1 comment on “Aso Cabinet Email Mag: Aso explains himself away to the outside world as he asks for renewed power”

• July 25, 2009 at 5:29 pm

  James says:

  “I have consistently stated that the responsibility of politics is to ensure the peace of mind of our citizens and to safeguard people’s daily lives.”

  I should say that the responsibility of politics is indeed to ensure the peace of mind and to safeguard the daily lives of honest citizens and guests alike.

  In the respect of guests, my conclusion has to be that Mr. Aso’s performance has to be considered a failure.

  Governments, of necessity in their pursuit of safeguarding and other goals set to them, get entrusted with greater power and capabilities than other organizations. This power brings with it the potential to adversely impact the lives of honest people. One can argue about the likelihood and the intentions, but the raw potential of the various fault trees is there nonetheless.

  As a result, any government that honestly wishes to safeguard the people under it’s responsibility must of necessity put itself and it’s institutions on the list of threats to safeguard against, even on the shortlist of the largest threats to safeguard against. That this causes conflict and friction, and that it’s emotionally difficult to accept this problem is acknowledged, but governments get their privileges, budgets, powers and most of all confidence for the purpose of solving difficult problems. Simply ignoring, refusing to acknowledge the problem, or pointing to the difficulties does not score points.

  Internationally there are standards on how to safeguard people from the government of the country they are in. To be sure, the standards are far from perfect and not a single government has a perfect track record, though there are differences to be found. Again, the usual explanations that other countries are far worse and that there is compliance to imperfect standards may be just that, an explanation, but never an excuse. True progress comes not from relative quality, but absolute quality, and from rising above the international standards where this is necessary. Points are not scored for excuses, but for results.

  Getting to the main point, when it comes to guests, there is a worldwide increase in government powers, all too often without a sufficient corresponding increase in the necessary safeguards. While most of the attention of activists goes to Orwellian risks, the most immediate problems are Kafkaesque, the kind of bureaucratic indifference, errors (denied on no other ground than the article of faith that errors are impossible and therefore impossible to correct), abuses, frustration, lack of transparency and lack of accountability (see DANIEL J. SOLOVE, ““I’ve Got Nothing to Hide” and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy”), the kind of processes Franz Kafka described in his books “The Castle” and “The Trial”. Again, one sees differences in international reactions, the EU and within the EU the country of Germany show relatively careful thought about the problems involved, while the UK and the US have suffered serious criticism for neglect on this point.

  From what I see, during the period of Mr. Aso’s office, the Japanese government has not given the problems the thought that is warranted by due care. While it is granted that the Aso government, like many others, started on the back foot due to the actions of predecessors, one can see for instance that the Obama government in the US has started to tackle the worst excesses left by it’s predecessor, and that after a series of scandals, the Brown government in the UK is slowly considering the issues it created.

  I have observed no evidence that the Aso government is giving this new course much thought. On the contrary, I do see evidence of an increased momentum on the downward course described.

  Security is both a feeling and a reality, and they are not always the same thing (see Bruce Schneier, “The psychology of security”). When it comes to safeguarding people against Kafkaesque processes, security comes from creating actual safeguards to prevent, detect, and correct problems that can and will arise even with simple honest mistakes. When it comes to giving peace of mind, this can come from a variety of responses, depending on the state of mind of the people involved. But it is fair to say that for some people, and in the case of Japan particularly so for a group of western guests, peace of mind simply comes from showing the safeguards on request, without trying to conceal anything or give a different appearance from reality.

  This group is particularly important. Not only is a failure to do so a direct failure in giving peace of mind, it also casts a spell of suspicion on the existence and quality of actual safeguards. It is this failure that has become painfully clear to me.

  While mistakes are made everywhere, and must be taken into account up to reasonable levels (and weighed against the desire to improve), I see too low a quality and too low a desire to improve from Mr. Aso’s government to change my opinion on him having failed in a key responsibility.

  I do not see this as a Japanese failure. From many Japanese – unfortunately not in a position of direct influence – I see an honest desire to improve and learn about these problems. In my view, it is a failure of bureaucracy, ultimately the responsibility of Mr. Aso and the LDP as being the Prime Minister and the party in office.

  I therefore have no confidence in a further term for either at this time. I think it’s best for everyone if they rethink their policies for a while out of office.

  — You’re too quick to draw a line between “citizens” and “guests”. There are plenty of people who are neither. At least two million registered NJ who are taxpayers and residents. Thanks for the essay, but don’t fall into this false dichotomy so often perpetuated by the very powers that be that you are decrying.

  PS. I doubt Aso used the word “people” in the Japanese original of this speech. I bet it was “kokumin”. Again, that false dichotomy.

  Reply