The following is from Masayuki Takayama's column in Themis, a monthly subscription magazine that arrived at my home today.
It is no exaggeration to say that I subscribe to this monthly magazine just to read his columns.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
A long time ago, an elderly female professor of the Royal Ballet School of Monaco, highly respected by prima ballerinas worldwide, visited Japan.
At that time, she spoke about the significance of an artist's existence.
She said, "Artists are important because they are the only ones who can shed light on hidden, concealed truths and express them."
No one would dispute her words.
It is no exaggeration to say that Masayuki Takayama is not only the one and only journalist in the postwar world but also the one and only artist in the postwar world.
On the other hand, Ōe, I don't want to speak ill of the deceased, but (to follow Masayuki Takayama's example below), Murakami and many others who call themselves writers or think of themselves as artists are not even worthy of the name of artists.
They have only expressed the lies the Asahi Shimbun and others created rather than shedding light on hidden truths and telling them.
Their existence is not limited to Japan but is the same in other countries worldwide.
In other words, there are only a few true artists.
This paper is another excellent proof that I am right when I say that no one in the world today deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature more than Masayuki Takayama.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people all over the world.
It is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people worldwide.
Asahi Shimbun ignores "facts" by flattering Kenzaburō Ōe.
It irresponsibly praises false books such as "Okinawa Note" and "The Devil's Boredom.
They are usually rejected for their redundant sentences.
After King Ping of Chu kills his father and brother, Wu Zixu flees to the neighboring country of Wu to serve Helü of Wu.
In the reign of Fuchai of Wu, he proposed a plan to defeat the hated King Ping of Chu.
He defeated Chu, but the Ping King was already dead.
What if he were Japanese?
They might have laughed at the idea of why they were so passionate about such a thing.
But the Chinese are different.
Wu Zixu uncovered King Ping's grave, dragged out his corpse, and flogged it.
Whipping the corpse is 300/ Then it will cease," says Sima Qian in his "Records of the Grand Historian."
It means he is finally satisfied after 300 lashes to the corpse.
It is the origin of the phrase "whipping the dead,'' but if you go this far in Japan, you will be looked daunted.
Even the wicked are Buddhas when they die.
There is an atmosphere that says, "That's enough."
But some people can't get away with it," reads the column "New Inconvenient Japanese" in the booklet "Kokutai Bunka" that was delivered to me the other day.
The author is Toshiaki Ohno.
He was my junior in the Sankei Shimbun's Social Affairs Department, and although he has his quirks, his writing is soft and enjoyable with a great deal of knowledge.
To quote the author, "I don't like to whip the dead, but I have to say something about this man, Kenzaburo Oe.
When Ōe died, "every TV station and newspaper in Japan, including Sankei, mourned him and carried articles and biographies praising his achievements.
If we left it as it was, it would be taken as approval rather than forgiveness of this man's sins.
That is unforgivable.
I thought of writing about the same thing here but got carried away.
I want to take advantage of this column to say a few words.
Ōe is a man of letters.
I write using the same characters as he does.
As a desk clerk, I have seen many people's manuscripts.
When I look at Ōe's writings with my own eyes, I find them lengthy and sometimes even nonsensical.
Usually, he would have been rejected.
If I corrected it, 100 lines would be reduced to 20.
No, no, no, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for that.
That, too, is a mistake without a doubt.
There are many mistakes in that prize.
For example, the Nobel Prize was awarded to English physicist Joseph Thomson, who advocated the grape-pan atomic model of "electrons encrusted in a loaf of proton bread," without Hantaro Nagaoka, who approved the Saturnian nuclear model.
In another case, the U.S., which dislikes Japan's nuclear armament, took advantage of Eisaku Sato's statement of the "three non-nuclear principles" and hastily awarded him the Peace Prize.
The Commander-in-Chief was desperate to stop the suicides.
Ōe's writings are beyond anyone's assessment.
Instead, it should be seen as an award based on political recognition as an anti-Japanese ideologue.
If you are still trying to convince, read Kazuo Ishiguro.
His translations are plain and easy to understand, and like "Never Let Me Go," he questions the foundations of human dignity with a fresh sensitivity.
It is a far cry from Ōe's work.
In addition, there is the stench of postwar democracy.
Masato Inui, former editor-in-chief of the Sankei Shimbun, wrote with dismay that Ōe "repeatedly called out" Prime Minister Abe from the podium at a rally to defend the Constitution.
Literary people value words.
Even mild words depend on the lungs.
If he can only express himself in abusive language, he is no better than Jiro Yamaguchi.
There is another book that the Asahi Shimbun praised in its review, "Okinawa Notebook."
Ōe wrote that the local commander at Tokashiki "forced the islanders to commit mass suicide not to be a liability to the Imperial Army and reduce the amount of food they could eat."
Ayako Sono was suspicious, and after interviewing the local commander, she found out that he was the one who desperately tried to stop the suicide and that after the war, when he found out that they would receive a survivor's pension if he pretended to have committed suicide on military orders, "he decided to sacrifice his honor and issue a suicide order."
Ayako Sono must have been highly annoyed by Ōe's irresponsible writing.
Still, Ōe is water on a frog's face.
Ōe did not correct it.
Neither did Iwanami put the book out of print.
The family of the local commander appealed to the court, but the verdict was that Ōe was not guilty.
Ōe was so pleased with himself that he said, "I don't care about the facts. I write from a high position that the Japanese military is to blame, and the Japanese government is to blame," Ohno continued.
No one will complain because he is a Nobel Prize-winning author.
No one will complain," including newspapers.
Reporters also silenced Ayako Sono.
There are many intellectuals in the world.
They also did not follow Ayako Sono.
There is another reason.
Writers write for newspapers and magazines.
However, there are strange ties in that world.
For example, Iwanami and Kodansha ask Ōe to write and gain prestige.
The publications affiliated with the publishing houses that sell Ōe's work will not print any criticism of Ōe's work.
Newspapers that are sympathetic to Ōe also do not carry such commentary.
There is a strictly closed linguistic space.
The source of the story is a Communist Party member's lie.
Soon after Ōe's death, writer Seiichi Morimura died.
He started as a mystery writer, but they want to switch to a socialist approach when they sell well.
So he wrote "The Devil's Boredom" about Unit 731.
The source of the story was a certain Shimozato of the Communist Party.
The source was a lie created by the Chinese Communist Party.
At that time, Sankei denounced it, but other newspapers remained silent.
This time, we thought Asahi would correct the mistake with a review of Morimura's biography, but instead, the headline read, "The Devil's Boredom."
As if the brutal acts of Unit 731 were fact.
Kantaro Ogura, whom Toyoko Yamazaki used as a model for her book "The Sun That Never Sets," was an agent of the Japanese Communist Party (JCPO), preventing the reconstruction of Japan's aviation industry.
The publisher system also buried this story in the same way.
People make mistakes.
Morimura is said to have regretted his mistake.
But Ōe and Yamazaki are convicted criminals.
Even if the newspaper and publishing companies have been hiding things for their reasons, at the very least, they should rewrite the story honestly when they close the coffin lid.
Otherwise, a false book like "Okinawa Note" will remain as it is.
