January 9, 2025

A sports sociology expert in an Akahata interview said that learning from the history of prewar/wartime Japan, people in sports, including athletes, need to be politically aware in order to prevent unjustified political intervention in sports.

Akahata on January 9 carried the interview with Hiroshima International University visiting professor Morikawa Sadao. The followings are the excerpts of his interview.

In prewar Japan, sports was linked with war. For example, the Imperial government revised the education system in 1886 and introduced military-style physical training in schools. Under the universal conscription system, school playgrounds were used to train children to become soldiers.

From 1924, the Meiji Shrine National Games (currently the National Sports Festival of Japan), a general athletic meet commemorating the Meiji Emperor, took place annually. During the wartime, this sports event held the competition focusing on national defense-related skills. In 1942, the Japan Amateur Athletic Association, the predecessor of the national governing body of various athletic organizations, Japan Sport Association (JSPO), was reformed to an extra-governmental organization headed by then Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, fully cooperating with the government to promote the war.

In the light of the prewar/wartime history of the sport, in order to fend off undue political intervention, the need is for people associated with sports to educate themselves to have a “high level of political awareness”, which means that they need to support the position of building a peaceful world through sports.

Although sports may not exercise direct influence on averting a war and realizing world peace, sports can create the feeling and awareness of peace and friendship among people. This is sport’s “potential” to contribute to peacebuilding.