Friday, September 7, 2018

Talking peace, looking at Costa Rica

From security to peace




'Perpetual peace is not an empty ideal, it is a task imposed on us all to achieve',
Kant, Perpetual Peace, 1795
(永遠平和は空虚な理念ではなく、われわれに課せられた使命である。)




In the space of three weeks during August, I found myself speaking at various peace forums. A few years ago, that might have been a little bit surprising. As a political scientist, my specialist fields are Japanese and Australian politics, and international relations. I have in recent years turned to viewing politics through particular philosophical prisms such as Kant's peace essays, the works of Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Susan Sontag, Maruyama Masao and others. I am trying to make meaning of my politics, for politics, for a better world.





A sunny Saturday in Itabashi
My interest in Japanese security has moved through phases of its late 20th century non-military security, to its growing moves towards a stronger military and on to examining the the domestic resistance to changes to Article 9* of the constitution. Indeed, one of the reasons I returned to Japan a couple of years ago was to look at this phenomenon first hand (as well as being offered a very good job...). Of particular interest was Australian government and (in some circles) academia's growing tendencies to effectively support and indeed enable the growing securitization of Japan by the Abe government both in its first iteration in 2006-07 and more recently, 2012 to the present.


I currently teach Peace Studies at my university, but it is not that different from the approach I took when teaching East Asian Security at my previous university.


A brief history: after several years in the postgraduate wilderness (a story in life experiences for another time) I returned to engaging with the relationship between Australia and Japan post-Cold War, post the era where all was painted East (USSR) vs West (US), for what turned out to be that brief decade of new ideas about 'security' before September 11 2001 returned us to a militarisation of security issues.


A photographic essay on
Kant's Perpetual Peace
Nonetheless, some of us persisted. I was particularly interested in the ways Japan defined 'security' without a military, within the confines of an admittedly flexible interpretation of Article 9 of its Constitution. I was moved by seeing the devestation wrought on Hiroshima and shifted my study of politics to something bigger than intra-party factionalism. That led to a long discursive thesis on Japan, Australia and security communities, whereupon a community (of states) believe that peaceful change, via institutional procedures, can occur without violence or resort to war. The European Union is often cited as one such example, ASEAN perhaps as a nascent version of one. My main work is focussed on a security community in East Asia.

But I digress.

If engaging in research which champions peaceful change over resorting to war, puts me in the Peace Studies camp, well so be it. It takes a bit of stoicism to endure the barbs and scorn of those who would insist that ramping up military stocks is the only way to 'keep the peace'. The latter is the easy path to grants and fame, the former, not so.

But, I persist.

Film: A Bold Peace
In August, in the week of the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I spoke at a photographic exhibition in my local community in Tokyo, offering a view, as a foreigner living in Japan, of the significance of maintaining Article 9. Later in that week, I was in Brisbane, also my hometown, speaking to Just Peace and others about the level of activism in Japan with regards to peace and preserving Japan's peace legacy. It is an opposition that gets little voice outside the country, as the Japanese government seeks allies in ramping up its military.

Back to Tokyo, in late August, I was asked to speak again, offer some commentary on a documentary about Costa Rica, A Bold Peace by Matthew Eddy. It was the first time I had the opportunity to view the film (on this day watched it twice) and I was mostly inspired by the courage of Costa Ricans to maintain a healthy national consciousness towards a non-military state. In its place, there was a strong sense of social democracy, that security in fact comes from the citizens feeling secure through health, education and other important forms of social coherence, not a military.

The film also showed people of enormous courage, starting with Jose Figueres Ferrer, Oscar Arias Sanchez, and Luis Guillermo Solis Rivera, presidents who persisted with the importance of social good over miltitary. The film was not all roses and chocolates. It showed the consequences of free trade and growing inequality that characterises much of the world's present economic/political malaise. But the people also, did their best to return to first principles in electing Solis as President in 2014. It was optimistic, ultimately, cautious but optimistic.

Why I do what I do, Kant and Hiroshima
We have too few leaders of courage at present.

Within my broader research project, one of the issues I am looking at is Arendt's ideas of civil disobedience, about the importance of the collective actions of the people to address political matters. I sense that each time I attend and observe/participate in gatherings such as the ones I attended in August. I encouraged the people in the crowd to continue with their work, it is important work we must do.

It is well beyond our time to turn around the academic-bureaucratic complex which marginalises the voices of the peace movement. We are beyond merely saying give peace a chance, but instead ask why those who would rather spend billions on warcraft can justify their budgets, their policies in the 21st century, over growing inequality.

Costa Rica is one example, the peace movement/resistance to militarisation in Japan is another. It is possible. It is up to us to make it happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution:
The official English version of the article is:

ARTICLE 9. (1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

第九条  日本国民は、正義と秩序を基調とする国際平和を誠実に希求し、国権の発動たる戦争と、武力による威嚇又は武力の行使は、国際紛争を解決する手段としては、永久にこれを放棄する。
2  前項の目的を達するため、陸海空軍その他の戦力は、これを保持しない。国の交戦権は、これを認めない。

It is likely the present government will hold a referendum in late 2019 or 2020 to change the meaning of Article 9, to either delete it completely, or to redefine it to give constitutional legitimacy to the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, or jieitai.