Civil Society Volunteers Supporting Japan’s Constitution, Article 9 and Associated Peace, Diversity, and Post-3.11 Environmental Issues

Abstract

This article explores Japanese civil society through voluntary activity in the Save Article 9 movement, a citizen’s activism movement reaching over 7,000 groups in Japan initiated to counter attempts of some government leaders to change or eliminate the current constitution and Article 9–Japan’s renunciation of war and militarism clause. It traces influences on Japan’s so-called “Peace Constitution” as it developed in the postwar period, cyclical challenges to it, and cyclical responses of citizens to preserve and protect it. It discusses an Austrian born woman who grew up in Japan and through circumstances after the war became part of the constitutional drafting committee though neither Japanese nor American at that time. It discusses the emergence of the Save Article 9 movement and activities of those in it. It presents the story of one woman who was a founder of a group, the daughter of a former governor of Osaka Prefecture, whose story reflects her commitment and provides a window on her father as a prisoner in Siberian camps for five years after the war ended, as an advocate for the postwar constitution, and of “social law” as Governor of Osaka Prefecture in the 1970s. It also discusses the similar orientation of the Governors of Tokyo Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture during that decade. The article discusses how, after halting the threat to Article 9 in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Save Article 9 groups have continued to pursue a holistic vision of peace by being active in post-3.11 environmental debates, and as advocates for better relations between Japan and other Asian countries, notably Korea and China, and for greater inclusion of minorities in Japan, while remaining prepared for a re-emerging challenge to Japan’s peace constitution and its non-militarism clause Article 9.