February 23, 2003
Quote of the day
For the better part of those eight centuries under the shoguns, most Japanese were unaware that emperors still existed, and only a small circle of court nobles continued to regard them as divine. When the shoguns were toppled in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan's new strongmen gained control of the current Son of Heaven, a boy of 15, and announced that the whole country had "submitted to rule by the divine emperor." This was sheer bluff. Even today, there are huge credibility gaps in Japan. If there were a Japanese version of the fable The Emperor's New Clothes, the tailor would be executed for exposing the truth, the little child for speaking the truth and the peasantry for seeing the truth.
The Yamato Dynasty, p15
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave
