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43. Sakyo Kamatsu
Sakyo Kamatsu was born in 1931 in Osaka, Japan. He studied Italian literature at the University of Kyoto. In 1963 he published his first work, Chi Ni Wa Heiwa O (Peace on Earth). In 1973 he published a best seller, Nihon Chimbotsu, about the submersion of Japan through a natural calamity. The New York Times remarked that Kamatsu showed such expertise in his description of the geological conditions of the earth that his book ‘gained in frightening reality.’ Some 3.6 million copies were sold within the first six months. Other well-known works are Chizu No Shiso (Thoughts About Our Map), Mirai-zu No Sekai (Forms of a Future World, and Chikyo O Kangaeru (Thoughts About Our Earth).
Madame Gandhi told me in New Delhi that in spite of doomsday voices, she was basically optimistic about the future of man.
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I think she was to some extent correct, because man invented the ultimate weapon, the hydrogen bomb. Initially, in the sixties, relations between the USSR and the US were bad, but after this weapon was invented, these great powers chose to accommodate.
Under pressure of total destruction?
I think so. They tried to find ways not to be forced to use those weapons. I think they succeeded.
But only by creating a balance of terror.
Yes. We should remember that human beings never try to find ways to coexist unless threatened by such inhuman weapons.
That is human nature?
To some extent, because human beings have been very naïve about their innovations. When Westerners discovered the technique of transoceanic navigation - in the sixteenth century, I believe - they used this technique to travel to other continents, to discover other worlds. At the time, they also possessed a comparatively strong weapon: the cannon.
They used it to subdue the inhabitants of the lands they discovered: colonialism.
Right. They conquered the Indian continent, for instance. Or think of how many American Indians were slaughtered by the guns of adventurers who came looking for gold. But gradually some doubts were raised in the minds of Westerners and step by step they stopped such cruel behavior. At present, we note the so-called peaceful coexistence between Russia and America. But does this lead us, like Madame Gandhi, to be optimistic about the future? Surely, there are many different problems for the future. There will be shortages of energy and natural resources. We will run short of petroleum. There will be a population explosion and worldwide pollution. These questions will be much more difficult to deal with than the H bomb. Did you discuss the population problem with the Prime Minister of India?
Yes, I did. I asked her what she thought of the Chinese methods of dealing with these questions in an authoritarian manner. She replied that as a responsible leader in a democracy, there should be no enforcement from above.
Madame Gandhi is right in principle. But I do not think she will be successful in meeting India's population problems. I know some aspects of
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Indian society. Their culture is quite different from that of Japan or Europe. I have seen some of those one hundred and seventy million cows in their streets. As you well know, cows are still holy in India. They are not to be used as food.
There is indeed quite a difference from the Japanese approach to life.
I knew and studied a man in Benares, a low-caste person, an untouchable, who gave his last food to his cow, while he himself was starving to death.
What made you decide to write your doomsday novel?
That is a long story. First of all I must explain that Japan is a very special country. We have been fortunate, compared to other Asian countries, because our archipelago was isolated from the continent by a wide strait. The distance is at least two hundred kilometers from the mainland. Our ancestors started to conquer these islands about one thousand and some hundred years ago. Our country began its career by isolating herself from the continent.
Do you know the origin of the word ‘kamikaze’? It is the name of a very special attack during a war we once fought. The word dates back to the thirteenth century when Mongolian armies tried to invade us from across the sea. Their fleet appeared on the coast of Kyushu Island. Japanese samurai defended the coastline, but it seemed as if they were going to lose the battle. At that very moment, an extremely strong typhoon came storming onwards preventing the invaders from landing on our western coasts. Our people called that typhoon kamikaze, which means ‘wind of God.’ That was one remarkable example from our history, which is full of such lucky events.
You will recall that in Europe, Attila, King of the Huns, easily succeeded in invading Roman territory, which brought about the movement of the Germanic race and caused the fall of the Roman Empire. The invasion of the Mongolian armies also caused great changes on the Eurasian maps and we see long histories full of violence.
The peoples of the Eurasian continent have known many racial and national tragedies, seen the fall of states, the destruction of cities, massacres, the annihilation of cultures and languages, epidemics, and so forth.
Which brings us back to your inspiration to write Nihon Chimbotsu, The Submersion of Japan.
This is the beginning, the fundamental motive, which makes me feel that we Japanese are too naïve about the tragic histories of other nations. Japanese history in general was very lucky until we tried to conquer
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Southeast Asia. Our success was very brief and we withdrew to our four small islands. Once before in our history, a Japanese dictator, Hideyoshi, tried to intrude into Korea. He even reached Peking, but in the end he failed. Japan was the only Asiatic country in the nineteenth century that succeeded in developing stages of industrialization. We built a modern national state and protected the Japanese people from invading colonialism and imperialism. One other example in Asia is Thailand. However, the Thai remained an agricultural state, mainly a rice-producing state. Japan was alone in Asia in industrializing itself. One reason for this was that Japan was not totally isolated from the rest of the world. Conquerors failed to invade and occupy our land, but we were able to import goods and products from overseas, as well as knowledge and books from China. Our society progressed because these outside contacts enriched us.
But I would still like to know what inspired you to write the book.
I wanted the Japanese people to look at other countries and other cultures as they do their own national experience. There are so many different cultures in the world. Let us take our own Japanese culture, our own society. The mind of the Japanese is naturally closed, or, rather, it shows a tendency to be naturally closed. What I tried to do by writing this book was to find a hole in this wall for our people to peep through, to look through to the outside world, to enter the real world like a pilgrim. That is what the book is about. I liked to show our leaders the true situation of our country today, our nationality as seen from the outside. I created the fictional situation, the annihilation of our homeland, in order to eliminate, to drive out, the supernationalistic sentiments of the Japanese people, as they still prevail in our mother country, cosy and dating from ancient heritage. The Submersion of Japan is only an introduction to the vagrant story of the Japanese nation.
Do you feel your book caused the awakening you intended?
The Japanese now see themselves through the eyes of others. I tried to make my Japanese readers see with their own eyes different cultures, nationalities, nations.
So your best-selling book was intended to make the Japanese reevaluate different cultures around the world. That is what the book was about and it promptly became a sensation.
Yes. Unfortunately, I did not finish my book. My publisher told me they wanted the book quickly. So I gave them the first part, on which I had been working for nine years.
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So there still is a second part to come. When will you finish it?
I am not sure, but I hope within at most two years. I expect the second part to be more difficult to write than the first volume. I intend to deal with the different fates and treatments Japanese people are now experiencing in different parts of the world.
Do you also write articles for Doomsday Magazine? What is the purpose of this publication?
I do not know exactly; I am not the editor. A general mood of catastrophe prevails in Japan. Eschatology, the study of catastrophe, is popular these days. In some ways, the Japanese are confused in facing this newly won, unknown ‘affluent society.’ They are frantically enthusiastic about economic growth, but at the same time they fear an explosion of this new economic machine, which day after day seems to be accelerating, expanding, and becoming ever more uncontrollable. The final result, it is feared, may be the total destruction of our lives and of society.
But do you yourself believe in this doomsday philosophy?
Yes. There could be a catastrophe some day.
Are you pessimistic about the future?
No.
That seems a contradiction.
The concept of doomsday is, I think, religious and symbolic. It does not mean the disappearance of our lands and our nation. The bursting of the economic and social system would cause tragedies such as poverty, starvation, panic, violence, riots, and anarchism. We would be forced to return to the level of prosperity prior to World War Two. Many of us would certainly survive, and try to find much more clever ways to live, through the bitter experience of tragedy. I myself, of course, hope that such an ‘economic doomsday’ can be avoided. Therefore, I have introduced into my book, in some sense as a warning to our society, an outline of our natural, national, and international situation as seen from abroad, looking at Japan from the outside.
Do you think the Japanese people are mentally prepared to face some future ecological or economic disaster?
Yes, to some extent. One purpose of my book was to make the people more aware of the dangers surrounding Japanese society. We jumped into
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industrial power from the tradition of an agricultural age. The Japanese people and their leaders became very enthusiastic about the newly found power of the industrial age. They treated this power like a baby. Then, during World War Two, we were faced with a kind of doomsday explosion in Hiroshima and possibly even with the destruction of all of Japan. Following the war we got our latest toy, economic power.
A dangerous toy.
Yes. For example, Tokyo is now one of the biggest cities in the world. The population is more than twelve million. All the new modern buildings are built of glass. Our motorways are lifted high up in the sky or pass rivers through tunnels. We have subways and underground shopping arcades forming a labyrinth beneath the city. We maintain offices of large enterprises concentrated in the heart of the metropolis. More than eight million people work during the daytime in that very narrow space of the city center. In only twenty years, the entire design and planning of the city was transformed into the function of top efficiency and economic activity. But we ignored safeguards for the security of the life of the ordinary citizen. Almost nothing was done in this respect. It is quite a possible that there will be earthquakes in Tokyo and Japan, perhaps even in the near future, but people refuse to think about it.
Is this science fiction or fact?
These are forecasts by our most prominent geologists.
So that is what scientists expect.
That's right.
You plan to write other books to help prepare Japan to meet the year 2000.
I have been asked to write them.
I hope it will not take you another nine years.
I hope not. Perhaps you could help to persuade our tax people not to take ninety percent of my income this year. We now have a so-called progressive taxation system in Japan, which is very severe, you know. If they would leave me more funds, I could concentrate on my work.
How do you view the future, especially concerning the young, during the next quarter century?
I am optimistic. There are, of course, cynical prophets of doom all over
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Japan, writing both in the newspapers and the weekly magazines. But I believe that the young people will have a clearer view of how our future should be handled, how to deal with the gigantic economic power, and, last but not least, how to handle problems of nationality.
Of survival in general.
Of survival. I think the young will contribute heavily in establishing a new order, a new world, for the future.
Are there any signs, in your opinion, that the present youths of Japan are preparing themselves for these enormous, unimaginably difficult tasks?
I see several signs suggesting that the younger generation is much superior to the elder generation of Japan, especially in their sensitiveness to the new stages of a humanized world. They possess a more realistic sense of international solidarity, peace, happiness, and friendliness toward foreigners, for instance. They are free from greed, from which the elder ‘starving generation’ still suffers. They are also free from the arrogance and the sense of discrimination that imperial Japan had. They are called the beautiful people, but at the same time they often ignore or have no firm knowledge of the new stages of growth in the world. Sometimes they are misled to act toward violence and terrorism. I'm sorry that our utterly old-fashioned educational system has failed to offer these ‘beautiful’ souls modern and solid knowledge.
Are you optimistic about Japan and about the planet in general?
I think human wisdom will triumph in the end. It will arise from the depths of souls of all people.
You write a book about Japan going under, submerging under the sea, but you believe wisdom will rise!
Yes. [Laughter.]
Your next book, then, should deal with the wisdom hidden in the soul of man coming to the surface to save man from doom.
You are right. I think human beings are much wiser than most people assume. When we read history we can easily find tremendous numbers of examples that prove man's cruelty, stupidity, aggressiveness, and arrogance. You may become sickened and desperate over human nature. But we should be aware that tragedies are apt to attract our attention. If carefully explained, we could discover one day that most tragedies are caused by
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mutual fears and misunderstandings between different cultural values, which bring out hidden aggression and cruelty in men, and at times turn them into wild animals. However, even wild animals coexist all over the earth with large numbers of species. There are exquisite systems which enable all creatures to avoid collisions within the same specific cultural boundaries. Dr. Konrad Lorenz and Dr. Nikolaas Tinbergen, 1973 Nobel Prize winners, helped to prove the existence of these well-designed and unbelievably delicate systems after long and careful observations.
The same system, of course, exists within the mass of human beings. If we read human history carefully, we recognize this. I would even say that in the so-called historical descriptions we are inclined to note only the tragic events. Tragedies, of course, are more sensational to report on than details about a calm, peaceful, and plasant life. In his perpetual efforts to find ways to coexist peacefully, or ways to reconcile differences with one other, man has partially failed, but in general he has succeeded in creating more harmonized relations among races and cultures. We still exist even after passing through several changes of climate, big wars, epidemics, and uncountable numbers of culture clashes. Homo sapiens still continuously grows. Today some 150 nations, belonging to different races and cultures, coexist on this earth. This is the most eminent proof of our success, I feel. Of course, the success is not perfect.
Many conflicts and difficult problems in our world remain, both major and minor ones. Some of these will be solved in due time. Some solutions will possibly become vital to survival in the future, such as the population explosion, food shortages, the relative lack of natural resources, pollution, poverty, wars, the proliferation of huge war machines, historical hatred among tribes, and the unequal distribution of wealth. I don't like to admit that the most fearful tragedy looms in the future of mankind. At times, even, total disaster seems inevitable. But still, I believe that if doomsday really were to occur in the near future, part of mankind would still survive and would try to rebuild the world more intelligently than we have done so far, creating a new order based on learning from the experience of such a colossal tragedy. I am not a prophet, nor would I prefer to threaten the peace of mind of the common people by creating fearsome visions of a future doomsday. Nor would I like to be a loud-voiced accuser of our present society. What seems to me most important is, I believe, to try to cool and lessen the overheated feelings of aggression in our society. All the threatening words and loud voices exaggerate and amplify people's excitement and feelings of insecurity. Therefore, I have applied the form of science fiction in order to present my thoughts to the public. I present a kind of might-be-possible
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nightmare, praying that the vision of disaster will be accepted by readers as a warning and will at least lead them to become aware of the necessity of a total reexamination of our society and situation as a nation. I never assert that doomsday will arrive in Japan, not even a ‘limited’ doomsday. I only recognize, or, at least, I myself think I am able to recognize, several sinister symptoms and the possibility of increasing and imminent danger to our society.
But if doomsday were to really come some day, I hope that I could contribute to lessening its impact. Perhaps I could help save the lives of two persons, through my modest ability and my modest works, so that at least one ‘beautiful mind,’ one person with braveness and guided by self-sacrifice and modesty could be saved.
I don't think I am making it sufficiently clear why I am pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. Nevertheless, I hope that readers might perhaps feel what I have been trying to convey.
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