Everyone Is Carrying One's Own Cross
(Tout le monde est porteuse de sa propre croix.)
SECTION 1: Five Million American Fans of Japanese Culture
Today's Sankei Shimbun Newspaper issued in Japan has presented a few interesting reports.
According to Mr. Seiji Horibuchi, who traveled to the U.S. to enroll in a university in 1975 but dropped out of it to enjoy a life among American hippies, it is estimated that there are five million, mostly young Americans who are routinely accessing and enjoying products of the Japanese culture.
"As the modern American society functions only aiming at higher efficiency and rationalization, it is a barren land in terms of culture," he said.
In my estimation, a half of the American population would not feel any needs to learn, understand, and accept the Japanese culture till the end, but the rest of them will appreciate the significance of Japan in their life eventually, which is not so bad for Asians in general.
In addition, I did not much trust in American hippies unlike Mr. Horibuchi, since that era was still in the Cold War between the USSR and the USA with thousands of inter-continental ballistic nuclear-warhead missiles positioned or prepared in underground bases and large-scale submarines, and thus half-naked dancing or marijuana smoking of hippies in forests or on beaches of the American continent looked so ineffective to bring the peace to all the countries between the Soviet and the U.S.
Anyway, let five million American youths access EEE Reporter.
SECTION 2: Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy in Algeria
According to today's Sankei Shimbun Newspaper, French President Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy did not apologize to the Algerian people, during his recent visit there, for France's past violence to Algerian people, though France had been requested to officially offer an apology to Algeria that had got independence from France through a fierce war in 1962 after having suffered a state of colony for 130 years.
Some Chinese and Koreans are still requesting more apologies from Japan for the war and occupation the Empire of Japan had brought and engaged in on their home lands for 30 years before 1945.
Though the Sankei Shimbun Newspaper does not much trust in China and Korea, there are no grave problems between Japan and these two countries except how much Japanese past apologies, expressed in various forms beyond simple words, to, and contribution to development of, the two countries after WWII should be evaluated.
Japan allows any Japanese to travel to China and Korea so as to apologize to Chinese people and Korean people as much as they like on behalf of Japan.
Japan does not even forbid any Japanese to travel to China and Korea so as to blame and accuse Japan, namely their mother country, for its past together with Chinese or Korean people.
And I hope that France, Algeria, China, and Korea would follow suit.
SECTION 3: Nanjing
The Sankei Shimbun Newspaper has posted on its front page the movement around the Nanjing issue.
It reports on various Japanese efforts to correct a twisted and wrong view on incidents involved in the occupation of the Chinese city by the Army of the Empire of Japan in 1937.
The most interesting argument therein is that Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) never mentioned the so-called Nanjing Massacre by the Imperial Army during his reign as the supreme leader of the Chinese Communist Party.
You may refer to Wikipedia, describing that "...In 1937, the Japanese army invaded and occupied Nanjing, then the capital of China, and carried out the systematic and brutal Nanking massacre. The total death toll could not be confirmed, since no official records were kept, and is often contested, but most estimates put the number of dead between 200,000 and 350,000," however for other key descriptions as follows:
(1) "Nanjing, with a total land area of 6,598 square kilometers (2,547.5 sq mi), is situated in one of the largest economic zones of China, the Yangtze River Delta, which is part of the downstream Yangtze River drainage basin."
(2) "On April 23, 1949, The People's Liberation Army conquered Nanjing, officially ending the Republic of China's rule on the mainland."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing
Accordingly, you would wonder where Chinese troops were in 1937, while Nanjing was such an important city and Chinese troops, so large in number and regarded as being brave and heroic, had a duty to protect citizens as well as their military leaders.
You would really mind how Chinese troops and generals fought there to protect citizens in their home land against the expeditionary military force of the Empire of Japan in pursuit of first firing and fleeing Chinese troops from Shanghai.
You would also wonder why the Imperial Army would not preserve as much as possible citizens, human resources, and infrastructures of the economically and strategically very important city, while a long and huge-scale war requiring large resources was still going on under a gaze of the U.S., the USSR, and European countries.
You should wonder how such a large and mighty city Nanjing would not provide any protection, shelters, safe houses, or escape routes to its citizens in concert with proper guidance and care by Chinese troops and generals.
You must also wonder whether Japanese people could have really succeeded and been globally respected after WWII if they simply had consisted of such violent and mad ex-soldiers, namely wild criminals, or the like who had after WWII simply returned home where most of industrial infrastructures had been destroyed by US air bombardment.
Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) must have known how many citizens had been killed in Nanjing during the Chinese Civil War after WWII.
Nonetheless, even if the Imperial Army had killed intentionally or negligently one or two or otherwise 3,000 innocent citizens, who had been abandoned by their troops and generals fast fleeing to Chunking regardless of their extravagant shame, in Nanjing in 1937, Japan should feel guilty, together with those Chinese troops and generals, even today to carry it as its own cross.
SECTION 4: November 1963
In my inference, a long-waited report came to certain people high in the US Government in November 1963; but it was from Dallas, Texas, and not from Havana, Cuba.
It is just like a waited report came from Pearl Harbor instead of Manila, the Philippines, in 1941, and from the Pentagon and Manhattan instead of East Africa in 2001.
I suppose that resources they had prepared for a certain covert operation in Havana was diverted to an unthinkable operation in Dallas without approval of those with power and responsibility in the then US Government.
One example can be also found in Wikipedia:
"According to the Family Jewels documents declassified by the CIA in 2007, one such assassination attempt before the Bay of Pigs invasion involved Johnny Roselli and Al Capone's successor in the Chicago Outfit, Salvatore Giancana and his right-hand man Santos Trafficante. It was personally authorized by then US attorney general Robert Kennedy [71]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro
But, Jack Ruby who fired at Lee Harvey Oswald was an Israelite American.
He must have confessed something before his death in a jail in January 1967.
It is because among those involved in the JFK assassination only Jacob Rubenstein looks like having been a descendant of ancient Israelites.
* * *
Now a week is going to be closed in Japan. Maybe all I have to do is check TV program listing in the newspaper on the Sunday morning, namely tomorrow.
(I will discuss tomorrow the bread and wine Jesus Christ blessed and provided, if everything is without a hitch...)
"...but you yourself don't go in, nor do you allow in those who are trying to enter!..."
(Ihr selbst kommt nicht hinein, und ihr hindert alle, die hinein-wollen.)