The Great Wave of Yukio Hatoyama

"According to Katsushika Hokusai, there is an abyss of

cultural differences between Western souls and Eastern

crowds" (o-shoku-jin-shu", in Japanese), quotes of early

20th century painter Henri Riviere.

In 1914, author Henri Focillon published his Hokousai,

whom, he wrote, "conserves in himself some of the permanent

and profound traits of Asiatic soul, takes them up to the

highest degree of their expressive power, and makes them

communicable to the whole of humanity.

Hokusai is not only one of the greatest creators of the

living forms in history, but he belongs to the heroic

order, he is one of the artists who, being visible from all

the points of the horizon, lets us know simultaneously his

own singular genius, and the genius of his race, as well as

something of the eternal man."

One would say in a more 21st century politically correct

formula that there are myriad of diversities, concepts and

dogmatic views between a Western mind and an Eastern mind,

and as a stone remains impermeable to fresh water, the idea

of Asia “as a common heritage" never made its way to... the

Western world. Not yet.

Needles to say that the West often enters into confusion

when placed in front of “outdated Japanese principles”; and

more than once I was asked by Westerners "what are the

ideals and values of the East?" A specific continuity? An

organic thinking of the idea of Asia as a common heritage,

eternity symbolized by the Phoenix or the Dragon?

I was often tempted to answer, unconvinced : "Harmony?"

Hokusai was one of the greatest artist of Edo era, ukiyo-e

painter, printmaker of the Edo period and expert on Chinese

painting and had a great influence on the Impressionist

movement, he was maybe the greatest master in Japanese art

history.

"A simple Japanese ukiyo-e print craftsman transfigured

into the ultimate oriental master, Inaga Shigemi of the

International Research Center for Japanese Studies said,

comparable to such giants as Michel Angelo, Rubens, and

Rembrandt, and why was he so much admired by such great

figures of modern art as Edouard Manet and Vincent Van

Gogh?"

Because "If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is un-

doubtedly wise, philosophic, and intelligent who spends his

time doing what? In studying the distance between the

earth and the moon? No. In studying Bismarck’s politics?

No. He studies a single blade of grass ("un seul brin

d’herbe.") But this blade of grass leads him to draw every

plant, then great views of the countryside in every season,

then animals, then human figures" as Vincent Van Gogh wrote

about Hokusai.

And maybe with such new perception of nature, human

figures, countries and history is the power to be of Prime

Minister Hatoyama who will be reckoned with from now on.

Question is : Has the new Prime Minister of Japan the habit

of sketching policies from life or from the 90's and

memories of petulant old friends?

Will the new Japanese leader be able to penetrate the

policies' essential nature and the arcane of international

relations with such powerful "friend" as the United States,

the Europeans, Asia, and will every dot and every stroke of

his speeches be authentic guidelines for future redesign of

Japan diplomacy, economical role, and international

cultural contribution?

Four years after Hokusai's death, an American fleet led by

a sailor called Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay and

forced Japan to open its arms to the west...

First diplomatic test

Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, faces his first

diplomatic test on Wednesday when he meets President Barack

Obama in New York, Hatoyama will also seek attend a U.N.

climate change conference and pledge new targets for cuts

in greenhouse gas emissions and offer more environmental

help to developing nations.

The new Japanese Prime Minister is trying to show that

there are now 2 different (1 conservative and 1 liberal)

parties in Japan. Hatoyama wants to forge a more equal

partnership with Washington, revising policies on U.S.

forces based in Japan or on the wars engaged in Middle East

and Afghanistan.

"That could lead to "a diplomatic mashup," according to

Brad Glosserman of Pacific Forum CSIS, a think tank based

in Hawaii. "I don't think the DPJ has thought through the

implications. It strikes me as a dangerous position. It's

one thing to expose the hypocrisy of your predecessors,

it's another to be faced with punishing dilemmas." Building

trust is Hatoyama's goal for his first meeting with Obama

but it may be hard to pull off, some analysts said. "By

supporting one another through policies, you create good

ties. If your policies are at odds, you can't form a good

relationship," said Fumiaki Kubo of Tokyo University.

(Reuters Tokyo)

Enter the realm of action

"For change to have any real meaning, it has to exit the

realm of rhetoric and enter the realm of action" Philip J.

Cunningham,Professor of media studies in Japan, writes on

his blog.

http://icga.blogspot.com/2009/09/time-for-change.html

Quotes : "Prime Minister Hatoyama would be wise to take

note of how US President Obama, who started out with so

much promise, and such a huge mandate for change, only to

end up tacking to the right and frittering much of his

mandate away, betraying his own reform-minded base in the

hopes of placating Wall Street, the Pentagon and America's

implacable right wing.

Mr Hatoyama and the DPJ face a comparable test, and early

indications suggest they too will compromise and bend and

revive existing patronage patterns, perhaps until the day

that they are not recognizably different from the "fat

cats" and the complacent ruling party that they have

ostensibly replaced.

If the DPJ, with Mr Hatoyama at the helm, and former LDP

stalwart Ozawa Ichiro navigating at his side, keep their

promise to help Japan become a more normal nation - less

dependent of the whims of US foreign policy, less beholden

to Japan's own elite with its malignant, murky roots in the

last world war, and more responsive to ordinary citizens

and taxpayers, then Japan is indeed entering a period of

change that people can believe in.

If, instead, however, the new government avoids friction by

continuing along the beaten-down path created by the LDP,

and in doing so sustains the unholy marriage between big

business and an entrenched bureaucracy and concomitantly

inflates its own military reach while hiding in the shade

of the US security umbrella, then the demise of the LDP has

been greatly exaggerated." End of quotes.

Japan relations with US, as with Europe and Asia could well

end into a "Fireworks at Kantei" or a "Bonfire on the Fuji"

if diplomatic oscillating estimations and differences

remain between Mr Hatoyama, sophisticated connoisseur of

the Japanese policies, and the world way beyond the

archipelago.

Internationally acclaimed Hokusai was obsessed with the

Fuji-San, what is going to be The Great Wave of Yukio

Hatoyama and how is Japan new Prime Minister going to print

out his governance on his nation, on Western and Eastern

mind as good as a simple print craftsman achieved with a

single blade of grass and a woodblock?