C. Douglas Lummis - The Smallest Army Imaginable: Gandhi's Constitutional Proposal for India and Japan's Peace Constitution
In 1931, on his way to
the London Round Table Conference, Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a Reuters
correspondent what his program was. He responded by writing out a brief,
vivid sketch of “the India of my dreams”. Such an India, he said, would
be free, would belong to all its people, would have no high and low classes, no
discrimination against women, no intoxicants and, “the smallest army
imaginable.”
The last phrase
presents a puzzle: What is the smallest military imaginable? But
the fact that it presents a puzzle is also puzzling. For what is so
unimaginable about no military at all? The question is not rhetorical,
for most people do find the no-military option unimaginable. It is easy
enough to pray for peace, to petition and demonstrate for peace, or to imagine
oneself as a perfectly pacifist non-killer. It is harder to imagine a
state with no military. One of the few places
where this option is clearly and forcefully stated is in Article 9 of the
Japanese Constitution. People who first hear about this article often
respond by insisting that the words can’t mean what they say. It is,
after all, an axiom of politics that states have militaries. This axiom
is presumed to hold despite the fact that there exist today 13 countries with
no military forces and no military alliances.
“Zero” is easy enough
to imagine; what is it that makes it so hard for us to imagine “zero military”?
Perhaps one reason is that the things the military is trained to do, and
does, are so awful that it is essential to us to believe that they are
ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, and that to allow any hint of a doubt about that to enter
our consciousness is unsettling. Moreover, if you start talking about the
possibility of zero military you are treated as one who has stepped out of the
realm of reality. You risk being called a crank, a dreamer, a peacenik, a
wimp or (God help us!) a “Gandhian.”
One might counter that
it is natural not to imagine zero military, because what constrains our
imagination is the force of reality itself. The idea is simply irrational
and unrealistic, and not worth thinking about. But I am convinced that
just the opposite is true: this failure of our imagination prevents us
from seeing reality; it conceals from us the truth of our situation.
It is only when we accept Gandhi’s implicit challenge and carry his
“smallest military imaginable” to its extreme conclusion that we can begin truly
to think about what the military means in our lives.
The Peace
Constitution of Japan
Japan’s post-war
Constitution does carry the challenge to its extreme conclusion; its Article 9
imagines the military altogether out of existence. Article 9.
Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice
and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right
of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes.
In order to accomplish
the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as
any other war potential, will never be maintained. The right
of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. Taken by itself,
Article 9 is a fascinating, bold, lucidly written statement of a new principle
of international politics, and a new concept of “the state” itself. Note
that this is not an “appeal” for peace, such appeals being a dime a dozen. .. read more:
