뉴욕타임즈/ 일본이 반성하지 않는다면, 성숙한 국가가 될 수 없다

[loomingahead]

*****주)  ryotei = 요정 (일본 음식점의 일종)

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February 11, 2006 / 뉴욕 타임즈 / The Saturday Profile

Shadow Shogun Steps Into Light, to Change Japan

By NORIMITSU ONISHI / TOKYO

AT day's end, it was perhaps one of the few things over which he held no sway, the relentless logic of aging, that made Tsuneo Watanabe, Japan's most powerful media baron, decide to step out of the shadows.

For years, most Japanese had caught only glimpses of the man, usually leaving, late at night, one of his favorite ryotei, the members-only redoubts where Mr. Watanabe dined with fellow power brokers and received supplicants. Reporters would swarm around him as he made his way toward his black sedan, peppering him with questions on the day's topic, and he would oblige them with imperious one-liners that made him the embodiment of the arrogant, ultimate insider.

But Mr. Watanabe, now nearly 80 years old, has stepped into the light. He has recently granted long, soul-baring interviews in which he has questioned the rising nationalism he has cultivated so assiduously in the pages of his newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri — the world's largest, with a circulation of 14 million. Now, he talks about the need to acknowledge Japan's violent wartime history and reflects on his wife's illness and his own, as well as the joys of playing with his new hamsters.

Struck by his own sense of mortality, Mr. Watanabe seems ruffled that his power may be waning. He has railed against Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who he says just doesn't listen to him anymore. "Before, early on, he used to listen to me sometimes," Mr. Watanabe told a television interviewer.

During a two-hour interview at his office, where, in addition to the paper, he presides over Japan's most popular baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants, and the rest of the Yomiuri Media Group's empire, he puffed on one of the three pipes on the coffee table before him. He was a man in a hurry, in a hurry to change Japan, no less, by forcing it to confront, understand and judge its wartime conduct — and set it on the correct path as his testament to the nation. "I'll be 80 years old this year," he said. "I have very little time left."

His first move was to publish an editorial last June criticizing Mr. Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, the Shinto memorial where 14 Class A war criminals, including the wartime prime minister, Hideki Tojo, are deified. It was an about-face for The Yomiuri, which had tended to react viscerally against foreign criticism of the Yasukuni visits.

Indeed, the paper was a main force in pushing for the more muscular nationalism now emerging in Japan. Shortly after becoming editor in chief in 1991, Mr. Watanabe set up a committee to revise the American-imposed pacifist Constitution. If MacArthur's Constitution emasculated Japan by forbidding it to have a real military, Mr. Watanabe's Constitution, published in 1994, restored its manhood. Now, it seems only a matter of time until Japan completes the process that Mr. Watanabe started years ago. Still, he seems troubled by some aspects of the nationalist movement he helped engender. The editorial, which reflected his worries about Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors, sent shock waves through the political world. It called for the building of a secular alternative to the shrine and said Mr. Koizumi did not understand history.

Mr. Koizumi worships at a shrine that glorifies militarism, said Mr. Watanabe, who equates Tojo with Hitler. He added, "This person Koizumi doesn't know history or philosophy, doesn't study, doesn't have any culture. That's why he says stupid things, like, 'What's wrong about worshiping at Yasukuni?' Or, 'China and Korea are the only countries that criticize Yasukuni.' This stems from his ignorance." Like many of postwar Japan's leaders with wartime experience, Mr. Watanabe is suspicious of the emotional appeals to nationalism used increasingly by those who never saw war. In his high school in Tokyo, he said, military officials visited regularly to instill militarism in the young. "I once instigated my classmates to boycott the class and shut ourselves in a classroom," he recalled. "We were punished later."

When he entered the army as a second-class private, the war was in its last stages. The military began dispatching kamikaze pilots, whom the Japanese right wing now glorifies as willing martyrs for the emperor. "It's all a lie that they left filled with braveness and joy, crying, 'Long live the emperor!' " he said, angrily. "They were sheep at a slaughterhouse. Everybody was looking down and tottering. Some were unable to stand up and were carried and pushed into the plane by maintenance soldiers."

AFTER graduating from the University of Tokyo after the war, Mr. Watanabe joined The Yomiuri newspaper in 1950 and made his mark as a political reporter. Political reporters in Japan tend to succeed by becoming close to a particular politician. According to a 2000 biography by Akira Uozumi, Mr. Watanabe ingratiated himself so much with one Liberal Democratic heavyweight, Banboku Ohno, he became the gatekeeper at his house. Politicians seeking favors from Mr. Ohno would ask Mr. Watanabe to put in a good word. One young politician helped by Mr. Watanabe was Yasuhiro Nakasone, the future prime minister. They remain close.

Such was Mr. Watanabe's power that by the 1980's, he helped broker major political deals. In those ryotei, nationally known politicians prostrated themselves before the shadow shogun. It was only after Mr. Watanabe became the head of the media group's baseball team in 1996, that the Japanese became aware of his existence. He became a George Steinbrenner-like figure of a team even more dominant than the New York Yankees. "I'm not an ogre or a snake," Mr. Watanabe said with a smile, protesting that his one-liners were frequently twisted.

NOWADAYS, he is expansive, even on his own frailty, including his fight against prostate cancer eight years ago. Talking about his wife of 50 years and the brain hemorrhage that led to her senility, he turns reflective. "We rarely went to the play or other places together," he said. "I'd come home late at night and then leave home early in the morning. She dozes all day now. She's lost much of her personality. I remembered that one time I slapped her on the cheek. I want to make it up to her, but there's nothing that I can do. Sometimes she smiles happily. That makes me the happiest."

The couple moved to a new home, where he misses the wild birds that used to fly into their old garden. So Mr. Watanabe began keeping hamsters. He is hardly ready for retirement, though. Convinced that Japan will never become a mature country unless it examines its wartime conduct on its own, Mr. Watanabe ordered a yearlong series of articles on the events of six decades ago. In August, the newspaper will pronounce its verdict.

The series and Mr. Watanabe's attacks on Mr. Koizumi are said to have shaken Japanese politics, as Mr. Koizumi prepares to retire in September. Even though he won a landslide election a few months ago, attacks against his legacy are rising. Political analysts see the hand of Mr. Watanabe. The series, he said, has started changing the opinions of some politicians. But he is far more ambitious. "I think I can change all of Japan," he said.

[loomingahead]

ryotei = 요정 (일본 음식점의 일종)

[staykool]

NORIMITSU ONISHI의 글이군요. 이 사람은 단순히 분류하자면 꾸준히 굉장히 친한적이면서 반일적인 글을 쓰는 사람이네요.

[derecha]

오니시이가 포인트를 정확히 꼬집어 내는군요...일본 비평가인가봐요...

[백일홍]

간단하게나마 번역해주실 분 안 계신가요? -ㅅ-;

[impersonate]

바로 위 12344번 글을 보시라

[백일홍]

봤는데요, 전문이 궁금해서 그렇지요.

[impersonate]

간단하게나마 번역한 글이 바로 위 12344번 글이라니까요. 답답스럽네 ㅋㅋㅋ

[우산]

ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[백일홍]

간단하게 요약한 번역문이 아니라 대충 요약한 번역전문이라는 뜻이었는데요. 님 리플은 왠지 불쾌하네요. 저랑 말장난하고 싶으세요?

[ingratiateself]

위에 스스로 그렇게 적어놓고는 상대방에게 말장난한다고 짜증이네...방귀뀐넘이 썽낸다고...차라리 영어라도 공부해두지...

[백일홍]

첫 댓글도 썩 유쾌하진 않았지만 잘못 알 수 있겠구나 싶어서 전문이 보고 싶다고 다시 댓글 달았었죠. 전문이라는 말 뜻 모르십니까? 영어공부라도 좀 해두지? 아주 댓글이 갈수록 가관입니다. 그러는 님께서는 영어공부 운운하기 전에 국어공부와 인터넷 예절부터 다시 배우시는 게 좋겠습니다.

[형이되어줄께]

오니시 노리미츠 씨가 옳은 말 했네요 일본 반응이 궁굼함

[조선왕조500년]

이 일본인은 마음에 듬ㅋㅋ ^^

[donilpark]

전 이 사람 굉장히 증오스럽네요. 일본은 그저 아무것도 모르고 절대 반성하지 말고 망하는 길로 들어서야 하는데 이 노리미츠씨같은 사람이 일본을 자꾸 제대로, 올바른 길로 이끌려고 하는게 굉장히 불안하네요. 저는 겉으로는 일본이 뉘우치지 않는것에 대해 화내는 척 하고, 속으로는 더 부추겨야 한다고 생각합니다.

[donilpark]

우리가 뭐 일본하고 '진정으로 우호적이고 평화로운 관계로 미래로 공영해 나아갈' 것도 아니고, 일본이 정신부터 썩어서 서서히 망하면 그야말로 우리한테 더 좋은 일이 어디 있나요? 야스쿠니 참배? 흥분하지 마세요. 그게 다 일본이 정신부터 썩어있다는 걸 보여주는 겁니다. 우리는 춤을 추며 기뻐할 일이죠.

[donilpark]

소위 말하는 일본의 '양심'이라는 사람들, 전 굉장히 경계가 되고 불안합니다. 그런 사람이 남아 있으면 일본에도 희망이 있다는 건데... 그래선 안되는데 말이죠. 어쨌든 우리한테는 일본이 정신이 썩어서 서서히 망해가는 게 좋은겁니다. 갑자기 망하면 우리도 타격이 크겠지만, 서서히, 서서히 문드러져 간다면...

[donilpark]

아닌 말로, 우리가 진짜로 일본이 잘 되길 바래서 야스쿠니 신사 참배 그만하고 전쟁범죄를 뉘우치기를 바라는 게 아니지 않습니까?