2024-01-06

Their real intention is to avoid pushing Japan to the point where it becomes genuinely angry.
October 27, 2023
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s America and China Tell Brazen Lies, which I published on February 28, 2015.
This article is yet another demonstration that he is the only true journalist in the postwar world.
Many years ago, an elderly female professor from the Royal Ballet School in Monaco, who was held in the highest esteem by prima ballerinas throughout the world, visited Japan.
At the time, she spoke about the significance of the artist’s existence.
“Artists are important because they are the only people capable of shining a light on truths that have been concealed and obscured, and of expressing them,” she said.
No one would dispute her words.
It is no exaggeration to say that Masayuki Takayama is not only the sole true journalist in the postwar world, but also the sole true artist in the postwar world.
As for Ōe—I do not wish to speak ill of the dead—but Murakami and the many others who call themselves writers or regard themselves as artists are not even worthy of the name “artist.”
Instead of shining a light on hidden truths and conveying them, they have merely expressed the falsehoods manufactured by the Asahi Shimbun and others.
Such people are not confined to Japan; the same is true in other countries around the world.
In other words, there are very few genuine artists.
This article is yet another outstanding demonstration that I am right in asserting that no one in the world today is more deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature than Masayuki Takayama.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people, but for people throughout the world.
Bad Things Always Begin in Suginami Ward
Copies of The Diary of Anne Frank Were Vandalized.
It All Began in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.
Photochemical smog, environmental hormones, and other such nonsense always begin in this ward.
As expected, the culprit was apprehended, but even more astonishing was the reaction from abroad.
The day after the incident came to light, Bloomberg’s William Pesek concluded almost immediately that it was the work of “neo-Nazis” inspired by the “far-right Abe,” and went on to condemn the prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine and accuse him of attempting to tamper with the pacifist Constitution, among other things.
He also raised the issue of the final letters written by kamikaze pilots, which had been nominated for inclusion in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, and trampled upon the feelings of the Japanese people by asking whether such madness should be placed on the same level as The Diary of Anne Frank.
But there was also the Asahi Shimbun’s fabricated coral-graffiti incident.
Do it yourself, and then blame someone else.
The United States did the same thing in the case of the USS Maine.
I wondered whether it was really acceptable to presume that the culprits were members of the Japanese right wing, but the following day, both The Times and Chinese newspapers published the same claim.
When I looked into why they were using the same language, I arrived at an editorial published shortly beforehand in The New York Times.
Under the title “Mr. Abe’s Dangerous Revisionism,” the editorial insulted Prime Minister Abe by declaring that “relations between Japan and the United States have deteriorated because of the far-right Abe” and that “he is even willing to falsify history by claiming that the Nanjing Massacre never occurred and withdrawing Japan’s apology to the Korean women who were enslaved as sex slaves.”
Is this any way to address the prime minister of another country?
The absence of dignity is appalling.
Yet the Japanese side is unable to respond.
If Japan handles the argument poorly, it will merely fall into the other side’s trap.
That is why Japan continues to endure it patiently.
This could be seen from the outside.
Pesek and the Chinese thought, “I see. So we can go this far,” and proceeded to say whatever they pleased.
They apparently still believed that they controlled public discourse.
Incidentally, when Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga pointed out the excessive falsehoods in The New York Times, the newspaper reacted angrily but nevertheless published a correction.
Their real intention is to avoid pushing Japan to the point where it becomes genuinely angry.

2024/1/5 in Kyoto