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South Koreans Take Up Cause of Japanese in Nobel Quest South Koreans Back Japan’s Peace Constitution as Nobel Prize-Worthy
(about 20 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — In a highly unusual move in South Korea, where it is usually a political kiss of death to be branded as pro-Japanese, a group of prominent figures started a signature-collecting campaign on Thursday to help Japan, their country’s much-hated former colonial master, win another Nobel Prize. SEOUL, South Korea — Trying to catch up with Japan’s Nobel Prize count has long been something of an obsession in South Korea, but on Thursday a group of prominent Koreans started a signature-writing campaign to help Japan win another of the coveted prizes.
About 50 dignitaries, including former prime ministers and parliamentary speakers, said in a joint statement that they were starting an effort to support the Japanese who have been campaigning to promote Article 9 of Japan’s postwar Constitution as a nominee for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize. The move was not driven by a sudden welling up of warm feelings for Korea’s former colonial master. It was an attempt, instead, to keep Japan from any future aggression at a time when South Koreans are increasingly worried that Japan’s right-wing prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will create a more nationalistic Japan.
That article renounces “war as a sovereign right,” as well as “the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” South Koreans fear that under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections on Sunday, Japan might step up efforts to reinterpret or amend the article to allow for military expansion for its self-defense forces. The South Koreans were offering support to a group of Japanese who campaigned to promote their Constitution’s Article 9, which renounces “war as a sovereign right,” as a nominee for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.
In 2013, Naomi Takasu, a Japanese housewife with two children, started an online campaign to collect signatures for a petition asking the Nobel Committee to consider Article 9 itself for the Peace Prize — an attempt, she said, to protect her children from war. After the Nobel Committee told her that the prize could not be given to a “text,” she nominated the Japanese people — 400,000 so far — campaigning on their own to have Article 9 recognized by the Nobel Committee. The group of South Koreans — about 50 dignitaries, including former prime ministers — hope that international recognition for Japan’s long-vaunted pacifism would forestall any efforts by Mr. Abe to water down the antiwar provisions in the Constitution.
On Thursday, South Korean campaigners said Nobel recognition for Article 9 would send a powerful symbolic message against Mr. Abe’s ambition to loosen restrictions on Japan’s use of military force. It would also help stabilize the region by bringing moral support and international attention to those Japanese who campaign for a pacifist Japan, they said. Mr. Abe has long had ambitions of instituting changes that would allow Japan to begin to field a regular army, rather than self-defense forces with a more limited role, even though many Japanese oppose the effort.
South Koreans “wish Japan’s Peace Constitution to remain unchanged, containing as it does humankind’s aspiration, as the foundation for peace in East Asia and the world since the end of World War II,” they said in a statement released during a news conference in downtown Seoul on Thursday. The South Korean campaigners said Nobel recognition for Article 9 would send a powerful symbolic message against any drift away from pacifism.
In South Korea, the campaigners will start collecting signatures at churches and temples, as well as through a website and Facebook and Twitter accounts, said Lee Bu-young, a former lawmaker who helped organize the campaign. South Koreans “wish Japan’s Peace Constitution to remain unchanged, containing as it does humankind’s aspiration, as the foundation for peace in East Asia and the world since the end of World War II,” they said in a statement released during a news conference in downtown Seoul.
South Koreans hold a deep resentment and rivalry against Japan, which ruled Korea as a colony from 1910 to 1945. The campaign started on Thursday was unusual because South Koreans often lament that there have been 22 Japanese or Japanese-born winners of the Nobel Prize while Korea only had one Nobel laureate. The former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to promote reconciliation with North Korea. The Japanese campaign for Article 9 started last year when Naomi Takasu, a Japanese woman, began an online campaign to collect signatures for a petition asking the Nobel Committee to consider Article 9 itself for the Peace Prize — an attempt, she said, to protect her children from war.
After the Nobel Committee told her that the prize could not be given to a “text,” she nominated those Japanese people who want to preserve Article 9.
In South Korea, those supporting Ms. Takasu’s quest will start collecting signatures at churches and temples, as well as through a website and Facebook and Twitter accounts, said Lee Bu-young, a former lawmaker who helped organize the campaign.
For the record, 22 Japanese or Japanese-born people have won the Nobel Prize, while Korea has only one Nobel laureate.
That is the former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, who promoted reconciliation with North Korea and won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.