• The Sun God’s children and the big lie
• The Contrary Asians: The Japanese and the Sinhalese - Part III
  Japan: An Historical Outline

Continued from yesterday

The extent of repression should not surprise someone with a historical perspective. It had begun by the time the St.John’s College principal Anandarajah was killed in June 1985 and was firmly in place by mid-1986. Why such a thorough campaign to exterminate dissent by killing for example members of the some of the smaller left-oriented groups who refused to co-operate with both the governments of India and Sri Lanka, whom the LTTE would still dare not call traitors? It was to make the people accept any degree of repression they thought fit to impose, according to need. In Vanni today we are seeing its horrendous limits.

One token of this repression is the behaviour of parents when they hear that LTTE recruiters had come to their children’s school. Earlier (mid-90s) in Jaffna the parents would rush to the school and surround it and the teachers and the principal would often help the parents to safeguard their children. This pattern continued into the Vanni in 1996. But in Vanni today the situation is different.

Parents today do not rush to the school in an organised manner when the recruiters arrive. At one time the teachers and the principal used to insist on being present when the recruiters addressed the children. Today as soon as the recruiters arrive the teachers walk out of the class and there is no adult to witness the pressures being employed. Whatever civil society there was in the Vanni has been destroyed and the people have been reduced to zombies. One means used to accomplish this is direct terror. What is more damagingly effective is indirect terror. A government official is, say, given an order by the LTTE. At first it may be innocuous enough. He agrees knowing at the back of his mind that the consequences of refusal may be unpleasant. These orders progressively increase in their degree of unreasonableness and the official goes all the way until he is thoroughly caught.

When someone is more difficult, there is direct intervention. A government official was for some time firm with the Tigers about doing his job. Once he was taken away by the Tigers and given a warning. No one knows what transpired. What people saw subsequently was a broken man. When the LTTE addresses senior educationists, a casual warning is sometimes issued: "You know what happens to those who do not co-operate!"

Teachers who try to protect the children from recruiters are marked. One day a local LTTE leader may meet him alone and tell him, ‘We have reports that you are not co-operating with our recruitment drive.’ Once when recruiters arrived in school, four young girls approached a teacher and asked her, ‘Miss, may we go home?’ The teacher replied, ‘Now that they have come, it is not nice for me to let you go. You listen to them. If you are firm in your mind, they cannot do anything to you.’ Later an angry recruiter approached the teacher and said, ‘I hear you told some of the students not to join our movement!’

Other direct and more extreme forms of terror exist which are for ordinary people too unpleasant to contemplate. The people have seen dozens of bodies of persons executed and dumped on the roadsides. In the sizeable village of Puthukkudiyiruppu alone, people have seen about a hundred of such bodies during 1998. The victim with eyes and mouth tied and hands tied behind the back is brought to a public place and the people are summoned. The charges are then read out by a cadre while the victim remains speechless. While the charges are read, the spectators are also told, "We are watching many more persons, traders, farmers etc, who are doing similar things and we will act against them soon." ( Some traders stopped trading out of fear.) A pistol is then raised and a bullet fired into the forehead. The victim drops lifeless. If the victim twitches, a second bullet is fired. The crowd goes away horrified and skeptical.

Since 1999 these public executions have been very much reduced. The reason attributed for it is concern being voiced by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International. We understand that now the LTTE has reverted back to secret executions as in the early 90s. By the same token we have confirmation that a large number of detainees are being held in bunkers, in chains. Testimony comes from civilian as well as LTTE detainees.

A detainee in North-Vanni was later given some freedom of movement within the premises. He had seen detainees in chains, dishevelled and with faces covered, walking falteringly, led by guards. This was a revelation to the detainee about the kind of cruelty involved. He is also aware that nearby there were also Sri Lankan Army prisoners who were quite free to play games such as foot-ball.

LTTE cadre who wish to leave before completing 7 years are chained and kept in a bunker for 6 months, even if they have completed most of the period, had worked hard, and got injured fighting for the LTTE. They are then given a period of manual labour before being released. This has been another source of information through which we have been able to confirm that a large number of civilians are kept chained in underground bunkers.

This shows a continuity with practices we had reported in some detail in the early 90s (our reports 5, 6, 8, 9 & 10, and Bulletin No.5). The cumulative end-result is given eloquent testimony by some remarkable happenings. In the past the LTTE allowed senior officials of the Sri Lankan Government enough leeway to keep their self-respect. This has changed drastically. Among those who under compulsion undergo military training now to serve in the LTTE’s Border Force are government officials having designations of Government Agent, Assistant Government Agent, Director of Education and Assistant Commissioner of Co-operatives. All these officials sign and pass on instructions dictated by LTTE co-ordinators, such as Illankumaran for education. Orders to close government offices at 3.00 PM on training days have been passed down by departmental heads. Letters summoning employees to LTTE meetings refer in coded form to an ‘urgent discussion’. What freedom can an individual have in this environment?

The absolute control of the government machinery as we shall see enabled the LTTE to put into effect a far-reaching system of repression. Firstly we deal with its implication for schools.

How Universal Conscription Works
On 5th May, after the Elephant Pass attack, the LTTE in effect told the schools that they need not teach. Three days a week all school children from year 10 (grade 9) upwards (that is the 14/15 age group and above) were required to take military training.

This is different from the former self-defence training, but there was continuity. Last year school children were marched with poles. But December last year saw a parade of schoolgirls in Mallavi. Though not in uniform, guns had been substituted for poles, so that they were unawares becoming soldiers. Now escape has been made nigh impossible. Within one month the school children had been put through dismantling and reassembling guns and grenades. They were then divided into two sides and mock battles were held.

The means used to ensure full attendance is that those who do not train can neither attend school nor tutories. School authorities have been asked to enforce this, causing them deep heart-burn and misgivings. However children gradually stopped coming anyway. The reason was not far to seek. The children train from 7.00 to 8.00 AM, go back home, bathe and get to school at 9.00 AM. After that there are no lessons, instead, propaganda full five days of the week - 3 days by the LTTE propaganda wing and on the other two days by teachers from other schools. When the LTTE arrive, those in the smaller classes try to slip away home. On the streets too there are booths of the Political Wing at short intervals to stop young and inveigle them in.

When the LTTE come for classes, the pattern is that there are guards posted outside the school and about three cadre waiting with motorbikes. The recruiters pick out children individually and apply psychological pressure on them to join. Often the child would try to buy time by saying that she would come after, say, a temple festival a few days away. In a particular case the child did not go for a month after the promised date. The recruiter watched her and in a propaganda class asked another girl in class, "This girl promised to come at a given time. We waited 5 days, 10 days and now it is a month. Tell me, can this girl be forgiven or not?" The girl questioned answered that it was unforgivable and felt miserable thereafter. The first girl feeling helpless was in tears.

As soon as a child is made to say yes, he or she is immediately placed on a waiting motorbike and deposited at a camp. Many of the new recruits were found crying when they were taken away. Seeing the children being taken away crying, some villagers would purposely ask the LTTE the reason for it. Normally they would get the reply, "They were tears of joy", or that "They were tears of parting (from friends)". Owing to this the parents took their children from schools and sent them to tutories. At present the LTTE is not objecting to this provided the children attended the military training sessions. They attend military training and then the tutories in the hope that they could continue with their studies. But here things are by no means certain.

The A Level examinations are due in August and the students are preparing at tutories. But the LTTE continues to give mixed signals about whether it would permit the holding of A Levels. It will decide after judging what it could get away with. We understand that there are plans to subvert attempts by the students to continue with their studies, while going for training solely to ward off the LTTE.

We reliably understand that those undergoing training are to be issued with identification plates to wear around their neck and would be initially required to do 10 days of military service a month in border areas. Ultimately it would dash their hopes of a future for themselves as normal people, and would make them part of an organisation where becoming a suicide bomber becomes the outlet for their despair. The LTTE has already taken 50 A Level first year students each from some of the bigger central schools to do 10 days on the border.

Programmes to get children in are now a regular feature. A ‘Students’ Inspirational Week’ was begun on 6th June. An LTTE speaker told the school, "I too once thought studies are important and put my heart and soul into it. I later realised that liberation is far more important, so here I am". He added that studies are now not necessary until Eelam is obtained. The same things were said in all the schools

In most schools now children attending grade 10 and above are a small fraction of the number. They are frequently students who are medically certified for ailments such as wheezing and rheumatism. The 56 year old right in this country of compulsory free education for all, has been turned into a pretext for conscription.

Current LTTE Policy Towards Child Recruitment
Child recruitment from the age of ten upwards (then nearly all males) was practised by the LTTE openly in the early 90s. With the government administration in the North coming under its control and its social and psychological mechanisms for recruitment becoming more effective, there was a shift towards combat effectiveness and generally the preferred age became 15 or 16, while not spurning much younger recruits. During mid-1998 the UN special envoy, Mr.Olara Otunnu, who was dealing with the subject of child soldiers, visited Sri Lanka. The LTTE pledged to him that they would not recruit those below 17 and not use those below 18 in combat.

But the LTTE had placed itself in a position where it could not negotiate for a political settlement, and its whole thrust was towards militarily establishing a separate state. It began the first of its conventional thrusts by taking Killinochchi in October 1998 and with it started a massive recruitment campaign. The pressure applied on children grew in intensity. Any token attempt to keep the agreement with Otunnu was forgotten.

A further conventional attack in early November 1999 caused the Army to lose large tracts of territory in what the LTTE leader called the first phase of ‘Unceasing Waves’. On National Heroes Day, 27th November 1999, the leader declared the coming year to be the Year of Battles that would see the establishment of his separate state. He had given priority to retaking the Jaffna peninsula. In December he made important strategic gains on the east coast of the Jaffna peninsula, but failed. The Government remained unbelievably complacent. In April 2000 he came very close to success, but failed beyond capturing more territory. This was a serious setback for his plans.

The whole exercise from December had cost the LTTE about 1,500 dead and many more injured. This was in an organisation whose total strength was generally placed at 7,000, but placed higher by local observers. The LTTE’s problem was not arms and money, of which its global reach provided more than enough. It needed considerably more recruits to make another attempt at taking Jaffna. This comes out clearly in its propaganda meetings.

Currently these meetings held for the public, schoolteachers and government officials are being addressed by big guns. They include Balakumar and Para who were EROS leaders, Thamil Chelvan who heads the LTTE Political Wing, Vithuran and Puthuvai Rathinathurai, a former communist and poet laureate. Their constant message is that they can take Jaffna in a few days or even a few hours (Puthuvai), but they need 2000 more people. Balakumar and Para have been taken off their normal duties and specially assigned to recruitment. Even mature people listening to these recruitment speeches said that they get so emotionally carried away that they develop goose-pimples. Later, it is like coming out of a trance.

Reflected in ground reality, it means that any consideration for age of recruitment is not observed. All that matters is whether the boy or girl can carry a gun. Although compulsory training begins at grade 9, those who are bigger made from the lower classes are also picked out and asked to join those doing military training. A recruiter going over a class would often pick out someone and say something like, "You would do fine to man the cannon." When a child is taken, only appeals from the parents are tokenly entertained. An uncle, aunt or any other relative is rudely chased away. In one incident the father and the mother of a child had barged into an LTTE camp. They were beaten and chased away for trespass. This also reflects a desperation about wanting to take Jaffna.

Why Take Jaffna?

Jaffna has prestige value as having been the intellectual centre of the Tamils and also the fountainhead of Tamil nationalism. After being under the control of the LTTE, Jaffna folk had also shown considerable reservations about the LTTE to its embarrassment. However the LTTE’s immediate need to take Jaffna is mundane - i.e. flesh and muscle.

Although the East has been the main traditional source of recruitment, forming the bulk of the casualties, this dropped temporarily from 1992 when the Army took control of most parts of the East. In the Pooneryn attack in 1993, Jaffna recruits dominated the casualties. After the Army took Jaffna in 1995, schools functioned normally and recruitment by the LTTE in Jaffna dropped to almost zero. This was resented by the other cadre, especially from the East, who again began dominating casualty lists of the LTTE’s very costly conventional campaigns from 1998. Moreover, recruitment in the Vanni and the LTTE-controlled East with a total population base of about 300,0000, was being pushed to the limit and can be increased only by cannibalising any remaining social structures as is being done in the Vanni now. However the capture of Jaffna would not end the LTTE leader’s task.

But taking Jaffna would increase the LTTE’s population base by 500,000. The Leader would then have to use in Jaffna the harsh methods of recruitment he has used elsewhere as a sop to satisfy the longsuffering people in the Vanni and especially Batticaloa. He would moreover need these Jaffna recruits to launch the final thrust to liberate South Tamil Eelam - the East. This would be very difficult because of the long border with the populous South. It is something for which he has been preparing from the time he attacked Mullaitivu and captured long-range cannon in 1996 and has not deviated from it and he cannot.

Now that taking Jaffna has proved more difficult, he has to go for broke in the Vanni, break every sense of community, all human values and all fundamental loyalties to make everyone who can physically carry a gun a fighter. It is the gamble of a desperate man who is throwing in everything. Should he succeed, it would be the end of civilised life in Sri Lanka. The country will not be able to absorb the consequences.

The reasons why the LTTE went all out in support of the UNP presidential candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe in December 1999 are far deeper than the rhetoric about Chandrika Kumaratunge having betrayed the Tamils. As president he was pledged to give in effect the LTTE the North-East administration on an interim basis. There is no need to expand on the consequences. It is a matter of deep regret that some prominent NGOs in Colombo and some supposedly anti-racist intellectuals were either backing the UNP or were saying that it is what the Tamil people and those in Jaffna wanted - hence the need to utterly discredit the Jaffna poll.

Of course those in Jaffna knew that a UNP victory or a return of the LTTE would have apocalyptic consequences. This was evident from last December when the LTTE made some incursions near Elephant Pass. From Iyakkachchi 67 families were transported to the Vanni. They were then visited by international NGOs, but they did not utter a word of complaint. We do know for a fact that they did not want to move, but several of them were assaulted and the families were transported forcibly. It is a pity that when highly organised international institutions approach the ordinary people, the truth which all the locals know, fails to surface.

This phenomenon was in evidence again in April and May. We have received several reports that thousands of people in the Thenmaratchy caught up in areas where there was fighting between the LTTE and the Army fled behind Army lines. Often on their way they were assaulted by LTTE cadre. An estimated 2000 people, including injured civilians, were made to get into trailers and after a drive were taken across a narrow stretch of the sea near Pooneryn to the LTTE controlled Vanni. There can be no doubt as to what nearly 100% of these people wanted. In early 1996 they had already defied the LTTE’s orders to move to the Vanni. Quite apart from what they thought of the Army, there was a preferred option - an option where their children could attend school without being importuned by recruiters.

The LTTE itself is very clear that their reasons for taking Jaffna have nothing to do with the people there wanting to be liberated from the Army. Some LTTE spokesmen display their hostility and paranoia concerning people in Jaffna quite openly at public meetings in the Vanni. One asked, ‘Whenever our cadre go to a place in Jaffna, they are immediately surrounded by the Army. How do you think that happens?’

Frequently when a group of corpses of cadres are brought from Jaffna, the press and radio announcements would say that they died in action. But at the local funerals, the people would be told, "They were betrayed!"

Other speakers have tried to express it more humorously. They said in an oft repeated story: "Once our cadre went to the house of a retired principal in Jaffna, and knocked on the door. Opening the door and recognising our boys, he invited them inside. A sumptuous meal with pittu and several curries was on the table. He invited them to partake of it. The LTTE men declined, went away and stayed at a distance. A little later they saw a party of the Sri Lankan Army, led by the brigadier, going into the principal’s house. It was then they realised that they had stumbled into a dinner prepared for the Army."

Puthuvai Rathinathurai said in another story: "During the operation to capture Elephant Pass, our cadre moved into Vadamaratchy East near Nagar Kovil. An angry young woman came at them shouting, "I was going to marry the army captain tomorrow and now you have come and spoilt everything". From the audience someone asked, "Did they shoot her?" Rathinathurai assured them that she was spared.

A senior leader related a story about a woman from Jaffna who had been injured during the fighting between the Army and the LTTE during May. The LTTE is said to have transported her and admitted her to Mallavi hospital in the Vanni. When she regained consciousness some days later, she asked where she was. When Mallavi was mentioned, she exclaimed, ‘How on earth am I to get a pass to get back to Jaffna?’

The LTTE is very strict in issuing passes to people who want to leave the Vanni, especially to children and others eligible to be called up for military service. What the senior leader evidently tried to convey was the unbecoming nature of people worrying about getting passes to quit the Vanni at a time when the liberation struggle had reached a crucial stage. It was when the audience taking a different meaning laughed heartily, that the leader realised he had goofed.

We have verified in general and in particular cases that families in Jaffna caught up in the fighting (eg. Mattuvil) were forcibly dispatched to the Vanni, and are settled in out-of-the-way places such as in the Mullaitivu District. Subsequently their homes were looted as happened during the Jaffna exodus in Valikamam. Several of their houses were also destroyed or damaged by Kfir bombers and shells. In many cases people sent to the Vanni want to get to their relatives or are seeking proper medical care, as in the case of the elderly, but are finding passes difficult. Several of the injured taken to the Vanni were later admitted to Vavuniya Hospital.

In the Vanni itself after every displacement, the people become desperately poor and the LTTE richer. The LTTE has acquired a giant cattle-herd.

In 1990 the LTTE had ordered the EROS to close down and formally become part of the LTTE. Balakumar, now a key LTTE propagandist, agreed abjectly, angering many EROS members who then left. Balakumar did not have the nerve for the kind of risks taken by Prabhakaran and thought it very foolish when Prabhakaran attacked the Indian Army in 1987. One aspect of his nature is that when under training in India in the mid-80s, he used to be seen crying, longing to be with his father and mother. He was then in his mid-30s.

It is now his job to take even very young children from their parents and send them to almost certain death. However, unlike Prabhakaran, he knows that controlling Jaffna would be an unpleasant task. When questioned he could sometimes be disarmingly frank. After saying that they would somehow take Jaffna, he threw up his hands and confessed, "After that we don’t know what we are going to do!"

Such anxieties do not bother Prabhakaran. The past record suggests that if he needs to kill thousands of people in Jaffna to bring Jaffna down to the level of servility now obtaining in the Vanni, he would not hesitate to do it. He made up his mind a long time ago that he would not balk at going to the lowest depths to achieve his Eelam.

Some military and political analysts viewed the prospective fall of Jaffna last May as a military setback. Several peace activists, liberals and the UNP leader saw giving the LTTE control over Jaffna as a confidence-building measure. What callous indifference parading as wisdom! How well-founded are their theories about peace?

(Continued tomorrow) 

The Contrary Asians: The Japanese and the Sinhalese - Part III
Japan: An Historical Outline
By C. A. Chandraprema

(Continued from Wednesday)

Even though Japan is Sri Lanka’s premier donor country, very few Sri Lanka’s know much about Japan. Just as the only thing that most Japanese know about Sri Lanka is that we produce tea, what most Sri Lankan’s would know about Japan is that Japan is where we get our new and reconditioned cars, vans and motorcycles from. In addition to this, quite a number of Sri Lankan’s would also know that Japan is a very rich country and that it is an ideal place to go as an immigrant worker! There is also the impression here even among schoolchildren that the "Japannu" are "hapannu" (i.e., that the Japanese are clever.) Then again, most Sri Lankan’s have been told that the Japanese liked J.R.Jayawardene because he had been nice to them at the San Francisco peace conference . Those in the field of sports will also be aware that the Japanese dash people on the ground and break bricks, tiles and blocks of ice for fun and exercise... Beyond such trite bits of information, there is a huge void in the minds of Sri Lankan’s about the "dena deviyo" (the Sinhalese equivalent of St Nicholas) from the East.

Japanese history can be divided into several distinctive phases. (1) From the earliest times to the end of the sixth century, (2) From the end of the sixth century to the end of the twelfth century, (3) From the end of the twelfth century to the middle of the nineteenth century and finally (4) from the mid nineteenth century to the 1970’s. (This is not a division sanctioned by conventional historiography in Japan but is an arbitrary division adopted by me to elucidate Japanese history in a nutshell)

As in Sri Lanka, recorded history in Japan begins with the introduction of Buddhism. Prior to the advent of Buddhism, Japanese history is divided into a pre-historic era 10,000 BC to 300 BC where the peoples of Japan followed a hunting- gathering way of life, and into a proto historic period 300 BC to around 583 AD when metals came into use and wet rice cultivation was introduced from China and rudimentary forms of political organisation came into being. By the time Japan emerged into the historic period at the end of the sixth century, she was a collectivity of small political entities led by regional chieftains. Towards the latter part of this early proto-historic period, huge burial mounds began to be constructed for the ruling elite, and it was during this period that the Imperial institution of Japan emerged from the mists of time. Originally a kind of primus inter pares among the clan chieftains, the Imperial institution had assumed a pre-eminent position by the time Buddhism was introduced to Japan. The reforms that accompanied the introduction of Buddhism, further strengthened the imperial institution and led to the centralisation of power under Imperial rule.

There are some uncanny similarities in the process of early state formation in Japan and Sari Lanka. In Sri Lanka too, a motley group of scattered polities were brought together by a dynamic originating from the introduction of Buddhism. Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka during the time of King Devanampiyatissa in the third century BC and a century later, Buddhism had provided the ideological cement and the ritual legitimacy which enabled Prince Dutugemunu to form the first Sinhala State. A very similar process took place in Japan. Buddhism was officially introduced into Japan in AD 538 when a Buddha statue and some scriptures were brought from Korea to Japan. As in the case of Sri Lanka, along with Buddhism came other aspects of continental culture. In both countries, the introduction of Buddhism also meant the introduction of civilisation. Several decades after the introduction of Buddhism, there arose in Japan a figure who was to leave a permanent imprint on Japanese history. Crown Prince Shotoku Taishi is sometimes hailed as the father of Buddhism in Japan because of his unique role in consolidating the imported doctrine. Prince Shotoku Taishi was also the architect of the concept of a centralised state in Japan and is thus a combination of Devanampiyatissa and Dutugemunu. During the time of Prince Shotoku, Japan came increasingly under the cultural influence of China and Korea. Craftsmen were brought to Japan to build temples, scholars were sent to the continent to study. The idea of a centralised state after the fashion of the continental kingdoms, began to germinate...

A system of bureaucracy similar to that of Korea was introduced in order to enhance the power of the Imperial institution as against that of the hereditary rulers of the polities. Price Shotoku also promulgated a seventeen article "constitution" whereby loyalty to the Emperor, and the Emperor’s role as the all powerful ruler of the realm were to be upheld as against the authority of the clan chieftains. Buddhism was to be upheld as the religion of the new order, transcending the various provincial deities traditionally worshipped by the clan chieftains. Sometime after the death of Prince Shotoku, his dream of a centralised Buddhist state became a reality after a reformist coup in 645 AD where the Imperial institution was finally held to be paramount and the power of the clan chieftains were finally crushed. Buddhism became virtually the state religion. And land - which was the basis of all wealth and production in Japan - was brought under the control of the newly centralised state.

With the formation of the centralised state, a suitable seat of power became a necessity and this precipitated the building of Japan’s first capital city Nara, in 710 AD. (Many of the great cultural artefacts of ancient Nara are still extant and today, this city is one of the main tourist attractions in Japan.) During the Nara period which lasted through most of the eighth century, all the people were considered to be the Emperor’s subjects and all land was declared to be public domain. Land was reallocated to the people every six years after conducting a survey. The country was divided into districts, villages and hamlets and were administered by governors sent out by the central government. This centralisation was however not to last. During the middle of the Nara period, in an attempt to encourage people to open up new land, it was decreed that whoever opened up new land would be entitled to proprietary rights over the newly opened up land as against the state owned land tenure which was then the norm. This led to the rise of vast tracts of land which were under private proprietorship and outside the control of the central government.

Then again, the Imperial institution which was raised above the clan chieftains with much difficulty, also soon lost much of its real power. From the beginning of the Nara period there began that particularly Japanese custom of having "shadow governments". A member of a noble family gave his daughter in marriage to the Emperor and thus acquired influence over the government which he later continued to exercise through his grandson who became crown prince (and later Emperor). This was to become the most enduring motif of Japanese politics. Throughout Japanese history, the Imperial house has almost never wielded real power. They have always been "constitutional monarchs". The Emperor reigned while his "advisors" self appointed or otherwise, ruled in his name. First it was noble families like the Fujiwara who ruled in the Emperors name. For a short while, "retired" Emperors wielded power as "guardians" over the incumbent Emperor. Later, various military strongmen under the title of "Shogun" assumed that role. After the office of Shogun was abolished in 1868, a Samurai military junta assumed the role of shadow government. Later when a Western style legislature and Executive were introduced, the cabinet took over the task of ruling in the Emperors name. Thus the form of the Japanese Imperial institution has remained basically unaltered throughout history...

The shift of the capital from Nara to Kyoto in 794 saw the beginning of the Heian period, a time of cultural efflorescence when the cultural forms that had been imported from China and Korea during the preceding times were assimilated and acquired a distinctively "Japanese" flavour. This was Japan’s great aristocratic age. The Heian period was one of poetry and good sentiments. It is said that during this period when political power emanated from Kyoto, in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, capital punishment was not practised in Japan. (As in the case of Nara, most of the ancient cultural artefacts of Kyoto are still extant and Kyoto is also one of the great tourist destinations in Japan. During world war two, the Allies deliberately avoided bombing Kyoto because of its cultural importance.) In any event, the Heian period saw the gradual demise of the centralised state which had begun on such an optimistic note after the coup of 645 AD. Because of the earlier decree that all newly reclaimed land could be held privately, by the end of the Heian period in 1185 AD, about half of all paddy land was in private hands and outside the control of the government. The land holding noble families lived in Kyoto where high culture and a life of refined ease made them effete and ineffective as a ruling class.

The end of the Heian period saw the rise of the warrior class in Japan. The aristocrats were outmanoeuvred by a hardier, more vigorous elite from the provinces who were more in command of reality than the poetry loving aristocracy. The rise of a warrior elite was obviously the fruition of a process which had taken place over several centuries. The way of thinking of the warrior elite was present in an incipient form in the Japanese mind from very early times. But it was the virtual abdication of real power by the aristocracy of the Heian period that enabled the emergent warrior class to walk into the political vacuum. With the rise of the warrior governments, the centre of political power shifted to the city of Kamakura. The rise of the warrior class is a watershed in Japan’s history. This is what made the Japanese so different from the Sinhalese. When one thinks of the Sinhalese what immediately comes to mind is the word "peasant" Similarly, when one thinks of the Japanese the immediate word that comes to mind is "Samurai".

Until the rise of the Samurai class, the historical trajectory of the Japanese and the Sinhalese were basically the same. The importing of Buddhism and culture from the continent, an economy based on rice cultivation , the massive building projects in Anuradhapura in the case of the Sinhalese and Nara and Kyoto in the case of the Japanese, which were aimed at displaying the authority of the ruling order and binding people to the centre of power, were all very much alike. But with the rise of the warrior elite in Japan after 1185, the Japanese began to move to a different drumbeat. The Samurai class held sway over Japan from the end of the twelfth century up to the middle of the nineteenth century when the samurai leadership abolished itself as a step towards the modernisation and Westernisation of Japan. The samurai governments of Japan under the military commander styled "Shogun", brought about many changes in the Japanese psyche. While the earlier aristocracy of Japan had been modelled on the Chinese and Korean example of educated and cultured bureaucrat, the new ideal was that of the hardy warrior.

The Portuguese first came to Japan in 1543, four decades after they first arrived in Sri Lanka. At the time they arrived in Japan, the country was going through a period of political turmoil and there was virtually no central government. The early military governments centred on Kamakura had passed their prime and were in a state of advanced decay. Various Samurai warlords were battling it out to gain hegemony. The Portuguese introduced firearms and within a few years, this had become the decisive instrument of warfare in Japan. Despite the Portuguese presence in Japan, they were not in control of affairs. Firstly, as far as Japan was concerned, there was nothing that the Portuguese found attractive enough in Japan to warrant an invasion. In Sri Lanka what made the Portuguese conquer the country was a plant which grew wild in the jungles of Sri Lanka - cinnamon. In any case, even if there had been something to attract the Portuguese in Japan, it would have not been easy to conquer and hold Japan. Because unlike Sri Lanka, Japan was led by a warrior elite whose sole claim to legitimacy was war. So instead of trying to wage war on the warlike Japanese, the Portuguese concentrated on proselytising in Japan instead under the leadership of St Francis Xavier. The Portuguese religious honeymoon in Japan was however short-lived. Realising that the spread of Christianity could pose a danger to the stability of the country, the Samurai leadership began to persecute the new religion and banned it altogether before the middle of the seventeenth century.

One of the important processes that took place in Japan under the later Samurai governments, was the increasing urbanisation of Japan. By the latter half of the eighteenth century, Edo (Modern Tokyo) had a population of over one million and the main cities of Osaka and Kyoto over 450,000 and 300,000 respectively. At that time, London had a population of 600,000 and Paris 500,000. After the period of instability in the sixteenth century when Japan was for several decades without a central government as such, the Samurai leadership that finally managed to wrest control of the disorganised country took steps to prevent such instability from occurring again. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, countrywide "sword hunts" were carried out to ensure that the general public had no weapons. Peasants were prohibited from becoming warriors and warriors were prohibited from changing their occupation. Thus the lines between the classes which had been somewhat fluid up to that time, became solidified.

Thus from the seventeenth century onwards, a rather rigid class system in came into being with the Samurai on top followed by the cultivators, artisans and merchants in that order. Merchants were considered to be at the bottom of the social scale because they were not deemed to be engaged in "productive" work. (As a matter of fact, the Samurai were not engaged in strictly "productive" work either, but nobody questioned the Samurai about it!) The merchants however, wielded enormous power and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the rise of a distinctive "townsman’s culture". The peasants ranked second in theory and as in Sri Lanka they constituted the majority 80% of the population while in contrast, the Samurai class was only 6%. But in actual fact, the peasants were at the bottom of the scale as the Samurai held all political power and the merchant class had the economic power.

Japan has never actually been under foreign rule. The first attempt by a foreign power to conquer Japan was by Kublai Khan in the late thirteenth century. Kublai Khan conducted two campaigns which were both rendered unsuccessful due to storms at sea. In 1853 when the American Navy forced Japan to give up her policy of national isolation, and imposed certain "unequal treaties" upon the newly opened up Japan, it was a far cry from the "Colonialism" that countries like Sri Lanka experienced. For instance what Japan experienced under the unequal treaties of 1853 was that foreign powers for a short while had the right to decide the import taxes of goods brought into Japan and the Japanese were forced to put up with the presence of foreign traders on her soil in designated places and all foreigners living in Japan were to be subject to Western laws and not to Japanese law. Other than this, the Western powers that opened up Japan did not seek to rule Japan.

In the final analysis it was Japan that benefited from the opening up rather than the Western powers that went to so much trouble to do so. As mentioned before, there was nothing in Japan that really made a full scale invasion of Japan worthwhile. In fact, some of the trading houses that came to Japan in the wake of the opening up soon closed shop and went home... Contrast this with the situation in Sri Lanka where the British spent 12,000 Pounds to conquer the Island from the Dutch and then within the first three years they made 396,000 Pounds from the Pearl fishery alone! Thus even Sri Lanka was considered a richer prize than Japan by the Colonial powers. This is not because Sri Lanka was more advanced than Japan. It is just that Japan had so few natural resources that no Colonial power found her attractive enough to conquer. What Japan had on offer was rice cultivation, a few craft industries and the Samurai. By the time the Western powers opened up Japan was also heavily urbanised and there was a rich merchant class, but the trade of Japan was not something that foreigners would be attracted to. At that time, trade in Japan was just rice, sake, sugar and handicrafts - nothing that would interest the European trader. A few years later however, Japanese silk became important to Europeans (who used a lot of silk for women’s stockings and underwear.) But that too only because the European silk industry had been devastated due to disease!

Thus for the colonial powers Japan held no attraction. Even the opening up of Japan was actually motivated mainly by the need to obtain "civilised treatment" for American whaling boats fishing in waters close to Japan, and not due to any motive that can be called "Colonial". The only time that Japan could be said to have been under a foreign power was when the Allied powers invaded Japan with the end of the second world war. But this was hardly an exercise in colonialism -the main objective of the invaders was to put Japan back on her feet and this was probably the most benevolent invasion ever experienced by any country at any time in history.

Even though Japan was never under foreign domination, the Japanese have always been quick to adopt foreign culture and technology when it suited them. The phase of cultural and technological borrowing from China and Korea in the 6th to 8th centuries was followed by an equally wide ranging phase of cultural and technological borrowing from the West after the Americans forced the Japanese to give up their isolationist policy in 1853. Thus the period of a little more than a century from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1970’s, is a period of wide ranging adoption of Western technology and ways. Even Japan’s short lived Imperialistic adventures in Asia were an attempt to emulate the Western powers. Japan’s achievement and claim to greatness lies in the speed and skill with which they modernised their country . Japan emerged from feudal isolation in 1853 and by 1905 they had fought and won a war against Russia - a major European power and by the first world war, Japan was a recognised power in the world. Ironically, it is the much reviled phase of Japanese imperialism between 1894 (when Japan first made inroads into China) and 1945 (when the Allied powers dissolved the Japanese Empire) that the ground work was laid for the rise of East Asia which we are now witnessing. Scholars of every stripe, right wing and left wing, are unanimous in that it was the Japanese who developed industries in Taiwan, Korea and parts of mainland China and thus laid the foundation for the future prosperity of these nations.

Thus the phases of Japanese history as mentioned at the beginning of this article would be as follows. A phase of cultural borrowing from China and the consolidation and "indegenisation" thereof, lasting from the end of the sixth century to the end of the twelfth century. The rise of the warrior class in Japan from the end of the twelfth century onwards, during which period the Japanese acquired the traits that would propel them right to the top of the international order. A century of cultural and technological borrowing from the West from the late nineteenth century to the 1970’s which took Japan (notwithstanding the disaster of world war two) on to become the world’s second largest economic power. What Japan managed to achieve during this century of progress, is unprecedented in the history of the world, and the objective of the first part of this series of articles is to examine the factors that enabled Japan to perform such an unprecedented feat. Someone might wonder why I always mention the decade of the 1970’s as a cut off point. The purpose of this series of articles will be to examine the force that drove Japan on upto the 1970’s when she joined the ranks of the developed nations. Since the 1980’s and 1990’s however the appears to have been some change in attitudes and to me it would seem that Japan has entered its "Second Heian Jidai" when the Japanese younger generation like the aristocracy of ancient Heiankyo (Kyoto) are leading lives of relaxed refinement with the difference that poetry has been replaced by western rock music and delicate Kyoto cuisine has been replaced by McDonalds hamburgers, and the elegant coiffure of Heian fashion has been replaced by hair dyed brown and blonde and Japanese "geta" (clogs) have been replaced by monstrous heels six inches high! By any account, it is safer to stop at the decade of the 1970’s when examining Japanese attitudes.

To be continued next week