They seemed to do so well when meeting with victims of the tsunami last year. I was very impressed by their heartfelt attempts to try and ease some of the pain of the victims.
Yes, I quite agree.
Thanks, ChiaraC
It is admittedly very difficult for me to genuinely comprehend that you can gag an Emperor or that you would even attempt to gag an Emperor.
Or that you can treat the Imperial family like that. - That's why this is so facinating for me and I truly appreciate your patient explanations.
Thank you for the compliment.
It is always a pleasure.
Besides, this is a matter that I feel people should know about.
Cultural differences are certainly very important, in many respects. In this point I agree with Albina. Shortly after the Fukushima disaster, a woman was being interviewed in TV. She was born in Germany but was married to a Japanese and was living with him and their baby son in Japan. After the catastrophe, she came to visit her family in Germany with her baby because she wanted to protect her little son from radiation. She said that her husband as well as her in-laws judged her as selfish. In fact, they were so angry with her that they refused to answer her calls. As a consequence, she had no idea how they were doing and was very worried about their well-being...
There seems to be a big cultural difference between Germany and Japan in terms of what is being judged as selfish behaviour. If the woman had come to Germany by herself, leaving her Japanese relatives behind, I think that many here, too, would have thought that she was letting them stand alone. But if it was to save her baby, everybody would understand this motive here. In Japan not, obviously. (Generally speaking, Japanese people are traditionally required to always put their duty (to their lord) over their family, including their children.)
This at least partly explains that such a story like the one with the radioactive milk can even happen. (To make sure that we all know what we are talking about: The imperial family has a farm that is managed by the Imperial Household Agency. It produces organic vegetables, eggs, meat, and milk for use in the imperial household. Unfortunately, since the Fukushima disaster there are elevated levels of radiation in the region where the farm is located. Still, the IHA has kept sending the products to the imperial household - and five-year-old Prince Hisahito happens to be very fond of the milk from the farm...)
On one hand, it can in my opinion happen very easily that people could judge the imperial family as selfish if the royals should make use of any privileges, for themselves or for their children. On the other hand, it is really absurd that they would feed their one precious male heir radioactive milk. For whatever reason, there have been many childless couples in the imperial family in the last two generations. Two out of Emperor Hirohito´s four sons - Prince Chichibu and Prince Takamatsu - remained childless. Also the brother of Emperor Akihito has no children. This means that if they rely on but one heir – Prince Hisahito – to continue the family line they are - already - playing a rather risky game. If they now put this heir´s fertility even more in danger by feeding him radioactive milk, one begins to wonder if Japan´s monarchists are running for some odd sort of Darwin Award...
(“In the spirit of Charles Darwin, the Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chances of long-term survival. Accidental self-sterilization also qualifies.”
Wikipedia)
Incidentally, just for the record, it is not just imperial children who are given radioactive food. A Tokyo senior has initiated
a campaign to get elderly people to eat rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture. While you may think this a very extreme example of the famous Japanese spirit that glorifies self-sacrifice, you should be aware of the alternative. You may think that nobody should eat this contaminated rice, whether young or old, and that the farmers should be recompensed (and relocated). But obviously that is too expensive. Instead, the farmers are obliged to sell their rice in order to survive themselves. While understandably a lot of people hesitate to buy it, there are actually no regulations obliging restaurants and makers of "bento" (boxed lunches) to list the origins of the rice they use. As a consequence, customers have no possibility to make a choice between restaurants that offer contaminated rice and others that do not. Obviously, this may very well lead to children eating Fukushima rice.
Second, concerning the silencing of the emperor (or the re-interpretation of his words in a way that is politically more convenient), one has to say that there is a very old tradition in Japan to use the emperor as a mere figurehead. In fact, a lot of emperors were enthroned as children and abdicated in their twenties to make room for the next boy-emperor. Emperor Go-Daigo (1288 – 1339) became famous for his attempt to restore direct imperial rule. That he would make this attempt while none of his predecessors had ever rebelled against the Kamakura shogunate since it had been established in 1192 becomes less surprising if you realize that most of the 13 emperors between 1192 and 1318 (when Go-Daigo ascended) were boy-emperors which means they took the throne at age 1-13 and abdicated once they were in their twenties. (Two emperors were 21 and 22, respectively, but they did not reign for long.) If you compare that to the average age of ascension of European monarchs, the difference is striking. That Henry V of England died when his heir was but a few months old, was a huge problem at the time. A king was required to make decisions and lead his troops into battle. A child hardly fit the job description. In contrast, Japan´s emperors for centuries solely served as a source of legitimation for those who held the real power. A grown up man with a strong will and opinions of his own was not needed and sometimes even a hindrance. In fact, there are rumours that Emperor Komei (1831 – 1867) was murdered for exactly this reason.
All it basically takes is for a member of the Imperial family to speak out to a foreign newspaper. Then what? What will, what can the "establishment" do? Put the Imperial family under house arrest? They are under house arrest.
Depends, of course. But if you ask me, I´d say the most probable scenario in such a case would be that such an event would be front-page news in the international press while the Japanese media would completely ignore it. And, honestly, I do not know what would happen to a royal who would really take a stand. Maybe this is why the emperor never admits to being aware of the political impact of his statements. But he is not a puppet. Imo, he is doing a brilliant job in getting across what he really thinks.
