Responsibility for Memory - Akiyuki Nosaka in 1974 (July 1974)

Responsibility for Memory - Akiyuki Nosaka in 1974 (July 1974)
It was 1974, a time when postwar Japan began to lose its memory in the shadow of economic growth. Akiyuki Nosaka, with his four faces as a writer, singer, defendant, and political candidate, spoke out against the era of falsehood. He sarcastically described the reality filled with money politics as "the only way to do things the old-fashioned way and with sincerity," and presented the election itself as a satirical play. Behind his wry tone, however, was the experience of his sister's death from starvation shortly after the war's end. In the words, "What does the emperor look like when he makes excuses for me?" there is a painful question about responsibility that postwar society has almost forgotten. At the time, nationalism was once again on the rise with the forced adoption of the Yasukuni Shrine Bill and the movement to revive the Kigenbetsu Festival. Nosaka resisted this trend, and stated that it was the responsibility of human beings to keep the memory of Yasukuni Shrin
e from fading away. In the midst of the Showa era, where prosperity and emptiness coexisted, Nosaka transcended the boundaries between literature and politics to become a voice that heralded "the end of the postwar era" and "the beginning of the era of memory.