Chino, Japan, July 30, 2020—It’s been known for decades that Japanese parliament plenary sessions are a wild west of fist-fighting, rugby scrumming, and snoozing while lawmakers on the podium read out whatever is written by corrupt bureaucrats. Over the recent months what’s supposed to be a sacred chamber of legislation has added a new feature: venues for lawmaking morons to study English, reading books and comics, watching an alligator swallowed by a boa constrictor and and applying to become a monitor for a health food product, all unrelated to legislative debates.
Moral and quality degradation of the Diet is nothing new. Ever since its founding some 150 years ago, the two legislative chambers have been drawing ambitious sword and hoe-swinging souls intent about building their personal wealth and comfort save a few, the likes of Renya Mutaguchi who sent tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers onto a death march in Myanmar (formerly Burma) during World War II while wining and dining with geisha far away from the frontline, or, more recently, a lawmaker secretary who had been elected to the House of Representatives in the 2000s and declared immediately that the first thing he wanted to do is to go to a ryotei (a tea house where drinks and meals are served and geisha girls dance).
In recent years, after Abe became the prime minister of this country, the degradation velocity has gone overdrive, and now, the Diet is clearly out of control becoming the chambers in which lawmaker personal interests weigh over voter pleas as is the case of current policies to dole out handouts to hospitality industries over those to prevent the corona virus pandemic spread. This week, at Abe’s instructions, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare began free distribution of 80 million face masks to medical facilities despite the fact that right now, Japan has enough numbers of personal protective equipment. Clearly, the measure is intended to mollify medical workers who had expressed anger at Abe for losing jobs as the September election of his liberal party nears.
As Abe being such a selfish, myopic man who thinks only about himself, so are many of Diet members, and so too are bureaucrats that are supposed to be politically neutral but are willing to ‘take orders’ from Abe and his cabinet ministers, as the 80 million face mask measure attests.
Tetsushi Sakamoto, former vice minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is one of many self-centered lawmakers. On July 28, the 6-term House of Rep of Abe’s ruling party, LDP, was videoed by Fuji Television studying English with a textbook while attending the House’s natural disaster committee session debating rescue policies for recent Kyushu flood victims – the area where he represents. The video was released on the internet immediately. The House’s administrative office told me that reading books while House sessions are held, including committee meetings, is prohibited. Sakamoto and his aides were not available to comment.
Sakamoto, who was interviewed by Fuji, said he regretted his act.
Sakamoto, however, was not alone doing things presumably unrelated to the committee meeting. Fuji TV said there were other lawmakers who was using tablets, PCs and smart phones while hiding the screens from the media scrutiny.
On July 25, Mainichi newspaper reported that Seiko Noda, an LDP member known to be one of candidates to succeed Abe and former minister of internal affairs and communications, was reading a nonfiction on Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, and current vice justice minister Hirosuke Yoshiie was reading a spy novel while attending Diet sessions. Former science and tech minister Takuya Hirai was watching a video of a boa constrictor swallowing an alligator at a session on May 13 to amend the Public Prosecutor Law in response to a scandal involving Hiromu Kurokawa, Tokyo high prosecutor commissioner general, Mainichi said. Yet another was spotted applying to become a monitor for a health food product from the smart phone.
Solutions to cleanse the Diet are limited. Whoever succeeds Abe, Japanese politics won’t change much. This country and its people have been so deeply immersed in the culture of paying respects to the high and powerful, called the ‘Okami,’ that until they enter critical moments such as death and starvation, they won’t change.
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