Prompted by remarks made at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, this essay reflects on Japan, Italy, and the postwar media environment. It examines questions of national dignity, international journalism, and historical perception through a civilizational lens.

January 1, 2019
It is because Japan allows such deplorable individuals to commit wrongdoing here that divine punishment falls upon it.
The chapter I posted on Ameba on December 27, 2018, titled “The Utterly Unforgivable Insult Delivered at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Press Conference,” has now entered the top ten in search rankings.
As those around me know well, I have long loved Italy.
Yet now I have something to say to Italy.
Pio d’Emilia, who acts as though he dominates the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, is likely under the influence of information agencies from anti-Japanese states such as China or the Korean Peninsula; he cannot be a proper journalist.
If many Italians are Catholic and hold reverence for saints throughout history, then all the more reason to recall this disgrace to Italy immediately.
The conception of my project “The Turntable of Civilization” came decades ago when I visited the home of a close friend and former classmate living in Rome.
In July 2010, I reluctantly began writing on the internet.
Since August four years ago, I have come to learn many truths about postwar Japan that I never knew while subscribing to Asahi Shimbun.
Among them was the realization that Italy, though allied with the defeated side, nevertheless extracted reparations from Japan after its defeat — a fact that diminished my boundless elegy for Italy considerably.
That an Italian such as the aforementioned Pio d’Emilia could so deeply insult Yoshiko Sakurai — a true figure of integrity in contemporary Japan and someone most deserving of the nation’s highest honors — at a Foreign Correspondents’ Club press conference is utterly unforgivable.
The damage to Japanese sentiment was so severe that my boundless elegy toward Italy plummeted as though mirroring an economic collapse.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Italy’s continuing instability stems partly from allowing such individuals to attack and demean Japan abroad.
Consider this carefully.
Not a single Japanese would go to your country and attack or demean a figure worthy of your nation’s highest honor.
That too is what it means when I say the Turntable of Civilization is turning.
Why has Italian society remained unstable in the postwar era and often regarded as a burden within Europe.
It is, arguably, the result of allowing such foolish individuals to operate abroad.
Especially now, when Japan is a nation where the Turntable of Civilization is turning.
It is because such deplorable individuals are permitted to act in Japan that divine punishment falls upon it.