Hirohito, Son of Heaven and Scion of the Sun Goddess, last week denied his own identity:
"We have ... to proceed unflinchingly toward elimination of misguided practices of the past. . . . The ties between us and our people ... do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world. . . . The Emperor is not a living god. . . ."
Thus, in the 18th year of the Era of Enlightened Peace, an ideological hara-kiri was committed on the anachronistic body of Shintoism. For Japan and all the Far East the consequences of Emperor Hirohito's proclamation might well be profound.
By Allied order, Shintoism had been disclaimed as Japan's state religion. Hirohito now carried the process a revolutionary step farther. He threw overboard the whole fantastic doctrine that the Japanese people and their ruler are divine, and that they have a divine mission of world conquest. This doctrine, as zealously inculcated as Nazi ideas in Nazi Germany, had been the mainspring for half a century of Kamikaze fanaticism and grandiose visions.
Man on the Throne. With this anachronism blasted, the building of a new Japan could proceed with some chance of success. When and if the Japanese revise their constitution, they will not stumble over Article III, which says that "the Emperor is sacred and inviolable." In denying his godhead, Hirohito appeared to be making a very human effort to lead the way in constitution revision.
Reaffirming the "national policy" announced 7$ years ago by his grandfather Meiji, who envisioned modern Japan as a popular parliamentary monarchy, Hirohito expressed concern for "the desires of the people" and his wish "always to share ... their joys and sorrows." It seemed like an effort to bring the ex-god closer to his ex-worshipers—quite in line with the Tokyo press's recent featuring of pictures of the Emperor and his Empress in civilian instead of ceremonial clothes, strolling or puttering in their garden with their children, more like people than divinities.
Man in the Street. Most Japanese were not visibly affected by the Emperor's disavowal. The Nippon Times rationalized: "No innovation, as many foreigners think, but a return to the true traditions of Japan after a period of temporary perversion. It can occasion no astonishment . . . only a quiet and profound satisfaction." Communists sneered: "The statement of non-divinity shows a retreat caused by international pressure and attacks by the people. It is like an octopus eating its own tentacles when hungry."
The Japanese man-in-the-street, interviewed by Allied newsmen, reacted in typical Japanese fashion: he himself had never really believed the Emperor divine. Perhaps he meant it. Perhaps he was characteristically saying what he thought his interviewers wanted him to say. Perhaps he was just being bafflingly Japanese.