Japan Press Weekly

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2018 January 31 - February 6 [JCP]

Akahata gives me hints to finding the answers to my questions: university student

“I grew up with a sense of familiarity with Akahata. I find answers in and take hints from Akahata to my questions,” said a 22-year old woman who lives in the Chugoku region located in the western part of Japan’s main island.

When she was a sixth grader in elementary school, she found that a textbook on social studies contained very few accounts on the Asia-Pacific War. She thought, “Peace and war should be an important theme to delve closely into, but the textbook allocates only a few pages to that theme. Why?” At the same time, she found many articles regarding peace issues in Akahata. They helped to answer her questions one by one.

Wishing to share new knowledge, the woman talked to her friends about what she learned in Akahata. She, however, received unfavorable responses. They said, “Your talk always focuses on war and sad things. Why do you always bring up such serious topics?” Depressed by her friends’ negative reactions, she felt it better to keep her opinions to herself and stopped expressing ideas aloud.

The woman, who is now a third-year university student, said that facing a situation in which people find little hope, she sometimes feels powerless and wants to just ignore the news, and would not read even Akahata for days. “Even under these circumstances, however, I suddenly feel like reading Akahata again. And, after doing so, I found myself reinvigorated,” she added.

As a supporter of the Japanese Communist Party, she delivers the daily Akahata once a week on foot which takes 45 minutes. She said, “Every morning the papers are placed in mailboxes. This is a great thing, I know. Since I started delivering Akahata, I began paying attention to delivery persons. So, when Akahata doesn’t arrive on time, I imagine that something bad happened to him/her who delivers the paper to my home.”