I recently wrote an article, largely based on my own experiences, comparing Poland and Japan. I argued that for historical reasons, accidental rather than due to any direct influence, they both lie on the “periphery of Western liberalism”.

I also noted a number of historical analogies, which I have also mentioned in Twitter. The main one being the way the Japanese samurai class and the Polish szlachta created the national culture, that became adopted by the rest of the society.

It is this natural culture that presents a barrier to total victory of Western liberalism. Of course there aren important differences between the two cases - one of these is the influence of Christianity. Of course Christianity is a central element of Polish culture while in

Japan, although not entirely absent, its influence is mostly indirect.

I once managed to have a brief argument on Twitter with Tom Holland, the well known historian. It was something to do with his book “Dominion”, which discusses Christianity’s influence of Western civilization. I don’t remember how it started but he asserted that “the Japanese”

rejected Christianity and I simply pointed out that he was using the word “the Japanese” as synonymous with the Tokugawa Shogunate. In fact, the Tokugawas tried to eradicate Christianity for political reasons, in other words, they had nothing against the Christian beliefs

themselves. Partly it was because they became convinced that it was a tool which the Portuguese wanted to use to colonize or dominate Japan, and partly it was because they saw it as a threat to their own domination. In fact, of course, before it was banned Christianity made

great strides in Japan, with Portuguese missionaries converting many powerful feudal lords and well as masses of the people. Restrictions on Christianity began in 1610 and a total ban was promulgated with the beginning of the official policy of seclusion in 1630. In 1637

there was a massive Christian uprising in the Shimabard domain (present day Saga and Nagasaki prefectures). It was crushed with the help from the Dutch, who thanks to this obtained a virtual monopoly on trade with Japan. The Japanese did not seem to view the Dutch as Christians.

Secret Christianity survived (in a distorted form) the whole period of persecution until it became legal in Meiji period. It then continued relatively undisturbed until the present day, never exceeding 1% of the population but producing surprisingly many prime ministers

(8 up to the present - the first being Hara Takashi, 1918-21, the tenth prime minister of Japan) and many influential cultural figures. Christians, by the way, did of corse, participate in the Japanese military during the Pacific War, only a small group of Japanese protestant

“non-church” Christians refused and were persecuted. Catholics, however, fought for Japan and some with distinction. They did experience some discrimination. I once once posted this fragment from the secret diary of the dissident intellectual Kiyosawa Kiyoshi.

But the lack of influence of Christianity on the mass of Japanese remains can manifest itself in surprising ways. One thing that I mentioned in my article is a an experience that once shocked me and made me think of this.

It involves the issue that is rarely discussed in Japan - abortion. So I will repeat this story here.

Once I was visiting a Buddhist temple in rural Japan. In fact, although one uses the word “temple” for Buddhist churches and “shrine” for Shintoist ones,

but although that was a Buddhist establishment, it looked more like a shrine. What was the most striking thing was a very large number, I think hundreds, of small Jizo statues. Jizo is a Japanese bodhisattva and jizo statues are very common in rural Japan.

People often leave offerings next to these statues but this time there was something very strange about the offerings, because they mostly toys. So I asked my wife about the meaning of this and she said that these were offerings made to the souls of children who died in

childbirth. I accepted this answer at first but later it began to seem strange, since I knew that modern Japan had a low infant mortality rate and all these offerings looked brand new. So I started searching for this on the Internet and eventually I found what I should have

guessed - these were offerings made to the souls of children that were aborted by their, well, I am not even sure if I should use the word, parents. Apparently there are many such temples in Japan, although this was the first time I noticed this.

Now when you think about the Western arguments about abortion they always center aroung the question: is a foetus human? Yet obviously to these Japanese this is not even the right question to ask, for undoubtedly they believe they have souls.

That reminded me also of something that I read in a book by Laurens Van der Post, who was a prisoner of war of the Japanese (Based on his novel, the Japanese director Oshima made a well known film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_Christmas,_Mr._Lawrence ).

Van Der Post describes how the Japanese guards, after treating prisoners with great brutality and killing them, suddenly became very respectful to their dead bodies - even praying to them for forgiveness. A living prisoner was a contemptible, barely human being, but a dead one

was a spirit, something vastly superior that one had better try to appease.
On the other hand, Japanese war time propaganda constantly claimed that Americans ill treated the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers.

Japan often seems and is said to be almost an atheist country. Yet temples and shrines are always full, especially during festivals and Japan also has the largest number of oficially recognized religions in the world (although it is suspected that many are basically tax evasion

schemes - recognized religions are tax exempt).

I saw recently on Twitter the results of a survey which asked people if they viewed religion on the whole as a positive or negative phenomenon. Japan had by far the largest net number of positives.