2016 New Year Message

Although I officially retired at the end of March last year, I remained very busy throughout the year, due to my involvement in various activities concerning the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Asia-Pacific War, which occupied me in Japan, Europe and Australia. These coincided with my political campaign against Japan’s Abe regime, which introduced many fraudulent and devious policies. Among these were attempts to sanitize Japan’s wartime atrocities, violate Japan’s peaceful constitution, re-start Japan’s nuclear power reactors and export nuclear power technology to India and other nations.

Unfortunately 2016 does not hold the promise of a peaceful and tranquil year and I am afraid that we may have to face many more acts of violence, in particular armed conflicts between state and non-state terrorism.

Rather than adding to the depressing account of the world affairs, I would like to introduce a couple of works by Michael Leunig, an Australian cartoonist and poet whom I truly admire.

* I want to be sub-human

I want to be sub-human

And be a lesser man

Humans are too much for me

Too much to understand

They’re too much for each other

And too much for the earth

They’re too much for themselves as well

Much more than what they’re worth.

They want too much, they do too much;

Too much, too much for me

I want to be less human now

And be more creaturely. 

 

* All my father left me was the moon

All my father left me was the moon

When I am dead, it’s yours” he said

And all too soon his will was read

But he continued speaking from the grave:

“It will not save you, this moon I gave you

from sadness, human madness, life and death.

But step outside into the night and take a breath,

And while you do, for what it’s worth,

That happy man up there who got away from earth

Will smile at you.”

All my father left me was the moon

May the moon keep smiling at you and giving you a sense of happiness being a sub-human throughout this year !

Yuki