25 April, 2013

American soldiers wrote Japan's constitution

I am not very politically minded, but it seems to me strange for Japan to have a constitution written by US soldiers (in under 10 days). I don't know what it will mean for this nation, but Japan's current Prime Minister wants to revise his nation's post-war constitution.

Added a few hours later:

I posted a link to this post on my Facebook page and a friend and colleague (who was a lawyer, now a missionary in Japan) added this link with far more information. This article tells us that the constitution went through many drafts and did have input from the Japanese government and people.

Here I quote from the article:
MacArthur invited Japanese review and revision of the constitution between 1948 and 1949 to insure that it reflected the free will of the Japanese people. Constitutional scholar Shoichi Koseki has noted that there was little response, despite vocalized concern over foreign authorship. . . . According to Koseki, the fact that the Japanese government and people disregarded the opportunity to change the constitution when invited to do so, indicates an early level of support that renders the claim of foreign imposition moot.
The constitution has never been altered since it was adopted in 1947. It will be interesting to see if the current Prime Minister manages to get some revision done.

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