The Flowering of Racial Spirit/The Creation of a New Mythology
The Creation of a New
Mythology
On the morning of the 8th of December, 1941.
I was still asleep when my wife awoke me to hear the radio broadcast. As I had a presentiment about it, I instantly got up and listened in, and though I heard the broadcast, maybe, from the middle, the same news was being announced repeatedly.
“The announcement of the Army and Navy Sections of the Imperial Headquarters: The Imperial Japanese Army and Naval Forces have entered into a condition of hostilities against the Anglo-American Forces, before daybreak of today, the 8th of December, in the Western Pacific.”
I felt something like an electric shock coursing through my being. I felt some excitement but it was quite different from a feeling of surprise. It was not because what I had presupposed has been realized, but because I have instantly felt deeply in my bosom the acknowledgment of the fact that what should naturally come to pass has been actually realized. And what I thought was that at this same instant the whole nation must be feeling, before their radio receiving sets, the same emotion that I was feeling.
It was quite another thing from the fact that we met with some astounding situation. Although it is true that an astonishing situation has set in, and however an astonishing commencement of the situation it might be, it is merely the fact which the Japanese people acknowledge with high pride. A certain anxiety which was haunted by the empty visions of Japanese-American parley has in a moment been obliterated. The popular expresssion that “the dark clouds cleared up and the bright blue sky appeared,” may perhaps most straightforwardly express the emotion of the nation at this moment.
Hearing the brilliant results of our assaults one after another by radio news announcements, I now began to succumb to the magnificent emotion that the creation of a new mythology has begun. I do not exaggerate, when I say that I saw in my vision the figures of gods, holding halberds in their hands, and going on their way to rule over the Great Eight-Islands. In ancient times the gods of our ancestors came down from the Takamagahara (“Empire of Heaven” in the Japanese mythology), and subduing those who were not loyal, founded Japan, our Fatherland. That is, indeed, the very history of the creation in mythology, which is so brilliant as to dazzle us now to turn back and see. By the consummation of that mythology the dawn of Japan began.
On that day, in front of my radio receiving set, I could not but think with tears of emotion about the endeavours for the creation of a New Mythology, which Japan, our Mother-country, has just begun once more. The New Mythology has now been begun on a magnificent scale. Our Mother-country, Japan, is carrying out her God-given mission on the Great Eight-Islands surrounded by blue seas.
But we know quite thoroughly that great perseverance and sacrifices were necessary in the history of the former mythology. When we look in retrospect at that mythology, we cannot but conceive a feeling of piety towards the magnitude of the sacrifices suffered. That spirit of sacrifice has copiously flowed through the blood-vessels of us, the Japanese people, for several thousand years like a stream of river.
Now that the magnificent task of creating the New Mythology has once more begun, it is needless to say that, as before, the greater perseverance and sacrifices are necessary. The Japanese people must have felt all these matters at an instant in their bosoms. In other words, this satisfactory task cannot be accomplished by merely making a boisterous pageant of it, but it must be struggled through and consummated with presence of mind, serenity, and clenched teeth.