The fatal stabbing of an independent-minded Diet member by an unbalanced ultrarightist last month raised the specter of the kind of political terrorism seen in pre-World War II Japan. If the global economy should worsen, could Japan once again fall into ultranationalism?
A timely new book by Rika Kayama examines the emergence of an unthinking and unselfconscious new nationalism among the younger generation in Japan, which she calls "petit nationalism" (nationalism lite). In "Puchi nashonarizumu shokogun" (The Petit Nationalism Syndrome; Chuko Shinsho), Kayama, a psychiatrist and social commentator, considers the implications of the new patriotism on display in, for example, the singing (often by "idol" singers) of the traditional national anthem at sporting events, and the waving of small Japanese flags at the World Cup games.
She is startled that young people today, unlike their parents' generation, can say "I love Japan" without any sense of ambivalence or irony. Similarly, they can say "I love my father" or "My dad is the greatest," as in a recent series of TV ads, without the mixed feelings and resentments of a generation raised by strict and domineering fathers. In the world of psychiatry as well, practitioners are seeing fewer cases centering around conflict with the father and more cases of separation issues involving the mother.