April、 2010、My Opinion of this week
My opinion of this week(674):
Is Japan law-governed country?
The statute of limitations on the 1995 shooting of then-National Police Agency
Commissioner-General Takaji Kunimatsu expired on Tuesday. Nine hours after the
expire of statute of limitations, Goro Aoki, head of the Public Security
Bureau of the Metropolitan Police Department, held a news conference Tuesday.
I was quite surprised with what he said in this conference. He asserted that
the shooting was "an organized and thoroughly planned terrorist act by members
of Aum Shinrikyo under the instructions of the guru Chizuo Matsumoto." Honestly
speaking, many people including myself think that way. The police has
investigated this case under this assumption for many years and people have
expected the case will be solved in along with the line of that assumption
sooner or later. But that has never happened. The police cannot catch any
criminals concerned with this case.
How can Goro Aoki of MPD say that sort of thing at the press conference, under
such conditions? That is my basic question when I saw the press conference.
Almost no TV stations mentioned any doubts like mine in that evening as far as
I knew.
My suspicion was answered by the editor of Asahi Newspaper on Wednesday when
I read it. The editor said and I quote: " Aum Shinrikyo may have been an
extremely vicious cult, but that is not the issue here. He (Goro Aoki of MPD)
asserted that the shooting was "an organized and thoroughly planned terrorist
act by members of Aum Shinrikyo under the instructions of the guru Chizuo
Matsumoto." It is unheard of for an investigative organ to conclusively tie a
specific group to a crime after the statute of limitations has expired and
without an indictment against a single identifiable suspect. The MPD is a
criminal investigation organization, not a court of justice. The department
should not be allowed to one-sidedly determine someone's guilt without
offering the suspect an opportunity to rebut in defense."
That's right. I agree with this statement of the editorial without any
reservation. In comparison with this editorial of Asahi Newspaper, the
editorial of Nikkei Newspaper on Wednesday evaluated the fact that MPD
has opened the whole process of their investigation concerning possible
involvement of AUM on this criminals. While the editor mentioned some doubt
about the protection of the rights of suspects concerning MPD's assertion,
they surely evaluated MPD's move of opening the process of their investigation
by saying it meets the public interest. Ｉ was quite surprised again to read
this stance of the editorial of Nikkei Newspaper which represents one of major
mass media in this country.
If Aum was responsible, why didn't the police arrest its members? The police
statement sounds like sour grapes. Was it made out of spite or to save face?
It is the job of the police to bring crime cases before a court, but in this
case, they failed. They put all of their investigation process on AUM on
their home page of Internet. Pointing the finger of guilt at someone on the
Internet without bringing the case to trial is tantamount to punishing that
person while not showing one's face.
It is not fair. It disregard the sprit of the law that says "equal justice
under the law." I am anxious to see what kind of actions the court will take
on the request of Aleph, the main organization that emerged from the AUM to
remove the home page of MPD which describes the process of investigation
concerning AUM involvement.
The court will answer to my basic question as I put the title on this ''My
opinion of this week''. Is Japan law governed country?
2010/4/3
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(675):
Tuition-waiver program for snoozing high school
Tuition-waiver program for high school has been realized at the diet
recently. I agree with the basic idea of the law itself. A number of
arguments have been made on the program at the diet but I felt they lack a
kind of most important point. I wrote about it in my BLOG on February 26
titled "lacks of basic arguments on tuition-waiver program for high school".
I qustioned about the way to justify the need of the program on the
ground that high school education become now a sort of cumpulsory education
for more than 90% of junior high school graduates go to high school today.
This is the reason why tuition of high school is to be waivered by a nation.
That way of thinking is not right at all according to my idea. I think
it is quite necessary to examine first whether or not high school education
in this country attains the target set by Ministry of Education and Science
in charge before preparing such tuition-waiver program. There are a lot of
doubt about the level of attainment against the target.
I was quite convinced that I am quite right on my thought when I read the
news article of Nikei Newspaper on Thursday. The article reported the result
of research made by Japan Youth Research Institute on behavior of high school
students in four coutries, i.e. Japan, Korea, China and US.
Surprising enough, the reseach says 45.1% of Japanese high scholl students
are snoozing during their daily classes. Those rate are 32.3% for Korea,
20.8% for US and 4.7% for China respectively. The research adds the fact
that Japanese high school students are generally negative gressive to
participate in class without making many questions. How can they participate
in class aggresively while they are snoozing so much?
According to such research, it is obvious that there exists some basic
problems on high school education in Japan compared with other countries
as we see it. It seems that they are not attaining the necessary targets set
by Ministry of Education and Science without any doubt.
I remember serious cases happened at Japanese high schools in 2006 concerning
nonattainment of curriculum set by Ministry of Education for all high schools
in Japan. A number of high schools could not follow any necessary curriculum
set as the target to attain during three years education periods. They did
not even provide several subjects necessary to learn as high school graduates.
They made false reports on it to local school education boards.
The reason for such malfunction of high school management come from the fact
that all high schools in Japan become a kind of preparatory schools to enter
colleges. They tend to negelect some subjects which are not necessary to learn
to enter colleges. The main purpose of high school education is to prepare for
entrance exams for colleges.
The argument develop into some basic questions on the quality of collge
education after high school education in this country. Japanese college
students do not seem to learn so hard at all compared with other countries
such as Korea, China and US. There will be another reports on the comparison
of collges student behavior in each countries as the one we see on that of
high school povided by Youth Research Institute.
The whole issue is that we should discuss the quality of high school education
itself and before and after education of high school in this country in along
with such tuition-waiver programs. It is fine to say that high school
education is now necessary to provide to whole young students as basic right
of people of Japan. The tution should be paid by the coutry as a result for
high school education is now necessary and basic right of children of people
of this country.
Such assertion is not necessarily right at all from my point of views.
Yes, it is now basically necessary to provide high school education for
young people. But at the same time, it is the basic duty for all students to
attain some fundamental achiement through such education. How can they attain
such achievement while they are snoozing at classes?
Six years schooling at elementary school and three years schooling at junior
high school in Japan are called 'Gimu Kyouiku' which are refered to as basic
right for children to get as Japanese national. It is basic right but it is
basic duty as well. I want to say it again. The english translaion of 'Gimu
Kyouiku'is 'compulsory education'. There should be more enforcement by
education authorities to attain the target set by central government.
How can they allow snoozing at classes of high school? All lawmakers, education
boards, school staffs. mass media and general public must come back to this
basic question before they argue the necessity of tuition waiver programs in
this country.
2010/4/10
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(676):
Japan is not a tributary nation to US
"By far the biggest loser of the extravaganza was the hapless and (in the
opinion of some Obama administration officials) increasingly loopy Japanese
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He reportedly requested but got no bilat.
The only consolation prize was that he got an "unofficial" meeting during
Monday night's working dinner. Maybe somewhere between the main course and
dessert? ・・・・But Hatoyama's party, the Democratic Party of Japan, said
it wanted to reexamine the agreement and to propose a different plan. It
is supposed to do that by May. So far, nothing has come in over the
transom. Uh, Yukio, you're supposed to be an ally, remember? Saved you
countless billions with that expensive U.S. nuclear umbrella? Still buy
Toyotas and such?" -Washinton Post April 15
I started this message referring rather long parts of article of Washington
Post dated April 15 as above. This is because the article is main issue here.
What's an irreverent article it is! Is this the way that such top class US
mass as Washington Post write above the behavior of Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama of Japan, the biggest and important alliance partner to US?
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano expressed displeasure Thursday with
a Washington Post column that called Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama
"increasingly loopy," saying it lacked due courtesy to a national leader.
"The column used an expression that was somewhat discourteous to a country's
prime minister," Hirano said at a news conference, adding that the two
leaders' conversation over dinner still provided "a meaningful opportunity"
even if it was short."
I don't think Hirofumi Hirano's message is not appropriate enough to express
sense of displeasure as a Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan. Why did he
criticize Al Kamen, the writer of this article, for making such kind of
evaluation to divide attendance to the Nuclear Security Summit into winners
and losers? It was the summit concerned with Nuclear Security not with any
bilateral diplomatic issues between each nations and US. How Al Kamen can
evaluate President Hu Jintao of China as No.1 winner in this summit and
evaluate Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama as the worst looser in the summit? It
is the summit of Nuclear Security. The Summit is not the place to discuss
any bilateral relation of each countries and US.
When it comes to the current bilateral relation between Japan and US, there
are many important matters lying ahead, for sure. Transfer of Futenma Air
Base to some other air bases is one big issue. It is sure that Prime Minister
Yukio Hatoyamais greatly responsible for some confusion occurred on this
matter since the change of power last August. It is true that Yukio Hatoyama
has not necessarily taken appropriate actions on this matter which caused some
unnecessary confusions for two nations.
We understand some frustration and concerns on the side of US on this matter.
The place to transfer in Okinawa was agreed already with the former Cabinet
of ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) and New Komei Party and US. Japan
must basically follow to this agreement because it is a diplomatic promise
between two nations.
But there occurred the change of power in last August in Japan. It is natural
for Hatoyama Cabinet to seek some possibility to change the original plan
settled by the old regime. It is one of a manifest for DPJ (Democratic Party
of Japan) to change the original plan provided that a new plan were agreed by
both US and local prefectures.
Under this circumstance, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama promised to US and
people of Japan to present his plan by the end of May. It seems very difficult
for him to present such plan by that promised date, but the only way is for
both US and Japan is to wait for the proposal to be presented by Hatoyama
Cabinet. Any evaluation is to start after that. How can Washington Post, one
of a news media in US blame Yukio Hatoyama that way calling him loopy ? That's
not the way it is. Japan is an independent country and not a tributary
nation to US.
We Japanese people all know the importance of any promise made with any
foreign countries by any administrations of this nation. But people of Japan
obviously expressed some sort of different intention to change this diplomatic
affairs by realizing the change of power. Such democratic country as US should
understand this fact and accept some of the approach which Hatoyama Cabinet
tries to do concerning the transfer of Futenma Air Base at this time. There
is no reason for Al Kamen to call Yukio Hatoyama 'loopy' because of what
he is trying to do at the moment.
The only thing that Chief Secretary Hirofumi Hirano can do is to express
displeasure against such unreasonable statement made by Washinton Post. They
are just a private paper, nothing more than that at any rate. I have a great
discontent against Japanese mass media in other way. Most of them just report
this kind of foreign articles of foreign media as they are without any
critical comments or evaluation. Why do any Japanese mass media not express
their displeasure or criticism against such unreasonable and unpleasant
message made by Al Kamen of Washington Post?
If I were a columnist or writer of some Japanese newspapers, I would criticize
the way Al Kamen write such message at this time. I would criticize him for
the article is not only quite discourteous against the top leader of a nation but
also quite inadequate to make such evaluation itself on the light of the
purpose of summit meeting at this time.
2010/4/17
Tadashi HAYASE
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