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7/29/2019 Britain and Japan, Between Two Islands - Terry Boardman 1996
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Britain and Japan: Between
Two Islands
Terry Boardman May 1996
It is largely through their devotion toindustrialism and competition that Britain
and Japan have risen to world prominence.Japan's rise began in the 1890s, just as
England's imperial sun started to set. Here
we see evidence of a remarkable
parallelism in the histories of these two
countries. Until the year 1600, they had
both been developing for a thousand years
into united and disciplined nations. During
the Tudor dynasty in England (1485-1603)and the Azuchi-Momoyama period in Japan
(1568-1600), this process was largely
completed. In the year 1600, the two
nations "met" for the first time through the
career of a single individual, the English
pilot, Will Adams, who was shipwrecked in
Japan and went on to become a samurai, an
advisor to the shogun (military dictator)
Ieyasu Tokugawa.
Adams' mentor Ieyasu won his crucial battle
for national dominance in 1600. In their
overexaggerated fears of the threat from
Spain and Portugal, Ieyasu and his
successors progressively closed Japan off
from the rest of the world. Most of them
had names beginning with "Ie-" (household),
the only dynasty in Japanese history to do
so. They were a suspicious, inward-looking
family, who accumulated vast wealth for
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themselves and created what could be
called the world's first attempt at a kind of
'police state', with spies everywhere and
fearsome punishments for those who
stepped out of line. The well-known social
and industrial discipline of the Japanese
owes much to the habits instilled in thoseyears.
The British, meanwhile, expanded their
island's forces all over the globe in the 230
years between the time they gave up
trading in Japan (1623) and when their
progeny, the Americans, forced Japan at
gunpoint to open for trade in 1853. So we
see a remarkable contraction at one end of
the Eurasian continent and an expansion, at
the other end. These two gestures took
place precisely within the Regency of the
Archangel Gabriel (1510-1879) during which
Britain played a major role in initiating the
world into the experience of scientific and
technological materialism. This increasing
interest in the world of the senses was themain characteristic of the Gabrielic epoch,
Gabriel being the Archangel of the Moon,
who promotes the incarnation process in all
its forms. His rulership, as Rudolf Steiner so
often stated , was marked by the rise of the
science of the moon-brain as well as by the
rise and fall of England as world hegemon.
For although the British Empire controlled a
fifth of the world's landmass and dominated
the oceans in 1914, Britain's moon had
already begun to set by the beginning of
the Regency of the Sun Archangel Michael
in 1879. In that same year Japan embarked
on its first expansion overseas by seizing
the islands of Okinawa. In the following 100
years, despite the defeat of 1945, Japan's
sun rose ever higher.
It did so, however, primarily in relationship
with the Anglo-American world. The
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Americans forced Japan open in 1853 and
until 1902 England and America shared the
"tutelage" of the rapidly modernising
Japan. In 1902 a steadily weakening and
increasingly nervous Britain came out of
'splendid isolation' to contract its first
foreign alliance with the other splendidlyisolated island - Japan! The alliance was
directed at the major power between
them, Russia, and Japan's victories in the
subsequent Russo-Japanese War (1904-05)
had the effect of forcing Russia's attentions
away from Asia, back to its earlier
ambitions in the Balkans, and hence to
conflict with Austria-Hungary. In this wayJapan unwittingly played a part in setting
the stage for World War One. However, the
Japanese also had showed that Europeans
could be defeated, and their victories
provided a powerful impetus for
anti-colonial forces throughout the
European empires, notably in India. This
was to contribute greatly to the end of
British rule in India. Here again, one sees aparallel between the two island peoples.
Ever since Henry VIII's time (1509-47),
Britain has been cocking a snoop at the
Continent, and throughout its history Japan
has fiercely and proudly sought to defy the
might of the Empires of China, Mongolia,
and the West.
Since World War Two, when Japan has been
very much under American control, much of
her energy has been employed in spreading
industrialism and materialism throughout
Asia. Together with Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and South Korea (all under Anglo-American
"guidance") Japan has provided much of the
massive investment that has gone into
launching mainland China's economictake-off. Rudolf Steiner said in 1917 that
"something else is going to unite with the
materialism that works in the industrial and
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commercial impulse; something coming
from...the Chinese and Japanese element,
particularly the Japanese element, will be
increasingly caught up in materialism....the
people who belong to do not regard this as
something terrible, for they see it as asupport for materialism. For what follows
suit from Asia will simply be a particular
form of materialism."
Walk into any sizeable bookshop in Japan
and you will find a large number of books
aimed at businessmen, which claim to
expose the "Jewish-Freemasonic-Anglo-
saxon-Christian conspiracy against Japan".
America is the great Satan which seeks to
make Japan its puppet in the New World
Order. These books sell and are advertised
in respectable newspapers. New ones come
out every month. Such ideas thus circulate
widely amongst the Japanese business and
political class. They are not so much fascistin the modern sense as ultra-patriotic and
xenophobic; they are rooted in the
Japanese people's long history of
in-groupness and distance from foreigners.
In Britain, on the other hand, you would
have to look hard to find any such material.
Any hint of conspiracy theory in Britain is
constantly played down or ridiculed. Japan
is a society in which modern materialism
has shallower roots and in which the
realities of life have always been
recognised to lie in the invisible realm of
the spirit. Political power too is thus readily
recognised to lie behind the scenes. In the
more deeply materialistic British society, on
the other hand, what I do not see before
me does not exist thus there are noconspiracies. Freemasons, and other such
groups are irrelevant because their
activities are opaque to me. Only what is
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clearly perceptible to the senses has
validity - also in the political realm. The
British do not recognise conspiracies, only
cock-ups.
But when a magazine like the highly
influential "Economist" of London is seen tobe constantly supporting a particular
Japanese politician and claiming that he
represents the future for Japan, while for
the xenophobic rightwing Japanese
publications referred to above he is a
traitor and a tool of America, we have an
interesting symptom of the times. Those
same publications argue that Ichiro Ozawa,
now leader of Japan's main opposition
party, has for some years been pursuing a
clandestine programme to install himself as
Governor of the Puppet State of Japan in
the coming One World Union. Certainly,
One World under Anglo-American control is
precisely the kind of world that certain
spiritual forces that work through "The
Economist" and its allies in the Anglo-American Establishment have been seeking
to bring about; it would not take any
disinterested new reader of that magazine
long to realise this. For example, "The
Economist" cover story of 28th June 1991
included the following words: "Those who
have carried the winning ideas to the top of
the mountain, and now wish to spread
them, will not allow this process to be
vetoed by the semi-converted or by plain
toughs...America must remember that a
willingness to involve others is not enough
to make a collective world order work.
There must also be a readiness to submit to
it. If America really wants such an order, it
will have to be ready to take its complaints
to the GATT, finance the multilateral aidagencies, submit itself to the International
Court, bow to some system to monitor arms
exports, and make a habit of consulting the
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UN."
"The Economist" is perhaps the most overt
standard-bearer in the British media for the
highly covert plans that have been
cultivated in certain sections of the Anglo-
American elite since the days of CecilRhodes in the 1890s. For "The Economist",
Japan is central to the US military presence
in Asia and also central in the US bid to
prevent Asia-Firsters like Prime Minister
Mahathir of Malaysia from setting up
all-Asian economic blocs (such as the East
Asian Economic Caucus, EAEC) that would
exclude America and make US control of
Asian economies more difficult.
Ichiro Ozawa was a key member of the
Liberal Democratic Party which ruled Japan
for 38 years until 1993 when he engineered
a coup and led a faction out of the party
under the figurehead leadership of his
subordinate, Tsutomu Hata. Over the next
two years in the face of much opposition
from the more nationalistic sections of the
media and despite little real public
enthusiasm, Ozawa carefully steered his
new group into the position of leading
opposition party and eventually took over
the official leadership himself. As a result
of his quiet revolution, the position of the
erstwhile main opposition party, The Japan
Socialist Party, has been totallyundermined; its days are now numbered.
Ozawa's declared intention is to remodel
Japanese politics on 'normal' two-party lines
in the American style. He wishes to make
Japanese foreign and defence policy even
more closely allied to the US than it was
under the LDP. He is a keen supporter of
the US-favoured Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation forum (APEC). In Britain too,
Tony Blair, the Labour Party leader, has
reformed his Party in such a way that
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Britain will soon also have its own version of
the Democrats and the Republicans.
One may speak of the intentions of the
Anglo-American elite, but they are far from
nationalistic. About these intentions, Rudolf
Steiner said in 1917:
"...what is the aim of these secret
brotherhoods? They do not work out of any
particular... patriotism, but out of the
desire to bring the whole world under the
yoke of pure materialism. And because, in
accordance with the laws of the fifth
post-Atlantean period, certain elements of
the British people as the bearer of theconsciousness soul are most suitable for
this, want, by
means of grey magic (by which Steiner
could have meant the media) to use these
elements as promoters of this materialism."
Like the British, the Japanese are an
'isolated' people; they live on an island. The
word 'isolation' is etymologically related to'insulation' - to be like an island (insula) ,
separate, individual. This is the nature of
the physical realm of reality. In the 5th
Post-Atlantean period the human ego works
in the Consciousness Soul, which is that part
of the soul which is oriented to the physical
body, the body of isolation. This physical
body serves as a mirror for the ego tobecome truly conscious of itself, to awaken
to its self-existence and thus to its moral
responsibility. It is for this reason that, of
all western countries, it should have been
Britain in which the Industrial Revolution
began. Japan is the Britain of Asia. These
two island nations have had the task of
inoculating their respective continents with
the materialism that is a necessaryprecondition in the 5th Epoch for Man to
awaken to his true nature, to understand
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what it is and what it is not.
Japan decided to modernise after 1853
when its elite had seen what the Opium
Wars had done to China and how the
Chinese had been unable to deal with the
materially superior British. Modernindustrial materialism is a drug which
challenges us to awaken to its nature and to
our own, and thus to find our freedom.
Many commentators have noted that there
is something in both the British and the
Japanese peoples which, despite their deep
involvement with materialism, remains free
from it. It may be, as some have said, a
certain deep-rooted nostalgia for
pre-industrial times inherent in the
conservative nature of these two island
peoples. It may be related to the love of
gardens and flowers, of the weather and
the seasons which is profound in both
countries. It may also be related to the
particular modes of Christianity and
Buddhism that have evolved there andwhich have, in their own way, fostered the
development of the Consciousness Soul
there. Whatever it is, we may ask whether
it will be sufficient to get these two
peoples through their current difficult
periods as 'drug dealers'.
NOTES
GA = Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
(Gesamtausgabe)
1. In 1600 the East India Company was
founded in London. It went on to administer
much of British India and contributed
greatly to Britain's global wealth.
2. see R.Steiner, lecture 19th July 19243. see R.Steiner, lecture 15 Jan 1917 GA
174.
4. Ozawa's name has featured in many of its
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articles on Japanese politics and society in
the last few years. In its March 9th 1996
issue Ichiro Ozawa was invited to write a
special guest article in "The Economist"
setting out his intentions for Japan.
5. "In short, the 'house of world order' will
have to be built from the bottom up ratherthan from the top down...an end run
around national sovereignty, eroding it
piece by piece, will accomplish more than
the old fsahioned frontal assault." -- Richard
N.Gardner, deputy assistant secretary of
state under Presidents Kennedy and
Johnson, in the Council On Foreign Affairs
journal, "Foreign Affairs", April 1974 "Toachieve world government, it is necessary
to remove from the minds of men their
individualism, loyalty to family traditions,
national patriotism, and religious dogmas."
--Brooke Chisholm, director of the UN World
Health Organisation, SCP Journal summer
1991
6. R.Steiner, lecture of 15 Jan. 1917 GA 174
7. In passing, it may be noted that themirror is the preeminent symbol of the
native Japanese Shinto religion and that the
full moon, and not the crescent moon, as in
Islam, has long been a cultural icon in
Japan.
Terry Boardman
This page was created by Terry Boardman Dec 1999 Last
updated 21.1.2010
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