I'm reading a book relating to the Greater East Asian War that was written for the author's granddaughter who was attending a private high school in New York in the U.S. The author is the honorary advisor of the leading Japanese beer company, Asahi Breweries. Ltd. His granddaughter asked him to give her his opinion on the war, because she was learning the history of World War Two.
Japan didn't have sovereignty for 7 years after the war. Japan suffered a variety of hardships from the U.S. under scrutiny. I've often been writing about it. The Japanese Constitution was scripted by Douglas MacArthur about 60 years ago when Japan didn't have its own sovereignty, and it has been preserved until now without any revision. You might not believe this fact, but there's even a public opinion that modifying the Constitution is evil. It is irredeemable. Is such a Constitution effective when it has been written by another country? As I was thinking this way, I recalled a monument I saw in Korea. South Korea expresses its appreciation for assistance in the Korean War to lots of countires, and the national flags of those countries were carved on the face of the monument. I wondered why there wasn't a Japanese flag at that time, and promptly I understood there was no sovereign state whose name was Japan when the Korean War began. Do you know where this monument stands?
- (Vocabulary)
- sovereignty (一国を統治する) 主権, 統治権
- honorary advisor / honorary consultant 名誉顧問
- honorary (肩書・地位・学位などが)名誉として与えられる; 名誉職の, 無給の
- under scrutiny よく調べてみると; 詳細に吟味［検証］されて, 徹底調査されて
- scrutiny 精査, 詳細な吟味
- Douglas MacArthur ダグラス・マッカーサー (1880–1964), 米国の陸軍元帥,日本占領連合国軍最高司令官（1945–51）
- public opinion 世論
- irredeemable (フォーマル) 取り返しのつかない, 救いようのない
- sovereign (国が) 独立の, 自治の
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