Feature: Japanese public unite with constitutional scholars' calls to ditch contentious war bills

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe witnessed recently that his cabinet's support rate dropped to its lowest level since he assumed office in 2012, to just over 40 percent and well below the key 50 percent threshold since the public and constitutional scholars united their calls to ditch a series of unconstitutional security bills Abe has tried to ram in the current parliament session.

The poll conducted by the Nippon Television Network showed that 62.5 percent of those surveyed were in opposition to Japanese forces being allowed the right to exercise collective self-defense and as many as 63.7 percent stood against the new security bills becoming law in the current session of parliament.

Protesters in their thousands turned out on Saturday and Sunday at the Diet building in Tokyo to make their voices heard on the issue. As many as 25,000 attended a rally near parliament on Sunday, while more than 10,000 turned out the day before. A separate survey showed that almost 80 percent felt the government has not explained the legislation sufficiently.

"Either the bills are constitutional or they are not, there are no shades of grey," said Tomomi Nakahara, 30. "That's why we all gathered at the Diet building at the weekend and we hope more people start to get the message. We can't just sit idly by and let (prime minister) Abe do what he wants," said Nakahara, who works for a renowned publishing house here.

"There's been too much of this in the past, bills getting passed that we didn't agree with, just because the ruling (LDP) party controls both houses. Each time this happens I feel it's taking Japan, a peaceful country, one step closer to war," she told Xinhua Tuesday, adding that the government can't possibly ignore the scholars' testimony and the support of thousands of other scholars, constitutional experts and lawyers around the country, including numerous representatives from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

In terms of the scholars' testimony, Nakahara was referring to a special commission session held in parliament on June 4, at which three of the nation's most prominent constitutional law scholars were invited to give testimony on the new security bills that would, if enacted, mark the nation's biggest post-war defense reform.

All of the scholars agreed at the hearing that the legislative package delivered by the ruling coalition to become law in Japan would widen the range of activities by the Self-Defense Forces to allow for the exercise of the right to collective self-defense and thus the bills were unequivocally unconstitutional.

"I think Abe is getting desperate, why else would the government be resorting to such ambiguous ways to try and make sure the public don't force the deliberations into the next Diet session or for the ruling parties to have to rewrite the bills altogether based on our pressure?" quizzed Tomohiro Ueda, 43, an executive for perhaps Japan's best-known department store chain.

"It's got to the point now where the government is acting in a shameful manner and with no dignity or honor. They berated the scholars calling them, 'amateurs,' knowing full well that these gentlemen are some of the most brilliant minds we have on the subject in this country. I'm glad that they have stood their ground and continue to rebuff Abe with law and logic. In fact, they're better politicians than the ones that are running the country," added Ueda, who concluded by launching a volley of expletives about Abe and the state of politics in Japan.

Two of the three experts who testified in the Diet session on Monday hit back at the government's attempts to validate the process of contentious security bills through parliament.

Yasuo Hasebe and Setsu Kobayashi blasted the government that Abe's style of governance and his propensity for ignoring the constitution was "starting on the road to dictatorship and tyranny, " with Kobayashi adding that the security legislation was, on political, legal and economical levels, "stupid."

While Hasebe satirized the LDP which accused the professor of not being a national security expert that "if I say what is congruent with the interest of the government, they say I am an expert. And if I say something which is against the interest of the government, they allege that I am an inexpert. This is quite astounded."

"I totally support what these scholars are saying as not only are they following the Constitution they are the highest authority when it comes to understanding the intricacies and complexities of such matters from a number of angles, with war being just one of them," said Jun Hirano, 24, a political science postgraduate student at Waseda University.

"The bills have to be ditched for the safety of our country, for my generation and that of my children. The prime minister is campaigning to make this country a nation that supports aggression; we've been down that road before and it didn't turn out well for us," Hirano said outside his campus in downtown Takadanobaba.

"The public need to stand up and make their voices heard and I' m not just saying this because two of the scholars are or were professors at my university, this is the voice of my generation; what all my friends think; what their friends think, what we're saying offline and online," said the well-informed youngster.

"History does repeat itself and we don't want that. We deserve better than that. We deserve peace and happiness, not war and conflict. We deserve better than these stupid bills and we deserve better than Abe," an impassioned Hirano said. Endi