The following is from Masayuki Takayama's serialized column that marks the end of Weekly Shincho, which was released today.
This article also proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
A long time ago, an elderly female professor of the Royal Ballet School of Monaco, highly respected by prima ballerinas worldwide, visited Japan.
At that time, she spoke about the significance of an artist's existence.
She said, "Artists are important because they are the only ones who can shed light on hidden, concealed truths and express them."
No one would dispute her words.
It is no exaggeration to say that Masayuki Takayama is not only the one and only journalist in the postwar world but also the one and only artist in the postwar world.
On the other hand, Oe, I don't want to speak ill of the deceased, but (to follow Masayuki Takayama's example below), Murakami and many others who call themselves writers or think of themselves as artists are not even worthy of the name of artists.
They have only expressed the lies the Asahi Shimbun, and others created rather than shedding light on hidden truths and telling them.
Their existence is not limited to Japan but is the same in other countries worldwide.
In other words, there are only a few true artists.
This paper is another excellent proof that I am right when I say that no one in the world today deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature more than Masayuki Takayama.
It is a must-read not only for the people of Japan but for people all over the world.
Thanks to Japan
The "Nobunaga Koki" tells us that a Jesuit padre presented a large black man to Nobunaga.
Nobunaga could not believe his dark skin, so he had him scrubbed and was "surprised to see his skin shining black instead," the book continues.
Nobunaga gave the big man the name Yasuke, made him a samurai, and had him serve at his side.
Yasuke served Nobunaga well and escaped with Nobunaga's head at the Honnoji Incident.
Therefore, Nobunaga's death mask was left behind in this world.
The next time the Japanese saw blacks was at Dejima in Nagasaki harbor.
Some say that the people felt sorry for the blacks being whipped by the Dutch and allowed them to play in the brothels of Maruyama-cho.
The Japanese hated the Dutch for it," wrote Swedish botanist Thunberg.
Japan continued to dislike racial discrimination after the Meiji Restoration and, at the Paris Conference, tried to include a proposal for racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations.
However, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and Australian Prime Minister Hughes strongly opposed and buried the proposal.
Incidentally, Wilson was happy to make Washington, D.C. a "white D.C." by reassigning all blacks working in government offices in Washington, D.C., to far-flung locations after becoming president.
Hughes also hated Japan because of the Petriana oil tanker incident.
The tanker ran aground in rough seas near Melbourne, and its captain and nine white crew members were rescued.
However, due to the White Australia Act of 1901, 27 sailors, including the Chinese, were left behind on the wreck.
The rest were supposed to be disposed of by the waves, but a passing Japanese vessel, the Kasuga Maru, rescued them, and the incident became known to the world.
The Japanese plan to destroy the ship was in retaliation, but the repercussions were more significant than those of the Petriana.
The Japanese representative, Nobuaki Makino, traveled through the U.S. on his way home, where black citizens greeted him with great enthusiasm in every city he stopped in, and the black issue became a major political issue.
Activist Marcus Garvey said, "World War III will be a battle between whites and a coalition of blacks and Muslims. And at our head will be Japan," he predicted.
William Dubois, a black intellectual looking for a different path from Garvey, is visiting Japan then.
When a white woman interrupted him, he was paying his bill at the Imperial Hotel.
She wanted it to prioritize her, a white person, in the American way.
But the front desk clerk ignored her presence, paid Dubois' bill, and only after bowing did he turn to the arrogant white woman and ask, "May I help you?
DuBois wrote in the Pittsburgh Courier, "The Japanese took us for granted in a way we don't enjoy in our own country."
These two men inspired Malcolm X.
Before he was drafted into the Army, he said, "I want to enlist and fight. The only Army I want to be in is the Japanese Army.
Black soldiers are the first to bear the brunt of battle on the battlefield. Malcolm X's statement was likely to fuel that discontent.
The U.S. government politely removed his name from the draft list.
James Meredith was born to a black father and a Native American mother in Mississippi, where discrimination was commonplace.
After high school, he joined the military, as the world had taught him to do.
He served in the military for ten years.
He spent the last three years at Tachikawa Air Base in Japan, which impressed DuBois.
After ten years of service, he could attend any college.
Meredith went against the world's custom for the first time and chose the University of Mississippi, a whites-only school.
Three years at Tachikawa seemed to have had an effect, but Governor Vannett was furious and sent out the National Guard to prevent his admission.
John F. Kennedy kept his admission, even though he had to mobilize federal troops and suffered many casualties.
Kennedy used this opportunity to work on the Civil Rights Act, which was not passed until after his assassination.
In this way, the immature U.S. society seems to have awakened, resisted, and grown, stimulated by the occasional light shining from Japan.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that affirmative action to inflate the black population is unconstitutional.
If it means that blacks and the U.S. society have all grown up as Meredith did and that there is no need to inflate them anymore, I am delighted.
