To be clear, the title of this column is not a rhetorical question intended to imply the answer "No." Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his fellow Liberal Democratic Party retro-nauts want to change the Constitution, so clearly it means something, just as it probably means something to millions of Japanese people who just endured the annual Golden Week 14-kilometer traffic jam, Constitution Day (May 3) being a national holiday. But what?
Last week the charter celebrated its 69th birthday in the usual way: by being largely ignored at celebrations held in its honor. One of the fascinating things about Japan's Constitution is the ability of people to discuss it reverentially without getting into what it actually says. Sort of like the way some people approach the Bible.
The first week of May was "Constitution Week." The Tokyo government celebrated it with an event pairing a screening of "The Finishers" — a French movie about a father and his wheelchair-bound son doing an Iron Man triathlon — with a speech by a former Olympian Japanese politician about raising a disabled child. The same week, courts around the nation held events along the theme of "See the inside of a court/Experience a trial!" Such events are related to the Constitution, of course, in the same way Microsoft products are related to you reading this column, but that connection alone doesn't make this a column about Microsoft.