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Japanese nationalism
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Japanese nationalism
Japanese nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts the belief that the Japanese are a monolithic nation with a single immutable culture. Over the last two centuries, it has encompassed a broad range of ideas and sentiments. It is useful to distinguish Japanese cultural nationalism from political or state nationalism, since many forms of cultural nationalism, such as those which are associated with folkloric studies, have been hostile to state-fostered nationalism.
In Meiji Japan, nationalist ideology consisted of a blend of native and imported political philosophies, initially developed by the Meiji government to promote national unity and patriotism, first in defense against colonization by Western powers, and later in a struggle to attain equality with the Great Powers.
It evolved throughout the Taishō and Shōwa periods, and it was increasingly used to justify extreme ideologies, such as fascism, militarism, racism, totalitarianism, and overseas expansionism. It has also provided a political as well as an ideological foundation for the actions and the atrocities of the Japanese military in the years leading up to and throughout World War II.
Japanese nationalism has been used as a justification for the censoring of history textbooks which results in the espousal of revisionist perspectives, which consists of the denial of Japanese imperialist atrocities, including 'comfort women' and the Nanjing Massacre.
During the final days of the Tokugawa shogunate, the perceived threat of foreign encroachment, especially after the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the signing of the Kanagawa Accord, led to increased prominence to the development of nationalist ideologies. Some prominent daimyō promoted the concept of fukko (a return to the past), while others promoted ōsei (the Emperor's supreme authority). The terms were not mutually exclusive, merging into the sonnō jōi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) concept, which in turn was a major driving force in starting the Meiji Restoration.
The Meiji Constitution of 1889 defined allegiance to the State as the citizen's highest duty. The constitution itself contained a mix of political Western practices and traditional Japanese political ideas.
The extreme disparity in economic and military power between Japan and the Western colonial powers was a great cause for concern for the early Meiji leadership. The motto Fukoku kyōhei (enrich the country and strengthen the military) symbolized Meiji period nationalistic policies to provide government support to strengthen strategic industries. Only with a strong economic base could Japan afford to build a strong, modern military along Western lines, and only with a strong economy and military could Japan force a revision of the unequal treaties, such as the Kanagawa Accords. Government policies also laid the basis of later industrialist empires known as the zaibatsu.[citation needed]
As a residue of its widespread use in propaganda during the 19th century, military nationalism in Japan was often known as bushidō (武士道 "the way of the warrior"). The word, denoting a coherent code of beliefs and doctrines about the proper path of the samurai, or what is generically called 'warrior thought' (武家思想, buke shisō), is rarely encountered in Japanese texts which were written before the Meiji era, when the 11 volumes of the Hagakure of Yamamoto Tsunetomo, compiled in the years from 1710 to 1716 where the character combination is employed, was finally published.
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Japanese nationalism
Japanese nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts the belief that the Japanese are a monolithic nation with a single immutable culture. Over the last two centuries, it has encompassed a broad range of ideas and sentiments. It is useful to distinguish Japanese cultural nationalism from political or state nationalism, since many forms of cultural nationalism, such as those which are associated with folkloric studies, have been hostile to state-fostered nationalism.
In Meiji Japan, nationalist ideology consisted of a blend of native and imported political philosophies, initially developed by the Meiji government to promote national unity and patriotism, first in defense against colonization by Western powers, and later in a struggle to attain equality with the Great Powers.
It evolved throughout the Taishō and Shōwa periods, and it was increasingly used to justify extreme ideologies, such as fascism, militarism, racism, totalitarianism, and overseas expansionism. It has also provided a political as well as an ideological foundation for the actions and the atrocities of the Japanese military in the years leading up to and throughout World War II.
Japanese nationalism has been used as a justification for the censoring of history textbooks which results in the espousal of revisionist perspectives, which consists of the denial of Japanese imperialist atrocities, including 'comfort women' and the Nanjing Massacre.
During the final days of the Tokugawa shogunate, the perceived threat of foreign encroachment, especially after the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the signing of the Kanagawa Accord, led to increased prominence to the development of nationalist ideologies. Some prominent daimyō promoted the concept of fukko (a return to the past), while others promoted ōsei (the Emperor's supreme authority). The terms were not mutually exclusive, merging into the sonnō jōi (revere the emperor, expel the barbarians) concept, which in turn was a major driving force in starting the Meiji Restoration.
The Meiji Constitution of 1889 defined allegiance to the State as the citizen's highest duty. The constitution itself contained a mix of political Western practices and traditional Japanese political ideas.
The extreme disparity in economic and military power between Japan and the Western colonial powers was a great cause for concern for the early Meiji leadership. The motto Fukoku kyōhei (enrich the country and strengthen the military) symbolized Meiji period nationalistic policies to provide government support to strengthen strategic industries. Only with a strong economic base could Japan afford to build a strong, modern military along Western lines, and only with a strong economy and military could Japan force a revision of the unequal treaties, such as the Kanagawa Accords. Government policies also laid the basis of later industrialist empires known as the zaibatsu.[citation needed]
As a residue of its widespread use in propaganda during the 19th century, military nationalism in Japan was often known as bushidō (武士道 "the way of the warrior"). The word, denoting a coherent code of beliefs and doctrines about the proper path of the samurai, or what is generically called 'warrior thought' (武家思想, buke shisō), is rarely encountered in Japanese texts which were written before the Meiji era, when the 11 volumes of the Hagakure of Yamamoto Tsunetomo, compiled in the years from 1710 to 1716 where the character combination is employed, was finally published.
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