British invention in Indonesia

British invention in Indonesia

Daisaku Ikeda, The Straits Times, Asia News Network/Singapore

Sixty years have passed since the end of World War II, which
came to a close with Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.

Many of the young men of my generation were incited by Japan's
militarist government to march proudly into battle and give their
lives.

War impressed itself on every aspect of our lives and one
incident from that time is still vivid in my mind.

It happened in the spring of 1945, when I was 17. It was the
dawn of a sleepless night taking cover from the air raids that
were by then a regular occurrence.

About 100 B-29 bombers were flying away, heading into the
eastern horizon. I watched them until they were tiny dots in the
sky.

Just then someone shouted: "Hey! What's that?" Something was
falling from the sky. It was a parachute. A plane must have been
hit, and now an American was dropping towards us. He landed in a
field some 200m or 300m away.

From what I heard later, a group of people ran up to him and
began hitting him with sticks. Beaten nearly senseless, he was
eventually led away by the military police.

When I got back and told my mother what had happened, her
response was: "How awful! His mother must be so worried about
him."

My mother was a very ordinary woman, in many ways the product
of the era in which she was born and raised. But looking back, I
am struck by her ability, as a mother, to empathize with the
sufferings of a fellow mother -- an "enemy" mother separated by
thousands of kilometers of physical distance and by the high
walls of political ideology.

Women are, in my view, natural peacemakers. As givers and
nurturers of life, through their focus on human relationships and
their engagement with the demanding work of raising children and
protecting family life, they develop a deep sense of empathy that
cuts through to underlying human realities.

When the end of the war came, there was a widespread sense
that the inevitable had finally happened. And there was a
widespread, if largely unvoiced, sense of relief. No one at the
time could bring themselves to come out and say "I'm glad Japan
lost" but that was, I am sure, the sentiment in many hearts.

My mother had often expressed her disgust for the war. Her
hopes now focused on the safe return of her four sons, my elder
brothers, all sent to the front in China and Southeast Asia.

Over the next two years my brothers returned home one by one.
In their tattered uniforms, they were a pathetic sight. All but
my eldest brother, Kiichi. We hadn't heard a word from him since
he reported having left China for Southeast Asia.

Eventually, on May 30, 1947, we received news of Kiichi's
death in the form of a letter brought by an elderly local
official. My mother bowed politely and accepted the letter. She
turned her back to us, shuddering with grief.

One of my other brothers went to pick up Kiichi's cremated
remains. The sight of my mother clasping the small white box that
held all that was left of her eldest child was unbearable.

Surely no era can rival the 20th century in terms of the
number of mothers throughout the world forced to shed bitter
tears of pain and sorrow. Women and mothers are the greatest
victims of war -- wars started virtually without exception by
men.

All who know the brutal reality of war, who know how war
strips people of their very humanity, must unite in a new global
partnership for peace. Women can be particularly powerful
protagonists in this effort. Their voices, concerns, wisdom and
insights must be brought to the fore in all spheres of society.

By building solidarity rooted in an empathetic recognition of
our shared humanity -- the universal desire to protect ourselves
and those we love from harm -- I believe we can make the 21st
century an era of genuine reverence for the sanctity of life.

In such an era, the prayers for peace of all mothers -- the
earnest yearning of all humankind -- will finally be answered.

The writer is president of the Soka Gakkai International lay
Buddhist association and founder of Soka University, the Toda
Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research and the Boston
Research Centre.