The Exceptions to "History is Written by the Victors"

For those who are knowledgeable about modern history of Japan, Kagoshima is very much considered a pivotal place.  Led by the open-minded Shimazu family, the former Satsuma domain remained in contact with the outside world, absorbing Western technologies and ideologies during the long self-isolation imposed by the Tokugawa Shogunate.  As the 19th century saw the forced opening of the Shogunate to Western military coercion, the leaders of Satsuma emerged to lead the reformist movement in Japan to modernize the country, ending the Shogunate and rapidly catching up with the West with Meiji Restoration.

In this process of strengthening Japan to oppose Western colonization, one man among the many great home-grown leaders of Kagoshima was particularly influential.  Saigo Takamori was the brainchild of many Restoration policies, including abolition of feudal domain system and systemic training of a modern, Western-style army.  The natives of Kagoshima are justifiably proud of the man who lied the foundation of Japan's later achievements in both the economic and military fronts.  However, the large numbers of monuments and historical sites devoted to Saigo around the city also a display of great historical open-mindedness.

The reason is that Saigo did not exactly die a man of honor in the name of the Japanese state.  After coming into conflict in policies toward colonization of Korea with other bureaucrats in the new Meiji government, he left Tokyo, returning to Kagoshima to found local schools.  Yet, the local schools also became breeding grounds of political radicalization against the Meiji government, ultimately leading to a Satsuma-wide revolt against the government and outbreak of Seinan War, Japan's last civil war to date.  The defeat of the Satsuma forces led to Saigo's suicide and destruction of his local schools.

Knowing Saigo's bitter end, it is rather interesting to see him still honored as a hero of the country.  While modern Japanese tend to show distinctive lack of confidence with political leaders, they remain highly trusting and loyal toward government institutions and the state itself.  In a country where the imperial family has never changed hands, the very idea of revolting against the existing political system in order to establish one with supposedly more favorable policies is not just a political taboo, but more importantly a cultural one.  The rashness with which Saigo rose up against a system they helped to establish would raise eyebrows.

The Japanese saying goes that "the nail that sticks out will be hammered in."  A collective sense of common purpose, in this case the protection of the state and its governmental system, drives Japanese group identification through participation in a very ethnically oriented responsibility of nation-building and maintenance, even under adverse circumstances.  Those who go against this idea, such as Saigo in his ultimate decision to openly oppose the government, should be treated as social outcasts who deserve to be quietly raised as symbols of disloyalty.

So why is Saigo an exception to this unwritten rule, which, by the way, is still true to a very large extent in modern East Asian societies, including Japan?  Is it because his achievements to help Japan invent its modern self much greater than his faults as a failed leaders of violent rebellion?  Or is it because the Satsuma way of independent thinking praises revolutionaries in ways that Tokyo and the rest of the country dares not to?  There is no definite answer.  But what is for sure is that it takes some bravery on the part of the national government to allow Kagoshima's local loyalty to Saigo to continue unabated without official opposition.

Such broad tolerance underscores a certain degree of democratic values being entrenched in the current political establishment here, despite lack of cross-generational equality that make fair political competition unlikely.  On one hand, the celebration of Saigo denotes that every statesman who acts for the sole purpose of bettering the nation deserves to be honored, no matter what is his or her political orientation.  On the other hand, there is lamentation of the undemocratic past, where disagreements in policy had to be resolved by the sword, indirectly noting how the current presence of choices to be made peacefully ought to be cherished.

If this is the ultimate purpose of the current Japanese government in keeping the Saigo pride afloat in Kagoshima, then the victors in the Seinan War has not only won a military victory but also a moral one.  After so many bumps in the century following the Seinan War, the descendants of the victors can credibly claim to Saigo and his cohorts that they did not die in vain.  Their desires for political alternatives have been realized, without the needs for radicalization and death of so many compatriots.  To this point, it would be difficult for Saigo to refute, no matter how much anger he would feel about his defeat.