Photo/Illutration A reprinted edition of “Atarashii Kempo no Hanashi,” a 1947 booklet about the postwar Constitution for schoolchildren (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

In 1947, two years after the end of World War II, the government distributed a booklet as a new teaching material for first-year junior high school students.

Titled “Atarashii Kempo no Hanashi” (About the new Constitution), it contained an illustration of tanks and military planes being melted in a colossal, rapidly boiling pot to be recycled into brand-new buildings and vehicles.

The colophon said, “This booklet owes its publication to the dedicated efforts of Kiyoshi Asai and others.”

According to constitutional scholar Katsutoshi Takami, 77, Asai (1895-1979) was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who taught at Keio University.

Asai was marginalized for setting himself apart from the mainstay group of scholars who tended to pander to the military that was growing in prominence.

When Tatsukichi Minobe (1873-1948), a scholar of constitutional law, was publicly discredited in 1935 for his theory that the emperor is an organ of the state, Asai became one of the next targets of attack.

“He must have felt bitterly mortified that he had to keep his mouth shut,” Takami said.

After the war, the government did an about-face and entrusted Asai with the task of explaining the new Constitution to the public.

“Every time I saw happy children on their way to school ... I felt deeply moved that this author had been given the one and only opportunity to help them understand the Constitution,” Asai wrote in one of his published works.

His sense of exuberance was palpable.

“Go to a place burned down in an air raid, and you’ll see green grass already sprouting from the scorched ground,” he wrote in the booklet.

He used the indomitable vitality of plants as an analogy in teaching the concept of fundamental human rights to schoolchildren. His writing style was gentle yet powerful.

May 3 marks the 75th anniversary of the enforcement of the Constitution.

“Starting a war ultimately results in bringing ruin upon one’s own country,” Asai wrote in the booklet.

Had the Russian people today been able to fully relate to these words, I wonder, the world would have welcomed the month of May in peace.

I kept staring at the illustration of tanks being boiled in the giant pot.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 3

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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