In the New Year Days

It may take me some time to renew this blog because of the surgeries of cataracts I will undergo for the coming couple of weeks. It would be nothing seridous to me at all. But it is annoying me that I might have trouble reading books or web sites in the internet.

I would spend more time listening to music like Mahler or Schostakovitch etc whom I could not usually concentrate on. There are so many genres of music like piano or Lied not well known to me. I am looking forward to be more familiar with them.

Maybe, ham radio will be my closer friend for the coming weeks. Is there anything we could do with those contest style QSOs, though.  JARL is holding so called New Year Party on Jan 2 and 3. Letting them enjoy that contest, I wonder if it is good for them to occupy whole bands. There should be those who would have fun in Japanese Morse code or in ragchewing overseas. I am not very happy JARL leads such an event to exclude those mentioned above. This problem is a general problem with each contest held every week end throughout a year.

In this year, I would study more on the modern history, either japanese or of the world. I have learned a lot from the voluminous book, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan written by a historian, Herbert Bix. It is a biography of the former Emperor in Japan. It describes the whole life of Hirohito and the imperialism which has fromed the modern history of our country. Even though the author, on the standpoint of criticism against the emperor system, points out how Hirohito was responsible for the WWII, it is not an ideological propaganda at all but is an academic literature based on vast number of references. Looking of the revisionism improperly reviving in the recent politics in Japan, I could not help feeling we could never go without doing with the problem of the responsibility for WWII by the Emperor. It has been neglected or intentionally evaded by the authorities. It has become a driving force to me to study the history relevant to the present situation that we could not exist alone but are closely related with the modern history.

I also have recently read a book about the people who had behaved against Nazism in Germany before and during WWII. There were a number of groups which extended helping hands toward Jewish people under persecution of Nazism and even tried to assassinate Hitler. The latter groups or person have eventually ended in failure. But they have left an idea or a spirit how to recover Germany after WWII. It was based on the resurrection of the Christianity spirit in the politics and united economy in Europe which foresaw the later EU. It was amazing the resisting groups or people were at first neglected by most Germans and the occupation forces there. But the survivors and the family members of the victims by Nazis in these attempts have patiently convinced the government and the people that it was not a rebellion because Nazis regime was not legitimate so that they had the right of resistance against such illegitimate regime as Nazis. Those resiting people has given the foundation of the present Germany as told above even if they could not be involved in it by themselves. Their spirit is immortal. What I was impressed most was that the most people was approving Nazis during WWII and they reflected on that after WWII even though there has still been right winged extremists in the society. They seem to have decided to head the country to anti Nazis or totalitarianism. I feel we needed this conversion at the end of WWII. We should consider of that even from now.

Reading this book, I found the old name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a famous leader of Confessing Church as well as a theologist, in some portions in the story. Of course, he has been involved in the event on July 20th 1944, a trial to assassin Hitler, and has eventually killed by Nazis. He was the author of  Widerstand und Ergebung written in he prison destine to death. I used to attended a reading club of this book by Bonhoeffer.  There was another med student named S. Wakai at the meeting. I have learned a lot at the class held at a quiet hall in summer. He was so kind to me preparing for the entrance exam for a med university at that time. Wakai has become a professor of his mother school, the med school of the Tokyo University, after having worked in the developing countries as a neurosurgeon. for many years. But, about 10 years or so ago, he has suffered from early onset type Alzheimer. He was only in his mid fifties. My parents and sister have had regular contacts with him. They have told me how he had been spending peaceful life with the support of his family. He and his wife has disclosed of his illness to the public several years ago. He, such a capable medical doctor, must have had mental conflict as a doctor as well as a Christian, which we could hardly even imagine. I heard he was in the bed without any social activities at present. I was sorry I had not gone to see him ever since we had worked at the same med school nearby. Remembering of this old class we studied together and his friendship toward me since that time, I wished him heavenly peace in his mind again.    

So that is the way how I am spending the New Year Days here. As told in the beginning int thiis post, I don't know when I could renew this blog. But I still wish you all the best for this year. May you be blessed with good health. I hope to meet you on the air or on the line.