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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
January 16, 2007
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| December 26, 2006 |
Don't Change the Peace Constitution; Use It! – Chihiro Ito |
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| Peace Boat staff member Roberto Zamora of Costa Rica used his country's constitution to rescind his president's declaration of support to the U.S. war on Iraq. |
Imagine a country in which the average 8-year old not only knows her country's constitution well, but also knows how where and how to easily report any violations to her constitutional rights—without it costing her a cent. That country actually exists. After a bitter civil war half a century ago, people in Costa Rica thought about how to avoid friends and neighbors ever taking up arms and killing one another again. They chose to eliminate war by getting rid of their army, adopting a Peace Constitution, and making sure that everyone knows how to use the constitution to safeguard their right to peace. That move turned Costa Rica into an oasis of relative tranquility in a region being ripped apart by civil wars, and eventually helped stabilize the rest of Central America. |
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| Peace Boat participants hold copies of Article 9, the clause in Japan's constitution that the governing party is aiming to change. |
Japan, too, has a Peace Constitution. Article 9 of it reads: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” Despite Article 9, Japan has long had a large self-defense force—effectively an army complete with tanks and weapons—and has one of the largest budgets for military spending in the world. What's more, the leading political parties of Japan are pushing to change the constitution. Article 9, they say, is outdated. |
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| Journalist Chihiro Ito, who has covered wars around the globe, advocates for putting Japan's Peace Constitution into practice. |
Chihiro Ito, a journalist who has covered issues for 30 years in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., disagrees. Mr. Ito recently joined Peace Boat's 55th voyage as a Guest Educator, and offered a lecture comparing Japan's Peace Constitution to Costa Rica's. The biggest difference, he says, is that in Costa Rica, people are taught how to actively use their constitution as a tool of empowerment, while most Japanese people aren't familiar with their constitution and don't use it. As a result, today Costa Rica is a highly respected country that continues to take the lead in creative solutions. In the face of devastating deforestation, for example, the country decided to start protecting its jungles and start exporting free clean air—not lumber--to the rest of the world. In Japan, however, a heavy sense of malaise and lack of direction hang over the country. “To me, talking about changing the Japanese Constitution is pointless,” said Mr. Ito, “because it's never been used. Instead of changing it, we should learn how to use such a great constitution.” |
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| As part of a self-education initiative, Peace Boat participants gather to read part of the Japanese constitution together. |
To raise awareness about the past, present, and future of the Japanese constitution, documentaries and lectures have been offered to participants on the 55th voyage. “I'm so glad we're discussing this,” said one 70 year old woman, “because I experienced war firsthand when I was a child. It was terrible. People now 40 and younger in Japan didn't have that experience, and to some of them fighting and war look cool. That's a dangerous misconception.” She added that before the war, women couldn't vote, but they gained that right after the peace constitution was adopted. “We are enjoying rights today thanks to the efforts of people in the past, and we need to be thankful and exercise those rights,” she said. |
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