When Haneda Came Home

In the world of one-upmanship, the expat who can say they arrived in Japan before Narita opened takes some beating. That was in 1978 so any remaining septuagenarians are, we, likely to be in their seventies by now. And if coming from Europe would have either travelled via Anchorage or through Hong Kong as Russian airspace wasn't opened until a good few years after that. But that's a different story. Anyway, Narita was opened to relieve pressure on the (much more convenient) downtown Haneda which subsequently took over domestic duties whilst Narita provided international routes. And so we all hubbed out of Seoul until they realized that de-planing and carrying your bag an hour and a half across Chiba Prefecture wasn't such a bright piece of planning overall.

But back to Haneda. Originally seen as an alternative solution to landing on the beach (no, seriously), Haneda was opened in the early 1930's to the delight of the Empire's extremities around Asia who were now in reach of daily newspapers. The original terminal was still in use until relatively recently serving flights from Taipei to Hawaii as there was a little dispute over sovereignty going on at the time and it wasn't seen as being of particular diplomaté (I may have made that word up) to hub certain airlines via the same landing strips. And so from 1978 until approximately 2010, the only international flight was the tri-lingual Honolulu Special. Which went about twice a week. And then finally we got a real international terminal. But for night flights only. Until 2014. When we got days.

Looking back though, Haneda was first a civil airport and then from 1945 - 1952 expanded under MacArthur as a US Military base before being returned to the original owners. The first expansion had been due to be on a landfill island in Tokyo Bay but was scrapped in favor of an extension to the existing site (the landfill island is now known as Yumenoshima (Dream Island, a name not without a certain sense of irony that shall host the Archery tournaments of the 2020 Olympics; and I believe the last resting site of one of the fishing ships exposed in the Bikini Atol mishap (but that's a whole Lithium 6 vs 7 story)). And so these days, as you come in to land, when your sitting at the back, you still feel the whiplash as your plane makes it's final descent, taking a steep left turn towards the island runways. And that's so that you come in over the bay rather than rattle the city so that we can all sleep peacefully at night. And with that I shall say thank you, and have a nice flight.

Man or god? And what Hirohito had to say on the subject...

On New Year's Day, 1946, the Emperor Showa, or Hirohito as the man himself was known, issued an official "clarification" of whether he was a divine entity or not. The announcement quite deliberately made reference to the  Five Oath's Charter of 1868 which suggested this issue had already been settled before the Allies arrived, so why all the fuss? The problem was that the later Meiji Constitution of 1889 clearly reflected the Shinto doctrine that the Emperor ruled through his divine power, the roots of which were the belief that the Imperial Family were descendants of the Sun God, Amaterasu. And this was effectively the point; was he a god, beholden to no-one, or not?

Japan is comfortable to live with uncertainty and contradiction and in this instance had elected, post war, to adopt essentially a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, somewhat to the frustration of MacArthur. He was looking for a clear statement in English that the man was simply mortal; none of this confusing god stuff. And that is exactly what he got, a clear statement, in English, with the Emperor renouncing his divinity once and for all. But there was one caveat. Making his announcement, Hirohito had not spoken in English, he'd spoken in Japanese.

The Emperor Showa himself strongly believed that, as a direct heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, he was a physical embodiment of the divine. However, MacArthur wanted to reposition him as a Head of State, a constitutional representation of the nation, rather than a deity, un-answerable to the people. So he needed this statement but the statement had been crafted to be deliberately vague.  Hirohito had clearly said that he was not the incarnation of a god. But in Japanese that didn't mean he couldn't still actually be a living god. And he didn't make any reference to that.

An unexpected voice of reason

In 1945 MacArthur took the decision that the Emperor must stay. This held the country together and prevented a descent into chaos across both Japan and a significant part of Asia where the military remained as the only effective force of discipline. And so, unlike in Germany where there was a clean break, Japan was set on a different path. One that was largely addressed its past through collective amnesia and a broad lack of education. The alternative would be a direct criticism of the Emperor himself.

After seventy years though this past still remains as an ever present ghost, slightly out of view, something you can just catch in the corner of you eye but never to be discussed. And then the Prime Minister pays tribute to convicted war criminals, his advisors propose apartheid as a solution to immigration and academic institutions call for a re-writing of the country's history. The signs were beginning to suggest Japan was taking a major step to the right. 

And then something happened. Crown Prince Naruhito issued a statement that Japan should remember it's history "correctly". This wasn't in support of the revisionists but a direct shot across their bows. It was a stunning condemnation of the current political direction of the country, even more so that the Royal Family are considered to be above politics and personal statements are unheard of. Naruhito has just poured a massive bucket of water over every firebrand looking to fan the flames of nationalism. And it has to be said, nicely done sir.

Crown Prince Naruhito - a welcome voice

The Emperor without an Empire

On the face of it Japan is lacking the key element of being a nation state with an Emperor ie there is no Empire. It would seem more straightforward to have a King when there is only a single country to be the monarch of. And yet old habits die hard and on January 1st 2015 we entered the twenty sixth year of the reign of "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Akihito". 

The Japanese empire was born with the Meiji Constitution enacted in 1868 following the brief civil war at the twilight of the Tokugawa Shogunate. At this time the country that is now considered Japan was effectively a set of autonomous republics plus the Bakufu regions administered directly from Edo (today's Tokyo). The title "Emperor", used throughout this new constitution, reflected the need for an overarching authority and brought agreement between the separate domains to centralise the creation of laws as well provide an overall control structure for the armed forces.

Following the creation of this crypto-empire, Japan set about creating a real one with the annexations of Korea and Taiwan (Formosa) followed by the invasion and creation of a puppet government in Manchuria. Then there came the relatively brief occupation of quite a large area of South East Asia stretching as far south as northern Papua New Guinea, west to Myanmar and east to the islands of the Pacific. 

And then it all ended in tears. The Empire of Japan was formally put to the sword with a new MacArthur led constitution in 1947. And then it was a question of holding Japan together. Changing the title of "Emperor" was simply a fight not worth fighting. And so today Japan is a single country empire and a living God officially became a mere mortal at the simple stroke of a pen.

A relaxed MacArthur greets Emperor Hirohito;
the image causing something of a scandal for its informality