Japan Press Weekly

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2009 March 4 - 10 [PEACE]

Nobel laureate speaks on peace at scientists’ circle for Article 9

Nobel laureate Masukawa Toshihide on March 8 spoke on peace to an audience of more than 400 scientists at a gathering at Meiji University in Tokyo to mark the 4th anniversary of the founding of Scientists’ Article 9 Association.

Masukawa, recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics, is one of the founders of the scientists’ and researchers’ community in support of the Article 9 Association (A9A). The A9A was established in 2004 in defense of Japan’s war-renouncing Constitution.

“When I was a student at Nagoya University,” he recalled, “I learned that there could be many ways of interpreting the text of Article 9 of the Constitution, but that the meaning of the provision is clearer when it is seen in relation to other laws.”

The Nobel Prize winner said that it is important to think why revision of Article 9 has come into question so much.

Looking back on the Nagoya air raids during WWII, in which a firebomb fell on his house, he said, “Fortunately, the bomb was a dud so it didn’t destroy our house, but I felt so scared that I never want my children and grand children to have a similar experience.”

As for the dispatch of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force ships to waters off the coast of Somalia on anti-piracy missions, Masukawa questioned the government’s intention, saying, “Why will Japan send the SDF over to Somalia, even though Japan is supposed to maintain an exclusively defensive defense?”

Masukawa said that if Japan promotes international cooperation in line with its war-renouncing Constitution, it will better contribute to the international community.”