You and Your Wife.
In Japan, being someone’s wife legally gives you something profitable. For example, you don’t need to pay any tax, all the children declare not to inherit your husband’s legacy for the sake of you as his wife. An old Japanese idiom says “内助の功”, which simply means “wife’s achievement to support her husband’s work outside the house”. The fathers of the Japanese civil law paid attentions to this and enhance such a custom by even adapting the original western civil law texts to it. In this regard, you as the husband may not argue that you’re not responsible for what your wife has done, because both you and your wife take advantage of this typical Japanese legal and social system.
To understand what’s happening right now in the House of Shinzo ABE correctly, you have to take this into account. The point is how deeply Akie ABE, the first lady of the Japanese Prime Minister, is involved in the affair of the ultraconservative elementary school to be established called “森友学園” in Japan. The founder of the elementary school, Mr. Yasunori KAGOIKE, is said to have been politically preferred when he succeeded to acquire the real estate for the school, which had originally belonged to the Government of Japan. The House of ABE is being blamed because it reportedly affected the deal either directly or indirectly.
We can’t deny the one thing: The first lady, Akie ABE, is personally committed to the elementary school and enthusiastically supported it. She even accepted to become its honorary president, which was publicly announced in the school’s official website. Mr. Yasunori KAGOIKE leaked that she “personally” made a financial contribution in amount of 1 million JPY to the school and handed over the money to him privately without any receipt. Her husband, Shinzo ABE, had firmly denied neither he himself nor his wife did have something to do with the illegally preferred deal of the real estate. Nevertheless, the moment of the truth will come, when the donation will be proven to have been done by Akie ABE. The Japanese Diet officially resolved that he should be summoned as a sworn witness before the Diet. He’ll show up on March 23 in the Diet.
Besides the above-shown Japanese idiom, I personally imagine what actually happened between Mr. KAGOIKE and the House of ABE on the critical date in 2015. Thanks to a person who stands closely to the first lady, she kindly invited me on January 2, 2015 to the suite room of the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi, Tokyo, where she and her husband, the Japanese Prime Minister, privately enjoyed a short vacation. I asked her to do so, because I wanted to make a presentation on a brilliant Japanese high technology for combatting the tritiated water in Fukushima to Shinzo ABE face to face. Even though he personally showed great interest in the technology, nothing happened after that. However, I can still imagine what the first lady wrote to me at that time:
“The Prime Minister has just won the general election, while I had contributed to the victory much more than before. Therefore, maybe, he’ll accept my request smoothly.”
I suspect the quite same thing happened to the MORITOMO-GAKUEN affair. Shinzo ABE finally accepted her wife’s request and met Mr. Yasunori KAGOIKE, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t committed to the ultraconservative school. The reason why he did so was quite simple: His wife, Akie ABE, the first lady, enthusiastically committed herself to the philosophy of the school. Because he couldn’t help recognizing her contribution to his victory in the previous general election, he gave a small present to her by holding a short meeting with Mr. Yasunori KAGOIKE in Osaka, I suppose, as they really did vis-à-vis to me in Roppongi, which was never recorded officially.
But again, in Japan, the rule of the household’s integrality can’t be denied both politically and legally. Well, dear Prime Minister, it’s the high time for you to resign right now, as I repeatedly recommended you to do so in this column. Unless you won’t follow my recommendation, something much more disastrous will happen and destroy all the political legacies of the House of ABE. Take care and call me if you need any essential advices from me.
