自分の英語の勉強の為、朝日新聞のデジタル版より、天声人語の英語対訳をコピーする。
Rise of citizens’ anger toward Diet marks a new beginning：
After the Upper House passed security legislation into law amid utter chaos, I wondered whether children had also seen the news on TV showing the unseemly mess.
About a week ago, one of my colleagues showed me copies of letters that were written by six second-graders at an elementary school in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The children handed their letters to the school principal, asking him to deliver them to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
These students are sort of like small citizen activists. Not knowing how to proceed, the principal sought my colleague’s advice.
In the letters, the children made earnest efforts to express their thoughts about war and peace in sentences mostly written in hiragana.
The disgraceful scenes that erupted during the Sept. 17 Upper House special committee session to vote on the legislation represent the pathetic reality of the Diet where free and rigorous speech should be guaranteed. It was not the kind of sight I want these children to see.
Winston Churchill, the former prime minister of Britain, the birthplace of the modern system of parliamentary democracy, once said to the effect that the purpose of parliament is to change fistfights into debates.
What the public expects from the Diet are verbal battles, not the kind of melee that took place in the committee session, which looked like a mass brawl. It was distressing to see even for adults.
After the latest Lower House election in December 2014, which posted the lowest voter turnout in the postwar period, arrogance of the governing parties has apparently reached an extreme.
The parties have no time for the key principle for a democratic rule of a nation, which requires the governing party to respect the opinions of the opposition.
The current political situation in Japan conjures up a political aphorism born in the United States: “Bad politicians are elected by good citizens who don’t vote.”
Politicians and bureaucrats develop and implement policies as part of their jobs, which are paid by taxpayer money. In contrast, citizens don’t take part in demonstrations as their paid job. They are people who are acting from a sense of having no choice in the matter.
Let me quote a stanza from a poem titled “A Peach Rotting Inside,” by Noriko Ibaragi (1926-2006).
“People must not/ Allow their gunpowder of anger to become damp/ For the day when they stand truly under their own names.”
Here we see a new beginning.–The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 20
法案可決からの始まり
あの子たちはテレビニュースを見たのだろうか。１週間ほど前、同僚の記者から６通の「手紙」のコピーを見せられた。首都圏のある小学校の２年生６人が書いて、「安倍首相に届けてください」と校長室に持ち込んだという▼いわば小さき有志である。どうしたらいいでしょうと、同僚は相談されたそうだ。見ると、ひらがなの多い文ながら戦争や平和について考えを懸命に書いていた。１７日の参院特別委の採決は、これが現実とはいえ、あの子らには見せたくない言論の府の醜態だった▼「議会の目的は殴り合いを議論に変えること」と、議会政治の本場英国のチャーチル元首相は言ったものだ。言葉の格闘こそ望まれるのに、集団格闘さながらの乱戦には大人も目を覆いたかった▼戦後最低の投票率だった前回衆院選をへて、政府与党の思い上がりはここに極まった感がある。反対者を尊重しつつ治めるという民主主義の要所を顧みない。米国の警句「悪い政治家をワシントンへ送り出すのは、投票しない善良な市民たちだ」が胸をよぎる▼政治家も官僚も、政策を立案して進めるのは、それを仕事として税金から報酬を受けている人たちだ。片や市民はデモが仕事ではなく、報酬もない。やむにやまれず行動する人たちである▼茨木のり子さんの「内部からくさる桃」という詩から、一節を引きたい。〈ひとびとは／怒りの火薬をしめらせてはならない／まことに自己の名において立つ日のために〉。ここが新たな始まりになる。