Tokyo parliament riot
On Thursday, September 17, 2015 pushing and fistfights broke out in Japan’s National Diet parliament over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new security law, which, contrary to the constitution, will allow the Japanese government to send its soldiers into combat for the first time since the Japanese armed forces were re-created during the Korean War. There has been strong resistance to the bill among the public and opposition politicians, but when the conservative Liberal Democratic Party government rammed it through the legislature on Thursday 17th on a procedural sleight of hand violence broke out. It means that Japan is abandoning pacifism, which is famously written into its Constitution Article 9. Conservatives say it is good because it makes Japan a more ‘normal’ nation and an equal, or 'more equal' international treaty partner. Liberals oppose it because it is clearly unconstitutional and therefore illegal. Official pacifism is what made post-war Japan great and allowed it to focus its resources on economic rebuilding, to become a major world economy. Liberals see the security bill as a wedge for the re-militarization of Japan.