britain and japan, between two islands - terry boardman 1996

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

ain & Japan: Between Two Islands http://www.monju32.webspace.virginmedia.com/EW6.ht

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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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britain and japan, between two islands - terry boardman 1996

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