In what should have been a routine circumcision, an eight-month-old boy had his entire penis burned off, thanks to a doctor’s error. After encouragement from a psychologist, the child’s parents agreed to have the child undergo an infant sex change and to raise the child as a girl. That boy was David Reimer, who for a period was called Brenda.

As John Colapinto — who wrote a book about David Reimer’s experiences in As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised a Girl — writes in Slate magazine, Reimer’s sexual reassignment was traumatic. Brenda was teased at school for her masculinity, crossly refused to wear dresses, and expressed to the adults in her life that she felt like a boy. Under the instructions of the curiously named Dr. Money, who had encouraged Reimer’s parents to have their son undergo sexual reassignment, the adults lied to Reimer and asserted that such feelings were a passing phase. At age 14, however, Reimer discovered the truth, and he eventually decided upon a surgical return to the male sex. Reimer underwent a double mastectomy to rid himself of his breasts — a result of estrogen therapy — his synthetic vagina was replaced with a synthetic penis and testicles, and he underwent yet more hormone therapy.

This spring, David Reimer committed suicide at the age of 38. Two years ago, his identical twin, Brian, had died from overdosing on antidepressants.  

It would be presumptuous and reductive to hazard guesses as to why Reimer committed suicide, but his story should at least give us pause and force us to consider not only the roles of nature and nurture in formulating an individual’s identity as it relates to gender — as distinguished from biological and physiological sex — but it should also remind us of the human cost of asking such questions. This is not to question the scientific validity of research into gender and identity. Rather, we should remember that David Reimer was the subject of a medical study and, like a lab rat, he had no say in the matter. His identical twin brother provided the perfect control, and until the age of 14, Reimer was an unwitting participant in an experiment known in the 1960s and 1970s as the John/Joan case. According to The New York Times, Janet Reimer, David’s mother, believes that it was the emotional strain of the experiment of David Reimer’s life that led to his death.

Lest we reduce David Reimer’s fascinating and harrowing experiences to a medical and social curiosity, we should remind ourselves that, as fascinating as the scientific research may be, if the methodology destroys the human being in the process, it may only be morally responsible to table such research for the time being.

Mimi Hanaoka

What do we make of a president who renamed some months of the year after himself, built an enormous revolving statue of himself, held an international symposium on melons — although his country is largely desert — and who is now demanding that words from his book be inscribed next to verses of the Qur’an on a mosque? What, in short, do we make of Mr. Saparmyrat Atayevich Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan, who, as president for life, sits atop of a considerable amount of oil and the fifth largest reserves of natural gas in the world?  
  
In the competition for bizarre despots, Mr. Niyazov rivals Kim Jong-il, and in his most recent display of unchecked authority, he has decreed that the walls of a mosque currently under construction in the capital Ashgabat be inscribed not only with verses from the Qur’an but also with his own words of wisdom that he recorded in the Ruhnama (translated as The Book of the Soul), which was published in 2001 and is already required reading in schools in Turkmenistan. Even without Mr. Niyazov’s self-aggrandizing architectural flourishes, the mosque in Ashgabat will likely be a decadent affair — it may become the largest mosque in Asia, with a capacity for 10,000 faithful and a dome that staggers 50 meters tall, which has already been installed by helicopter.

Turkmenistan is tucked in the Central Asian region between Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The BBC reported in March of 2003 that the Central Asia division’s director of the International Crisis Group, Robert Templer, warned that Turkmenistan could “become the next Afghanistan — and it certainly could become a danger to the rest of the world.”

The government has an absolute stranglehold on all of the media in Turkmenistan. According to the International Freedom of Expression exchange forum, Turkmenistan can only boast of having “one of the worst media climates in the world.”

Determined to quash any independent religious voice, in addition to stifling all independent, secular outlets for discourse, in March of 2004, the Turkmen authorities imprisoned the chief Mufti, Nasrullah Ibn Ibadullah, who had been heading the board of Islamic scholars who lead the religious affairs of Turkmenistan. Nasrullah Ibn Ibadullah has been sentenced to over 20 years in prison, and yet the BBC reports that the Mufti’s crime and reason for arrest are still unclear.

When the leader of a government that is ostensibly not a theocracy begins to consolidate secular and religious authority in a curious but unquestionable move towards a contemporary, bizarre, and Islamic version of Ceasaropapism, all of those who advocate a coherent civil society should cast a wary gaze on Mr. Niyazov and his unchecked power in Turkmenistan.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Ever the vanguard of truly trashy television, the Fox network waded into hitherto unimaginably tasteless ground with a show that was to be called “Seriously, Dude, I’m Gay.”  

Bowing to pressure and a startling sense of decency, last week Fox cancelled the two-hour show — which was to be aired on June 7 — ostensibly for “creative reasons.”

The now cancelled reality show featured two heterosexual men who would compete for the $50,000 prize by convincing a “jury of their queers,” that they were gay. According to a press release that incensed the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamations (GLAAD), the two contestants were to plunge head-first into the “the gay lifestyle,” by moving into two separate apartments in West Hollywood and inhabiting some sort of gay space by living with gay roommates. The contestants would feign homosexuality by coming out to their closest friends, frequenting gay nightclubs, and going on a blind date with a man. Lest the men be unable to appear convincingly gay, promotional material for “Seriously, Dude, I’m Gay,” advertised that the men would also be allocated three “gay coaches.”  

The grand finale of the show was to be a judgment, pronounced by a “jury of their queers,” — according to the Fox press release — of which of the two straight men was actually gay, with the winner pocketing the $50,000 prize for his convincing gayness.

Fox was clearly developing its programming based on the financial and popular success of shows such as “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” which captivated three million viewers during the summer 2003 season. Metrosexuality has been welcomed into common parlance, and gay-themed shows, such as “Boy Meets Boy,” have enhanced the Bravo network’s ratings. For a brief and superficial moment, being gay is now hip.  

The popular success and drawing power of such gay-themed shows has probably raised some sort of awareness of the gay community. The important question, however, is whether these shows have normalized homosexuality, or whether these programs are instead an “exercise in systematic humiliation,” as GLAAD described the now cancelled “Seriously, Dude, I’m Gay.” It may be the case that far from blurring the dominant lens of hetero-normativity, such shows have made a fabulously packaged commodity of an identity at the cost of stifling any serious conversion or progress.    
  

EDITOR’S NOTE: To see one reader’s response to this story, click here.

Mimi Hanaoka

It may not come as a surprise that President Bush has been hoarding the gun that Saddam Hussein was holding at the time of his capture, and that the president has been gleefully showing off his latest trophy to choice guests to the Oval Office like a child boasting about his latest toy. The president’s memento-taking is, without a doubt, one of the most innocuous news items to have emerged from coverage of the Iraq war in recent weeks, but it nevertheless made me wince.

At the same time that horrific photos of the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison are being flashed across news screens, the image of Mr. Bush, happily parading Saddam’s gun around the Oval Office, only reinforces the impression that the current campaign in Iraq is characterized by brutish and jingoistic machismo. For all of the money that the current administration is channeling into its propaganda war, both here in America and abroad, Mr. Bush’s aping around the Oval Office is bland but offensive enough, and may only confirm, for skeptics, the profoundly unreflective attitude that has come to be associated with President Bush’s catastrophic venture into Iraq.

This is not to suggest that Saddam wasn’t a calculating despot who ruled through a genocidal regime, and that there may be many who are pleased that Saddam is no longer toting his gun. The issue, rather, is that Mr. Bush must realize that poor public relations, in addition to completely lacking taste and savoir-faire, may have concrete and negative consequences.

The American government is not only engaged in a heart-breaking and traditional war in Iraq, but it is also in the midst of a propaganda war. Last year, America launched Hi, a lifestyle magazine targeted at the 18- to 35-year-old age bracket for both men and women. The magazine is sponsored by the United States State Department and enjoys funding from a bill, supported by the House of Representatives in the summer of 2003, that allocated money to a variety of foreign projects in the Middle East. Buttressing this propaganda is Al-Hurra, an American-run Arabic-language television network, and Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language radio station.  

As Samir Khader — the wry and charismatic producer for Al Jazeera, as he was portrayed in Control Room — noted, “You cannot fight a war without media … Any military that doesn’t plan for that is not a good military.”

For all of the money that the American government has poured into its traditional and propaganda warfare, Mr. Bush is steadily and gaily working to undo his own propaganda machine and is reaffirming the image of an America that is acquisitive, gloating, and ultimately unreflective.  

Mimi Hanaoka

At a time when all manner of news — some of it propaganda, some of it fluff, and some of it genuinely world-changing reporting — is pouring forth from endless television broadcasts, news tickers, newspapers, and radios from every corner of the world, the question naturally arises: Is the notion of “objective” news reporting definitionally unsound? And what, in this era of “good” versus “evil,” do we make of Al Jazeera?

In its brief but engrossing 83 minutes, Control Room, Jehane Noujaim’s 2004 documentary, records Al Jazeera’s and other news organizations’ coverage of American invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

Among its strengths is the ability of Control Room to convey that the notion of objectivity in news reporting is itself problematic; we have Al Jazeera and Fox and everything else in between, all of it purporting to be good, professional reporting. As portrayed in Control Room, Al Jazeera is clearly opposed to the American invasion of Iraq, and the audience gains a sense of the Arab solidarity that Al Jazeera both channels and panders to. The film, however, does not delve deeply into the political explanations of why the individuals who work at Al Jazeera are against the American invasion. Rather, it is from the personal, emotional, and visceral responses of the witty, charming, and acerbic individuals who work at Al Jazeera that the audience gets a sense of the Arab perspective, focused through the lens of Al Jazeera, on the American invasion of Iraq.  

Noujaim appropriately builds her documentary around two charismatic characters — Hassan Ibrahim, an Al Jazeera correspondent, and Samir Khader, a senior producer for Al Jazeera. In Control Room, we are not only shown a good amount of Al Jazeera footage and all of the scrambling that goes on behind the camera, but we are also treated to Ibrahim’s and Khader’s intelligent, caustic, and often sad banter. From the bemused chuckles and appreciative grunts that I heard around me at Film Forum, I wasn’t the only one charmed by Ibrahim’s and Khader’s humor and savoir-faire.

Noujaim isn’t so cheap as to rely on charismatic individuals to carry her film, and she tastefully but poignantly documents the coverage and spin around the death of an Al Jazeera reporter who was killed when American forces bombed the Al Jazeera building in Baghdad in 2003.

Noujaim does a responsible job of portraying the variety of news organizations that are reporting on the American invasion from the American government’s Central Command station, or Centcom, in Doha, Qatar. Not all of the journalists, however, are portrayed kindly; one journalist from MSNBC appears to be worryingly dumb and unconcerned with the reality that America is invading a country and beginning a war, and we are given a particularly choice scene in which an American anchorwoman comes across as particularly wooden, mechanistic, and a little freakish.

Control Room has elevated the debate of whether the concept of objectivity in news is now defintionally unsound, and it offers valuable insight into an Arab perspective on the beginning of the American war in Iraq. With Control Room, Noujaim has raised the stakes of the debate, and it is now our responsibility to continue that conversation.  

Mimi Hanaoka

When I visited the Church of Fools this morning, I was warned that the “Church of Fools is currently not suitable for children.” Undaunted by the “often colourful and occasionally offensive” language that apparently litters the church, I knocked on its virtual door only to be told: “Sorry, but Church of Fools is closed at the moment.”

The Church of Fools is one of the newest ventures into what can loosely be defined as religion. The online church claims to be the United Kingdom’s first 3D, Web-based church, and its target audience is the religiously marginalized. The church began as three-month “experiment” on May 11th, and it draws a virtual congregation of up to 10,000 visitors a day. The pious may choose a character, sing, pray, and jubilantly exclaim Hallelujah!”

The Church of Fools website claims:

Church of Fools is an attempt to create holy ground on the net, where people can worship, pray and talk about faith.

The church is partly intended for people on the edges (and beyond) of faith, so please be aware that the language and behaviour in church is often colourful and occasionally offensive.

Church of Fools is a relatively innocuous and poorly orchestrated religious site, as evidenced by the fact that its operations have been temporarily shut down due to individuals logging in as Satan, hijacking the pulpit, and cursing. The BBC notes that it is the less pious, sneaking into the church from Australia and the United States, who are channeling Satan. The Church of Fools is currently developing a system of cyber wardens who will patrol the aisles and the pulpit; those caught blaspheming may be punished and consigned to a virtual hell by the virtual wardens.

Since various communities and networks — support groups, community bulletin boards, dating services, friendship circles, such as Friendster, and forums for political and social discourse — have migrated from the flesh and blood world to the ever-expanding and wildly accessible online world, it should be unsurprising that a religious community should establish its only place of worship online. The question should not be whether the Church of Fools can provide some sort of benefit, since some marginalized Christian or other will likely benefit from the online community. What we must keep in mind, rather, is that religion is an entity that is increasingly politicized, particularly with the current administration’s crusade-like rhetoric of good and evil in Iraq and Afghanistan. With organizations like the Church of Fools, religion is not only politicized but is happily bleeding into the realm of infotainment, total anonymity, and private demagoguery.  

Mimi Hanaoka

A film that has been harshly condemned as anti-Semitic has now been altered, in the hands of Hezbollah, to make it unequivocally anti-American. Al-Manar, the Hezbollah-backed satellite television channel that is based in Lebanon, has recently begun broadcasts of an altered version of the trailer for Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ; the piece is titled The Passion of the Iraqis.

Al-Manar has changed the trailer for The Passion of the Christ to highlight the recent events at Abu Ghraib prison, and according to the BBC:

As the portentous music plays, a blood-stained hand flexes in pain. The screen fades to black as the words “No Mercy” fade up in white. A nail is seen being driven into the hand. The words “No Compromise” appear … as the music reaches its crescendo, the words “The Passion of the Christ” are replaced by “The Passion of the Iraqis.” Then one of the images of alleged American abuse of Iraqi prisoners that shocked the world flashes up on screen. It is the picture of a hooded Iraqi prisoner, arms outstretched, standing on a box in a mock electrocution.

Al-Manar — popular, political, and available in the Middle East where there is a satellite dish — constantly and effectively combines an unwavering political stance with entertainment and a strong reliance on a sense of pan-Arab suffering and solidarity. According to the BBC, al-Manar “has attracted a growing audience in the Arab world partly because of the emotional pull of its video edits of Palestinian and Iraqi suffering set to mournful music.”

Last year, al-Manar broadcast a 26-part mini-series, aired during the month of Ramadan, titled “al-Shatat” — the Diaspora — a highly controversial series which critics denounced as virulently anti-Semitic. “Al-Shatat” depicts the development of the Zionist movement between 1812 and 1948 and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, and features segments about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document which asserts that there is a Jewish conspiracy for world domination; scholars consider the document to be a forgery, created in czarist Russia, the purpose of which was to justify persecution of the Jews.  

Horrified at the content of the series, coupled with al-Manar’s rising popularity across the Arab world, Richard Boucher, a State Department spokesman, stated: “We view these programs as unacceptable.”

Equally unpalatable for many but successful for al-Manar is “The Mission,” a quiz show in which contestants who successfully answer questions advance on a virtual map, step by step, towards Jerusalem. If a contestant accomplishes his mission and steps on Jerusalem, the producers of the show play a Hezbollah song, the lyrics of which unsurprisingly proclaim “Jerusalem is ours and we are coming to it.”

The United States government considers Hezbollah — a movement that appeared in the early 1980s — to be a terrorist organization. It is now also a recognized, even mainstream, Lebanese political party; there are nine members of Hezbollah in the Lebanese parliament.  

Not only do we now have an unapologetically jingoist Fox to an unapologetically political al-Manar and wildly popular al-Jazeera, we also have the American ventures into Arabic language media, such as Hi, a lifestyle magazine targeted at the 18- to 35-year-old age bracket for both men and women, and the U.S.-run Arabic language television network, al-Hurra, and Radio Sawa. In recent months, the dividing line between physical and propaganda warfare has become increasingly blurred, as evidenced by the violence that erupted after the Coalition Provisional Authority shut down al-Hawzah, a weekly newspaper run by Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric in Iraq. Such violence should serve as a warning and a reminder that media organizations must be cognizant of the fact that what is flashed across their screens and what is pawned off as news may have direct and violent repercussions.  

Mimi Hanaoka

In a sad recycling of historical patterns, a statement that Philip K. Hitti made regarding the Christian-Muslim exchange during the period of the crusades resonates with today’s events: “The Christian military venture left Islam more militant, less tolerant, and more self-centered.” Ironic that, at a time when some members of the American government are pooh-poohing Islam as retrograde and anti-democratic, it is precisely the religious rhetoric and religio-political discourse of “evil,” that is Christianizing the American-led venture into Iraq and is creating such strong and popular Islamist responses and retaliations that are at least couched in religious terms.
  
When we speak about an Islamist — or somehow Islamically oriented — movement, it is important to note that it would be a mischaracterization to necessarily absorb an Islamist movement exclusively into the religious sphere. It would be incorrect to understand a movement such as al-Qaeda, for example, as a strictly or even primarily religious movement. While al-Qaeda recruitment tapes are couched in religious language and utilize religious sympathies, the primary argument of al-Qaeda is a political one. Al-Qaeda makes an internationalist jihadist argument; an excellent source for information on this topic is the project that was undertaken by the Columbia International Affairs Online site that provides excerpts from and analyses of the Osama bin Laden recruitment tapes.  

In so adamantly adding a religious glaze to political topics and by consistently employing  religious and moral language — such as the “axis of evil,” and the consistent description of the insurgency movements in Iraq as “evil,” — the current administration, the media, commentators, and ordinary citizens who utilize such language are, it seems, making Christians more Christian, Muslims more Muslim, and all parties involved more extreme and uncompromising. Language is being actualized in politics and pushing religion to its extremes. In Hitti’s terms, “The Christian military venture left Islam more militant, less tolerant, and more self-centered.”  

The horrendous acts we have seen in the media lately — the brutal and inhumane beheading of an American civilian recorded on videotape, the naked Iraqi prisoners of Abu Ghraib jail being taunted and dehumanized — are shocking, vile, and horrifying. There is no question that what has been done is wrong. The question is, rather, is there anything positive to be gained by posing political questions in the religious and moral language of good versus evil?

We must understand the current state of affairs in Iraq as a situation that is beyond good and evil; to transpose political questions into the religious and moral sphere is to make all camps involved “more militant, less tolerant, and more self-centered.”

Mimi Hanaoka

Under the tentative and decidedly uncatchy header “Self-Censorship in Broadcasting Seen as Rising,” The New York Times today reports that radio and television companies are operating at an increasingly paranoid level of self-censorship in the post-Janet Jackson breast era. At a time when we are seeing photos of American soldiers posing in their memento photos with naked and tortured Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib jail, we can ask the question: What sort of damages are the television and radio stations avoiding in their vigilant self-censorship?  

This is not to say that it may be inappropriate for a young child to be unexpectedly exposed to Janet Jackson’s increasingly gimmicky and breasty attempts to salvage her career. It is also of the utmost importance that the media report and investigate the horrendous abuses that have occurred perhaps systematically and most certainly at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. Given this curious and unfortunate juxtaposition, we can certainly explore the question of what is possibly being gained by the increased level of self-censorship in radio and television.

Self-imposed censorship is clearly preferable to external restrictions imposed by a potentially stalinistic Federal Communications Commission. However, when we put the petty offenses — titles such as Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back,” the contents of “Masterpiece Theater,” which is surely one of the least prurient programs on television, and the word “urinate,” which an Indianapolis radio station bleeped out of Rush Limbaugh’s talk show — into their appropriate context, we can appreciate that what is censored out of radio and television is innocuous and benign when compared with the honest truth regarding the coalition soldiery in Iraq.  

Mimi Hanaoka

A pair of teenagers suing McDonald’s for their staggering obesity is both alarming and laughable; equally shocking and heart-breakingly funny is Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary about his self-imposed and meticulously monitored month-long McDonald’s binge.  

Super Size Me certainly explores the question of where corporate responsibility bleeds into personal accountability, but the film focuses on the more gruesome results of a McDonald’s-only diet and on a culture of a fast food nation. For 30 increasingly pudgy days, Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s, three times a day, and mimicked the average exercise pattern of an American by walking no more than a few thousand steps a day.

Spurlock traveled around the country — we see him shoveling down McDonald’s in cities in California, Texas, West Virginia, Illinois, and Massachusetts, in addition to his home base of New York City — and we see him exploring the lunch rooms of public schools where children happily eat lunches of French fries and cookies while the teachers’ eyes — usually so beady and watchful — callously and irresponsibly turn blind during lunch hour.  

One of the more alarming scenes of the documentary features some first graders at a school in Massachusetts identifying the people and characters in the pictures that Spurlock presents to them. The children generally manage to identify George Washington, though they seem to have little idea of why they manage to recognize him; one child identifies a very typical depiction of Jesus — pale skin, shoulder length hair, a compassionate gaze and a sacred glow warming his visage — as George W. Bush; all children successfully identify Ronald McDonald. One child claims that Ronald McDonald helps operate the cashier, while another child states that Ronald brings all of his friends to McDonald’s (presumably to have a roaringly good and wholesome time in the enclosed McDonald’s playground), but all children demonstrate a remarkable level of brand recognition.  

Aspects of Super Size Me resonate with Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, a piece of investigative journalism with judiciously used research by Eric Schlosser. Spurlock’s condemnation of McDonald’s is evident, well-argued, and humorously articulated. But the underlying argument is far more compelling; far from scape-goating McDonald’s and the McDonaldization of America as the pure source of American obesity, we as individuals are ultimately the most important and powerful custodians of our health.  

Mimi Hanaoka

In of the most insultingly timed events in recent memory, the whites-only town of Orania, in South Africa, has leased its own whites-only currency two days after the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid.

The new currency, dubbed the “ora,” can only be spent in the small town of Orania, where its 600 or so white residents have an agriculturally based economy.

While the ostensible reason that the residents of Orania flocked to the small town was to escape the violence and the crime that plagues South Africa, it is doubtful that security was the motivating factor for their migration to Orania, and the legacy of apartheid is alive and well in the town; the grandson of Henrik Vorwoerd, who designed the program of apartheid, currently lives in Orania.  

In a baffling defense of the notion of white supremacy, Eleanor Lombard, a town spokesman, declared: “South African society is like a fruit salad – if I am allowed to be whatever I am – a banana, an apple or whatever – I can add to the flavour … If I am all squashed up, I cannot contribute.” In Lombard’s explanation, the purpose of establishing this currency is to make the community increasingly self-sufficient.

The notion of a racially exclusive community is shameful, demeaning, and repellent. That these individuals took the jubilant and hopeful anniversary of the end of apartheid to further reinforce racial divisions is a disgraceful insult to the potential of inter-racial harmony.

Mimi Hanaoka

If we can read a nation’s constitution as indicative of its cultural and political identity, it may be the case that Japan is beginning to rearticulate its identity. There is a great amount of ambiguity and uncertainty in the debate, but the Japanese are now asking the question: Do we revise our pacifist Constitution?

Particularly since the first Gulf War, the Japanese have been accused of bankroll diplomacy; Japan shelled out 1.3 trillion yen, or approximately 11.8 billion U.S. dollars, to support the U.S.-led war against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but did not contribute any troops. This approach of funding, coupled with withholding all personnel, caused some members of the international community to accuse the Japanese of a nasty, cowardly, let’s-not-get-our-hands-dirty approach to international conflict.

The Japanese, however, were legally unable to contribute any forces. The Japanese Constitution — implemented in 1947, essentially written by the United States, and unaltered since its introduction — includes Article 9, which strictly prohibits Japan from having a military force.  The Self Defense Forces, or SDF, exist, but they are not deployed overseas. It is only due to a recent law, enacted in the summer of 2003, that Japanese troops are legally able to enter non-combat zones Iraq, although arguably no such areas currently exist in the war-torn nation.  

The Asahi Shimbun reported on May 1 that in a survey of 1,945 people conducted in April of 2004, 53 percent of respondents favored a revised Constitution. This year is the first time, since The Asahi Shimbun began taking a survey on the subject in 1995, that a majority of respondents have supported a revised Constitution.

A survey in the Yomiuri Shimbun, the most widely circulated Japanese daily newspaper, indicated that 65 percent of the 1,823 individuals surveyed supported a revised Constitution. But one important caveat, however, is that only 44 percent of the respondents wanted to change Article 9 — the portion of the Constitution that bars Japan from possessing a military force.  

The Japanese citizens will ultimately decide whether this fluctuating national sentiment translates into legislative change; a revision of the Constitution must first be supported by a majority of the public, and it must then be endorsed by a two-third majority of the Upper and Lower houses. Among the relevant questions to be answered is whether the increasing support of a Constitutional revision reflects a truly Japanese and truly radical reconsideration of its national character and its role in the international arena, or whether this is a temporary blip in the national consciousness caused by American bullying.

Mimi Hanaoka