Shūmei Ōkawa

Ōkawa Shumei (Japanese大川 周 明; born 6 December 1886 in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, † December 24, 1957 ) was a Japanese nationalist writer and political philosopher, and advocate of Panasienbewegung. His writings inspired many Japanese right-wing extremist groups in the 1930s.

Life

1911 graduated Ōkawa the Imperial University of Tokyo in philosophy. Soon he was represented to be a defender of the idea of a famous contemporary nationalists, Kita Ikki, the Social Darwinist theses in favor of Japanese imperialism. On January 8, 1919 justified Ōkawa and Kita with like-minded influential organization Yuzonsha ( Society for the Preservation of the national system). Through their communication organ, the journal Otakebi ( battle cry ), the Yuzonsha propagated a political return to the simpler, military values ​​of feudal Japan, and the establishment of a National Socialist government. Yuzonsha won an immense number of sympathizers, especially among Japanese military.

After a short time, however, Ōkawa zerwarf with Kita and then published his own magazine from 1924, Nippon (Japan). In it, he argued for a Japanese military government and the expansion of the Japanese empire up to and including Manchuria. In 1929, he was (东 亜 経 済 调查 局, Toa keizai CHOSA kyoku ) appointed by the Japanese government as chairman of the new East Asian economic Archives of the South Manchurian Railway and the special lecturers at the military academies of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

In the spring of 1931 Ōkawa was involved with a group of young army officers in an attempted coup. The attempt failed, however, these were for the first direct attack by the Japanese right-wing extremists against their own government. In October of the same year followed by another unsuccessful coup. Also involved was Ōkawa in the attempt of May 15, 1932 against the then Prime Minister of Japan Inukai Tsuyoshi. Ōkawa was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison. In 1937, he was released on parole.

Two years after his release Ōkawa took again his previous position in the East Asian economy archive. At the same time he was principal of a special school at the Tokyo Hosei University and responsible for the implementation of a program developed there for the systematic national indoctrination of the Japanese population.

In the Tokyo trials of Japanese war criminals of World War II Ōkawa was accused as the only civilian for crimes against peace. After a nervous breakdown on the first day of the trial the court actions were soon dropped against him because of mental incapacity and Ōkawa admitted to a psychiatric hospital, which he left in 1948.

The last years of his life devoted Ōkawa the literature, including a 1950 completed translation of the Qur'an into Japanese, which was to be his last major contribution to the Japanese Islamic Studies.