COLIN DONALD reports on ingrained corruption
TOKYO - It used to be said that Japan had a first-rate economic system and a third-rate political one. But with the economy no longer a source of pride, public tolerance for the blatant palm-greasing, pork-barrelling and horse-trading in the world of Japanese politics is at breaking point.
Corruption is seen as being so widespread that influential voices are invoking the bygone age of samurai knights to inspire a return to honourable public service and an end to "money politics."
In the latest of an endless stream of political scandals, influential Opposition lawmaker Joji Yamamoto was arrested this month on suspicion of embezzling 23 million ( $526,075) of Government money by claiming it as the salary of a fictitious policy research secretary.
In fact, the money went on kimonos for his mistress and superior-quality hairpieces for himself.
Apart from his being a member of the Democratic Party - supposedly the standard-bearers of clean government in contrast to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party - Yamamoto's case was not considered unusual.
Yoshimichi Hironaka, political editor of the Yomiuri Shimbun explains "Everyone in Nagatcho [Tokyo's political hub] reacted sympathetically, saying everyone was doing the same thing and that Yamamoto should simply have done it more wisely. Nobody thinks he is any different from most politicians."
It is against this background of endemic abuse that a former deputy speaker of the lower house, Hyosuke Kujiraoka, has issued a call for a return to the "pure" values of the country's feudal past.
In a pamphlet entitled "Politics of the Samurai Soul - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow," the octogenarian lawmaker excoriates the lax standards of the Japanese political classes and urges a return to the samurai warrior's code of honour.
"Professional politicians who represent the interests of the population should have inherited the mantle of the warriors." he argues. "There is a saying, the samurai glories honourable poverty."
But instead of heeding the call for self-sacrificing struggle on behalf of the little people - an ideal showcased in the Akira Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai, Japan's old-style politicians often seem more spiritually akin to The Dirty Dozen.
Not only are their self-enriching ways un-Japanese, argues the aristocratic Kujiraoka, but worse still, they smack of the vulgarity of the merchant class, the wealthy but socially despised class in the hierarchy of Old Japan.
Not everyone agrees that the samurai are the best models of morality for a high-tech 21st-century nation: "Behind the myth, the 'code of the samurai' was actually to squeeze the peasants as much as you could without actually killing them" says Andrew DeWit, Professor of Economics at Shimonoseki University.
"People were pretty samurai-minded in the pre-war years, but the corruption was at least as bad.
"Anyone who pines for the good old days is either naive or deliberately shifting attention from the need for strong laws, fiercely independent prosecutors, and hefty penalties for corruption."
The lower tolerance of sleaze resulted last week in a new anti-graft bill compiled by the three parties of the ruling LDP-led coalition.
Under it, members of the Diet (Parliament), local assembly members and heads of local government would face sentences of up to three years if they used their position to influence administrative decisions and receive financial rewards.
But the bill has encountered resistance from the LDP traditionalists, including powerful politicians who have benefited from the abuses it proscribes.
Will this "discussion" lead rapidly to the passing of legislation with teeth? That Zen silence you hear is the sound of breath not being held.
Forward to old days of pure Japan
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.