Scrap the Constitution.(Japan needs new constitution)

On Aug. 14, 1945, the day that Japan surrendered to the allies, The New York Times ran a cartoon that celebrated the American victory--and the work still to be done. The artist depicted Japan as a hideous beast whose fangs were being extracted by an American GI. In other words, while the "monster" had indeed fallen, the more difficult task remained of defanging it completely.

Now, more than 50 years later, it appears the Americans did their job all too well. Japan's Constitution, including the controversial "peace clause" renouncing war as a sovereign right, was drawn up by Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staffers in short order, not long after the country's surrender, and it has remained the law of the land ever since. But even as early as the Korean War, American officials began to reimagine Japan as a useful strategic ally in its cold-war fight. The Japanese people, however, less easily overcame the trauma of the country's first defeat as a modern state. The subconscious, masochistic feelings of servility and dependence toward America remained even after the San Francisco Treaty had been concluded in 1952 and the country regained its independence. At that moment Japan forsook the task of formulating its own Constitution, something that would have marked its true independence as a nation-state. It's time now for the Japanese people to lay claim to a responsibility abandoned for decades: the Constitution--which shackles the country by its hands and feet--must be totally created anew.

Before he died, I got to know Jiro Shirasu, an aide to the then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who had been one of the Japanese participants in the Constitution-drafting process at the time. In response to my criticism of the way the current ...