Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima by Robert Jay Lifton

Author:Robert Jay Lifton
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 1991-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

REARMING JAPAN: “IF WE DON’T HAVE ARMS, WE CAN’T FIGHT AT ALL”

I also questioned hibakusha about their feelings concerning Japanese rearmament, particularly about the much discussed national issue of whether or not to change the clause in the Japanese Constitution prohibiting rearmament. Since rearmament had long been taking place under other names, Japanese in general have been torn between the “logic” of making legal that which already exists and at the same time possibly paving the way for further military expansion, and the moral appeal of the Constitution along with its possible advantages in restraining the extent of rearmament.

Hibakusha share the general Japanese ambivalence, but perhaps with particular intensity. Extremely characteristic was the shopkeeper’s assistant’s wavering back and forth between the wish that no country in the world required armaments and the realization that this was far from the actual situation, his initial insistence that “I just can’t come to any definite conclusion” and his coming to one despite himself:

. . . Still, if I am to speak honestly, I am against rearmament. After all, if we have arms, and if anything happens to cause us to fight, then we would fight. If we don’t have arms, we can’t fight at all, so I think it is better not to have arms.

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