Japanese Overcome Culture, Vent Outrage Over Scandal : Politics: Public anger drives a kingpin from Parliament--in contrast to society’s usual passivity.

At first, it looked like just another political scandal in what seems to be a never-ending saga of corruption in Japan. The nation’s most powerful politician admitted publicly in August that he had taken $4.1 million in illegal campaign contributions from a business with links to gangsters.

But this time, after Liberal Democratic Party powerbroker Shin Kanemaru escaped interrogation and full-scale indictment, paid a light fine and tried to resume his political activities, the long-suffering public began to do what it has rarely done before:

The public began venting outrage--in rallies and petition drives, hunger strikes and local assembly proclamations, in public opinion polls and even acts of aggression, such as spattering the prosecutor’s office with paint.

The unusual public protests ended up forcing the kingpin to resign his parliamentary seat and quit politics Wednesday. But it remains doubtful that they will spur a sweeping reform of campaign laws similar to that spawned by Watergate in the United States or fundamentally alter the role of money in politics.

Nor is it likely that voters will toss out the ruling party in the next election; despite the series of scandals, the LDP has ruled continuously for the last 37 years.

Why do the Japanese put up with it?

Whether it is political corruption, astronomically high prices, cramped housing, slavish working conditions, repressive sex roles or medical malpractice, the typical Japanese response to life’s vicissitudes is more often than not a shrug of the shoulders, a shake of the head and the classic reply, “ Shikata ga nai “--”It can’t be helped.”

The public outrage in Kanemaru’s case, and its extraordinary impact, stand in sharp contrast to society’s usual passivity. And while there are myriad explanations offered for this seeming tolerance, there is no consensus; the issue continues to befuddle the brightest thinkers on Japan.

“Why don’t they revolt? We don’t know the answer to that,” said Chalmers Johnson, professor of Pacific international relations at UC San Diego.

Johnson said social revolt may be occurring, but in unclear forms, such as the refusal of a growing number of women to have babies in the face of harsh housing, educational and environmental conditions. And more recognizable forms of revolt occur here and there.

About 20 years ago, for instance, after commuters were forced to endure hours of being packed, sardine-like, in stalled trains, they burst out in mad fury and destroyed ticket machines in several stations. In Osaka, high fruit prices caused a mob to raid an apple orchard, and that city’s day laborers recently rioted for three days over cutbacks in government welfare assistance.

But such incidents are “one-shot things that don’t grow into anything that lasts,” said Karel van Wolferen, a Dutch journalist and trenchant observer of Japan.

To Van Wolferen, the answer is clear: The Japanese don’t tend to revolt because they have no mechanism to make it worthwhile. Unlike other nations, where a multi-party political system, active citizen watchdog groups or an aggressive media all serve as checks and balances on the system, such structures in Japan are comparatively underdeveloped, he said.

“There is no public anger because there is no way to express it collectively,” Van Wolferen said.

Mineko Otani, 36, couldn’t agree more. The free-lance writer was one of more than 20,000 who signed a statement demanding Kanemaru’s resignation in a petition drive and hunger strike sponsored by a group of local citizens and officials at the Shibuya station in Tokyo. She also sent in a postcard in response to appeals by an opposition member of Parliament for 1 million signatures.

It’s the first time, said the visibly agitated Otani, that she has found a way to voice her disgust at what she sees as widespread and entrenched political corruption.

“It just gets worse year by year,” Otani said. “But we don’t know how to resolve this unhealthy attitude toward money and politics. We’ve never changed ourselves. Somehow we just feel someone will do it for us, like America or China before that. We have no method ourselves.”

Fujio Maruyama, a 21-year-old Hosei University student majoring in politics, said he was repulsed not only by Kanemaru’s illegal deed but even more so by the lack of criticism of it from members of the ruling party. Kanemaru’s colleagues praised him for his “manly” way of admitting his offense and offering, unsuccessfully at first, to resign as chairman of the party faction led by former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita.

“For Japanese like myself with no individual power, the petition drive is a rare chance to let out my anger,” Maruyama said.

Public revolt is not only discouraged by Japan’s social structure but also by its culture and history, analysts say. A common explanation is that Japan’s rice-growing culture has long encouraged harmony and cooperative living--rice being a crop that requires teamwork to plant and harvest.

But Yoshimi Ishikawa, a noted novelist and social commentator, argues that the more persuasive answer can be summed up in one word: weapons.

Ishikawa explains that Japanese lost their revolt mentality in 1588. That’s when the country’s military ruler, the Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi, disarmed the populace, with the exception of the samurai class. Hideyoshi confiscated not only all swords but even women’s hair ornaments and other instruments that might be used as a weapon.

More than 400 years without weapons, unable to defend oneself individually, has inculcated in the Japanese the shikata ga nai mentality and relative obedience to the ruling elite, Ishikawa argues. Yesterday’s samurai have become today’s bureaucrats, still guiding the people from the top down.

“Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons,” Ishikawa said. “If you don’t have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.”

That history of disarmament heightened the value of collectivism and unity, for strength in numbers was the only way an unarmed populace could survive against the samurai, he said. It also contributed to the paucity of strong individual leaders; leading a revolt or protest meant standing out in the group, and that would only invite harassment from the feudal lords, he added.

Van Wolferen said that the lack of individual leaders was exacerbated after World War II, when rebuilding the country was entrusted to faceless but competent bureaucrats in what he called the start of Japan’s “bureaucratic authoritarianism without big names.”

Both the rice culture and lack of weapons inculcated in the Japanese their single most important absolute value-- minna , or what the commentator calls “oneness, allness, we-ness.” The right and wrong of an action are determined by whether all are doing it or not, Ishikawa argued.

That may explain why public anger really began heating up, not when Kanemaru admitted taking the money but after he was let off with a light fine. Taking money is something many politicians allegedly do, and as long as the donation is shared with the group, it is not considered as evil as using the money for personal aggrandizement--to buy a fancy house or new car, said Yoshiteru Kato, a senior research fellow of the Yomiuri Research Institute.

But a light fine--$1,666 for an illegal contribution of $4.1 million--is special treatment and therefore violates the minna principle.

Commentator Ishikawa said that Kanemaru might have been arrested had he acted alone; but charges that about 60 other members of the Takeshita faction had also received the money threw up before prosecutors the impenetrable wall of minna , he said.

“They can’t arrest the entire faction, just as the samurai couldn’t kill all the peasants,” Ishikawa said. “As long as we can hear, feel or touch the ‘allness,’ everything is acceptable.”

Another explanation for lack of revolt in Japan is that most people are generally satisfied with their lot in life.

Indeed, genuine public debate and protest were far more prevalent in the 1950s and early 1960s before Japan’s economy really took off, Van Wolferen said.

College campuses were a hotbed of activism, and then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s visit to Japan actually had to be canceled because of widespread riots aimed at the U.S. military presence.

Later, there were major battles by farmers and students opposed to the construction of an international airport in Narita and large anti-nuclear protests.

Throughout the period, Japanese films, literature and social commentary all were far more vibrant and vigorous in debating political issues of the day. There was even the view that the fledgling multi-party system would change the political guard occasionally.

But spectacular economic growth diffused Japan’s middle class as a political force, analysts say. Rising standards of living, low unemployment and good job security left workers with relatively little to grumble about.

And even when they had complaints, the heavy demands companies put on workers left them with little time or energy to voice them.

Shin Ando, a Tachikawa city council member, also sees a link between the economy and public protests. As he collected signatures for the anti-Kanemaru petition drive in Shibuya station recently, he said the nation’s current economic slowdown has given dissenting forces a boost. Young people, who are having an unusually tough time finding jobs this year, flocked to the anti-Kanemaru campaign.

“This is the first time I’ve seen young people take such an interest in political issues,” Ando said. “It’s because the economic bubble has burst and people are more dissatisfied with the system.”

Kanemaru’s departure from politics was forced by a groundswell of public opinion. More than 130 local assemblies had sent in petitions to Parliament demanding a closer investigation into who received the illegal money. Opposition parties staged their own rallies, at which citizens stepped up to the public microphone and skewered Kanemaru with satire.

Despite all the protests, Socialist member of Parliament Masao Kunihiro called the prospect for real reform “bleak.”

“Because Japan appears to be successful, that deprives us of the will to reform ourselves,” Kunihiro said. “It grieves me sick.”