No.1318 Seventy-eighth Anniversary of the August 15, 1945
The 78th anniversary of the August 15 is coming. I have never had such a feeling as if a war were here just around me. Over 3 million of Japanese people were killed in the WWII, simultaneously, killing several times more of Asian peoples. A war is, in the end, the most absurd affair. Let’s take an action not to repeat wars!
AUGUST 15 – A DAY TO CONFIRM FIRM RESOLVE AGAINST WARS!
A poet, Watanabe Hakusen, wrote; ‘a war was standing in the back of the corridor’ in 1939, when the World War II was unleashed, although two years earlier a war had been waged by Japan against China in the Far East.
When one realizes a war, ….
To a large number of Japanese people in those days, however, the war was fought in the distance, though they were worrying about the family members drafted by the authority to be sent to war zones. I think that the poet felt a creeping sense of unease of war just around him in 1939.
Nevertheless, many Japanese people had not imagined that the nation would commit in warfare against the United States, which was waged in December 1941. Furthermore, they did not even envisage the nation would face war defeat on August 15, 1945, following a series of events, the air raid over Tokyo, the ground battles in Okinawa and Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
Many Japanese then had memories of consecutive victories in the wars; that means as soldiers were slain abroad in combat, people remaining inside the country could enjoy good economic performance without woes. Many of them had a notion that a war is inevitable unless it produces inconveniences in the daily life. A small number of people who organized movements to object the war were immediately and easily suppressed by the militarist authorities. Many trade unions and political parties representing the working population converted bit by bit their stances; they began to cooperate with the Japanese government in the wake of the war against China.
Local assembly debates in the island city of Ishigaki
Now let’s look at the 78th memory of the August 15. Judging from the fact that the Kishida administration, after approving the controversial three documents on national security last December, is undertaking the war plan in the Okinawa and southwestern islands region, we should feel more acutely that a war is imminent than the people in the year 1939. A war shows itself just in front of us now, rather than waiting in the back of the corridor, I believe.
The Yaeyama Daily (dated July 6), a newspaper of Okinawa, presents an article on the debates held in the local assembly of Ishigaki City. Mayor told in the regular session of June, responding to the question, that in the occasion of contingency ‘city officials in charge of emergency affairs will work in the island until the last moment to protect lives of inhabitants, and, naturally, I, too, will stay in the island’.
Meanwhile, assembly members of the opposition parties had requested the city authority to seek ‘a possibility to certify the island city as a demilitarized zone or a humanitarian corridor which the Geneva Convention prohibits to attack’.
I hope you readers not to regard the debates as peculiar in the southernmost island of Japan. This is a problem of ourselves, this is what we face.
Isn’t it shameful?
We enjoy today freedom of speech and association. Though sanities on the war defeat are fading down, we cannot feel victorious. Under the circumstances, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) of Japan, the biggest opposition party, has lately agreed to legislate the ‘Defense Industry Promoting and Its Base Strengthening Act’. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror, if we remember those who were killed or detained in prison?
Let’s reinforce our firm determination on August 15 that ‘military power cannot defend peace’.
78年目の「８・15」を、これだけ戦争を身近に感じて迎えるとは思わなかった。日本は３００万人以上が殺され、その数倍を殺した。戦争という究極の愚行を繰り返さないために、行動を起こそう。
渡辺白泉が、「戦争が廊下の奥に立ってゐた」と詠んだのは第二次大戦が勃発した１９３９年だ。２年前には日中戦争は始まっていた。
気が付いた時は
それでも多くの人にとって出征した家族への心配はあっても、戦争はなお遠く離れた話だった。だから39年になって「気が付いたら戦争が目の前だ」と詠んだのだと思う。
それでも、41年12月に対米戦争に突入するとは想定外だっただろう。いわんや東京大空襲や沖縄戦、ヒロシマ・ナガサキとを経て45年８月15日に敗戦を迎えるとは夢にも思わなかっただろう。
往時の日本人にとって戦争は勝利体験の連続であり、戦地で犠牲は払っても自分は被害を受けることなく景気の活況を招くものであった。日常生活に差し支えない以上はやむを得ないという感覚が多かった。少数の戦争反対運動はたちまち弾圧された。労働組合と無産政党の大勢は日中戦争を機に戦争協力に変貌した。
石垣市会の議論
さて、78年目の「８・15」を迎える今どうだろう。「安保３文書」の策定と沖縄・南西諸島で展開されている現実を石垣市会の議論 さて、78年目の「８・15」を迎える今どうだろう。「安保３文書」の策定と沖縄・南西諸島で展開されている現実をみると、１９３９年当時の人々より戦争は身近に感じられてしかるべきではなかろうか。戦争は廊下の奥ではなく、眼前で牙を研いでいるのではないだろうか。
沖縄の『八重山日報』（７月６日付）に石垣市議会の議論が紹介された。６月定例会で市長が有事の際には「担当職員は最後まで（島に）15残り、市民の命を守るため仕事をする。当然私も最後まで残る」と答弁した。
一方、野党議員は「市をジュネーブ条約で攻撃が禁止されている非武装地帯や人道回廊に設定する可能性」について検討するよう求めた。
日本の南端の島の特殊な事情だと思わないでほしい。我々が直面している問題なのだ。
申し訳が立たぬ
今は言論・結社の自由がある。敗戦体験は風化しつつあるとは言え、戦勝体験があるわけでもない。そうであるのに、野党第一党の立憲民主党が「防衛産業基盤強化法」に賛成するようでは、戦争の犠牲者と獄中にいた我々の先達に申し訳が立たない。「武力で平和は守れない」という覚悟を固める「８・15」としよう。」
英訳版↓
No.1318 Seventy-eighth Anniversary of the August 15, 1945
The 78th anniversary of the August 15 is coming. I have never had such a feeling as if a war were here just around me. Over 3 million of Japanese people were killed in the WWII, simultaneously, killing several times more of Asian peoples. A war is, in the end, the most absurd affair. Let’s take an action not to repeat wars!
AUGUST 15 – A DAY TO CONFIRM FIRM RESOLVE AGAINST WARS!
A poet, Watanabe Hakusen, wrote; ‘a war was standing in the back of the corridor’ in 1939, when the World War II was unleashed, although two years earlier a war had been waged by Japan against China in the Far East.
When one realizes a war, ….
To a large number of Japanese people in those days, however, the war was fought in the distance, though they were worrying about the family members drafted by the authority to be sent to war zones. I think that the poet felt a creeping sense of unease of war just around him in 1939.
Nevertheless, many Japanese people had not imagined that the nation would commit in warfare against the United States, which was waged in December 1941. Furthermore, they did not even envisage the nation would face war defeat on August 15, 1945, following a series of events, the air raid over Tokyo, the ground battles in Okinawa and Hiroshima-Nagasaki.
Many Japanese then had memories of consecutive victories in the wars; that means as soldiers were slain abroad in combat, people remaining inside the country could enjoy good economic performance without woes. Many of them had a notion that a war is inevitable unless it produces inconveniences in the daily life. A small number of people who organized movements to object the war were immediately and easily suppressed by the militarist authorities. Many trade unions and political parties representing the working population converted bit by bit their stances; they began to cooperate with the Japanese government in the wake of the war against China.
Local assembly debates in the island city of Ishigaki
Now let’s look at the 78th memory of the August 15. Judging from the fact that the Kishida administration, after approving the controversial three documents on national security last December, is undertaking the war plan in the Okinawa and southwestern islands region, we should feel more acutely that a war is imminent than the people in the year 1939. A war shows itself just in front of us now, rather than waiting in the back of the corridor, I believe.
The Yaeyama Daily (dated July 6), a newspaper of Okinawa, presents an article on the debates held in the local assembly of Ishigaki City. Mayor told in the regular session of June, responding to the question, that in the occasion of contingency ‘city officials in charge of emergency affairs will work in the island until the last moment to protect lives of inhabitants, and, naturally, I, too, will stay in the island’.
Meanwhile, assembly members of the opposition parties had requested the city authority to seek ‘a possibility to certify the island city as a demilitarized zone or a humanitarian corridor which the Geneva Convention prohibits to attack’.
I hope you readers not to regard the debates as peculiar in the southernmost island of Japan. This is a problem of ourselves, this is what we face.
Isn’t it shameful?
We enjoy today freedom of speech and association. Though sanities on the war defeat are fading down, we cannot feel victorious. Under the circumstances, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) of Japan, the biggest opposition party, has lately agreed to legislate the ‘Defense Industry Promoting and Its Base Strengthening Act’. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror, if we remember those who were killed or detained in prison?
Let’s reinforce our firm determination on August 15 that ‘military power cannot defend peace’.
August 9, 2023