undemocratic and that no solution to today’s bloody conflict can be found. Rather it is to provide a clear understanding of what happened in Japan before “lessons” learned from its occupation are blithely applied to Iraq without considering their full consequences. By understanding why Japan was able to transform, we can better understand what elements in Iraq today are conducive to a similar transformation and which are not. The history of Japan shows us that a society can change itself both radically and rapidly. However, before we attempt to apply this lesson elsewhere, we must first remember that the will for this change came primarily from within Japanese society as their response to external threats. Until we understand this and allow Iraqi citizens to develop their own motivation to change their nation, we are sure to run into further set backs in the process of reforming Iraq.

The point of all this historical comparison is not to suggest that Iraq is hopelessly undemocratic and that no solution to today’s bloody conflict can be found. Rather it is to provide a clear understanding of what happened in Japan before “lessons” learned from its occupation are blithely applied to Iraq without considering their full consequences. By understanding why Japan was able to transform, we can better understand what elements in Iraq today are conducive to a similar transformation and which are not. The history of Japan shows us that a society can change itself both radically and rapidly. However, before we attempt to apply this lesson elsewhere, we must first remember that the will for this change came primarily from within Japanese society as their response to external threats. Until we understand this and allow Iraqi citizens to develop their own motivation to change their nation, we are sure to run into further set backs in the process of reforming Iraq. Testing

(:title Iraq 2004 is not Japan 1945:)

(:Iraq 2004 is not Japan 1945:)

The school asked me to write a 1500 word essay. They got this instead.

Some Bush administration officials and supporters have stated that the reformation of Japan following World War II is their model for bringing democracy to Iraq. Further, they have questioned the motives of those who wonder about the ability of Iraqi citizens to accept democracy, noting that it was once commonly believed that Asian societies were incapable of accepting democracy, due to the influence of Confucian thought with its emphasis on top down structures of filial respect. Yet today, nations from Korea to Cambodia have seen a transition to democratic rule. Indeed, in recent years, democracy has spread to areas as different as Southeast Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and some parts of Africa. It can even be noted that there are a several Muslim (though not Arab) democracies, such as Turkey and Malaysia. These examples are all shown as proof that the determining factor in creating a democratic society is historical will, not stereotypically derived cultural characteristics. Though the level of democratic freedoms enjoyed by these countries varies, the global trend in the post-Cold War era is certainly toward the spread of freedom, and the Bush administration has expressed its belief that Iraq can and will also take part in this trend by acknowledging the sovereignty of the people with the creation of a new government.

The hope of the Bush administration is that future Iraq history will mirror that of Japan’s history from the end of the Second World War to the present. Where 50 years ago Americans saw the Japanese as fanatics willing to defend their empire through suicidal kamikaze attacks, today the United States and Japan are close allies with strong ties both economically and militarily. The United States relies on bases on Japanese soil to project its power throughout East Asia, and Japan relies on the United States to make up for the shortcomings of its Self Defense Forces. Japan contributed billions of dollars to the First Gulf War and contributed both money and troops for rebuilding purposes to the second. Clearly the goal of the United States is that Iraqi suicide bombers will some day be seen as Japanese kamikaze are seen today: pitiable zealots who were misled by their leaders in the military or the mosque into giving up their lives foolishly. What is not in the United States’ interests is for suicide bombing to be seen as (or worse become) an intractable part of an angry Arab culture that has deep and permanent grievances with the United States religiously, politically, economically, and otherwise. Instead, the goal is for Iraq to someday become a democratic ally of the United States in the style of Japan. Through the patient imposition of democracy by military means, Iraq is to be transformed as Japan was.

However, this argument by analogy ignores several vital differences between the transition to democracy in Japan and Iraq. Moreover, the picture presented of Japan blankly receiving democratic institutions imposed on it by MacArthur and the Occupation government grossly mischaracterizes important parts of Japanese history. In order to get a clearer picture of the challenges faced today in Iraq, it is helpful to first dispel myths about the democratization of Japan by examining its history from the beginning of modern era.

It is generally agreed that the history of modern Japan begins on July 8, 1853, when Commodore Perry’s famous “black ships” steamed into the bay of what is now called Tokyo. The sight of these fearsome ships, along with the many demonstrations of “Western superiority” enacted by the American crew for the benefit of Japanese observers to commemorate the signing of a “Friendship and Amity” treaty on their second visit (such as a miniature locomotive, a demonstration of the telegraph, and a black faced minstrel show), impressed strongly upon the Japanese imagination the need to modernize in order to counter the Western threat. The years that followed were tumultuous ones. Japan was forced to sign similar treaties with other Western powers, and by 1868 the shogunate had collapsed with the Emperor Meiji coming to power. Though nominally the heads of the Japanese state, it had been centuries since an Emperor had wielded any true power over Japanese government. That the exceptionally peaceful reign of the Tokugawa Shogunate was brought to an end with the so-called “Meiji Restoration” was a sign of the deep and desperate desire of the Japanese to radically restructure society in response to external challenges.

The Japanese saw their options as either to compete with the West and become a great power themselves or to be colonized like so many other nations. Accordingly, Japan began an intense program of modernization. More than 3,000 foreigners were brought in as o-yatoi gaikokujin (hired foreigners) and placed in charge of training the Japanese in the creation and use of modern technology and techniques. The education system was overhauled and an Imperial university system was put into place. Further, many Japanese were sent abroad with the goal of returning with a better understanding of the West. Most famously, Natsume Soseki was sent to London where he studied English literature, though he fit into English life poorly. Japanese religious life was also changed, and Buddhism was denigrated, while a new form of state Shinto with a strict emphasis on revering the emperor and serving the empire was made the official religion of the land. With a modernized Army and Navy put into place, Japan increased settlement in Hokkaido at the expense of native populations and expanded its holdings to Korea through a series of wars with China and Russia. Japanese industry was structured to take in raw materials from these colonial holdings and transform them into final products. Through these rapid and painful changes in the structure of education, the military, and industry, Japan was able to become a world power almost overnight.

The result of all this activity was a complete transformation of Japanese society. Japan went from medieval backwater to the largest power center in the Far East, outstripping even Russia’s influence. Along with this change in society came agitation for democracy. In the wake of the Satsuma Rebellion, reformers like Itagaki Taisuke sought to create a more democratic system of governance. The Meiji Constitution promulgated in 1889 made some slight moves in this direction, enfranchising the richest male citizens and structuring the nobility into a House of Peers. Following Japan’s successful involvement in the First World War, Japan finally received the some of acknowledgment it craved and was rewarded with former German colonial holdings. Following the war came the “Taisho Democracy” period, during which Japan alternated between reforms that liberalized voting requirements and those that stamped out dissent and communism. This was a period of unprecedented popular participation in government. However, like Weimar Germany, by the 1930s, Japan had begun to slide from democracy to fascism as a response to pressures from the Great Depression and ultranationalist military and political leaders. These leaders pushed the country into the long and costly Pacific War that began in 1937 and ended in 1945 with the nation almost in ruins.

It is important here to note the many differences between the Japan of 1945 and the Iraq of 2003. First, unlike Iraq, Japan had an experience of democracy before the United States occupied it. The experiment in Taisho Democracy was not a perfect one in many ways, but that the Japanese had voluntarily undergone reforms in order to increase the amount of citizen control over government before the war shows that there existed a strong political will among certain segments of the population to create a democratic Japan. Furthermore, the recent experience of democracy left in place many of the functions necessary to create a pluralistic system. In contrast, Iraq as geographic entity dates back only to the end of the First World War, when it was carved out of the Ottoman Empire. After that, the British installed monarchy that was toppled in 1958 by a series of military coups. Saddam Hussein was only the last in a line of military rulers for Iraq. So, while it was relatively easy for the United States to install a new, pro-Western Prime Minister in Japan, in Iraq, all government functions must be created from almost nothing.

Next, unlike Iraq, Japan’s defeat came at the end of a prolonged period of intense emulation of the West. After the shock of the black ships, Japan underwent a long and labored process of combining Western technical knowledge with the Japanese worldview. In contrast, while Iraq has been strategically entangled with the West for years because of its oil deposits, there has been little drive to transform the nation along similar lines until recently. Japan is a nation with few natural resources, which necessitated its retraining of the population in order to compete. The low number of people needed for extracting oil, however, has allowed Iraq to remain free to retain its traditional, tribal structures for society, while using the money from oil to buy Western conveniences as needed. Further, while the main islands of Japan are largely monoethnic, with only small pockets of Ainu, Koreans, and Chinese, there are several deep ethnic divisions within Iraq, notably among the Shiites, Sunni, and Kurds. So, while the Japan of 1945 saw itself as a single unit that needed to continue to change in order to match or best the West, the Iraq of today largely sees itself in terms of competing groups, each looking out primarily to increase own interests while attempting maintain its ethnic and cultural identity.

Finally, the devastation of the Pacific War on the Japanese population cannot be underestimated. Most major cities were firebombed extensively, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed in single, terrifying blows. After eight years of fighting, there was hardly a military left to form a resistance and little basis to do so, since the Emperor himself renounced his own divinity and encouraged cooperation. Japan was stripped of all possessions outside of the main islands; even Okinawa was under US control until 1972. Thorough and humiliating defeat for Japan exhausted the public’s taste for battle. In contrast, victory over Iraq was calculated to be swift and use pinpoint attacks to “shock and awe” the population into quick surrender. Civilian casualties were kept to a minimum (though, sadly, not eliminated). While these tactics had the positive attribute of ending major hostilities quickly with relatively little loss of life, it unfortunately allowed key elements of the Iraqi government to escape and begin coordinating what has been an increasingly bloody resistance. Indeed, it now seems that a key element of Saddam’s strategy was to invite foreign radicals to Iraq to help continue the war in the streets even after the inevitable defeat on the battlefield. As a result, there have been more American casualties since the declared end of major combat activities than before it.

The point of all this historical comparison is not to suggest that Iraq is hopelessly undemocratic and that no solution to today’s bloody conflict can be found. Rather it is to provide a clear understanding of what happened in Japan before “lessons” learned from its occupation are blithely applied to Iraq without considering their full consequences. By understanding why Japan was able to transform, we can better understand what elements in Iraq today are conducive to a similar transformation and which are not. The history of Japan shows us that a society can change itself both radically and rapidly. However, before we attempt to apply this lesson elsewhere, we must first remember that the will for this change came primarily from within Japanese society as their response to external threats. Until we understand this and allow Iraqi citizens to develop their own motivation to change their nation, we are sure to run into further set backs in the process of reforming Iraq.