Yesterday, I took part in the conference Women's
Voices: War, Memory, and the Pursuit of Peace in Melbourne, which was
organized by the Alliance for Peace and Memory (a group that includes the Asian
Australian Volunteers, the Chinese Australian Studies Forum, Chinese Australian for Peace, and the Friends of
the “Comfort Women” in Melbourne) for the International Women’s Day Forum 2026.
I was one of four speakers. Here’s a longer version of my presentation, called “Sharing
Pain Generates Hope.” Any feedback on this topic would be greatly appreciated.
Sharing Pain Generates Hope
Let me start by talking about what has been
on my mind recently, particularly since the massacre at Bondi Beach on 14
December last year.
The Bondi massacre
and the way Australians reacted to Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza
Needless to say, the shooting attack that
targeted a large group of Jews celebrating Hanukkah in a Sydney park, killing
15 people and injuring more than 40 others, was a tragedy that must be
condemned. I do not support any form of violence committed by Hamas or any
other group or individual. I would also like to express my deepest sympathies
to the victims and their families and friends.
However, I was angered by the fact that the
Jewish community, most politicians from both the Labor and Liberal parties, and
most media outlets — with very few exceptions, such as the Progressive Jewish
Council of Australia — attributed the massacre solely to “anti-Semitism” and
focused solely on holding the Australian government accountable for its delayed
response. They paid little attention to the fact that more than 73,000 people
have been killed in Gaza so far, many of whom were women and children. For about
a month, media outlets in Australia remained silent about the situation in
Gaza, only reporting on the tragedy of the Bondi massacre, as if the massacre
and the ongoing genocidal attacks in Gaza were unrelated.
In an attempt to appease the Jewish community, Prime Minister Albanese
invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Australia to “honor and remember the
victims of the anti-Semitic terrorist attack” in Bondi, and to show his support
for the Jewish Australian community. However, Herzog has fully endorsed
Netanyahu’s genocidal attack on Gaza, claiming that there are “no uninvolved
civilians in Gaza” and that the entire population of Gaza should therefore be
punished. In December 2023, Herzog was photographed signing bombs intended for
Gaza. Although he could be prosecuted as a war criminal, the head of state is
immune from indictment.
Therefore,
it was not at all surprising that many concerned Australian civilians gathered
in Sydney, Melbourne and other cities to hold rallies and demonstrate against
President Herzog’s visit to Australia between 9 and 12 February. It was
shameful that both the Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns, and the Prime
Minister, Anthony Albanese, condemned the peaceful participants of the rallies
as mobs and allowed the police to brutally attack them.
See the following news videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1CMBwLryw&list=PLn2RjxYNpcaxF0Lnlvh2urjUKJTkpyMbM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WJf68LzsxI
Now, Prime Minister
Albanese was one of the first world leaders to publicly endorse the US-Israeli
military action against Iran. He said: “We support the United States acting to prevent
Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten
international peace and security,” despite the fact that the attack was
pre-emptive, taking place in the midst of diplomatic negotiations, and clearly
violating international law and the UN charter. On this occasion, Albanese has
completely ignored the fact that one of the initial strikes in the US-Israeli
attack on Iran hit a girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran, barbarically killing
at least 175 people, most of whom were primary school girls.
History of war and morality
Since the early 20th century, we have experienced a series
of major wars. These include the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War,
the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, and the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Tens of millions of people have fallen victim to the numerous war
atrocities committed in these conflicts, resulting from the immoral decisions
of those in power: political and military leaders. Yet they always exploited a “moral
reason” for going to war. For example, the US claimed that its involvement in
World War II was to “protect freedom and democracy”, while Japan said that it
was to “liberate Asian nations from Western imperialism”. However, the US
indiscriminately killed many civilians with fire and atomic bombs, and the
Japanese committed various crimes by killing numerous Asian civilians and
prisoners of war.
The following words by Omar El Akad, an
Egyptian Canadian-American author and journalist, could be interpreted as a compact
summary of the history of war mentioned above. They are taken from his book One
Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This:
“The moral component of history, the most
necessary component is simply a single question asked over and over again when
it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power.”
On the subject of morality, Palestinian writer and poet
Muhammad El-Kurd, author of the recently published brilliant book, Perfect
Victims and the Politics of Appeal, said:
“A universality that recognizes the Palestinian condition
is the human condition. Palestine is a microcosm of the world. Wretched,
raging, fraught and fragmented, on fire, stubborn, ineligible, dignified. The
lens we lend the Palestinian reveals how we see each other and how we see
everything else. And that is why Palestine is the moral issue of the world.”
Once again, regarding moral issues, the second and
third paragraphs of the Preamble to the Japanese Constitution, promulgated in
1947 (two years after the Asia-Pacific War), clearly emphasize the importance
of morality for justice and peace due to Japan’s dreadful conduct during the war.
“We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time
and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and
we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-
loving peoples of the world. We desire to occupy an honored place in an
international society striving for the preservation of peace, and the
banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from
the earth. We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in
peace, free from fear and want.
We believe that no nation is responsible to itself
alone, but that laws of political morality
are universal; and that obedience to such
laws is incumbent upon all nations who would sustain their own sovereignty and
justify their sovereign relationship with other nations.” (emphasis added in red)
Yet the majority of Japanese people,
particularly politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party — including
the prime minister and all cabinet members — are ignoring the content of the
Preamble entirely. Led by Sanae Takaichi,
the country’s first female prime minister, the Japanese government is now
planning to amend the constitution by deleting the entire Preamble and
reverting to a version similar to that in place before the war. This would
involve abandoning Article 9, which renounces war and prohibits the maintenance
of any war potential. Her thinking is anachronistic, delusional, and completely
devoid of morality. She has consistently refused to accept Japan’s
responsibility for the numerous atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese Imperial
Forces against millions of Asian individuals and Allied prisoners of war,
including sexual violence against women, such as the infamous “comfort women”
system.
How can we tackle a world that has lost its
morality?
Neither Israel, the United States nor
Russia use moral justifications to launch pre-emptive strikes against other
nations and slaughter countless civilians any longer. Most other countries have
also stopped using moral reasoning and now simply accept such blatant
immorality of rogue states. How can we address the lack of political morality
around the world?
Interestingly, the renowned Canadian doctor
and author Gabor Maté, who survived the Holocaust as a child, became a Zionist
when he grew up. However, he realized in the 1960s that collective Jewish
trauma was causing Zionists to dehumanize themselves and inflict violence on
Palestinians. This experience had a profound impact on him, turning him into an
anti-Zionist. He went on to become an expert in the effects of trauma,
including its long-term impact on physical and mental health.
Incidentally, it should be noted that the
Israeli government did not suddenly become brutal. On 4 December 1948, an open
letter written by 26 prominent American Jewish intellectuals, including Albert
Einstein and Hannah Arendt, was published in The New York Times. The
letter starkly warned the US government and the American people that the newly
created State of Israel, established in May of that year, would become a nation
ruled by a fascist party and would act brutally. It stated that:
“Among the most disturbing political
phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of
the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political
party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and
social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the
membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist,
right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menachem
Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to
give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli
elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in
the United States.” (emphasis added in red)
The letter described a “shocking example”
of the brutal conduct of this political party, stating that “terrorist bands
attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the
fighting, killed most of its inhabitants 240 men, women, and children and kept
a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem.”
Maté was probably unaware of this letter
because he was still a child in 1948. However, in July 2014, he wrote an
article called “Beautiful Dream of Israel Has Become a Nightmare.” In it, he
said that Israel’s actions were incompatible with achieving a just peace. He
compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi occupation due to the significant
power imbalance between the occupiers and the occupied. In November 2023, he
told broadcaster Piers Morgan that he had cried every day for two weeks
following his visit to the occupied territories during the First Intifada,
which began on 9 December 1987. He said that the occupation and persecution of
Palestinians must end, and the land occupied since 1967 must be returned.
 |
| Dr.Gabor Maté |
Here, we see how a person can regain their
humanity by empathizing with the suffering experienced by victims of atrocities
inflicted by their own people. In this way, people are able to share the
victims’ pain.
The process of self-humanization for A-bomb
survivor Suzuko Numata was through “sharing pain.”
There are certain similarities between
Holocaust survivors and Japanese atomic bomb survivors. Due to their tremendous
and indescribable suffering, A-bomb survivors also experience collective
trauma. They tend to see themselves only as victims of war and cannot imagine
taking responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial
Forces during the Asia-Pacific War. Most of them perceive themselves as mere
victims of the most heinous bombing, and consequently, they do not accept any
culpability for the Japanese wartime atrocities. This trauma has also
influenced the general Japanese population’s perception of themselves as
victims of war, as well as their lack of a collective sense of responsibility
for the aggressive war their ancestors waged.
Making matters even worse, the Japanese
government has been exploiting the collective trauma experienced by atomic bomb
survivors for political gain, in order to portray the Japanese nation as
victims of war. This enables them to evade responsibility for their numerous
war crimes by denying the suffering of countless Asian victims and former POWs.
To this end, the Japanese government frequently uses the phrase, “Japan is the
only nation in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack.” At the same time,
however, it fully supports the US strategy of nuclear deterrence and is
reluctant to call on nuclear-armed nations to reduce or abolish their nuclear
weapons. These immoral policies clearly violate the Preamble of Japan’s
Constitution.
However, although very few, we can find
people like Dr. Gabor Maté among the Japanese A-bomb survivors who clearly
acknowledged their responsibility as Japanese citizens for their country’s
wartime atrocities. The late Suzuko Numata was one such person.
Suzuko lost her left leg in the atomic
bombing, which left her with profound psychological trauma. She gradually
experienced a “restoration of her humanity” by helping other physically
disabled people through her work and activities. In 1981, aged 58, she realized
the importance of sharing her experiences as an atomic bomb survivor.
Initially, her testimony focused solely on conveying the horror of her own
suffering. However, from the mid-1980s onwards, her encounters with Korean A-bomb
survivors and survivors of the Battle of Okinawa made her recognize the
similarities between their experiences and her own. She therefore realized that
sharing their pain, as well as her own, was important in strengthening her
human bonds with other war victims.
From the
late 1980s to the early 1990s, Suzuko’s belief in the idea of “shared pain” was
reinforced by her encounters with survivors of Japanese military atrocities in
Malaysia and China. This was also influenced by her growing awareness of war
responsibility.
Suzuko felt responsible for the inhumane
atrocities committed by the Japanese military, as well as for her own actions
during the war: she had worked in munitions factories during wartime, hoping
for Japan’s victory; and when her fiancé left for the front, she wished for him
to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible, earn distinction, and strive for
Japan’s victory. It was this sense of responsibility that led Suzuko to
apologize to the Chinese and Malaysian survivors. Through these apologies, her
consideration for “the pain of others” expanded profoundly. Empathy for “the
pain of others” took root powerfully and deeply within her thinking,
underpinned by the universal and fundamental principle that “the human rights
of all people must be respected.” Suzuko listened carefully to the stories of every
war victim she met, trying to empathize their pain as her own. Then, other
people took on Suzuko’s pain as if it were their own. This reciprocal process
gave them hope for a peaceful future.
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| Suzuko Numata |
She often talked about what she had learnt
from her experiences of pain and suffering: “Sharing pain,” “making life better
again” and “giving people hope.” In her testimony, she recounted the story of a
paulownia tree that had survived the atomic bombing despite being injured. This
story symbolized the “rebirth of life” and the “creation of hope” in the
relationships between nature and humanity, and between individuals, by
demonstrating how the tree and she shared pain. In order to spread this
message, she distributed seeds from the tree that had survived the atomic
bombing wherever she travelled in Japan and the 21 other countries that she
visited until her death on 12 July 2011, at the age of 87. Consequently, there
are now many paulownia trees all over the world. I believe that “sharing pain,”
“regeneration of life” and “creation of hope” are universal values that
everyone shares. These values are vital for creating and sustaining peace, and
for protecting the natural environment.
 |
| The paulownia tree that had survived the atomic bombing |
In most countries, governments compel their
citizens to fight and die for their nation. To challenge this concept of
statehood, we, the people, must unite and set aside our national and ethnic
differences. We must be united by a strong sense of solidarity and empathy. We
must share the ideals of “regenerating life” and “creating hope,” and protect
our own lives and peace.
Yuki Tanaka
