Japan's Nobel defenders of world peace

The resolution does not allow the government to change its official interpretation of the Constitution at will. It requires adequate debate in the Diet about any change in the government's interpretation of the supreme law.

Yet the resolution was sidestepped by the Abe Cabinet, which Konishi described as a coup d'état. "What the Cabinet is doing is allowing Japan to get entangled in conflicts or wars with the Japanese people being kept in the dark," Konishi said.

The right to collective self-defense means that Japan will be able to take military action overseas when a country that is its ally is attacked, even if Japan is not under attack. Abe is, in effect, gutting the Constitution's Article 9 without going through the amendment procedure.

More alarming is the conservative men and women Abe has appointed in his second Cabinet.

Two of Abe's new appointees have been shown in photos with the National Socialist Japanese Workers Party leader Kazunari Yamada, an admirer of Adolf Hitler. Internal Affairs Minister Sanae Takaichi and LDP policy chief Tomomi Inada took separate photos with Yamada in 2011 when he visited their offices "for talks", according to Yamada's blog.

Takaichi is pictured with other politicians in a full-color ad in the magazine Tokyo Seikei Tsushin endorsing a 1994 book titled Hitler's Election Strategy.

The right-wing in Japan is speaking louder in parliament, the media and society.

"If the situation goes on, collective self-defense will come true," Konishi warned.

Awaiting the result from the Nobel Committee in Oslo on Oct 10, Konishi is also ready to continue the fight with Abe and his like-minded rightists to block the legislation on collective self-defense at the upcoming autumn session of the parliament.

In his opinion, the Constitution's recognition to the right of all peoples of the world to live in peace, freedom from fear and want is universal rather than for Japanese people only.

The author is China Daily's Tokyo bureau chief.caihong@chinadaily.com.cn