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wombat_socho ([personal profile] wombat_socho) wrote2006-07-20 10:35 am
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Maybe Article 9 wasn't the only mistake

Apparently the Showa Emperor wasn't too keen on having Class A war criminals memorialized at Yasukuni Shrine, according to a 1988 memorandum written by one of his grand stewards. The article goes on to note that the Showa Emperor did not visit the shrine after the memorialization took place, although he had visited Yasukuni eight times since the end of the war. One wonders, if he had been able to express his opinion more openly as the titular Head of State, would the the controversial memorialization have taken place? It seems significant that it didn't happen while a relative of the Emperor was chief priest there.

[identity profile] wombat-socho.livejournal.com 2006-07-23 04:28 am (UTC)(link)
I was aware that SCAP (MacArthur's office) wrote their constitution for them, and I do recall them stripping the Emperor of his divinity - knowing about the temples being disestablished comes from a brief study of Japanese religion. OTOH, they have a more parliamentary form of government than we do, fundamentally modeled on the German Second Reich and not changed all that much (if at all) by the new constitution, but I could be wrong about that.