Free Pearl Harbour - A novel of December 8th by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich Page B

will be quietly released.”
    “Which means they have support within the government?”
    “No, sir, and I think here is where you want some answers.”
    “The government now, as I understand it,” Winston said, “is Western leaning, wants to rein in the army after its romp into Manchuria, and keep good relations with us and America. So if there’s hidden support, does that mean the government is about to switch policies?”
    “Not quite yet,” Cecil interjected. “We define a coup as an actual attempt to overthrow the government, a dissident group trying to seize power and take over. In Japan, that is not necessarily the case. The Emperor, of course, is sacred and immovable; there is absolutely no Western comparison to his position.” Cecil shook his head.
    “No sir, it is not about actually overthrowing the whole lot. What happened last week in Japan, their word for it is gekokujo.” Winston mouthed the word silently.
    “It means insubordination, but not insubordination as we define it. That sir, is always the problem when dealing with Japan. So many subtleties of thought and words fail to translate. We say insubordination and we think of a young corporal gone cheeky to his sergeant, or a government minister telling the PM to go to hell .”
    Winston chuckled softly.
    “And sometimes deservedly so.”
    “Gekokujo is insubordination with a higher purpose. It is actually an act of loyalty, at least to those who perform it, loyalty to a higher ideal, to the Emperor and beyond him to the concept of nation. Even there, the word ‘nation’ does not translate effectively. It can even be construed, at times, as an act of loyalty to the very man they are attempting to kill, to try and awaken him and have him return to a righteous course.”
    “Killing him awakens him?” Winston grumbled. “That is one hell of a stretch.”
    “Not in their culture. Don’t get all confused by how some Westerners view Buddhism and reincarnation. The Japanese blend, at least for the warrior class, is strongly mixed with Shintoism, the worship of ancestors and, by extension, the greater concept of national identity. If at the moment of death, the man who is slain faces it with stoic honor and a realization of atonement, then the killers have actually done him a favor. After they kill him. they’ll salute the body, even clean up the mess, and apologize to the family for the inconvenience they have created before leaving.”
    “Bloody insane if you ask me,” Winston replied. “Some damn hothead who is pro-Nazi or Communist puts a bullet in me, and I thank him for it? Like hell!”
    Cecil chuckled and shook his head.
    “I think a story might explain it best. Have you ever heard of the forty-seven ronin?”
    Winston shook his head.
    “It is, to the Japanese, an epic as powerful to their national psyche as Henry V or the legends of Arthur are to us, or for that madman over in Germany, the Ring cycle of Wagner.”
    “Too many fat ladies shrieking for my taste.” Winston chuckled.
    “The story is a favorite kabuki play, told in schools, performed in puppet theaters, held up as a national ideal, and gekokujo is at the core of it.”
    “Go on, you have my attention with this.”
    “It was several generations after the ending of the civil wars that unified Japan, when the Tokugawa clan controlled the Shogunate. The atmosphere at the court had become highly rarified, filled with intricate rituals, the most subtle gestures conveying great meaning, the slightest stumbling in proper etiquette a source of amusement and disdain. One could perhaps compare it to Versailles on the eve of the revolution. The slightest breach of protocol triggered ridicule.
    “A daimyo from an outback region ...”
    “Daimyo?” Winston asked.
    “Say our equivalent of a baron from the hinterlands.”
    “Ireland,” Winston said, with a bit of a sardonic grin.
    “Exactly.... arrives at the court, summoned to do his turn of duty, as were all vassals of the