あのう、27日に北朝鮮がミサイルを日本海に向けて発射したそうですけども。
日本は平和ですねえ。
今までは北朝鮮のミサイルとうと蜂の巣をつついたような騒ぎになったものですが、
今回はメディアも政府も、そして国民もやたらおとなしくないですか。
ま、国民はメディアが騒がなければ気づかないものですけれども。
政府では、防衛相の小野寺センセーなんかに言わせると、
日本の安全保障に直接、影響はない、ですってよ。
妙に温度が低いなぁと。
以前なら北朝鮮でミサイル発射の動きがあるってだけで、
大袈裟にも迎撃態勢組んだり警報とか出しまくり、
メディアは特番組むんじゃないかってくらいの勢いだったのですけどもねえ。
なんでしょ、ああいうのに大騒ぎするメディアに国民が飽きたというか、
あいそつかすようになったのでしょうかねえ。
で、メディアも数字が取れないのがわかって騒ぐの止めたとか。
もしくは、アメリカさんから騒ぐな、とでも釘さされてるんですかねえ。
さて、北朝鮮が北朝鮮なら、日本も日本でして。
アベちゃん政権になってからは日本が日々、
戦争できる国になるのに向かっている気がしてなりません。
で、ま、アベちゃんのお友達の百田が原作の映画「永遠の0」が劇場公開されている
今日この頃、BBCが神風特攻隊に関する記事を書いています。
記者は以前から神風特攻隊に対しての疑問を持っていて、
この度、当時の元パイロットに会うことができたようです。
Remembering Japan's kamikaze pilots
Japan hopes to immortalise its kamikaze pilots - a squad of young men who crashed their aircraft into Allied ships in World War Two - by seeking Unesco World Heritage status for a collection of their letters. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes meets the former pilot who built the collection, in honour of his fallen comrades.
"Kamikaze" - it is a word that has become synonymous with all that is crazy, fanatical and self-destructive. I remember as a young schoolboy in Britain learning about the kamikaze pilots. To me, what they had done was inexplicable. For long afterwards, it coloured my view of Japan, and it left me with a nagging question: how did it happen? What caused thousands of ordinary young Japanese men to volunteer to kill themselves?
I had long dreamed of asking a kamikaze pilot that question. And so it was that last week I found myself ringing the bell of a comfortable-looking house outside the city of Nagoya in central Japan. Moments later, striding out to meet me came a small, energetic and very neatly dressed old man, a wide smile on his face.
Tadamasa Itatsu is a spritely 89-year-old with twinkling eyes and a firm handshake. He cancelled his tennis game because I was coming, he tells me.
It's hard to believe that cheerful old man was once a kamikaze pilot.
In March 1945 Itatsu-San was a 19-year-old pilot. Hundreds of American and British battleships and aircraft carriers were sailing towards Okinawa. He was asked by his commander to volunteer for one of Japan's infamous "special attack" squadrons.
"If Okinawa was invaded, then the American planes would be able to use it as a base to attack the main islands of Japan." He tells me: "So we young people had to prevent that. In March 1945 it was a normal thing to be a kamikaze pilot. All of us who were asked to volunteer did so."
The inside of Itatsu-San's home is a shrine to his fallen comrades, the walls covered in grainy photos of young men in flying suits. Over and over as we talk, he comes back to the same point - these young men were not fanatics, they believed their actions could save their country from disaster.
"Common sense says you only have one life," he says, "so why would you want to give it away? Why would you be happy to do that? But at that time everyone I knew, they all wanted to volunteer. We needed to be warriors to stop the invasion from coming. Our minds were set. We had no doubt about it."
Itatsu-San did not die. As he flew south towards his target, his engine failed and he was forced to ditch in the sea. He returned to his unit, but the war ended before he could try again.
For many years afterwards he kept his story a secret, ashamed he had survived. He often thought of committing suicide, he says, but didn't have the courage.
Then, in the 1970s, he began to seek out the families of his dead comrades, asking them for letters and photographs from the dead pilots. His collection became the core of what is now known as the Kamikaze Letters.
From a series of long cardboard tubes Itatsu-San pulls thin pieces of paper covered in black calligraphy. He carefully unfurls one on the table and begins to read.
"Dear mother, my one regret is I could not do more for you before I die. But to die as a fighter for the emperor is an honour. Please do not feel sad."
A lot of the letters are in this vein. They appear to confirm the view that a whole generation of Japanese men had been brainwashed in to self-abnegation and blind obedience to the Emperor.
But there are others, which show a minority of kamikaze pilots had not swallowed the propaganda, and even some that appear to reject Japan's cause.
One of the most extraordinary is by a young lieutenant, Ryoji Uehara.
"Tomorrow, one who believes in democracy will leave this world," he wrote. "He may look lonely but his heart is filled with satisfaction. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany have been defeated. Authoritarianism is like building a house with broken stones."
So what should the world make of the Kamikaze Letters, and should they be given World Heritage status?
Itatsu-San clearly thinks they should. He describes them as a "treasure to be passed down to future generations". But even today with the benefit of 70 years' hindsight, Itatsu-San remains astonishingly unreflective about what happened to him and his comrades.
"I never look back with regret," he says, "The people who died did so willingly. I thought at the time it was really bad luck to survive. I really wanted to die with them. Instead, I have to concentrate my efforts to maintain their memory."
Japan has immense problems with its memory of the war. Prominent politicians and media figures still frequently espouse absurd revisionist versions of history - that Japan never started the war, that the Nanjing Massacre never happened, that tens of thousands of comfort women "volunteered" to become sex slaves for the Japanese military.
The massive bombing of Japanese cities at the end of the war, and in particular the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has allowed the construction of a narrative of victimhood. Japan is the only country to have suffered an atomic attack. The firebombing of Tokyo, in one night, killed at least 100,000 civilians. But when talking about these horrors, what is often forgotten or omitted is how it all began.
Likewise, the desire to remember the terrible sacrifice made by the young kamikaze pilots is understandable. What often appears to be missing is that question: "How did we get here?"
ということで、元パイロットによると、
当時の若者は天皇のために命を投げ出すことを光栄だと皆が考えていたし、
それが普通であったと。
記者が最後にこう書いています。
The desire to remember the terrible sacrifice made by the young kamikaze pilots is understandable. What often appears to be missing is that question: "How did we get here?"
神風の若者たちの犠牲、そこになんでそうなっちゃたの？
って疑問を見失っているんじゃないかと。
ナニが若者に犠牲を強いるよう駆り立てたのか。
そしてその犠牲を容認してしまったのか。
確かにその疑問に日本人は目を背けているかもしれません。
若者が命を投げ出す一方、のうのうと生き延びてる戦争加担者がいる。
なんという罪作りなことか。
日本人は神風特攻隊についてその自己犠牲精神を日本人ならではの美徳と勘違いし、
若者の勇気を勘違いし、賛美し、その一方で犠牲を強いたものが何であったか考え、
突き止め、反省することを忘れているのです。
ところで神風特攻隊の攻撃は、まさに今で言う自爆テロであって。
自爆テロというと現在、中東などで起きていることを我々は恐れ、
そうした行為に及ぶ他の民族の精神を不気味に感じることが多いでしょう。
ということは逆に、日本人が中東の自爆テロを気味悪がるのと同様、
外国の人々は日本の神風攻撃を、その精神性を気味悪がるのでしょう。
日本人ってのはいつもは勤勉でまじめで秩序を守り礼儀正しく、
多くの外国に好意的に受け取られていると日本人自身は考えがちかもしれません。
それはあながち間違いではなく、そういう面もあるはずと信じますが、しかし、
ひとたび戦争となれば日本人は神風のような自爆攻撃を辞さない国民であると、
危険で不気味な、そんな一面も持っている国であると、
外国はそう見ていると考えていいのではないでしょうか。
神風の攻撃を受けたアメリカにそうした思いがないとは考えにくいです。
そして日本は、先の戦争への反省も薄いのです。
万一、戦争となればまた凶暴性をむき出すと考えられているかもしれません。
上の記事で記者はこうも書いています。
But when talking about these horrors, what is often forgotten or omitted is how it all began.
なぜ東京大空襲や2度の核攻撃を受けたのかを考えるときに、
どのようにこれらが始まったかについては忘れられてるし、抜け落ちていると。
確かにそうだと思います。
日本は戦争の被害者である意識が強い一方で加害者の意識は薄いのですが、
加害者であったことを顧みなければ、日本が被った戦争の悲劇、
それはどこに起因しているのかに気づくことも難しくなるのではないでしょうか。
日本は平和ですねえ。
今までは北朝鮮のミサイルとうと蜂の巣をつついたような騒ぎになったものですが、
今回はメディアも政府も、そして国民もやたらおとなしくないですか。
ま、国民はメディアが騒がなければ気づかないものですけれども。
政府では、防衛相の小野寺センセーなんかに言わせると、
日本の安全保障に直接、影響はない、ですってよ。
妙に温度が低いなぁと。
以前なら北朝鮮でミサイル発射の動きがあるってだけで、
大袈裟にも迎撃態勢組んだり警報とか出しまくり、
メディアは特番組むんじゃないかってくらいの勢いだったのですけどもねえ。
なんでしょ、ああいうのに大騒ぎするメディアに国民が飽きたというか、
あいそつかすようになったのでしょうかねえ。
で、メディアも数字が取れないのがわかって騒ぐの止めたとか。
もしくは、アメリカさんから騒ぐな、とでも釘さされてるんですかねえ。
さて、北朝鮮が北朝鮮なら、日本も日本でして。
アベちゃん政権になってからは日本が日々、
戦争できる国になるのに向かっている気がしてなりません。
で、ま、アベちゃんのお友達の百田が原作の映画「永遠の0」が劇場公開されている
今日この頃、BBCが神風特攻隊に関する記事を書いています。
記者は以前から神風特攻隊に対しての疑問を持っていて、
この度、当時の元パイロットに会うことができたようです。
Remembering Japan's kamikaze pilots
Japan hopes to immortalise its kamikaze pilots - a squad of young men who crashed their aircraft into Allied ships in World War Two - by seeking Unesco World Heritage status for a collection of their letters. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes meets the former pilot who built the collection, in honour of his fallen comrades.
"Kamikaze" - it is a word that has become synonymous with all that is crazy, fanatical and self-destructive. I remember as a young schoolboy in Britain learning about the kamikaze pilots. To me, what they had done was inexplicable. For long afterwards, it coloured my view of Japan, and it left me with a nagging question: how did it happen? What caused thousands of ordinary young Japanese men to volunteer to kill themselves?
I had long dreamed of asking a kamikaze pilot that question. And so it was that last week I found myself ringing the bell of a comfortable-looking house outside the city of Nagoya in central Japan. Moments later, striding out to meet me came a small, energetic and very neatly dressed old man, a wide smile on his face.
Tadamasa Itatsu is a spritely 89-year-old with twinkling eyes and a firm handshake. He cancelled his tennis game because I was coming, he tells me.
It's hard to believe that cheerful old man was once a kamikaze pilot.
In March 1945 Itatsu-San was a 19-year-old pilot. Hundreds of American and British battleships and aircraft carriers were sailing towards Okinawa. He was asked by his commander to volunteer for one of Japan's infamous "special attack" squadrons.
"If Okinawa was invaded, then the American planes would be able to use it as a base to attack the main islands of Japan." He tells me: "So we young people had to prevent that. In March 1945 it was a normal thing to be a kamikaze pilot. All of us who were asked to volunteer did so."
The inside of Itatsu-San's home is a shrine to his fallen comrades, the walls covered in grainy photos of young men in flying suits. Over and over as we talk, he comes back to the same point - these young men were not fanatics, they believed their actions could save their country from disaster.
"Common sense says you only have one life," he says, "so why would you want to give it away? Why would you be happy to do that? But at that time everyone I knew, they all wanted to volunteer. We needed to be warriors to stop the invasion from coming. Our minds were set. We had no doubt about it."
Itatsu-San did not die. As he flew south towards his target, his engine failed and he was forced to ditch in the sea. He returned to his unit, but the war ended before he could try again.
For many years afterwards he kept his story a secret, ashamed he had survived. He often thought of committing suicide, he says, but didn't have the courage.
Then, in the 1970s, he began to seek out the families of his dead comrades, asking them for letters and photographs from the dead pilots. His collection became the core of what is now known as the Kamikaze Letters.
From a series of long cardboard tubes Itatsu-San pulls thin pieces of paper covered in black calligraphy. He carefully unfurls one on the table and begins to read.
"Dear mother, my one regret is I could not do more for you before I die. But to die as a fighter for the emperor is an honour. Please do not feel sad."
A lot of the letters are in this vein. They appear to confirm the view that a whole generation of Japanese men had been brainwashed in to self-abnegation and blind obedience to the Emperor.
But there are others, which show a minority of kamikaze pilots had not swallowed the propaganda, and even some that appear to reject Japan's cause.
One of the most extraordinary is by a young lieutenant, Ryoji Uehara.
"Tomorrow, one who believes in democracy will leave this world," he wrote. "He may look lonely but his heart is filled with satisfaction. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany have been defeated. Authoritarianism is like building a house with broken stones."
So what should the world make of the Kamikaze Letters, and should they be given World Heritage status?
Itatsu-San clearly thinks they should. He describes them as a "treasure to be passed down to future generations". But even today with the benefit of 70 years' hindsight, Itatsu-San remains astonishingly unreflective about what happened to him and his comrades.
"I never look back with regret," he says, "The people who died did so willingly. I thought at the time it was really bad luck to survive. I really wanted to die with them. Instead, I have to concentrate my efforts to maintain their memory."
Japan has immense problems with its memory of the war. Prominent politicians and media figures still frequently espouse absurd revisionist versions of history - that Japan never started the war, that the Nanjing Massacre never happened, that tens of thousands of comfort women "volunteered" to become sex slaves for the Japanese military.
The massive bombing of Japanese cities at the end of the war, and in particular the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has allowed the construction of a narrative of victimhood. Japan is the only country to have suffered an atomic attack. The firebombing of Tokyo, in one night, killed at least 100,000 civilians. But when talking about these horrors, what is often forgotten or omitted is how it all began.
Likewise, the desire to remember the terrible sacrifice made by the young kamikaze pilots is understandable. What often appears to be missing is that question: "How did we get here?"
ということで、元パイロットによると、
当時の若者は天皇のために命を投げ出すことを光栄だと皆が考えていたし、
それが普通であったと。
記者が最後にこう書いています。
The desire to remember the terrible sacrifice made by the young kamikaze pilots is understandable. What often appears to be missing is that question: "How did we get here?"
神風の若者たちの犠牲、そこになんでそうなっちゃたの？
って疑問を見失っているんじゃないかと。
ナニが若者に犠牲を強いるよう駆り立てたのか。
そしてその犠牲を容認してしまったのか。
確かにその疑問に日本人は目を背けているかもしれません。
若者が命を投げ出す一方、のうのうと生き延びてる戦争加担者がいる。
なんという罪作りなことか。
日本人は神風特攻隊についてその自己犠牲精神を日本人ならではの美徳と勘違いし、
若者の勇気を勘違いし、賛美し、その一方で犠牲を強いたものが何であったか考え、
突き止め、反省することを忘れているのです。
ところで神風特攻隊の攻撃は、まさに今で言う自爆テロであって。
自爆テロというと現在、中東などで起きていることを我々は恐れ、
そうした行為に及ぶ他の民族の精神を不気味に感じることが多いでしょう。
ということは逆に、日本人が中東の自爆テロを気味悪がるのと同様、
外国の人々は日本の神風攻撃を、その精神性を気味悪がるのでしょう。
日本人ってのはいつもは勤勉でまじめで秩序を守り礼儀正しく、
多くの外国に好意的に受け取られていると日本人自身は考えがちかもしれません。
それはあながち間違いではなく、そういう面もあるはずと信じますが、しかし、
ひとたび戦争となれば日本人は神風のような自爆攻撃を辞さない国民であると、
危険で不気味な、そんな一面も持っている国であると、
外国はそう見ていると考えていいのではないでしょうか。
神風の攻撃を受けたアメリカにそうした思いがないとは考えにくいです。
そして日本は、先の戦争への反省も薄いのです。
万一、戦争となればまた凶暴性をむき出すと考えられているかもしれません。
上の記事で記者はこうも書いています。
But when talking about these horrors, what is often forgotten or omitted is how it all began.
なぜ東京大空襲や2度の核攻撃を受けたのかを考えるときに、
どのようにこれらが始まったかについては忘れられてるし、抜け落ちていると。
確かにそうだと思います。
日本は戦争の被害者である意識が強い一方で加害者の意識は薄いのですが、
加害者であったことを顧みなければ、日本が被った戦争の悲劇、
それはどこに起因しているのかに気づくことも難しくなるのではないでしょうか。
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