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Post-Postwar

Tokyo　　Hours after the earthquake, the columnist Masahiko Katsuya scrapped the article he had been writing and started over. “Surely, this is a national emergency,” his new column began. “Just when the Japanese nation had hit bottom politically, economically and morally, we suffered a blow so crushing it seemed it might well be the end of us. But we mustn’t let that happen. … My fellows, let us fight! Fight until our vigor is restored!”

This is the rhetoric of war. And it’s not a metaphor. This disaster is the war that many Japanese have been dreading, and expecting, for a long time.

Four years ago, an article titled “War Is Our Only Hope” appeared in a political magazine. “More than a decade has passed,” the young writer wrote, “since we were set adrift in society as low-wage workers. And yet society, far from extending a helping hand, heaps insults on us, saying we lower the G.D.P., calling us lazy bums. If the peace endures, the current inequality will last until we die. We need something to break this asphyxiating stagnation and set things in motion. War is one possible solution.”

These words jolted Japanese society. It was a rejection of all the country has believed in for over 60 years.

Japan was fundamentally altered by its defeat in World War II. It chose to abjure war and to recreate itself as a wealthy country. But how long, one wonders, did our faith in peace, democracy and economic growth really last? Not long, it seems. Over the past two decades growth has faltered, economic disparity has greatly increased and faith in the political order has eroded. Though they didn’t say it, people could tell that sooner or later some disaster had to happen. That young writer only gave it a name.

Days after the earthquake, supermarket shelves were empty, long lines of cars had formed outside gas stations, parents were taking their children out of Tokyo. The television showed endless images of demolished towns; the numbers of the dead and missing climbed mercilessly upward into five digits; and refugees in dark gymnasiums lay trembling in the freezing cold, waiting for help. These are scenes from a war.

For the first time in his reign, Emperor Akihito made a televised address to the Japanese people. This, too, reminded us of his father’s radio address at the end of World War II, 66 years ago.

And now we are transfixed by the images of reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant; they’re emitting flames, exploding. When the first small, brown mushroom cloud rose, memories we had sealed off deep inside suddenly surfaced.

We lost many things in those years, chief among them the bond between people. Companies, families and neighbors ceased to work together, and the word kozoku was coined to describe our country: ko meaning “isolated” or “orphaned,” zoku meaning “family” or “tribe.” We were lonely, adrift.

Eiji Oguma, one of the most prominent social historians here, once asked, “How long do we have to go on using this word ‘postwar’?” He answered himself: “Forever. Because we established a new country after the defeat. When we say ‘however many years after the defeat,’ it really means ‘however many years after the founding of the nation.’ ”

“Then again,” Mr. Oguma added, “maybe we’ll only use it until the next war.”

Now, amid the chaos of the battle we are waging, we feel a familiar sense of exhilaration in the air, an intense feeling of solidarity. We can only wonder what the new Japan will look like.

— GENICHIRO TAKAHASHI, author of “Sayonara, Gangsters.” This article was translated by Michael Emmerich from the Japanese.