Takako Doi, a former head of the Social Democratic Party, was once a symbol of political forces that held up the banner of protecting Japan's postwar Constitution, in particular its war-renouncing Article 9.
Her death at the age of 85 last month came just as the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has moved to reinterpret the Constitution to enable the nation to engage in collective self-defense.
Although Doi's passion and energy in her advocacy of the pacifist principles should not be forgotten, those who try to follow her path need to learn from her and her party's weaknesses that resulted in their eventual failure to win broad and sustained popular support.