Message to Hiroshima Summit: Nobuko Takagi, author, proposes new thesis on nuclear abolition
Jan. 3, 2023
by Miho Kuwajima, Senior Staff Writer
Nobuko Takagi, 76, an author from Hofu City in Yamaguchi Prefecture who was named a Person of Cultural Merit and serves as a member of the Japan Art Academy, felt close to Hiroshima since she was a young child and earnestly hopes for the elimination of nuclear weapons. With the summit meeting of the G7 (Group of Seven industrialized nations) to be held in Hiroshima for the first time in May, she calls on participating leaders to change their ideas about nuclear deterrence “as members of the human race.”
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Parents and children who were relatives died in the atomic bombing. After the war, I saw a relative whose gums just continued to bleed. My mother was traveling through Hiroshima Station on a train shortly after the atomic bombing when she was pregnant with me. Thinking of my children and grandchildren, nuclear abolition needs to be tackled on a global scale. What is the significance of holding the summit in the A-bombed city? The city should not end up serving as a stage for mere political theater.
In 1955, when she was nine years old, Ms. Takagi visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with her mother and grandmother shortly after the museum opened in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. The fear and anger she felt as a child were reflected in Maimai Shinko, a novel she wrote based on her own life that was published in 2004.
The words inscribed on the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims say “Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil.” As I wrote in the novel, when I read those words, I wondered who was making the vow to whom. Is the United States, the country that dropped the atomic bombs, making a vow to Japan? Or is it the human race making a vow to itself?
In any case, nuclear weapons nations persist in competing against each other about nuclear weapons development and the number of such weapons in their possession, using that as an indicator of national security. That very idea must be changed.
In December 2022, Ms. Takagi submitted an essay in response to a call for entries for the Chugoku Short Story Award, a process in which she also served as a judge. In the essay, she wrote about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “How can they fire missiles at people living right in front of their eyes? Are they not imagining the consequences of their actions?”
After all, ordinary people are usually the victims in war. Is it the case that for any nation to be maintained, we simply have to accept that half of its people will die? It seems to me they are putting their own country first and holding a trade fair for weapons. Human beings are idiots.
Unfortunately, it is obvious when looking at the United Nations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that everything associated is political bargaining. These organizations and treaties are not functioning, a situation that leaves me at wits end. People might laugh at this idea, but I’ve come to believe the only way to eliminate nuclear weapons is to develop a boomerang-like technology that causes a launched nuclear missile to make a U-turn and return to the country of origin. We need to realize that if we were ever to use nuclear weapons, our own country would be annihilated.
The Earth is a single lifeform. The leaders participating in the G7 summit should not simply lament the sad historical facts of Hiroshima and use them for political purposes, but make serious efforts toward nuclear abolition and make Hiroshima a starting point for putting forward a new thesis that differs from those of the past.
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At the beginning of this year, one during which the Hiroshima Summit will be held, the Chugoku Shimbun asked prominent figures having some kind of connection with the Chugoku region to share their hopes and prospects for the summit.
Nobuko Takagi
Born in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1946, Ms. Takagi graduated from the Junior College of Tokyo Women’s University. She was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for Hikari Idaku Tomo yo (in English, ‘To a Friend Embracing the Light’) in 1984, the Tanizaki Prize for Toko no Ki (‘Translucent Tree’) in 1999, and the Kawabata Yasunari Award for Tomosui in 2010. She also served as a member of the Akutagawa Prize selection committee between 2001 and 2019. Becoming a member of the Japan Art Academy in 2017, she was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 2018. Ms. Takagi won the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Shosetsu Ise Monogatari Narihira (‘The Tales of Ise, Narihira’) in 2020.
(Originally published on January 3, 2023)
Nobuko Takagi, 76, an author from Hofu City in Yamaguchi Prefecture who was named a Person of Cultural Merit and serves as a member of the Japan Art Academy, felt close to Hiroshima since she was a young child and earnestly hopes for the elimination of nuclear weapons. With the summit meeting of the G7 (Group of Seven industrialized nations) to be held in Hiroshima for the first time in May, she calls on participating leaders to change their ideas about nuclear deterrence “as members of the human race.”
================================
Parents and children who were relatives died in the atomic bombing. After the war, I saw a relative whose gums just continued to bleed. My mother was traveling through Hiroshima Station on a train shortly after the atomic bombing when she was pregnant with me. Thinking of my children and grandchildren, nuclear abolition needs to be tackled on a global scale. What is the significance of holding the summit in the A-bombed city? The city should not end up serving as a stage for mere political theater.
In 1955, when she was nine years old, Ms. Takagi visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with her mother and grandmother shortly after the museum opened in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. The fear and anger she felt as a child were reflected in Maimai Shinko, a novel she wrote based on her own life that was published in 2004.
The words inscribed on the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims say “Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil.” As I wrote in the novel, when I read those words, I wondered who was making the vow to whom. Is the United States, the country that dropped the atomic bombs, making a vow to Japan? Or is it the human race making a vow to itself?
In any case, nuclear weapons nations persist in competing against each other about nuclear weapons development and the number of such weapons in their possession, using that as an indicator of national security. That very idea must be changed.
In December 2022, Ms. Takagi submitted an essay in response to a call for entries for the Chugoku Short Story Award, a process in which she also served as a judge. In the essay, she wrote about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “How can they fire missiles at people living right in front of their eyes? Are they not imagining the consequences of their actions?”
After all, ordinary people are usually the victims in war. Is it the case that for any nation to be maintained, we simply have to accept that half of its people will die? It seems to me they are putting their own country first and holding a trade fair for weapons. Human beings are idiots.
Unfortunately, it is obvious when looking at the United Nations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that everything associated is political bargaining. These organizations and treaties are not functioning, a situation that leaves me at wits end. People might laugh at this idea, but I’ve come to believe the only way to eliminate nuclear weapons is to develop a boomerang-like technology that causes a launched nuclear missile to make a U-turn and return to the country of origin. We need to realize that if we were ever to use nuclear weapons, our own country would be annihilated.
The Earth is a single lifeform. The leaders participating in the G7 summit should not simply lament the sad historical facts of Hiroshima and use them for political purposes, but make serious efforts toward nuclear abolition and make Hiroshima a starting point for putting forward a new thesis that differs from those of the past.
◇
At the beginning of this year, one during which the Hiroshima Summit will be held, the Chugoku Shimbun asked prominent figures having some kind of connection with the Chugoku region to share their hopes and prospects for the summit.
Nobuko Takagi
Born in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in 1946, Ms. Takagi graduated from the Junior College of Tokyo Women’s University. She was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for Hikari Idaku Tomo yo (in English, ‘To a Friend Embracing the Light’) in 1984, the Tanizaki Prize for Toko no Ki (‘Translucent Tree’) in 1999, and the Kawabata Yasunari Award for Tomosui in 2010. She also served as a member of the Akutagawa Prize selection committee between 2001 and 2019. Becoming a member of the Japan Art Academy in 2017, she was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 2018. Ms. Takagi won the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Shosetsu Ise Monogatari Narihira (‘The Tales of Ise, Narihira’) in 2020.
(Originally published on January 3, 2023)
