Towards True Independence: Abe Shinzo’s Nationalism

Abstract

Nationalism is on the rise in Japan. While nationalism commonly serves to distinguish one nation from another, modern Japanese nationalism does not have a national other, and it does not need one. The other of Japanese nationalism is itself, its own contemporary history that began on 15 August 1945, the day Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Powers in the Second World War. The nationalist other is Japan’s post-war history. For seven decades, the long “post-war” has endured, as Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s political slogan to “slough off the post-war regime” attests—with the rise of Abe to the premiership in December 2012, post-war Japan is dead or dying. Abe abhors the post-war agreement for its lack of “true national independence” and for the restraints it places on Japan taking its place as a “normal” nation in the region and further afield.