A CULTURALLY LONE COUNTRY

"If the media is responsible for the first draft of history, then in Japan it has yet to be written. It's no surprise that the nation's collective narrative -- spelled out in its history textbooks -- is as fragmented, incomplete and misleading as it is. The Japanese media has failed its people -- it has fostered a 'culture of amnesia' that not only keeps the country from obtaining its much coveted seat on the U.N. Security Council; it has set Japan on a collision course with China that will have consequences the world has yet to fathom."

Japan's 'Culture of Amnesia'

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"The Japanese people may soon be asked to make a momentous decision in a nationwide referendum. As I write this, the major political parties are at loggerheads over conditions under which that referendum will be conducted. Behind the closed doors of the Diet, but barely touched on in the media, this debate will lead to a decision that, perhaps more than any other, will affect the lives of everyone living in Japan."

Japan sleepwalks by design toward peace-renouncing poll

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"If, as seems to be the case, economic integration depends on cultural commonality, Japan as a culturally lone country could have an economically lonely future."

Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations