Japan taking a stand against ABEIGNomics?

At long last, the Japanese people seems to be starting to realize where Shinzo Abe wants to lead their nation, and to grow uncomfortable with that prospect. The days of Abe's government are not yet counted, and Japan's political system is far from purging itself from Nippon Kaigi and its likes, but this nascent debate on core democratic issues is more than welcome.

Japanese moderates waking up! The Abe / Nippon Kaigi anti-democratic agenda exposed!

The best news is of course the fact that moderate voices are making themselves heard in the peninsula. 


Consider this: just weeks ago (see "Under Coverage"), only Shigeaki Koga dared stand up for press freedom, and now the pressure is on the ones who pledged to destroy it. The LDP even had to distance itself from the extremists who said out loud what was behind Abe's controversial state secrets laws. Their profiles speak volumes and typically, Minoru Kihara, who lost his job at the youth section, openly supports Nippon Kaigi, while Hideo Onishi, who got slammed for saying "we must punish some of the media organizations that are reporting about the security legislation and baselessly saying it would lead to war"*, openly supports the fundamentalist shinto lobby Sinseiren.

At last, people are starting to worry more about a success of ABEIGNomics than about a failure of ABEnomics. The support of post-war Japan's peaceful constitution has regained momentum: pro-peace demonstrations are drawing bigger crowds and wider media coverage, and recent polls show that two out of three refuse Abe's project of revising Article 9.

Before reviewing the constitution, the most revisionist Prime Minister may have to review his own copy.

Even as the Shinzo Abe fatigue grows, still no responsible leadership emerging home or abroad

If Abe remains relatively popular for a Japanese PM, he just received for the first time in his mandate more negative than positive opinions in a poll (Mainichi, by a close 43 to 42% margin). And if his ruling party LDP remains unlikely to lose national elections in any foreseeable future, criticisms are growing within its ranks. Abe himself is not always directly targeted, but more members of his extremist entourage are feeling more pressure every day.

Abe keeps playing the usual Abe game, focusing on his lifetime priority: the destruction of postwar Japan. But as he tries to convince an increasingly doubtful public to adopt his ironically dubbed "Legislation for Peace and Security", he's risking to lose support from his hardcore base. 

In order to get its controversial** industrial sites on UNESCO World Heritage List, Japan had to issue a statement mentioning the existence of forced labor, a concession very hard to swallow for Nippon Kaigi, but also for Abe and Aso themselves, both members of families directly involved in these human rights abuses. 

Of course, whether Japan will fulfill these promises remains to be seen, and South Korea and China will be watching closely. 

I wish they were more constructive, supportive of the peaceful Japan Abe and Nippon Kaigi pledged to destroy. We can't count on the self-proclaimed champion of democracy to help Japan proclaim its independence from Imperial Japan, since the US decided, suicidally, to unconditionally support Abe's revision of Article 9 (see ""History is harsh" and other sick jokes"). 


Hold your horses

Overall, I'm cautiously more optimistic than last year on the chances of seeing the Japanese people take a stand for their democracy, and/or the LDP starting to seek a sustainable future, with sounder leaders, and fewer rotten branches.  

And we could still ask the same questions as before last year's elections (see "It's the democracy, stupid"):
- are Abenomics at last meeting reality?
- can Abe's pseudo-diplomatic offensive pay?
- with or without Abe as PM, will Nippon Kaigi be confirmed as the de facto ruler of Japan?

And time keeps running short. 

Yesterday, Choi Geum-seon halmoni passed away. After Kim Youn-hee halmoni and the others who preceded her over the past few months. Now South Korea counts only 48 survivors of Imperial Japan sex slavery system. Again, standing for them is also standing not against Japan, but for its future ("'Comfort Women': No Resolution Without Resoluteness. From Everyone, Please.").

Sad to see our dear halmoni #KimYounhee die without closure from #Japan about #ImperialJapan #sexslavery http://youtu.be/9a3nF82i1Gw (20150625 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/613912171907395584)

We must also stand for Japan's youth, bombarded with ultranationalist and xenophobic propaganda, following familiar patterns from history's most murderous century. 

Abe and co. fuel mutual hatred because they need tensions to justify their agenda. And it works. Outrageously violent pamphlets multiply across Japanese bookstores. They won't cause the kind of massacres that followed the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, but they certainly don't bode well for the future of Japan and the region.

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* "Disciplined LDP lawmaker once again calls for punishing media" (Asahi Shimbun - 20150701)
** a long story, see for example "Hashima, Yawata Steel: enshrining slave labor in UNESCO World Heritage List?" (2013)

Under Coverage

Good to see, last Thursday, a legend for investigative reporters and whistle-blowers walk on the stage of the Seoul Digital Forum.

A movie was made about a key episode of Lowell Bergman's professional life: in 'The Insider' (1999), Bergman (Al Pacino) helps Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russel Crowe) expose the big tobacco imposture, before exposing himself attempts by his employer (CBS) to bury the story. In the end, truth and journalism triumph because Bergman breaks the 'every journo for himself' rule by sharing his story with competitors.

Thursday at the DDP, I couldn't help but feel sad, thinking how badly this region needs people like Bergman. Last year, I did watch, on the same stage, a Korean take at investigative journalism*, but Newstapa remains a bit too much data-centric and politically biased. To be fair, South Korean media are so overwhelmingly conservative and reluctant to mention certain issues, that liberal sources such as Hankyoreh or Newstapa tend to over-dramatize their own reporting.

Since it's hard to break truly valuable stories in a corrupt system**, some manage to emerge through netizen spheres... when they are not drowned in an ocean of hoaxes and wild rumors.

It speaks volumes that South Korea ranks now as the 'least bad' nation in the Press Freedom Index for a region where everybody regressed over the past few years (RSF 2015 vs 2010***):

• South Korea 60th (42nd in 2010, -18)
• Japan 61st (11th, -50)
• Russia 152nd (140th, -12)
• China 176th (171th, -5)
• North Korea 179th (177th, always second to last - Eritrea)

No need to comment on Kim Jong-un's North Korea, Putin's Russia, or even Xi Jinping's China, where hopes for change were short-lived, and censorship gets more pervasive by the day.

What strikes most - but certainly doesn't come as a surprise to us - is Japan's skydive from the 11th to the 61st position.

Shinzo Abe's attacks on press freedom, intensified after his outrageous State Secrecy Law, are seldom mentioned in Japan's mainstream media, and no one dare denounce them, except foreign correspondents that take the risk of being shunned by the government. Among the few local voices, Shigeaki Koga could only make himself be heard at the Foreign Correspondents' Club, or last week in the New York Times ("The Threat to Press Freedom in Japan" (Shigeaki Koga - NYT 20150520). Most Japanese citizens are kept in the dark, and obviously the "Effort by Japan to Stifle News Media Is Working" (Martin Fackler - 20150426).

To make things worse, the only significant media that (barely) challenged Abe's Nippon Kaigi-friendly agenda seems to have finally castrated itself. And since Fuji Media Holdings bought GPlus Media, I haven't read any significant story on that agenda in Japan Today (FMH also owns Sankei Shimbun...).

Censorship peaks at NHK following the nomination of a friend of Shinzo Abe at the helm of the broadcaster

Hopefully, Japanese citizens remain uncomfortable with Abe's attack on their peaceful constitution. But for how long? Public opinions are changing quickly, and the government fuels fear and hatred with some success... and what to say of America's failure to assist a Japan in danger (see ""History is harsh" and other sick jokes")?

Speaking of the devil, the US themselves are not on a very positive trend at the Press Freedom Index (from 20th to 49th between 2010 and 2015). The UK? Nothing to be proud either (from 19th to 34th). And if my home country France went up a bit (from 44th to 38th), it's bound to crash next year following the Charlie Hebdo massacre or the controversial 'Projet de Loi Relatif au Renseignement' it triggered.

But who am I to judge anyway? Do I need to remind you that my lousy blogs have been labeled Weapons of Mass Disinformation since 2003?

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* "Truth, Lies and Data" - Kwon Hyejin, Newstapa - SDF2014 - data and investigative journalism
** see also "Korea's media malaise" (John Power, Groove Magazine 20141103)
*** out of 178 countries in 2010, 180 in 2015
**** see "'Comfort Women': No Resolution Without Resoluteness. From Everyone, Please."


--- UPDATE 20150528 ---

This, from Human Rights Watch (about the National Security Act, a cold-war relic) : "South Korea: Cold War Relic Law Criminalizes Criticism".