BIG IN JAPAN
Shintaro Ishihara
 Amongst the nameless, faceless bureaucrats who run this country, Shintaro
Ishihara stands out as a politician most people actually know something about. Moreover he
is famous rather than infamous; he is known for his achievements and for possessing
opinions (and expressing them) rather than for being caught with his hands on the family
silver, as seems to be the primary reason most politicians achieve household-name status
in Japan.
Expressing non-consensual opinions in a country where mutual agreement is expected has
earned Ishihara the label of being a "nationalist" - a dirty word given Japan'
war-mongering past when the political arena is dominated by silent liberals for whom
boat-rocking is shameful.
Born in 1932 in Hyogo Prefecture, Ishihara shot to fame as a university student when his
book, "Taiyo no Kisetsu" (Seasons of the Sun), won the prestigious
Akutagawa Award in 1955. For a long time famous for being the brother of actor and
nationalist Yujiro Ishihara, Ishihara reached the political high ground in the 1980s and
served as Minister of Transport. At one point tipped as a potential prime minister,
Ishihara quit national politics in 1995 in protest at the lack of vision of his fellow
legislators.
 Ishihara has managed to offend almost
everyone at one point or another. With Sony's Akio Morita he co-wrote in 1989 "The
Japan That Can Say No," a book widely interpreted as anti-American. Perhaps most
damaging, his claim that the Rape of Nanking was a "fabrication," whilst
lambasting China for its treatment of Tibet, riled the Chinese government. He has called
on the US to give up its air base at Yokota, believes that poor people should eat barley
instead of rice, and has spoken bluntly about the ineptitude of the national government.
With these opinions on record, when Ishihara was comfortably elected governor of Tokyo
last April it naturally aroused international interest, with the predictable concerns of
resurgent Japanese nationalism. However, most political analysts agree that Ishihara's
election was primarily a vote against status quo LDP-style politics in favor of new
thinking, blunt talk and clarity of expression. As one voter told ABC News at the time,
"I wouldn't have bothered voting if Ishihara hadn't been running. He's outspoken,
he's cool. I voted for his leadership."
One story often cited to explain Ishihara's point of view dates back to the Occupation,
when Ishihara was a boy. A group of US soldiers were walking into the village where
Ishihara lived. As they did so, all the villagers turned and bowed - except Ishihara, who
continued walking along, head high, eating an ice cream. One of the soldiers playfully
smacked him over the top of the head, took his ice cream and started licking it. Ishihara
felt humiliated in front of all his friends and neighbors, and has never forgotten it to
this day.
As he has admitted privately, Ishihara doesn't mean everything he says but rather uses
wild rhetoric to try and encourage the Japanese to stand up for themselves. It remains to
be seen to what extent he is all words and no action, but with increasing regional
instability, an economy that remains deeply troubled and a worrying level of political
disillusionment in Japan, it could be that a bit of boat-rocking is not such a bad thing.
Charles Spreckley
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