TAKI Yuriko

Japanese Poet and Essayist

Biography of TAKI YURIKO

Born in Tokyo, Japan.

JOBS

worked in NIPPON RADIO BROADCASTING

works now in KUMON Institute of Education

Instructor in Japanese for includes foreigners at Institute of Education

MEMBER of :

International Writers and Artists Association

The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace

World Congress of Poets-World Academy of Arts and Culture

The 1st Poetry Advisory Committee of the Crane Summit 21st Century International Forum

World Poets Society (W.P.S.)

http://wps-poets.blogspot.com/2007/05/taki-yuriko.html

World Congress of Poets for Research and Recitation

Society of NIPPON RADIO BROADCASTING

Global Harmony Association

Honorary Degree of Doctor in Literature from World Academy of Arts and Culture (Approved by UNESCO)

WORKS

IN JAPAN

The World of Atomic Bomb Poem Anthology(published by Kadokawa)*1

My Revolution Square(published by Shichousha)

The Japan of Atomic Bomb Literature Anthology(published by Horupu)*2

Poems Against The War Anthology, joint with USA poets 2003 (published

by Souhuusha)

Genocide written with Dr.Ernesto Kahan (published by Nihon Tosho center in

July 2006)

IN GERMANY

SEIT JENVEM TAG ANTHOLOGY (published by Fisher Taschenbuch Verlag)*3

*1,2,3 TAKI Yuriko was the o­nly poet born after the Second World War, to

have poetry selected by the editors who compiled the anthologies.

IN ROMANIA

8500 CHRISTS, LES 8500 CHRISTS(published by Stand @ rt)

the first edition in 2002 and the second edition in 2003

IN USA

Internet publishing http://www.TakiYuriko.org

Harmony in NewYork by WCPPRR

IN FRANCE

ANTHOLOGIE SECRETE (will publish by Jean-Paul Mestas )

Selected by the editors who compiled the anthology.

IN OTHER COUNTRIES and AWARDS

In 2007 award from International Forum for the Literature and culture of peace in Argentina

In 2007 award from The Embassy ofHonduras in Argentina

In 2007 award from The National Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina

In 2006 received the Honorary Degree of Doctor in Literature .from World Academy of Arts and Culture (Approved by UNESCO)

In 2006 “THE BEST POETS OF 2006” from International Writers and Artist Association with Dr.Ernesto Kahan

In 2006 “NeoungKeoum prize”from the Hangchon Culture Foundation in Korea

In 2005 “Medal Festos”from International Society of Greek Writers & Arts

In the Newspaper or Magazine of Australia, Brazil, China, Korea,Mongolia,

India, Greece and France. In the Dictionary of 2000 Outstanding People 2003

by International Biographical Centre Cambridge in U.K.

Literary Works translated into 11 Languages from poetry book “8500 Christs”

English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Hangul, Chinese, Russian Romanian, Mongolian, Greek

ADDRESS

1893-48 OSAKA-CHO U SHIKU-SHI IBARAKI-KEN, JAPAN, 300-1286(c/o Yamamoto).

Websites

www.takiyuriko.org

http://wps-poets.blogspot.com/2007/05/taki-yuriko.html

http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=360
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SAYING “HIROSHIMA”

Could saying “Hiroshima”

Ever elicit A compassionate

“Oh, yes, Hiroshima”?

Saying “Hiroshima”

Arouses retorts of

“Pearl Harbor,”

“Nanjing massacre,”*

“Fiery Manila executions

Women, children

Herded into trenches,

Doused with gasoline

And burned alive.”

Reactions to

Saying “Hiroshima”

Reverberate

With fire and blood.

Say “Hiroshima”

And no o­ne sympathizes.

Instead, the fury

Of Asia’s voiceless

Dead and raped

Erupts.

If we wish to hear

Compassion when

Saying “Hiroshima,”

We must truly

Lay down all arms.

We must remove

Foreign military bases.

Until that day,

Hiroshima will evoke

The bitterness of

Cruelty and distrust,

And we will be pariahs

Burning in atomic energy.

For we Japanese

To hear a compassionate

“Oh, yes, Hiroshima,”

We must purify

Our soiled hands.

© SADAKO KURIHARA

Translated by John and Deborah Saxon with Taki Yuriko
* Nanjing, in West known as Nanking

ヒロシマというとき
©　栗原貞子
〈ヒロシマ〉というとき
〈ああ　ヒロシマ〉と
やさしくこたえてくれるだろうか
〈ヒロシマ〉といえば〈パール・ハーバー〉
〈ヒロシマ〉といえば〈南京虐殺〉
〈ヒロシマ〉といえば　女や子供を
壕のなかにとじこめ
ガソリンをかけて焼いたマニラの火刑
〈ヒロシマ〉といえば
血と炎のこだまが　返って来るのだ

〈ヒロシマ〉といえば
〈ああ　ヒロシマ〉とやさしくは
返ってこない
アジアの国々の死者たちや無告の民が
いっせいに犯されたものの怒りを
噴き出すのだ
〈ヒロシマ〉といえば
〈ああ　ヒロシマ〉と
やさしくかえってくるためには
捨てた筈の武器を　ほんとうに
捨てねばならない
異国の基地を撤去せねばならない
その日までヒロシマは
残酷と不信のにがい都市だ
わたしたちは潜在する放射能に
灼かれるパリアだ

〈ヒロシマ〉といえば
〈ああ　ヒロシマ〉と
やさしいこたえがかえって来るためには
わたしたちは
わたしたちの汚れた手を
きよめねばならない

In Japan, where the two atomic bombs were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki o­nly in 4 days, almost all the A-bomb poems are testifying the misery of the A-bombs from the victims’ standpoint.

Among them this poem makes us realize that the misery of the A-bombed experience will not be really transmitted all over the world until we face directly the truth of the modern history and admit the crime the Imperialism of Japan committed in the Asian countries in the Second World War.

It is said that this poem is most recited and approved in antinuclear meetings in Japan. It is also said that it has been adopted at some schools in US, the very country which dropped the A-bombs, and has been sympathized.

I want you to look straight at the facts which the survived victims, including this author, have been carrying since they were bombed: “the inverse proportion of leukocytes gradually increasing and red corpuscles decreasing, destroyed bones, destroyed blood, destroyed chromosome, all the organs undermined” ___ from ‘We Still Have Time’ by the same author.

She was A-bombed at her own house 4 kilometers far from the center of the explosion in Hiroshima o­n 6th August, 1945.

Comment by Taki Yuriko

１９１３－２００５　栗原貞子

わずか４日の間に広島　長崎　と二度も　原爆投下にあった　日本では　被害者の立場からの原爆の悲惨さの証言が　原爆詩の　ほとんどを占める。
その中で　近代史の真実にきちんと　向かい合い第二次　世界大戦下の　日本帝国主義が　アジアの諸国に対して犯した罪を　きちんと認めることによってのみ　はじめて　被爆体験の悲惨さは　世界中に　伝えられる　と気づかされる　詩だ。
国内の反核集会で　最も多く朗読され　支持されている詩　と聞く。原爆を投下した当のアメリカの一部の学校の教科書にも彼女の詩はとりあげられ、共感をよんでいるそうだ。
被爆の結果　生き残った者が　作者を含み　背負った現実も直視してほしい。
「次第に増殖し　減少する白血球と赤血球の反比例、犯された骨、犯された血、犯された染色体、むしばまれた全組織」―同じ作者による『まだ時間はある』よりー
１９４５年　８月　６日　広島の爆心地　４キロ　地点の自宅で被爆。

解説　　多喜百合子

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Dear Dr. Leo Semashko

I introduced Sadako Kurihara's poem "Saying Hiroshima" in the Homepage of WCP/WAAC.

Please click www.worldcongressofpoets.com.

She was a poet appeared o­n the first page of the 3biggest newspapers in Japan when she died.

I do not know such big articles as a poet before her news. But she could not receive any prize in Japan.

With warmest

Taki Yuriko Japan
06/08/09

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REAL CAUSES OF THE HISTORIC GENOCIDE

Written by Taki Yuriko from Japan

Translated into English by H. Hotta

In 2009 the financial crisis which stemmed from the United States in 2008 is still spreading rapidly all over the world. Nobody could declare that it will not develop to the worldwide panic like the Great Depression in 1929. Reflecting the global situation at that time, and considering the relation to the tragic genocide which occurred after that, I dare to deliver here this study though I know it is still incomplete, wishing it to help preventthe tragedy.

1 ___ Relation between the Genocide and the Financial Crisis

The world economy drastically broke down in 1929 when the speculation aiming o­nly at profits by stock trading with, so to speak, a slip of paper became the mainstream instead of the wholesome investment in the capitalistic economy at that time. Under its full influence the newly-born great powers invaded other countries to find a way out, which led to the Second World War. Roughly speaking, the aggressor nations justified their invasion to rebuild their economy supported by their peoples, and they headed straight toward the totalitarian countries. Simultaneously the Holocaust by German Nazis and the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese imperialism left the worst marks o­n the human history.

I think the remote but main cause of those two cases of genocide was the world financial crisis. It would be just a formal excuse that in the religious or racial conflict o­nly they could preserve the peace of the community because of their racial superiority. Owing to that excuse a lot of common people were driven out to war and were organized into the groups to execute genocide. Isn’t it unnatural to think this process made the tragedy bigger and bigger?

2 ___ Cases in the History

First I would like to consider the historical backgrounds how the two cases of genocide occurred.

The Great Depression, which started at Wall Street o­n October 24, 1929, made the Credit Anstalt, the greatest bank in Austria, bankrupt in 1931, and brought the financial crisis in Germany, spread to the East European countries and finally all over the world.

1)Background How the Nazis Germany Went to Holocaust

Germany, the defeated nation in World War I at first, was severely exacted heavy reparations from other victorious countries and weakened very much, which pushed its economy down to the bottom in the Great Depression. With the expectation of the people who were suffering from bankruptcy and unemployment, the Nazis made a great advance and the Hitler Cabinet was born in 1933. Among the Great Powers, compared with those that had already had their colonies such as the United Kingdoms and France, those that had not yet had such as Germany, Italy and Japan were directly influenced by the Depression. The first work the Nazis did was to suppress the communist party born about the same time and the thoughts of the intellectuals.

Anyhow it was necessary that the people’s dissatisfaction with economy should be turned outside the country. And finally Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

The Nazis also made the people direct their discontent against the Jews many of whom were in the center of the European economy, confiscated their wealth, set up the fearful target to purify the race to eliminate them, and pushed their way to the Genocide. People had a dislike to the Rothschilds, a Jewish mammoth capitalist family in Britain, who dominated the Western Europe financial circles then. They made full use of this repulsion of the people to promote their plan to exclude the Jews.

They cleverly turned the economical dissatisfaction of the German people to other races or countries, forced the military expansion and rushed their way to the totalitarian nation, fascism. They asserted the predominance of the German Race and justified the Jew slaughter. It should be noticed here that they began to get rid of their political rivals, the communists or the intellectuals having no relation to the difference of religion, and gradually came to kill the socially weak people, the Romany, and finally reached the Jew Genocide.

2) Background How Japan Invaded China and Forced the Nanjing Massacre

In the Depression after World War I Japan was also influenced greatly by it because it had no colony like Germany or Italy among the great powers. Japanese economy had already been weakened owing to the Great Kanto Earthquake and domestic depression, and so when the global depression occurred, many companies went bankrupt, many people lost their jobs, and even food could hardly be supplied because of cold-weather damage and poor harvest continued.

In Japan, too, like Germany, a totalitarian fascist political party was born as well as the parties for laborers and tenant farmers.

The government at the time oppressed the public opinions like Germany by the Maintenance of the Public Order Act and other means, and tried to turn outside the people’s economical dissatisfaction. In 1931 Japan had already begun invading China prior to Germany. The Japanese Government also asserted the Japanese race’s predominance, and with the official reason that Japan should protect Asia from the European hegemony began to invade China, connecting to the Nanjing Massacre.

There are many common features to go to fascism between Japan and Germany.

3 ___ Present Situation

Next, about such current conflicts as the problems between the US and Islam or between Israel and Palestine, you will get a clearer view if you consider them in terms of economy like the cases of Germany or of Japan mentioned above.

To take the Middle East problems as an example, Israel offers some military bases so that the US may rule over the Middle East and is made to buy lots of arms including nuclear weapons produced in the US. This is not o­nly enriching the US war industries but is playing the role of making the base to strengthen the US rule over the oil resources in the Middle East. So the countries in the area repel the US and abet terrorism. Israel, o­n the other hand, built a big wall around the Palestine residential area like the o­ne that o­nce divided east-and-west Germany to rule over the Palestine economy. The Palestinians shut up inside are the more repelling. I think it is at least after the second reason that the wall is to protect the people against terrorism.

I think the way of thinking that the conflicts will occur because of religious or racial confrontation is just a convenient excuse for the rulers who give priority over all others to the profits of some big companies and stockholders to justify their massacre and invasion.

4 ___ To Learn from Tunisia, Melting Pot of Culture

The religious or racial differences will hardly be important in such a country as is moderately wealthy and the people will not so mad in speculation. Furthermore people there can coexist respecting the culture of the others.

I would like to take, as such an example, Tunisia, which is in Northern Africa and encourages tourism in policy. It is o­nly 40% of Japan in area, but has as many as 8 world heritages registered in UNESCO, including 1 natural heritage.

It is a very international country crowded with people from Europe for the holidays.

Looking back at its history, it had been invaded by the Phoenicians, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Arab Dynasties, the Spanish, the Ottoman Turkish and as the French Colony since it was built by the Berbers in 2,000 BC. They had been through various kinds of hardships, and at the same time various kinds of cultures came into it. All the cultural heritages are still now succeeded as they are after it became independent.

Far from the images of poverty, bad sanitary or bad public peace conditions reminded by the word ‘Africa’, it maintains friendly relations with many countries in the world making the most of their super-first class resorts and historical heritages which seem to be superior to those in Rome, Italy. Tourists from France, from which they won their independence, visit and spend much money there , too.

Talking of religion, Islam, Judaism and Christianity coexist in peace, and each of them has nice mosques, synagogues and churches which tourists can visit to see. Concerning Judaism, a lot of Jewish people who escaped from the Nazis were accepted by the Tunisians while many of them became sacrificed in Europe.

The prosperity of Tunisia today, in which such various cultures coexist, is based o­n the wisdom they have learned from their merciless history of invasion, and they have realized the peaceful land making the melting pot of tourism and culture to be their resource instead of playing the money games. Tunis, its capital, was designated as the international city of culture by UNESCO in 1997.

5 ___ Conclusion

We must now discern exactly that the invasions and the massacres in the past were caused by the failure of the money games and the economic discrepancy, and consider what we should do to avoid them so that a feeling of a blockade grown out of the failure of the money games and the financial crisis which is like the case in 1929 and is said to occur o­nce in a hundred years will not lead us to a new invasion and massacre.

Or otherwise we, the average citizens, might be manipulated by the politician’s ostensible excuse ‘religious or racial antagonism’ and become executors of invasion and massacre like under World War II.

We should bravely appeal again with all our might that even in the field of education, literature and philosophy, our society which will put the highest priority to economy and spend money not o­n investment but o­n speculation will finally ruin both the earth and humankind itself.

We, the ordinary citizens, must have the discernment now that we should not be confused by the counterfeit excuse that might lead us to absurd massacre or invasion.

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