Freedom of Speech

Japan is one of the safest countries in the world, where citizens rightly appreciate well-maintained security, and likewise, it is the home of Zen, which represents harmony and compassion.  Have you ever wondered, then, why Japan invaded her neighbors in Asia and in so doing carried out acts of extreme cruelty, comparable even with the Holocaust in Germany?   What happened to  Japan’s spirit of  “Bushidou, ” the way of  the samurai, that was always accompanied by compassion even toward ones’ foes?  Why did the Japanese discard the Buddha’s strict injunctions against killing, which were taken so seriously that they were even applied to livestock, so that the people became vegetarians?  Sadly, those virtues which our ancestors maintained for thousands of years were shattered by a force  of evil in only a few days, and then this alternate, “cruel Japan” came to the surface. Were the Japanese such a ferocious race by nature? Did the majority of the Japanese citizens at that time agree with the government’s policy?　If not, why could they not resist it? Whenever I think about World War II, these kinds of questions come to my mind too.   In the early 1930s, the military took power through a series of assassinations of  government officials who were proponents of democracy.  Such incidents included  the May 15, 1932, attempted coup d’etat in which the Prime Minister, Tsuyoshi Inukai, was killed, and  the  February 26,1936, attempted coup d’etat in which  Korekiyo Takahashi, the minister of finance was murdered.  Eventually  the military authorities were able to completely eliminate the notion of  democracy  from the political scene of the time. In place of democracy they established absolute rule by the military, using the monarchy of the Japanese emperor  as a cover by claiming that the Emperor was an almighty and universal god.  The military government also started brainwashing citizens by saying that the most beautiful and righteous way to live as a Japanese citizen was to devote one’s life to the Emperor. As a part of their thought control, the authority compiled elementary and high school textbooks, which were the main source of information for the masses at that time, in order to support their theory. Then gradually,  they came to control the media completely, including newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts.  At this stage, many uninformed people, which, I think, accounted for nearly half of the population at that time, were made to believe an invention of the military government that Japan was the nation of god, and so the Japanese were superior to all other races, and would never lose whatever wars and conflicts they entered.  This led to the notion that the  Japanese had to fight against such villains as the Chinese,  Koreans, and Western people who were defying the god emperor’s plan to establish utopia.  Thus, the citizens were deprived of their basic right, freedom of speech, which is the basis of democracy.      Of course, there were also people who were informed about world affairs and who supported democracy.  These people questioned military authority and gave reasons for opposing the policies of the military government.  They tried to resist rule by the military by writing articles for journals and periodicals.  But most of them were tracked down by the police and tortured to death on the spot when they were found.  Even in the rare case where one of them survived, he would find that not only himself, but also his family members would be tormented by being shunned or by being discriminated against; they could not receive their rations and medical service upon which most of the citizens depended during war time.  To strengthen their power, the military government established a special program of spying among citizens. They set up residents’ groups and encouraged local people to discourage their neighbors from making unfavorable remarks about the government.  Even near the end of the war, anyone who said “Nippon wa makeru” ( Japan will be defeated) would be arrested and then beaten up at the police station.      The situation of the soldiers who were sent to the front was similar.  They were taught that the order of the day was equal to the order of the god emperor; it was absolute.  Here are the notes of a young man who was sent to mainland China.  One day, his senior ordered him and his comrades to use an innocent Chinese noncombatant  as sword practice by stabbing him in the heart.  Even though he knew he would receive a harsh punishment, the young soldier refused to do so, because his faith in God (Jesus Christ) was unshaken.  He was punished by his superior officer as follows:      I was grabbed by the collar and  was shook, spat upon, and was called a traitor; I lost track of the number of times I was struck, kicked and tramped on  with army boots.  It was a freezing night, and water was thrown over me, after which I was made to keep standing, while holding a heavy gun for hours. All the possible illegal punishments which men could come up with were done to me all day long.  My family who was waiting for me back home received similar treatment.  I heard from one of my relatives, a man who was sent to China as a Kenpei police officer,  that many Japanese young soldiers felt the same way he did.       Even as the end of the war was drawing near, and the number of lost battles was coming to light, young men who were drafted were forced to say “Japan will win” and to die in service, being never allowed to say, “I don’t want to die.”  Instead, they were forced to say, “It is my pleasure to sacrifice my life to the god emperor and our nation.”  Not only the Naval Kamikaze special attack corps, but also many university students, were brought to the front and made to be suicide bombers. “Day after day, we were trained for rushing forward and attacking the enemy’s tanks, loading up large numbers of bombs with our bodies. As I was already certain of Japanese defeat, I knew how senseless it was.  I was always seeking ways to survive, though, of course, I never uttered a single word about it.  I and my comrades never wanted to die for the emperor even though we respected him.  I just wanted to listen to violin music played by Heyfetz,” said Hiroshi Toyoda, who was conscripted when he was a student at an institute of technology.  In reality, the majority of young Japanese men didn’t want to sacrifice their lives for the emperor; they only gave up their lives because it was their fate which could not be altered by themselves alone.  This is a note left in the will of Mr.I., who was forced to die as one of the Kamikaze commandos. (The content of his will was  read on a T.V. program on World War II a few years ago, but so far I have not been able to find his bereaved family members to ask for permission to use his words.  So I’m only using the initial of his name here.)  “Japan will lose this war because there is no freedom in Japan.  I’m sure that freedom will triumph after all.  So the United States, the nation of freedom will win the war.”       Do you think that freedom of speech is something we can take for granted?  This is a mistake.  Freedom of speech, the basis of democracy, can vanish overnight, like a disappearing act performed by an evil magician, sneaking up behind us during a moment of inattention.  And once it is gone, it will require great sacrifice to get it back.  We have to understand the value and true meaning of freedom of speech, and maintain constant awareness in order to protect it before some power seeker tries to snatch it away.   

The anniversary of Atomic bombing in Hiroshima

   The day of the anniversary of atomic bombing in Hiroshima rolled over again.  On August 6^th, prayers were offered at the Peace Memorial Park in the city for hoping a nuclear-free-world.  During the past year ( from August 2006 to August 2007), 5,221 atomic bomb survivors have died, and their names were added to a monument for the victims which contains 253,008 names. ( You need to verify that the number was brought only one blast of atomic bomb, and its influence probably has been remaining in the DNA of the descendants of victims in some way. ) There are 251,834 atomic bombing survivors across the nation, but their average age is 74,6 years old and the number of them who can tell us the cruelty of being atomic bombed are decreasing year by year.

   Some of the survivors are making effort to hand down the realties of  the bombing and their philosophy regarding their experience of being atomic bombed.  Unless the knowledge and the wisdom of victims prevails all over the world and the power of grass-roots non-nuclear movement shut out old-fashioned leader’s world view making much of armament, human being will face the peril of extinction.      

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki

Our Unforgettable Memory of Atomic Bombing of
Nagasaki

     There once was a mountain upon which it was forbidden to step.  People who lived near the mountain obeyed their god, who told them to keep away from that place as a work of devil.  The legend of their god’s word stayed alive for thousands of years, and no one went near the mountain.  One day, however, new people started arriving in the land, and these people did not believe the legend.  They broke the law laid down by the god and started to climb the mountain.  Once there they stupidly aroused the most vicious demons, uranium and plutonium, from a long sleep.  Those demons sent out into the world their most evil child, and the atomic bomb first saw the light of day in their country.

   *                *               *            

     Since the end of World War II, the U.S. government has held the position that the use of atomic bombs on Japan brought about a rapid conclusion to the war, and thus praised such weapons as peacemakers.  Were atomic bombs really the cause of peace – the ultimate reason for the end of the war?  As other nations have joined in acquiring nuclear weapons, they too claim that such weapons are a deterrent to war.  The sense of peace created by the possession of nuclear weapons, however, is illusory and fake; once war begins among nuclear nations, not only all human life but also the whole web of life on planet Earth is at risk from just the push of a button.  Unlike conventional weapons, a-bombs leave behind a residue that continues to destroy the genetic chain from within the bodies of living things and keeps harming them until all of them die out.

     As a citizen of the only nation on Earth to have been attacked by atomic weapons on its soil, I want as many other citizens of the world to know the facts about atomic bombing so that they will wish to join the nuclear weapon nonproliferation movement.

     Here is the story of Chiyono Yoneda, one of the victims of the bombing of
Nagasaki.

                    *                  *              *

   I was exposed to radiation in Aburagi Town, Nagasaki when I was nineteen years old.  Aburagi is located one kilometer from  ground zero.  At the time of the attack on Nagasaki, I had a job repairing soldiers’ uniforms in Shiroyama Town, only half a kilometer from the hypocenter.  If I had been at work that day, I surely would have died. That morning, however, my sister- who was in year one at a girl’s school- happened to ask me to go with her up the mountain to collect pine-root-oil, which was used as a fuel by the army, and which she was supposed to deliver to her school. Since it was so hot that morning, I decided to take a day off from work and go with her.  So I set out for the mountain along with my sister and my younger brother.  On the way, I saw my friend Yuki Matsuda and her mother for the first time after a long separation.  They had come to farm at one of their outlying fields.  We took a seat on a path between rice paddies and talked excitedly for a while.  It was just at that moment when a blind flash thrust through the air, and everything around me was instantaneously bathed in a dazzling white light.  The three of us who sat side by side were blown off in different directions, far from where we had been, and lost consciousness.

     When I came to, I could hear Yuki’s voice chanting a prayer to Buddah.  At the same time, the sky echoed with a laud crack.  I thought it was the machine gun of an enemy aircraft which was shooting at us.  I shouted to Yuki not to move for fear of being shot to death.  This sound was followed by the sound of heavy rain and the feeling of being pelted with something like tiny fireballs.  I was paralyzed with fear.

     After a while I got hold of myself and went off in search of my sister and brother.  Soon I came across them running down the slope, sobbing and screaming with fear.  They asked me,” Chiyono, what happened?”  Seeing I was injured my sister cried,” Chiyono, you are bleeding from your hand!”  Although my right wrist bone was broken and my right hand was dangling around, I was so terrified that I didn’t feel any pain at all.  Yuki and her mother, who were standing behind me, were horrified at the condition of my back; clothes were ripped and the skin was totally burnt.  Being shocked at their words, I gingerly touched  my back and found something like a dark, gummy strip of sheet stuck the hollow of my hand: it was the skin and flesh which had peeled off from my back.

     I glanced towards downtown, but there was nothing to see.  Even the hills in that direction were cloaked in smoke.  Gradually, trees caught fire at the bottom and began sputtering here and there around us.  Since we had no idea what had happened, we decided to take cover in a pocket of the mountain.   Gradually, as the smoke dispersed, I started to see many people who had been working in the fields crouched down on the ground groaning with pain.  Finally the fire started to calm down and I decided to head back down the mountain towards home. When I came down to a hill covered with bamboo just behind my house, I was surprised by the sight of people who had evacuated from downtown. Their clothes were mostly ripped into shreds and their skin was tattered and drooped down from their bodies. I apologized as I forced my way home through this crowd of people.

     When we reached home, my father and mother ran up and hugged us with great joy at the sight of us still alive.  They had already given up hope for our survival  when they’d seen the mountain burst into flames.  Both of them were also badly injured:  my father had fortunately been absent from his office which had been located near the epicenter, but he was crushed under the house when it collapsed from the atomic blast.  He also had fragments of broken glass driven into the skin all over his body.  My mother who had been out weeding in our fields was also burnt badly on her face and hands- the area of her body that had not been covered by clothing.  Even pumpkins on the ground nearby had exploded in the heat and seeds from them had spattered all over her skin.  Unfortunately there was no opportunity to seek treatment for any of these injuries as enemy forces were moving in following the explosion, so we decided to find a place to sleep in a  nearby shelter without even stopping to get anything to eat.

     When we reached the dugout, three of my cousins were already there; they’d been brought there after the explosion. In the middle of the night, they begged for water.  My father refused to give them any, because he had already heard a rumor that if an atomic bomb victim was given even one cup of water, that person would surely die. Gradually one by one, my cusins became silent and lay still in death.  When we brought their bodies out of the dugout, we were shocked at the sight.  Their skin had separated from their flesh, and their bodies had swelled up.  They looked like large sized black plastic bags stuffed with rotten blood and meat, to which just limbs were attached.  Their eyes, mouths, and noses were all melted down with heat- not even three dimensionally, but as if they had been painted on plastic. We were able to recognize them only by the size of bodies.  The largest was Hide, and the second largest was Yo-chan.  My father placed their bodies side by side and brought a bucket of water. Then he wailed with regret and moistened the lips of each of them with a piece of rag soaked in water.  “ Please forgive me!  I didn’t want you to die!  So I didn’t even give you a cup of water,” he cried.  I was nineteen, and it was the first time in my life I had ever seen him cry.

     Even after that horrible day, U.S. aircraft continued to fire at us with machine-gunns, and several people died right before my eyes.  Our town was in a complete state of collapse, and there was no way for me to receive any treatment for my wounds until camps were set up as a temporary hospital several days after the explosion.  While I was waiting for treatment, my body swelled up from head to toe because of the fracture on my right wrist.  I was one of the lucky ones however.  Many injured people, whose live bodies were crawling with maggots, tossed and turned with pain as the tiny worms moved on their bodies.  Without medicine and medical treatment, many of those who initially survived the atomic bomb attack died one after the other.

     The most miserable person in my memory was Kiyoko, my six-years-old niece.  She arrived at my house carrying her seven-month-old sister, Noriko, on her back.  As her family’s house was only five hundred meters from the epicenter, all of her family members died in a flash, leaving only her and Noriko.  Kiyoko cried that she was afraid that Noriko was going to die.  So we examined her body. She had red spots, the like of which we had never seen, all over her body.  Greatly weakened, without even enough energy to cry,  Noriko died the next day.  Soon Kiyoko got the same sort of spots, which gradually spread all over her body.  Counting the number of spots, she cried, “I don’t want to die.  Who will visit our family’s grave to burn incense and offer flowers if I die?”  But she breathed her last shortly after saying this.  Sitting beside Kiyoko’s body and stroking her head, my mother repeated with tears, “Don’t worry, Kiyoko.  I will visit your family’s grave.  Put down that burden and rest in Heaven with your mother.”

     As the days went by, even survivors who seemed to be of good heart passed away one by one.  “When will my turn come? “  “ Whose turn is next? “ We spent days being scared of dying.  I even tried to kill myself as I grew more depressed about my future, especially with my hideously deformed right hand.

     My husband is also an A-bomb victim.  He was bombed when he was called up for military service from his hometown, Yamaguchi, to Nagasaki.  He was willing to marry me even knowing about my ill-favored right hand.  I gave birth to four children.  Although three of them were fine, our first baby was stillborn.  He came out with his head unformed: it was just fluid.　

     The after–effects of being atom bombed went beyond the physical problems.  In 1958, we moved from Nagasaki to Tokyo. Little did we know the severe discrimination that awaited us there as survivors of atom-bombing. I was shocked to learn that our neighbors would throw away lotus roots we attempted to share with them.  They believed that the radioactivity we had been exposed to was infectious and that they would catch something if they ate food given by me as a gift- even though those particular lotus roots actually came from Yamaguchi Prefecture, which was nowhere near Nagasaki.  This type of discrimination even cast a shadow onto the next generation.  After my daughter graduated from college, an older graduate from her university proposed to her.  She went to meet his parents to discuss the marriage.  The parents disapproved of the match because they worried about her genetic heritage.  “ Does your mother have any lasting effects from exposure to radiation?  We wonder if you will bear a handicapped baby,” they said to her.  With this kind of negativity, my daughter didn’t feel right marrying this young man, and broke off the engagement.

     Happily, all my children married people who didn’t care about our exposure to radiation during the atom bombing, and I have eight grandchildren now.  However, sometimes I still worry that my grandchildren will be labeled as third generation a-bomb victims if word gets around about my work narrating my experiences during the bombing of Nagasaki. But I have to continue this work, because even in Japan, the number of young people who are ignorant about the atomic bombing of Japan is on the rise.  For the sake of all those victims who died crying out ,“ Water!  Give me water!  I don’t want to die! ”  I will keep on telling of the horror of atom bombs as long as I live, until every nuclear weapon has disappeared off the face of the Earth.

* This story is excerpted from “ Our Memory of the Asian Pacific War” ( Watashitachi no Asia Taiheiyou Sensou) published by Doushinnsya in
Tokyo, Japan.  This book examines the war from various viewpoints, not only from Japanese but also from Chinese, Korean and other Asian citizens’ points of view.

** Translation edited by Angela Bartlett

     Introduction by Keiko Ichihara

Nuclear experiment of North Korea

     We have the topic we urgently need to discuss. 
North Korea declared that they succeeded in their nuclear experiment in October 9^th, and carried out the second one yesterday. North Korea already lunched missiles toward the Japan Sea in August as experiment.  Nations around the Korean Peninsula, including China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan, are alarmed with those incidents.  Specialist estimates total number of death toll would be over ten million in case North Korea’s Atomic bomb hits, for example, Tokyo’s downtown.  And much more numbers would gradually die after the explosion with leukemia and other cancers.  Though nuclear experiments were carried out by other nations, for example, India and Pakistan, I keenly feel the need of active nuclear nonproliferation movement as a citizen of only an atomic bombed nation.  I want you know about this evil weapon which will surely lead humankind toward the way of destruction, and which will finally wipe all the lives off the face of the Earth.  I want to tell you about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nanking Massacre
I think many of you has a question why China and Japan have controversy over the difference of history’s understanding. As I already mentioned in “ The Anniversary of the end  of the World War II “, Nanking Massacre was one of the cruelest incident that Japanese Army committed at that time.  Different from the Holocaust in Germany, the incident has been rather hidden part of the world history for Western people, maybe because of the location of the incident or the difference of language. Though Chinese and South Korean people fear the revival of Japanese militarism, Japanese citizens seem to be very optimistic on the incident.  The reason is that majority of Japanese citizen have less information about the facts what Japanese army did in Asian continent owing to Japanese government policy of concealing the facts of the past even after the World War II.

     I think some of you already know the
New York time’s bestseller book, “The Rape of Nanking”, written by Iris Chang.  According to my first-hand information from person who was at the scene,  I think there are less exaggeration in the description of the book. ( The book was going to be published in Japan from Kashiwashobou, one of Japanese publisher.  But the contract was cancelled just before the publish.  Answering to my interview for the publisher, a stuff said he can not answer for my question about the reason why the book’s publish was cancelled. ) The description of the book is too cruel for young students to read, so I put excerpt of the book in this page:

    When city fell on December 13,1937, Japanese soldiers began an orgy of cruelty seldom if ever matched in world history.  Ten of thousands of young men were rounded up and herded to the outer areas of the city, where they were mowed down by machine guns, used for bayonet practice, or soaked with gasoline and burned alive.  For months the streets of the city were heaped with corpses and reeked with the stench of rotting human flesh.

   

    We tend to prefer to look at merry phase of world, however, we have to turn our eyes to the darkest side of our history and learn lessons from it.  Then we have to reconfirm that we would never duplicate sins in the past.  Unless real peace would never come along between the nations concerned.

    Reference

    Chinese death in
Nanking Massacre…………………350,000 in weeks.

    Japanese death of atomic blast in
Hiroshima………140,000 in a second.

    Jew’s death in Holocaust………………………………6,000,000 over years

    Russian citizen killed by Stalin……………………..40,000,000 over years

Where is the real resolution of Israel-Lebanon Conflict

     On 12 August, the Lebanese goverment and Hezbollah approved the resolution that the U.N. offered, and the next day, Israel did the same.  Though both side approved the resolution plan, they seem not to be able to break the ice practically.

The same as other wars in our history, attacks of both side in this time also targetted civilian population center and infrastructures including hospitals.  In Israel, 44 civilian were killed and 1350 injured.  In Lebanon, 1183 civilian were killed and 4.054 injured.  The victims were those who failed to get out of the bombing sites because of infirmity or financial reason.  The weak always fell victim to wars.  You will see the picture of mass graves for Lebanon civilians who were killed by Israel’s aerial bombings.  Among coffines formed into a line were half-length coffines for children.  See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel_Lebanon_Conflict .  Did those children commit terror though Israel claims that their attack was “Collective Punishment”. Try to imagine if one of them was for your family member.

     We now make it to a simple question : Arab-Israel conflicts have long history, but nothing have changed, nothing have been improved.  Why Israelite can not be in harmony with Arabs?  Why Arabs can not take Israelite to their heart?  I can imagine if I/ you lost my/ your family member by some nation’s attack, I/you will surely abhor that nation and its people, and take them as my/your enemy.  Then I/you can have joined operations of retaliation.  Next, in turn, someone lost one’s beloved one by our attacks of revenge, and hate me/you and can have managed to take vengeance on my/your nation’s people.

     Like this, the circle of hatred is created.  The number of victims soon multiply, and the circle of hatred widen.   At this point, you have to stop to think again.  ” Who killed my/your one and only? “  Is that all citizens of the other nation? — ” No “.  The circle of hatred have to be cut by someone someday.  Then real peace or harmony will come along.  I believe everyone of us can be one of those who cut the circle of hatred. 

Why Hezubollah of Lebanon fight against Israel?

     I already mentioned how and why Israel- Palestine conflict started.  But do you know why Lebanon, not Parentine started to fight against Israel?

The history of conflict between the two nations began with *Arab-Israel War in 1948. The war and following *” Six Day War ” and *” The Black September in Jordan ” drove more than 110.000 Palestinian into Lebanon.  And today, Palestinian refugees who immigrated into Southern Lebanon are counted more than 400.000 including their descendants.  Practically, Southern can be considered Palestinian’s informal state in the other nation.

* Arab Isreal War  :  http://www.Palestinehistory.com/war.htm

*Six Days War  :  http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/9999/6day1967.htm

*Black September in Jordan  :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan  

China/Korea vs Japan again

China/
Korea vs.
Japan again

    
China and
South Korea showed uncommon anger on Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s homage at the Yasukuni Shrine.  Yasukuni is the shrine that commemorate
Japan’s war dead ( Class-A war criminals are also defied there now. ) and considered by Asian people as a symbol of cruel Japanese militarism of 1930s ~ 1940s.  Japanese military government in those days used to teach Japanese men and boys that if one died in war to protect nation or to make the nation prosper, the one would become a god and be deified at the Yasukuni Shrine.  Glorifying the death in wars with the name of “ Yasukuni “, the government drove uncountable numbers of young men into battlefield.    
China and Korea were the biggest victim of the Japanese war of aggression.  It is natural that China and South Korea fear that Prime Minister’s official visit to the Yasukuni will be the declaration of the revival of Japanese militarism.  Many Japanese also feel anxiety if amicability with China and South Korea which has been constructed by citizens bit by bit after the World War II come tumbling down by only one Prime Minister’s deed. 

     Junichiro Koizumi insists that his worship to Yasukuni is a vow that Japanese government will never again commit such an atrocious war.  After he took the helm of state, however, nationalistic tendency has seemed to be conspicuous; at graduation ceremonies, teachers and students are forced to sing “ Kimigayo “, national anthem and salute toward a national flag, both of which are one of the symbols of nationalism or militarism, and if someone reject to do so, teachers are punished; questionable laws which may have possibility to suffocate freedom of speech are going to be enacted, suppressing objections from organs of public opinion and citizen’s groups; amendment to the constitution article 9, in which Japan’s abandonment of war was written, are discussed in the Diet.　

   Koizumi’s term of Prime Minister will be over in September.  We hope the next office can regain reliance from China and South Korea as an economical and political partner.

The Anniversary of the end of the World War II

The anniversary of the end of the World War II

     August 15^th is the anniversary of the end of the war for Japanese.  We are the generation who do not know the World War II, but I also lost several relatives and I can not forget that my grandmother moaned over her sons who died in the war all through her life.About seven decades ago, military authorities who were in office at that time started to try to extend their territory and to invade Korean peninsula,
China, and the other Asian nations.  At the same time, they administered brainwashing education over Japanese citizens claiming that Japan is the nation of God, and there is “ justice “ for them to punish China and the other Asian nations that defy Japan, the nation of God.     One of the most detestable incidents was
Nanjing atrocity (December 13^{th. 1937).}   Japanese army that finally occupied
Nanjing, Chinese capital at that time, cruelly killed Chinese soldiers who surrendered and abandoned their weapon, captive or wounded soldiers, ignoring The International Law in Wartime.  Moreover, they also killed Chinese citizens remained in the town. Japanese Army literally “ whipped in “ or “round up “ Chinese men in the town who would be contribution to Chinese Army and slaughtered collectively, thousands at a time. Chinese women and girls were raped and foods and resources were stolen by them too.

     I once interviewed a man who was at the scene of massacre as a Japanese soldier.  He said most of the soldiers who were drafted from citizen never wanted to kill innocent Chinese citizen, but Japanese high places would never allow them to reject shooting innocent citizens and soldiers.  If one of them tried to refuse, the one would be executed on the spot for exemplary.  And also his family members waiting in his hometown were treated as a traitor, being shunned, and their survival become difficult.

     I also found a Japanese style short poem which was written by one of Japanese soldiers who also was at the scene:     Watching a heap of corpse of Chinese soldiers, most of them seem to be eighteen or nineteen years old.  Childlikeness still remained on their faces. His mother and girlfriend must be waiting him in his hometown……. This poem which expresses the soldier’s deep sorrow often appears in antiwar books recently.  By this poem I want you to understand that it was not what Japanese citizen wanted to do to commit atrocious deed over Chinese people.  Japanese citizen’s real enemy was their own government.

     Testuya Chiba, one of most well-known cartoonist in
Japan told yesterday on T.V. show about his family’s story in
China during the World War II.  Getting closer to the end of the war, Japanese who had immigrated into China gradually retreated from China, but unfortunately his family failed to escape in time.  It was his father’s Chinese friend who sheltered his family, running the risk of being punished by Chinese government and his neighbors.  Mr. Chiba told that real friend ship between citizens of two nations will construct the bridge of peace. When the friendships between citizens become stable, it finally will be the clue to avoid conflict between nations.  

    Here is books about Chiune Sugihara, an ambassador at that time who did not obeied Japanese military government, from his humanitarian point of view, saved large number of Jew’s life, listening God’s order for him to do so. 

  

A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara : Hero of the Holocaust (Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: a Hero of the Holocaust) Alison Leslie Gold (ハードカバー – 2000/4/1)   新品/ユーズド価格 ￥ 4,438から 対象:4 – 8歳

    

Chiune Sugihara and Japan’s Foreign Ministry: Between Incompetence and Culpability Seishiro SugiharaNorman Hu (ハードカバー – 2001/4/28) 価格:  ￥ 8,415 (税込み)   通常7~10日以内に発送 新品/ユーズド価格 ￥ 8,202から

Pasaje a La Libertad / Passage to Freedom: La Historia De Chiune Sugihara / The True Story of Chiune Sugihara, the “Japanese Schindler” Ken Mochizuki、Dom Lee、Esther Sarfatti (ハードカバー – 1999/4/28) 価格:  ￥ 2,075 (税込み)   通常1~3週間以内に発送 新品/ユーズド価格 ￥ 280から

          

The background of Arab-Israel problem

    

The background of
Israel’s territory problem

     The war between
Lebanon and
Israel is still raging.  By the way, do you know the background of the territory problem surrounding
Israel?

     The story of Jewish people began in the era of the Old Testament when God promised Abraham and his descendants their new home in the

land of
Canaan ( Gen. 12 ) which is now known as
Israel.  The land was referred to as “ the promised land “ in the Old Testament.  Jewish teaching is based on “Torah “, the law of God that was given to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  According to Torah, it is commandment to take possession of the

land of
Israel because it was given to them by God.  In Jewish teaching, it is considered as “ exile “ or “captured “ state to live in the other countries.

      Though Jews have lived in the land continuously more than 3500 years, the land was conquered so often and the Jew did not take control of the land and not the majority of land ‘s population

     In the late of 1800s, Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist founded the idea of Zionism, a political movement to establish their own nation.  At the same time an affair which made Jew’s situation much worse occurred: A Jewish captain of the French military committed a breach of confidence to Germany, and that triggered off a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment among Western countries.　Herzl felt the need of quick establishment of their homeland for their refugee.

     During the World War I, Zionist gained support from British government and the government made a commitment to establish Jewish nation in
Palestine in the Balfour Declaration which was exchanged between British Foreign Secretary Load Balfour and Jewish financier Load Rothschild.  Meanwhile, however, British government promised the Arab their freedom if they could help to defeat Ottoman ( Turkish ) Empire which at that time took control over the
Middle East. (
Ottoman Empire reigned over
Syria,
Lebanon,
Jordan,
Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, and
Northern Africa.)

     After the World War I,
Palestine was assigned to the
U.K. as a mandated territory by the
League of Nations ( The United nation like body at that time.)  Many of Arab leaders were willing to render
Palestine up to Jews as long as the rest of the
Middle East was under Arab’s control.  But Arabs who lived in
Palestine desperately opposed Jew’s establish of own nation in their territory.  At this time, the idea of “
Palestine” appeared distinct from the other Arab people.  From then on, countless riot have broken out in the territory.  British who finally found that
Palestine would never reconcile with Jews proposed for the both side to divide the territory.  Meanwhile, due to the Holocaust, the need for founding Jewish nation became urgent issue for Jews.  Because the Jews who tried to flee from Nazi were often turned down to immigrate to the other country because of the limitation of immigration, and had no place to go. 

     The British that could not come up with better way to solve the problem finally handed the problem to the United Nations which was established a couple of months after the end of the World War II.  The plan to divide
Palestine into Jews’ and
Palestine’s portion was ratified at the table of the U.N. in 1947, and in the next year, when British mandate expired, the Jews declared the establishment of the Nation of their own,
Israel.  However, surrounding Arab nations didn’t recognize legitimacy of the existence of the nation of Israel, which became the beginning of long lasting Arab-Israel conflicts.　

     This problem is one of so-called “ tough “ questions because it closely relate to religion which exerts a strong influence on us in our deeper part . People tend to find “ good reason “ out in “ teaching of  god whom they believe in”, and to believe that following god’s teaching always promise you the happiest future.  But you should perceive that if you make even only one person unhappy by your following god’s teaching, you should know that the teaching falsely came down somewhere formerly. We should reconfirm that genuine god’s teaching will make every one of us happy.