Defense Minister Kyuma is Gone: Shouganai
Note: This piece is a something of a precursor to a longer editorial by TPR’s Garrett DeOrio that is due to be published soon. We will be in certain disagreement.
Inevitable.
That’s the word the English-language media used to translate former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma’s remarks surrounding the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Inevitable.
In Japanese, the word he used was shouganai. The use of this word has spurred quite a bit of commentary in the Japanese press. The Asahi Shimbun has attempted to bridge the language gap with an article entitled, “Kyuma should know bombs aren’t inevitable,” which offers the explanation that shouganai “usually applies to extraordinary natural phenomena.”
Although I beg to differ with the Asahi’s interpretation (one of my former bosses used to use the phrase shouganai when referring to things that were clearly not “extraordinary natural phenomena,” such as the time when the company went bankrupt and he lost his job), that is neither here nor there. The point is that this word is highly inappropriate to use in such a situation, although I feel the Asahi’s moral grandstanding goes a bit too far (reading the Asahi piece and Mr DeOrio’s soon-to-be-published article here will show our one point of agreement).
At a question and answer session Wednesday afternoon, Kyuma told reporters, 「九州弁でしょうがないというのが口癖で、すぐに出るんですよ」, or, “In the Kyushu dialect, shoganai is a favorite expression, and it rolls right off the tongue.”
Sir, you are a politician. It’s one thing to speak your mind (which you have done recklessly in the past), but another to cause hardship for your boss this close to an election and after having already been told to watch what you say in public.
I have called for his resignation twice here at TPR, once after his misguided statements that the Japanese government did not officially support the war in Iraq (a war in which Japan has had soldiers on the ground), and a second time after Kyuma claimed the US invaded Iraq on the premise that Iraq had nuclear weapons (certainly, the US used every other false pretense in the book, but not this one).
Whether what he said was right or wrong does not matter. It means nothing. I might agree with him to some extent, but the point is that this is a political issue. As a politician and a party member, he bears a responsibility to not cause trouble, again and again. The timing (just before an election), the nuance (shouganai) and the fact that his boss had already told him to be careful with public comments makes his comments inexcusable. Not to mention, it highlights the Prime Minister’s incompetence at keeping his Cabinet in line.
I believe Abe should have had the guts to fire him, instead of letting him step down.
However, until the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, it was difficult to maintain that Kyuma was the world’s worst defense chief. When Rumsfeld stepped down, Kyuma backed into the spot, not really having earned it, but nonetheless cemented in place. I figured it was a matter of time until he said something like, “The US let us attack Pearl Harbor,” or, “We should move on China next week,” or, “It’s was inevitable that the US dropped atomic bombs on us.” Kyuma was a verbal time bomb just waiting for the wrong press conference.
I’m going to cut this short here, for two reasons: 1) This should be developed into a longer piece, and 2) This was meant to be about the incoming Defense Secretary, Yuriko Koike.
The media has already put Koike in a different light, with Reuters publishing, “Japan’s first woman defence head has wardrobe woes,” yesterday.
Check out this photo. What the hell is she wearing?
Garrett, it’s all yours.
Related Posts:
- Seijigiri #23: Abe, Aso and Kyuma to the US, and the state of constitutional reform in Japan
- Seijigiri #28: The Upper House Campaign Gets Underway, Kyuma and Koike
- When a Gaffe is Not a Gaffe and Why It Matters
- TPR News: Thursday, January 25, 2007 - Abe’s approval ratings, Kyuma’s knock on Bush, and education reform
- TPR News: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - Six Party talks, Tom Lantos, Abe’s popularity and Aso’s “Arc of Freedom and Properity”
