Revere the Emperor! Expel the Barbarians!
Undoubtedly the most famous Japanese political slogan ever,
sonnô jôi is usually -- and quite
correctly -- glossed as "revere (尊) the Emperor (皇 or 王),
expel (攘) the barbarians (夷)". But don't worry if your
grandmother is heading to Kyoto next week, it's been
quite a while since this has been actively advocated...
Revering the emperor and expelling the barbarians became a
national priority after Commodore Perry's
black ships forced The Opening of Japan in 1853.
The populace was not only dismayed that barbarians were coming
in and dictating the terms of their treaties, but that the impotent
Tokugawa Shogunate was bending over and giving in to all their
Prior to this, Takenouchi Shikibu (竹内式部) had already
advocated the theory of
absolute loyalty to the Emperor (尊皇論 sonnôron),
getting himself arrested for the trouble since, under the
Shogunate, the Emperor was sidelined and only the Shogun had real
power. Coupled with a desire to expel meddlesome barbarians,
this was now adopted as the battle cry of
the rebellious provinces of Choshu and Satsuma,
and the Imperial court in Kyoto -- showing some spine for once -- actually ordered the Edo bakufu to sonnô jôi in 1863.
samurai (ronin) rallied to the
cause, assassinating bakufu officials and Westerners, and
culminating most famously in the murder of the British
trader Charles Richardson (as popularized by James Clavell's Gai-Jin).
(Do note that Richardson made the mistake of passing by a daimyo
without the proper obeisances and was cut down on the spot, so this
was not exactly a terrorist action.)
But this turned out to be the zenith of the
sonnô jôi movement, since the Western powers
responded by demanding heavy reparations and then pulverizing
Satsuma capital Kagoshima
when they weren't forthcoming. While this incident served to
further weaken the shogunate, permitting the rebel provinces to ally
and overthrow it in the Meiji Restoration, it also clearly showed
that Japan was no match for Western military might. Not that
the leadership had ever been particularly serious about expelling
barbarians, Satsuma in particular had at the same time happily
bought guns, artillery, ships and technology from the West.
So after the
tennô had been raised to a sufficiently
sonkei-able position, the slogan was quietly dropped
and replaced with another: 富国強兵
fukoku kyôhei, or "rich country,
strong military", the rallying call of Japan's wildly
successful Meiji Era and the seed of its megalomania during
World War II.