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It Would Make No Sense for Article 9 to Mean What it Says, Therefore It Doesn't. The Transformation of Japan's Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

C. Douglas Lummis
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There is a rumor in Japan that Aso Taro, former Prime Minister and present Deputy Prime Minister, never reads real books but only cartoon books: manga. It is said that when he was PM he kept a stash of these in the back of his official car so he could read them going to and from meetings and other duties. If these rumors are true, they would go a long way toward explaining his recent gaffe. On 29 July this year, speaking before an ultra-rightist audience on the subject of Constitutional amendment, he said, according to the Asahi Shinbun's summary, It should be done quietly. One day everybody woke up and found that the Weimar Constitution had been changed, replaced by the Nazi Constitution. It changed without anyone noticing. Maybe we could learn from that. No hullabaloo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 39 , September 2013 , e2
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

References

Notes

1 For a more detailed version of this argument, see my “Japan' s Radical Constitution”, in Tsuneoka [Norimoto] Setsuko, C. Douglas Lummis, Tsurumi Shunsuke, Nihonkoku Kenpo wo Yomu, Kashiwa Shobo, 2013 (Original 1993).

2 John L. Austin, How To Do Things with Words, Harvard U. Press, 1962.

3 For Example see Johannes Siemes, Herman Roesler and the Making of the Meiji State, Sophia University and Charles E. Tuttle, 1968.

4 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, George Schwab tr., MIT Press, 1985. See also Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, Kevin Attell, tr., U. of Chicago, 2005.