Japan's culture wars are heating up to the detriment of the nation. The Financial Times is right to warn that the jingoism of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and attempts to stifle public debate, are grave threats to Japan's open society. Most Japanese don't want to go where Abe is trying to drag them, but he is stomping ahead regardless.
After Abe returned to power in 2012, Japan's history problem and culture wars suddenly reignited with a vengeance. His ideological crusade to rehabilitate Japan's regrettable wartime record and impose reactionary values gains little popular support, but like-minded revisionists are overrepresented in the governing elite and are undaunted by public opinion or indeed verifiable historical facts.
Japan's culture wars rage over reactionary efforts to undermine democratic values and 21st-century norms through the secrecy law, revising school textbooks, hijacking history — and national broadcaster NHK — supporting misogynists, banning anti-nuclear manga and ignoring local voices in Okinawa. Inevitably, these domestic battles have spilled over into the global arena, pitting Japan against its neighbors and liberal democracies around the world.
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