War and Peace, War and Peace, Rinse and Repeat - All Over Again

Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder and first supreme military commander (Shogun) of the Edo/Tokugawa Period (1603 to 1868), who only carried on the work of banning Christianity from Japan, that his predecessor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, began when he issued an 11 point edict denouncing the Christian faith in 1587

As many scholars of historical affairs in Asia well know, on the face of it, the Japanese Expulsion Edicts of the Tokugawa Shogunate that finally put the icing on the xenophobic cake in 1635 and 1639 were primarily aimed at booting out foreign Christian missionaries and the like. These laws were also conveniently designed to restrict trade and curb illegal activities that were commonly being engaged in by agents of various European nations in Japan in the 16th and early 17th centuries.  'Cause, sorry, the United States simply didn't exist at that time, of course.

And quite naturally, when viewing the whole matter from a Western style perspective, by today's standards, it seems "evil" and far too heavy handed for the Japanese government that was in power at the time, to have resorted to state condoned violence and outright murder to carry out the whole-scale persecution of both Christians and foreigners in general, who were unfortunate enough to have been living and/or working in Japan at the time.

But consider the fact that, prior to the Tokugawa Expulsion Edicts, quite a number of business savvy (greedy) individuals and private interest groups, with nationalistic and religious motives, were commonly at each others' throats over matters of mostly foreign import on Japanese soil.  You know; good old foreign intrigue and derisiveness.  And all in a Japan that had only recently emerged from a period of great internal strife, with the usual sets of powerful homegrown clans all vying for the coveted, super supreme title of Shogun.  Or rather, sei-i taishōgun (征夷大将軍), or, the vaunted generalissimo, the military commander and chief of all Japan - a magnanimous title which eventually, as the name of the last shogunate so handily indicates, ended up in the hands of the victorious Tokugawa family.

At any rate, a very big part of why the Expulsion Edicts eventually came about, is because the Spanish and Portuguese, with their powerful navies, had been the first to establish, then exploit and dominate, most types of trade between Europe and Asia.  When the English and Dutch eventually got in on the act, however, things really got ugly.  Well... much, much more competitive, anyway.  Let's put it that way.  Especially since, at the time, the Spanish and Portuguese were primarily Roman Catholics, and the English and Dutch were avowed, newly christened Protestants.

So essentially, the situation could be more succinctly defined this way:  A handful of European Christian sects were at war with one another on foreign soil.  But what they all really wanted (beyond the religiously fueled self righteous reasons they most often cited as an excuse to smite their enemies), was to have the Biblical lion's share of control in foreign trade to and from once fabled Japan.  In other words, the Spanish and Portuguese didn't appreciate the upstart English and Dutch, who most likely would have defended themselves by saying that they were just entitled to their own piece of lip smacking Nippon cherry pie.

Simple.  It all makes sense, really.  I mean, doesn't it?  One can persecute the religious and call for the outright ban of religions everywhere, but whether it's politics, or fashion, or race or... whatever, what people are usually after in any conflict, great or small, is the three basic things that have always made the world go around: money, power and face (aka, fame).  Get a hold of any one of these coveted three, and the other two will surely follow.  Eventually.  Sooner or later.  One way or another.

Until you lose one of the coveted triumvirate, that is.  And then the whole process seems to curiously reverse itself.  For example; lose face, and your money and power eventually goes into the crapper, too.  Hmm.

So anyway... interestingly enough, all this foreign squabbling on Japanese soil during the early 17th century quite naturally provided just the right mix of powerful incendiary sparks needed for the Tokugawa government to get the now somewhat curious, but perhaps understandable idea (now conveniently viewed in hopefully 20/20 21st century hindsight), that ALL Christians really must be PURE, UNADULTERATED EVILDOERS!

But why?  I mean... these days, everybody knows that Christians are the good guys, right?  It's them Muslims and Jews that are behind all the world's major conflicts!  Right!  I mean... right?  And.. and those... those nasty, barbaric Japanese Buddhist/Shinto people!  How DARE they murder men and women of God?  Men and women of abiding Christian faith, who, even though they claimed to worship the same God (and even espoused almost the exact same versions of the same ancient religious texts), were still over there, in someone else's country (as the Japanese must have surely seen it), busily plotting, planning, speaking, and doing all sorts of nasty things to one another.  And all just to get total control of Japanese trade.  Whether any of them would actually admit to that or not.

Hmm.

Sort of reminds me of what it looks and feels like, while living abroad in Asia, when Democrats and Republicans in American politics publicly sling massive quantities of mud at one another, for all the world to see.  And on an alarmingly regular basis, too.

And how bloody, bloody EMBARRASSING is THAT?

But... here's the thing:  True democracy is like that, isn't it?  I mean, cats and dogs gotta fight sometimes you know.  What would dogs be without cats?  What would cats be without dogs?  Content?  Maybe.  For a while, at least.  And let's be perfectly honest, shall we?  In places where there is precious little democracy and religious freedom is officially guaranteed by law (though few practice it, because... it's curiously enough... just not very popular - even in those places like "modern" China, where people of faith really ARE persecuted - despite the letter of the law), people STILL fight amongst themselves!  They still go at it over all sorts of things.  You know, all the same crap that humans have always squabbled over.  Of course.

Simple.

So it seems that even, and especially democracy, not only thrives on, but REQUIRES debate.  CONFLICT!  Good old (bad old) fashioned squabbling.  Cat calls, smoldering dog turds left in other people's backyards, whining, mud slinging, and pissing and moaning about just about every damn thing under the sun, for crying out loud!  I mean, for Crike's sake, it's all so very MESSY!  Embarrassing even.  And why do mom and dad always have to fight like that?  For that matter, why do the kids at school have to pick on one another?  Gee!  Sheesh!  That pesky HUMAN RACE!

But... at least that way, the way of war, when the dust settles, in the wake of every major (or minor) conflict in human history, at the very least, we all know where we stand, right? Yes, it is the often derisive, divisive, combative nature of a true democratic process that actually moves and changes things!

Imagine that.

But war is so damned ugly.  Even wasteful.  Shameful.  Foul.  Well, any kind of conflict is, is it not?  That's why there have always been wars and intrigue of every kind, I suppose.  And most importantly, I guess (no, I'm SURE), that's why the idea of chivalry grew up out of the constant, bloody, and often quite savage internal strife that marked the Medieval European landscape.  I mean, come on!  Us whities (and people of other ethnicities in Europe too, now, so don't kid yourself) were STILL going at it up into the 20th century, when not one but TWO major world wars resulted in the death of MILLIONS.  And millions more who suffered globally because of the conflict.

So what's the answer?  Well, let's chuck religion, shall we?  Throw that screaming, self righteous, selfish, overly needy little baby out with the bathwater once and for all, why don't we?  That'll surely end ALL of man's ills!  That'll surely bring peace and stability to everyone, once and for all.

Except that... in the aftermath of the Tokugawa Expulsion Edicts, after the Japanese government had violently purged most foreigners, and murdered hundreds of foreign priests, preachers, lay people and scores of their native born converts, Japan still continued to march ever onward toward the next step in the country's perhaps inevitable evolution.

Now, this is the part where us new young kids, the Americans, come in, see.  Despite all the seclusion and state sanctioned xenophobia that the Tokugawa Shoguns so effectively imposed in Japan, the "Edo" period (as the Tokugawa Shogunate is also called) eventually ground to a screeching halt.  And modern American gunboats and their crews were there to see the inevitable changing of the guard, as a whole new era of Japanese history was ever so painfully ushered in.

Okay... it's all a little complicated, of course, but suffice it to say that even though "the great peace" that the Tokugawa family brought to Japan, by kicking out the foreign devils, and retreating back into its own heavily armored and carefully lacquered and beautifully decorated Samurai tortoise shell, somehow... the lowest of the low in Japanese society eventually, somehow got the better of the long reigning military class.

Yes, the merchants did it!  And the lowest of the low, they once truly were.  Even lower on the Japanese societal ladder than the peasants, believe it or not.  But at least they were JAPANESE merchants, right?  Not those nasty barbarian, overly religious, money grubbing foreigners, right?  Well, at any rate, by the end of the Tokugawa period, the Medieval Japanese caste system had been turned on its head, and the masters of domestic Japanese trade were lavishing their wives and concubines with the finest kimono that could be fashioned from Chinese silk.  While the privileged Samurai elite themselves grew more and more impoverished, despite their state guaranteed, inherited power and prestige.

And amazingly enough, by the time the Meiji Restoration rolled around in 1868, the Samurai had even mostly lost what was left of their precious face.  What a shame.  For everyone involved, really.  Because in the end, FORCING peace upon a people who'd actually been gradually growing as a society before that (THROUGH CONFLICT) the Shoguns brought eventual stagnation and irreversible change to their own indigenous social landscape.

How Earth shattering.  The death of a Japan that will most likely never be seen again.  How terribly sad.  Well... sort of.  Change sucks, but when it comes to humans, it does seem to be essential, does it not?

But let's get back to us "meddling" Americans and all our "gunboat diplomacy," shall we?  Such sweeping changes were actually ushered in, ever so matter of factually, by Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the US Navy in 1853.  Yes, 1853.  In a little fishing village called Uraga (浦賀), Kanagawa.  The subsequent Convention of Kanagawa, that finally, officially opened Japan to the West didn't actually go down until a year later, in 1854.

So, as stubborn as they may long have been, when push finally came to shove, it seems those Japanese sure did learn quickly, huh?  After that fateful day when Perry showed up to issue his foreign ultimatums, the Japanese somehow managed to get started in the process of ushering in a whole new age.  And in just a year's time, too.  Well... it took a lot longer than that, really, and not all Japanese were eager for a change, of course.  Some, in fact, fought to the bitter end.  But still, in the end, the Japanese got with the program, didn't they?  And much, much faster than the Koreans or Chinese did, that's for damn sure.  But then, that's another story for another time, isn't it?

So what's the moral of this particular historical story?  Where's all this going, Will?

Ah!  "Ban all religion!"  That's it!  Burn all the churches, synagogues, mosques and temples!  Kill all the foreigners!  Kill all the priests, preachers, imams and rabbis!  They've ALL ruined EVERYTHING!  Since... since the Garden of Eden, dammit!  Even since then.  So let's all just be secular.  Scientific, even!  Heck!  If we all get scientific enough (if Oz, the Great and Powerful passes out enough synthetic brains, rather), we can just totally abandon all that nonsense about fictional gardens of Eden, anyway, right?  Yes, with our new found, progressive wisdom, we'll all grow ever fatter, unintentionally dumber and happier, while inventing new ways to make and display vicariously fulfilling violence and pornography.  Manga.  Yeah!  Tentacle porn!  For people of all ages.  And what's the harm in any of that, right?

Hmm.  Well, somehow, even without religion, I have a sneaking feeling that mankind will find SOMETHING or other to fight about.

No!  Don't say that!  Let's all be forcibly EQUAL!  Homogenous.  Without all that strife, and foreign born intrigue, we'll all just retreat back into the ghosts within our glittering shells and... just hibernate.  We'll all just go to sleep.  Get comfortable, and just... doze off into CULTural oblivion.  We'll all just take that long winter's nap that Godzilla keeps taking.  Until... until yet another one of those days rolls around yet again, when a newfangled, foreign made weapon of atomic age war will wake the big, dumb, long slumbering lizard up.  And the belligerent brute will wreck havoc once again upon our flimsy (but oh, so picturesque), passive little wood and paper houses.

And then, we'll all burn.

Well... not all of us, you understand.  Some of us will survive.  We'll  rise up from the ashes, the way we've always done, just like the fabled phoenix.  And it'll all start all over again - our fight, our struggle, our strife, our time to grow and change.  When yet another foreign power (this time, maybe... I don't kow... China... making a state sanctioned, merchant class funded global comeback) will prompt us to have to rebuild and once again martial our military might and nationalistic pride and prejudice to... scare the unholy, secular, living shit out the rest of the world, who themselves just want to rest in peace.

And so it goes.  And so it goes. 

~ The Japanese Expulsion Edicts of 1635 and 1639 can be found here: http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/objects/2426/2484749/chap_assets/documents/doc17_2.html