wakibitos

1960年代の初め、僕が十歳から十二歳だったころ、毎晩のように夢をみてうなされた。米ソ冷戦の緊張がもっとも高まった時期だった。フランキー堺主演の映画｢世界大戦争｣が上映され僕が立ち見でみるぐらい人々のあいだに核戦争勃発の危機感が浸透していた。浅沼稲次郎(1898-1960)が若干17歳の少年に暗殺されたのは1960年10月12日の水曜日だった。浅沼氏が生きていたら、その後の日本政治は現在とは違っていたかもしれない。当時十歳だった僕にはJFKの暗殺(1963年11月)よりも衝撃が大きかった。

僕個人の時間は流れ、あっというまに60年余りが過ぎ、はや老境に入った。あと何年生きるかわからないが、統計上の余命年数がだんだん少なくなっていく。若かったときも何年生きるかわかっていたわけではないが、否応いやおうなしに死について考えざるを得なくなった。さあ、何をなすべきか。老ふけ込んだ老人たちの群むれがハロウィンの仮装行列に交じって道路に溢あふれている。

翻ひるがえって現在、ロシアによるウクライナ侵略とイスラエルのガザ地区侵攻を見るにつけ、世界規模の戦争がいつ起きてもおかしくない状況になりつつある。日本でも日本国憲法前文の格調高い反戦の意思は忘れられてしまった。何かが大きな音を立てて崩れている。消滅時効じこうにかかった自公じこう政権を支えているのは仮装行列に興じる国民たちだ。

In the early 1960s, when I was between the ages of ten and twelve, I had nightly dreams. It was a time when tensions in the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were at their highest. The movie “The Great Global War” starring Frankie Sakai was being screened, and people were so aware of the threat of nuclear war that I was standing in line to see the movie. It was Wednesday, October 12, 1960, when Asanuma Inajiro (1898-1960) was assassinated by a 17-year-old boy. Had Asanuma lived, Japanese politics thereafter might have been different from what it is today. I was 10 years old at the time, and it was a bigger shock to me than the assassination of JFK (November 1963).

Time has flown by for me personally, and in the blink of an eye, more than 60 years have passed, and I am now in my old age. I don’t know how many more years I have left to live, but my statistical life expectancy is getting smaller and smaller. Even when I was young, I did not know how many years I would live, but I was forced to think about death. What should I do? The streets are filled with crowds of old people in Halloween costume parades.

In the meantime, we are witnessing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip, and a global war could erupt at any moment. In Japan, too, the preamble to the Japanese Constitution’s prestigious anti-war intent has been forgotten. Something is crumbling with a loud noise. The people who are supporting the Jiko government (coalition of Jiminto [LDP] and Komeito), which is under the statute of limitations, are the people who are enjoying the masquerade parade.