On the Day I Shouted His Name ... (1)

The ninth (sometimes the eighth or tenth) day of the month is the day for the petition campaign of our "Fukuizumi-Ōtori Article 9 Association (FOA9)." The FOA9 is one of about 7500 local and office groups that support the Article 9 Association. In the morning of April 9, 2010, I went for the campaign together with colleagues of FOA9 and shouted through a microphone, "Hisashi Inoue, Kenzaburō Ōe, the late Shuichi Kato and others established the Article 9 Association. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution declares the renunciation of war as a means of settling international disputes. The purpose of the Association is to keep Article 9, shine its light upon this turbulent world and join hands with the peace-seeking citizens of the world," and so on.

That evening Hisashi Inoue, a leading Japanese playwright and writer of comic fiction, died of lung cancer. He was active not only in art and literature but also in anti-nuclear and peace movements. The number of inaugural members of the Article 9 Association was nine. Members other than Inoue were as follows; Takeshi Umehara (philosopher), Kenzaburo Ōe (Nobel-Prize winning novelist), Yasuhiro Okudaira (Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo and researcher of constitutions), Makoto Oda (novelist and peace activist), Shuichi Kato (critic and author), Hisae Sawachi (non-fiction writer), Shunsuke Tsurumi (philosopher) and Mutusko Miki (wife of the late Takeo Miki, former Prime Minister). We had already lost two of them, Oda and Kato, and Inoue was the third. However, I believe that the movement to shine the light of Article 9 upon the world would become stronger and stronger than ever. (To be continued.)