Resolution of the JCP 23rd Congress (Draft)
(4th installment)

Part Six: For Broader National Common Action against Adverse Revision of the Constitution

(21) The attempt to adversely revise the Constitution, focusing on Article 9, is entering a critical stage. Now that the traditional government interpretational amendment of the Constitution is no longer tenable, the real danger is a textual revision to the Constitution. We must raise an alarm against the following dangerous moves.

- A set of laws has been railroaded through to send the Self-Defense Forces abroad. The overseas dispatch of the SDF has thus been expanded. The government has so far explained the SDF's activities abroad by sophistry, saying, "Support activities that don't involve the use of arms are permissible." Such sophistry is increasingly incompatible with the plan to send SDF units to Iraq, a country in a state of war.

- Under the Koizumi Cabinet, adverse revision of the Constitution has become the order of the day. The prime minister has instructed the LDP to draft its plan for a "revised" Constitution by November 2005, the 50th founding anniversary of the LDP, and openly stressed the need to enact a bill to hold a national referendum on constitutional "revision" before November 2005. In no time in the past since WWII has a prime minister instructed to draft a revised Constitution within a set time frame.

- In the Diet, the Research Commission on the Constitution was established in each house in January 2000, giving an impetus to the moves toward submitting their final reports to the next ordinary session of the Diet starting in January 2004. More than 300 Dietmembers of both Houses from the LDP, DPJ, LP, Komei, and the Reform Club participate in the Parliamentarian League Promoting Research of the Constitution, drafting bills to "revise" the Diet Law and establish a national referendum law as a step to proposing a constitutional revision. The Liberal Democratic, Komei, Democratic, and Liberal parities are in favor of the constitutional revision. The constitutional revision is being called for not only by ruling parties but by some opposition parties.

(22) The call for constitutional revision by no means represents the demands of the people. In October 2000, a report on Japan was made mainly by Richard Armitage, the present U.S. deputy secretary of state. Pointing out that "Japan's prohibition against collective self-defense is a constraint on alliance cooperation," the report called on Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense. The report, along with the LDP and business circles seeking a revival of militarism, has served as a driving force for the enactment of bills to send the SDF abroad and further encouraged calls for constitutional revision.

Article 9 of the Constitution is the biggest obstacle to Japan's global participation in lawless U.S. wars for hegemony. Those who are promoting the constitutional change show zeal for the removal of Article 9 in order to pave the way for SDF dispatch without restrictions. This move goes against the international call for a peaceful world order based on the U.N. Charter.

The defense of Article 9 is important not only for securing lasting peace for Japan. It is a struggle that has great international significance because it is inseparably connected with the effort to build a world that opposes U.S. hegemony. In the opposition party diplomacy the JCP has carried out, we have felt that the peoples in the Middle East and Asia want to see Japan as the "country with Article 9" fulfill its pioneering role in defending world peace.

The JCP calls for a great common struggle to be waged by broader sections of people in opposition to the adverse revision of the Constitution and any attempts that conflict with the constitutional principle of peace. In this struggle, the JCP will prove its real worth as a party that has been consistent in defending the Constitution.


Part Seven: For National Discussion and Movement Aimed at Overcoming the Crisis of Social Morals

(23) The crisis facing Japanese society is not limited to politics and economics. Moral crisis is also a serious problem affecting children. Many people feel anxious and distressed about shocking juvenile crimes frequently taking place as well as bullying, child abuse, and teenage prostitution.

The JCP has repeatedly called for a wider discussion and movement to help fight against the public tendency of looking down upon others, and to establish civic morals. "To respect civic morals and social ethics, and discharge their responsibilities toward society" has been recognized as the most important duty of JCP members since the JCP Constitution was revised at the JCP 22nd Congress.

The JCP renews its call for efforts to find a way out of the present difficulty, placing the task of overcoming the crisis of social morals, in particular securing children's healthy growth, as one of the most important efforts to help to build a democratic Japanese society in the 21st century. Specifically, the JCP calls for exploring solutions through nationwide discussions and struggles.

(24) What underlies the present-day moral crisis is a pile of distortions, contradictions, and difficulties the LDP government has caused to people's living conditions, work, and education. The task now is to do everything possible to solve these problems through democratic approaches.

For example, large corporations are in a fierce competition for larger profits through restructuring schemes. This has destroyed job security and forced workers into excessively long work hours with excessive workloads, which in turn has destroyed happy family life and even family communications. Extreme emphasis on the virtue of competition is forcing workers to obey the law of the jungle, placing workers as either winners or losers. This tendency has made people forget about caring for others and created a savage atmosphere affecting people's spiritual well being. The deep job crisis among young people deprives them of the right to participate in society and shatters their hopes for their future work, marriage, and child rearing prospects.

In its comments to the Japanese government in June 1998, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that in Japan "children are exposed to developmental disorder due to the stress of a highly competitive educational system." Extraordinarily competitive education bound by control-oriented schools, which have been imposed for many years by the LDP government, are seriously damaging the minds and growth of children. The government and the LDP are wrongly insisting that the Fundamental Law of Education is to blame for the present educational contradictions and difficulties, and that this law should be revised; this is a groundless allegation. The fact of the matter is that the government and the LDP have for many years trampled down the basic ideas and principles of democratic education established in the Fundamental Law of Education, which cites building character as the fundamental objective of education and precludes state power's "unjust control". This is precisely the source of the present-day contradictions and difficulties facing education.

A string of political and economic corruption and scandals have immeasurably harmful effects on children. The elimination of moral corruption is essential for establishing sound civic morals.

A politician's recent remarks in favor of aggression against other countries and terrorist attacks were scandalous. This warns of the danger of a chauvinistic trend emerging in contempt of other nations in Asia.

The task now is to struggle to end various distortions and contradictions under LDP politics that have harmful effects on civic morals. The JCP will fight to make Japanese society a democratic society with rules together with the effort to restore sound morals to Japanese society, starting at the top.

(25) The JCP believes that these efforts must be coupled with tasks to be carried out by society as its own tasks and proposes the following four initiatives:

- Establish standards of civic morals appropriate to a democratic society -- It is particularly important today to establish, through popular discussion and consensus, the standards of civic morals for the builders of a democratic society.

In prewar Japan, state power used morality, in particular the "Imperial Rescript of Education", as standards forcing the people to show their allegiance to the despotism of the emperor. These forced moral standards had nothing in common with civic morals in the true sense of the words. Using these "moral" codes, the brutal war of aggression was carried out against other nations in violation of humanity.

The Japanese Constitution and the Fundamental Law of Education were established based on remorse for the historical mistake of war. They were to provide a foundation on which postwar democratic civic morals would be formed. Their foundation is made up of universal values based on social progress, including the principle of people's sovereignty; respect for human rights and personality; rearing people as builders of a peaceful state and society; the quest for truth and justice; respect for labor and responsibility; and equality and equal rights between men and women. On these bases, various voluntary efforts have been made to establish the standards of civic morals worthy of a democratic society.

In the 1970s and the 1980s, the JCP called for children to be taught with civic morals in addition to academic, physical, and emotional education. In the JCP 21st Congress in 1997, the JCP proposed 10 points to be included in civic morals.

Public consensus is yet to be formed over standards to be established for civic morals. Any such standards should neither be imposed on people by government orders nor established based on a decision of a single political party. The JCP believes that the need now is for the public to form a consensus through discussion of standards for socially-recognized civic morals.

- Establish social self-discipline to protect children -- The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that "the children should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance." It is serious in the light of international practices that Japan has this kind of weaknesses concerning self-discipline that all societies should have.

Child prostitution and other types of buying and selling of sex are undermining children's rights. The Japanese government, by the standards set in the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, has an internationally ignominious status in this respect. The concluding observations on Japan of the Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that it is "concerned at the lack of a comprehensive plan of action to prevent and combat child prostitution, child pornography and trafficking of children."

Many people are concerned about children being exposed to violence scenes and explicit expressions of sex through mass media and video games. Social self-discipline in this field is lagging behind internationally. In an international perspective, Japanese society is aberrant in that the child is a big market for corporations to make profits by stimulating children to buy as many goods as possible.

Children are technically barred from the soccer lottery, but the fact is that they are involved in gambling over soccer game results. It is impermissible that the government and the Education, Science and Technology Ministry are indirectly taking bets from children.

The urgent task is for Japanese society to make up for its backwardness in this regard and to establish social self-discipline to guarantee the sound development of children.

- Guarantee the child the right to express opinions and participate in society -- In order to build a hopeful and positive world for children, it is necessary to guarantee children the right to express their opinions and participate in society in schools, local communities, and in various fields of society.

Juvenile crimes and other problems have various causes. However, many experts and people concerned point out that an underlying cause of these problems is that children's self-affirmative feelings and self-esteem are deeply hindered. If children lack self-esteem, the logical consequence is that they also lack in the feelings of respecting others as fellow humans.

It is deplorable that Japan ranks very low in an international comparison in terms of percentage of children who regard themselves as worthy and who feel self-contentment in their own identity.

It is very important to create the climate at home, in local communities, and at schools in which children will receive the solid sense that they are held in esteem for their human values and feel assured that their existence is affirmatively accepted.

To that end, efforts will be needed to set up a system that guarantees children the right to freely express their opinions, receive respect for their opinions, and allows them to participate in society. Only when children can see themselves as indispensable members of society can they grow into an adult who holds himself or herself and others in esteem and abides by socially just norms.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates as follows: "States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child." A major international movement concerning children is one of ensuring their social participation, such as allowing them to take some part in school administration. In Japan, a new movement has arisen to call for schools, local communities, and other forums to allow children to express their opinions and participate. It is essential to support this positive force.

- Grassroots efforts to help children's sound development -- The JCP will promote and support grassroots movements through joint efforts by parents, local communities, and schools to help children's growth, listen to their concerns, and give them support. Children will acquire civic morals through actual human and social relations instead of just empty words.

A variety of efforts to develop rich human relations among children are under way in many parts of Japan. These attempts include the book club movement, circles for theater-and-movie goers, sports and rhythmic calisthenics, tours in nature and society, and the setting up of independent children's organizations. Many self-support organizations of parents suffering from problems over child-rearing, such as bullying, delinquency, school non-attendance, and social withdrawal, have come into being. It is essential for the JCP to support these grassroots movements and to seek ways to solve the problems together.

Civic morals are not something that can prevail by strengthened government control, regulation and orders from above. Far from solving the issues, such government control will only exert harmful effects. A cabinet minister's remark that the parents of a criminal boy deserves punishment and retaliation is a recent example of government irresponsibility.

Ways to solve this issue will develop by supporting citizens' voluntary efforts. The JCP calls for a national discussion and movement to overcome the crisis in social morals in order to create a society that guarantees children a future to realize sound personal development. (To be continued)