It seems that some of the moti vation behind the 1999 law wasa real worry about the state of Japanese society, especially the growth in suicides among young people. A lack of social cohesion was seen as a contributor, so there was a perceived need for anadhesive. Obvious answer: We need a new emphasis on national identity.
Now where have we heard that before? From David Blun kett, actually, in a Guardian article in March 2005. "In simple terms, we need a glue that holds us together. We need to be able to celebrate our nationality and patriotism, as the Irish did this week, without narrow nationalism and jingoism."
Those of us who went through the old team-building routines of the eighties will recognise the dangers. What these programmes taught (often painfully) was that building a strong intra-loyal team is easy-peasy. What is much more difficult is to get that team, once it is well set, bonded and glued, to recognise anything beyond its own interests, or to co-operate constructively with other teams. The team is defined by opposition and competition. Granted, informal alliances develop and can provide essential productive activity and support, but even these are open to spoiling. And, as we know, movements for social change have not been exempt.
Head like a hole
We need Blunkett's glue like we need a hole in the head. Ethical patriotism is as illusive as gold sought from base metals, especially in an age when nationalism, paradoxically, goes well with global capitalism. David Marquand put it well in a recent review22: "They are certainly nationalists (Blair less so than Bush or Thatcher); but with logic defying chutzpah, they have contrived to make nationalism an ally of global capitalism and a vehicle for its imperatives."
What is needed more often than a glue is a solvent - the willingness to hold human solidarity in such regard that the local loves, so essential and determinant in themselves, are not held in competition to that broader concern but are enriched and strengthened by it. This is what it should all have been about in Scotland and around Gleneagles.
Notes:1 It's not all bad. Recently "the Tokyo District Court threw out the charges against three peace protesters who had been arrested for trespassing on housing facilities of the Self Defence Forces. The three had put leaflets protesting at the dispatch of Japanese troops to Iraq in mailboxes. For decades the group had been putting various protest leaflets in mailboxes without incident. In this case, the managers of the housing complex had filed the complaint with the local police before their arrest. The court said they were protected by Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression." (From www.japanlaw.info .) By that time the protesters had spent two months on remand. 2On "Setting the People Free", John Dunn. (New Statesman, 27 June 2005)
