What is Article9?(2)
What is Article 9 ? (2) At the end of the Part I, you talked about benefits given by Article 9 to postwar Japan: There is another important benefit that A9 has provided postwar Japan. Japan was a perpetrator and a defeated country in the last World War. This is the worst pattern of experiencing war. All the virtues barely recognized in the war and the army -brotherhood and self-sacrifice- were shattered, leaving only memories of misery, barbarism and absurdity. Article 9 has unified the postwar Japanese through embracing their injured hearts softly... The way we look at war and the military is completely different from that of Americans’ who finished the WWII as a winner and liberator. Article 9, especially by its intransigency, has been close to the national sentiment which hates war and detests the military. In a sense, Article 9 has fulfilled the function of uniting the hearts of the people and uniting the people for 75 years, taking a position against war. As it is 75 years after the end of the war, those who directly remember the war are almost over 80 years old... However, it may be that A9 plays that role only as long as the generations who have known the war directly or indirectly is still alive. What will A9 mean when that generation is completely gone from this country in the near future? What do you think we should do when the erosion of Article 9 is aggravated further? Even now, what we called the intransigency of A9 is becoming difficult for the younger generation to understand. I think that "the erosion of Article 9", as it is sometimes called, will continue to be aggravated further It sounds very interesting to globalize or internationalize Article 9. It means to make the world acknowledge the value of Article 9, doesn’t it? until in the end we will have only one chance left: either we will revise A9 to replace it with so-called realistic and effective principles of national security which are more suitable to today's international environment, or conversely, we globalize A9 and get it recognized as a principle to achieve perpetual peace and comprehensive world disarmament. As for now, politicians leave the people no choice but to either accept or block revising A9. Since the Government and the Parliament themselves are not willing to propose the option of globalising A9, civil society has to assume that role. Even though the memories of the wartime experience that supported Article 9 has faded among Japanese, we witness the misery, brutalities and absurdity of wars, civil war and terrorism that are still ongoing in many parts of the world. To be able to confront those evils, we must adopt a very decisive denial of war and the army. Nothing is more suitable for that role than Article 9. That is why we ask the international community to adopt a resolution in support of (seconding) Article 9 in the UN General Assembly. Of course, that's just the beginning. The ultimate goal of our campaign is to realize and establish a genuine System of Collective Security as stipulated in the UN Charter.