A beautiful piece from popular Japanese writer Haruki Murakami popped up in Yomiuri News March 17. Murakami was in Jerusalem to receive an award. During his reception speech, he reflcted his own doubt before deciding to come to Jerusalem for the award, Murakami also mentioned his dad, who once fought for the Emperior in China, and died last year with a daily routine to pray for all the dead in the War. Murakami's most moving part, is his reflection on human's struggle aginst "System", in which he described as egges thorwn to a wall.Here is the excert from the Yomiuri News story. (I put the bold and Italic for emphase purpose)
"In Japan, a fair number of people advised me not to come here to accept the Jerusalem Prize. The reason for this, of course, was the fierce battle that was raging in Gaza.
Any number of times after receiving notice of the award, I asked myself whether traveling to Israel at a time like this and accepting a literary prize was the proper thing to do, whether this would create the impression that I supported one side in the conflict, that I endorsed the policies of a nation that chose to unleash its overwhelming military power. This is an impression, of course, that I would not wish to give.
Finally, however, after careful consideration, I made up my mind to come here. One reason for my decision was that all too many people advised me not to do it. Perhaps, like many other novelists, I tend to do the exact opposite of what I am told.
Please do allow me to deliver one very personal message: "Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them.
It carries a deeper meaning. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: It is "The System." The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others--coldly, efficiently, systematically.
My father died last year at the age of 90. He was a retired teacher and a part-time Buddhist priest. When he was in graduate school, he was drafted into the army and sent to fight in China. As a child born after the war, I used to see him every morning before breakfast offering up long, deeply felt prayers at the Buddhist altar in our house. He was praying for all the people who died, he said, both ally and enemy alike. Staring at his back as he knelt at the altar, I seemed to feel the shadow of death hovering around him.
My father died, and with him he took his memories, memories that I can never know. But the presence of death that lurked about him remains in my own memory. It is one of the few things I carry on from him, and one of the most important.
We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceabilityIf of our own and others' souls and from the warmth we gain by joining souls together."
If You perfer to read the whole speech with both Japanese and English translation, here is the link.
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