Restoring the Human Connection: The First Step to ... - SGI-USA

which would be founded in 1963, during my stay in Thailand. This grewout of my conviction that mutual understanding among ordinary peopleserves as the basis for peace, and artistic and cultural exchange play acrucial role in facilitating such understanding.During this trip through Asia, I directly sensed the dark shadows cast overthe region by the deep divisions of the Cold War. Soon after this visit, theVietnam War expanded to engulf the entire country with the start of U.S.aerial attacks against the North in February 1965.This was just two months after I began writing what would become a majorundertaking in my life, the novel The Human Revolution, in Okinawa,which at that point was still under American occupation. The novel beginswith the words: “Nothing is more barbarous than war. Nothing is morecruel.” 31 When I heard of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, I was filledwith a profound anger that this very tragedy was being repeated once morein Asia.As the fighting intensified, tensions grew to a point where a directconfrontation between the U.S. and China was feared. Feeling it imperativethat the war be ended as soon as possible, in November 1966 I made apublic call for an immediate ceasefire and a peace conference bringingtogether the concerned parties, and strongly urged again in August 1967that the bombing of North Vietnam be halted.On September 8, 1968, I issued a proposal that outlined concrete stepstoward the normalization of Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations based onmy belief that ending China’s isolation within the international communitywas an absolute requirement not only for the stability of Asia but also forglobal peace.My proposal was met with fierce criticism in Japan where, at the time,there was a deep-seated perception of China as an enemy nation. But itseemed clearly untenable for a country comprising some 20 percent of the37