Spirit of Islam, Sept-Oct 2022

I N December 1941, during WWII, the top naval base of USA, Pearl Harbour located on the Pacific island of Hawaii, was attacked without prior warning by the Japanese. So severe was the bombardment that, of the hundred odd naval vessels anchored there, only a handful survived. This had the immediate effect of bringing America into the war as one of the Allied Powers. Up till that point, USA had no direct involvement in hostilities save as a supplier of armaments to the enemies of Japan. The Japanese attack was uncalled-for and ill-considered. They did not realize the magnitude of their error until 1945, when America finally took its revenge by dropping the first-ever atom bombs on two of Japan’s major industrial centres, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan was utterly annihilated as a military power. The Americans then kept a tight military and political hold over Japan. But the latter country, astonishingly, recuperated from the horror of large-scale atomic devastation, and proceeded to adapt itself to an entirely new set of circumstances. Before the World War II, it had relied on the ‘power of weapons’. But after witnessing the destruction these caused, it relinquished their use and set about reconstructing the country along entirely peaceful lines. Having once adopted this course, the Japanese showed great versatility, resilience and assiduity, and their success has been such that Japan is now considered the second greatest industrial power in the entire world today. Its trade surplus in 2020 was 5.86 billion USD. In the field of industry, the victors have been subjugated by the vanquished. Simply by accepting the fact that aggression could not pay dividends and then channelizing its potential in the field of industry, Japan has managed quite miraculously to supersede all the other nations of the world. The Americans are greatly upset at this state of affairs and refer to the present ‘invasion’ of Japanese goods as an Economic Pearl Harbour. A book written by Ezra F Vogel under the title of Japan as Number One, became a best-seller when it was published (1979). It clearly shows that Simply by accepting the fact that aggression could not pay dividends and then channelizing its potential in the field of industry, Japan has managed quite miraculously to supersede all the other nations of the world. CORRECT STARTING POINT Assurance of Success