Connie’s Reviews > The Bells of Nagasaki > Status Update

"…I've lost everything. I have nothing. I gave everything I had but I was defeated. Why should I say that it's a tragedy or a pitiful situation? Why is it pitiful? Our situation now is like that of a man who looks at the moon after the rain. It was a war.
We lost. I have no regrets."
　"When you talk that way you make us feel ashamed."
　"And I would have felt embarrassed, too; I would have suffered spiritually if the capitulation had come while I still had my wife, my property, and my home. Wouldn't I have felt an intolerable burden when I saw my country in ruins and my compatriots burned out of their homes? But when I reflect that with the destruction of my country I was left homeless and penniless, then in the midst of sadness a fresh spirit, one of joy, rises in me."
　"But before us we have to watch a group of people rejoicing morning and evening because they've profited from the war."
　"Yes. That's true. They're the people who must be crushed. War is a money-making business. These people know that if there is a war once every ten years they'll become millionaires. They will be the source of warmongering in the future. They will seduce our young and innocent people and inculcate revenge."
　"They really are the people who feed themselves at the expense of the country."
　"But is war a business that really brings profit to the nation?"
　"If you win, I suppose it does."
　"But if war is waged to bring profit to the nation, can that war be called just?"
　"There can be no victory in a war that is unjust in the eyes of God."
　"But during the war we prayed constantly to God. In particular, we prayed to the god of war?"
　"The god of war? He's a man-made god, like the god who heals whooping cough."
　"No. I'm talking about the gods who were in Japan from ancient times."
　"Those gods were created by our ancestors whose knowledge of philosophy and theology was more primitive than ours. They made their gods to suit their purpose and then they asked them for what they wanted. Those were really just paper gods. And in this way we came to believe in the invincibility of our country and in legends about the divine wind and the like. We were paying homage to dead images.
　"Do you think we lacked sincerity?"
　"Not at all. But no matter how sincere one is, it's useless to pray to beings that don't exist. We couldn't stand up to people who trusted not in man-made gods but in the true God."
　"But just as we Japanese have our own spirit, the spirit of Yamato, so we should have our own gods."
　"If these gods are freely accepted by the people and not imposed at the point of the sword—yes! But your way of thinking reveals a religion that's no more than a primitive nationalism. It was criticized and judged in Rome two thousand years ago."
　"Let's leave this talk about gods for later. Isn't it said that war is the mother of civilization? Doesn't it give a great stimulus to science? Think, for example, of the atomic bomb!"
　"All these human lives, all this material wealth, all this time, all this mobilization of the powers of the human race—if all this had been directed to peace, it would have had a much, much greater effect. In any case, war is no longer a profit-making business..."

"Officers who have no experience of real war! To satisfy their own vanity they shout orders to innocent youngsters and send them to the front. Real war is a cruel affair. Oh yes, it's beautiful and inspiring to lean back in an armchair and read war literature and then to reflect: 'I, too, would like to go to the front.' But the reality is different. Books describing the true face of war have been stopped by censorship. Of course there are pictures about the battles of Yoshitsune. And there are poems about General Nogi. But where is the beauty of the atom bomb? If you had been here on that day and at that time, if you had seen the hell that opened up on earth before our eyes, if you had had even a glimpse of that, you would never, never entertain the crazy thought of another war. If there is another war, atomic bombs will explode everywhere and innumerable ordinary people will be annihilated in the flash of a split second. There will be no beautiful stories, no songs, no poems, no paintings, no music, no literature, no research. Only death. Just as an anthill is crushed by a steamroller, so the whole earth will be crushed by this war. Isn't it too crazy for words?"
　"You mean Japan is defeated once and for all?"
　"Listen to the word of God: 'Vengeance is mine. I will repay.' God has His own way of punishing those who are unjust in His sight.
Revenge is not our business."
　"Well, what is our way for the future?"
　"In order to find a way I sit thinking and meditating in this little hut. But as yet I have found no answer."
　"I'd like to sit somewhere and think about this problem too."
　"Go to the mountains and meditate! If you stay in the hurly-burly of this world, you'll run around in circles without ever finding your way. You'll become the kind of person who just stamps and screams. But the blue mountains are immovable and the white clouds come and go. I look constantly at these three mountains of Mitsuyama and continue my meditation."